In front of you is the main street, with two rows of miserable looking
huts with shuttered windows and old walls pressing on each other and
leaning forward. The roofs of these time-worn habitations are full of
holes, and have been patched here and there with laths; from underneath
them project mildewed beams, which are shaded by the dusty-leaved
elder-trees and crooked white willows--pitiable flora of those suburbs
inhabited by the poor.
The dull green time-stained panes of the windows look upon each other
with the cowardly glances of cheats. Through the street and towards the
adjacent mountain, runs the sinuous path, winding through the deep
ditches filled with rain-water. Here and there are piled heaps of dust
and other rubbish--either refuse or else put there purposely to keep
the rain-water from flooding the houses. On the top of the mountain,
among green gardens with dense foliage, beautiful stone houses lie
hidden; the belfries of the churches rise proudly towards the sky, and
their gilded crosses shine beneath the rays of the sun. During the
rainy weather the neighbouring town pours its water into this main
road, which, at other times, is full of its dust, and all these
miserable houses seem, as it were, thrown by some powerful hand into
that heap of dust, rubbish, and rain-water. They cling to the ground
beneath the high mountain, exposed to the sun, surrounded by decaying
refuse, and their sodden appearance impresses one with the same feeling
as would the half-rotten trunk of an old tree.
At the end of the main street, as if thrown out of the town, stood a
two-storied house, which had been rented from Petunikoff, a merchant
and resident of the town. It was in comparatively good order, being
further from the mountain, while near it were the open fields, and
about half-a-mile away the river ran its winding course.
This large old house had the most dismal aspect amidst its
surroundings. The walls bent outwards and there was hardly a pane of
glass in any of the windows, except some of the fragments which looked
like the water of the marshes--dull green. The spaces of wall between
the windows were covered with spots, as if time were trying to write
there in hieroglyphics the history of the old house, and the tottering
roof added still more to its pitiable condition. It seemed as if the
whole building bent towards the ground, to await the last stroke of
that fate which should transform it into a chaos of rotting remains,
and finally into dust.
The gates were open, one half of them displaced and lying on the ground
at the entrance, while between its bars had grown the grass, which also
covered the large and empty court-yard. In the depths of this yard
stood a low, iron-roofed, smoke-begrimed building. The house itself
was of course unoccupied, but this shed, formerly a blacksmith's forge,
was now turned into a "dosshouse," kept by a retired Captain named
Aristid Fomich Kuvalda.
In the interior of the dosshouse was a long, wide and grimy board,
measuring some 28 by 70 feet. The room was lighted on one side by four
small square windows, and on the other by a wide door. The unpainted
brick walls were black with smoke, and the ceiling, which was built of
timber, was almost black. In the middle stood a large stove, the
furnace of which served as its foundation, and around this stove and
along the walls were also long, wide boards, which served as beds for
the lodgers. The walls smelt of smoke, the earthen floor of dampness,
and the long wide board of rotting rags.
The place of the proprietor was on the top of the stove, while the
boards surrounding it were intended for those who were on good terms
with the owner and who were honoured by his friendship. During the day
the captain passed most of his time sitting on a kind of bench, made by
himself by placing bricks against the wall of the courtyard, or else in
the eating house of Egor Vavilovitch, which was opposite the house,
where he took all his meals and where he also drank vodki.
Before renting this house, Aristid Kuvalda had kept a registry office
for servants in the town. If we look further back into his former
life, we shall find that he once owned printing works, and previous to
this, in his own words, he "just lived! And lived well too, Devil take
it, and like one who knew how!"
He was a tall, broad-shouldered man of fifty, with a rawlooking face,
swollen with drunkenness, and with a dirty yellowish beard. His eyes
were large and grey, with an insolent expression of happiness. He
spoke in a bass voice and with a sort of grumbling sound in his throat,
and he almost always held between his teeth a German china pipe with a
long bowl. When he was angry the nostrils of his big crooked red nose
swelled, and his lips trembled, exposing to view two rows of large and
wolf-like yellow teeth. He had long arms, was lame, and always dressed
in an old officer's uniform, with a dirty, greasy cap with a red band,
a hat without a brim, and ragged felt boots which reached almost to his
knees. In the morning, as a rule, he had a heavy drunken headache, and
in the evening he caroused. However much he drank, he was never drunk,
and so was always merry.
In the evenings he received lodgers, sitting on his brickmade bench
with his pipe in his mouth.
"Whom have we here?" he would ask the ragged and tattered object
approaching him, who had probably been chucked out of the town for
drunkenness, or perhaps for some other reason not quite so simple. And
after the man had answered him, he would say, "Let me see legal papers
in confirmation of your lies." And if there were such papers they were
shown. The Captain would then put them in his bosom, seldom taking any
interest in them, and would say:
"Everything is in order. Two kopecks for the night, ten kopecks for
the week, and thirty kopecks for the month. Go and get a place for
yourself, and see that it is not other people's, or else they will blow
you up. The people that live here are particular."
"Don't you sell tea, bread, or anything to eat?"
"I trade only in walls and roofs, for which I pay to the swindling
proprietor of this hole--Judas Petunikoff, merchant of the second
guild--five roubles a month," explained Kuvalda in a business-like
tone. "Only those come to me who are not accustomed to comfort and
luxuries .... but if you are accustomed to eat every day, then there is
the eating-house opposite. But it would be better for you if you left
off that habit. You see you are not a gentleman. What do you eat?
You eat yourself!"
For such speeches, delivered in a strictly business-like manner, and
always with smiling eyes, and also for the attention he paid to his
lodgers the Captain was very popular among the poor of the town. It
very often happened that a former client of his would appear, not in
rags, but in something more respectable and with a slightly happier
face.
"Good-day, your honour, and how do you do?"
"Alive, in good health! Go on."
"Don't you know me?"
"I did not know you."
"Do you remember that I lived with you last winter for nearly a month
.... when the fight with the police took place, and three were taken
away?"
"My brother, that is so. The police do come even under my hospitable
roof!"
"My God! You gave a piece of your mind to the police inspector of this
district!"
"Wouldn't you accept some small hospitality from me? When I lived with
you, you were ..."
"Gratitude must be encouraged because it is seldom met with. You seem
to be a good man, and, though I don't remember you, still I will go
with you into the public-house and drink to your success and future
prospects with the greatest pleasure."
"You seem always the same ... Are you always joking?"
"What else can one do, living among you unfortunate men?"
They went. Sometimes the Captain's former customer, uplifted and
unsettled by the entertainment, returned to the dosshouse, and on the
following morning they would again begin treating each other till the
Captain's companion would wake up to realise that he had spent all his
money in drink.
"Your honour, do you see that I have again fallen into your hands?
What shall we do now?"
"The position, no doubt, is not a very good one, but still you need not
trouble about it," reasoned the Captain. "You must, my friend, treat
everything indifferently, without spoiling yourself by philosophy, and
without asking yourself any question. To philosophise is always
foolish; to philosophise with a drunken headache, ineffably so.
Drunken headaches require vodki and not the remorse of conscience or
gnashing of teeth ... save your teeth, or else you will not be able to
protect yourself. Here are twenty kopecks. Go and buy a bottle of
vodki for five kopecks, hot tripe or lungs, one pound of bread and two
cucumbers. When we have lived off our drunken headache we will think
of the condition of affairs ..."
As a rule the consideration of the "condition of affairs" lasted some
two or three days, and only when the Captain had not a farthing left of
the three roubles or five roubles given him by his grateful customer
did he say:
"You came! Do you see? Now that we have drunk everything with you,
you fool, try again to regain the path of virtue and soberness. It has
been truly said that if you do not sin, you will not repent, and, if
you do not repent, you shall not be saved. We have done the first, and
to repent is useless. Let us make direct for salvation. Go to the
river and work, and if you think you cannot control yourself, tell the
contractor, your employer, to keep your money, or else give it to me.
When you get sufficient capital, I will get you a pair of trousers and
other things necessary to make you seem a respectable and hard-working
man, persecuted by fate. With decent-looking trousers you can go far.
Now then, be off!"
Then the client would go to the river to work as a porter, smiling the
while over the Captain's long and wise speeches. He did not distinctly
understand them, but only saw in front of him two merry eyes, felt
their encouraging influence, and knew that in the loquacious Captain he
had an arm that would assist him in time of need.
And really it happened very often that, for a month or so, some
ticket-of-leave client, under the strict surveillance of the Captain,
had the opportunity of raising himself to a condition better than that
to which, thanks to the Captain's co-operation, he had fallen.
"Now, then, my friend!" said the Captain, glancing critically at the
restored client, "we have a coat and jacket. When I had respectable
trousers I lived in town like a respectable man. But when the trousers
wore out, I too fell off in the opinion of my fellow-men and had to
come down here from the town. Men, my fine mannikin, judge everything
by the outward appearance, while, owing to their foolishness, the
actual reality of things is incomprehensible to them. Make a note of
this on your nose, and pay me at least half your debt. Go in peace;
seek, and you may find."
"How much do I owe you, Aristid Fomich?" asks the client, in confusion.
"One rouble and 70 kopecks.... Now, give me only one rouble, or, if
you like, 70 kopecks, and as for the rest, I shall wait until you have
earned more than you have now by stealing or by hard work, it does not
matter to me."
"I thank you humbly for your kindness!" says the client, touched to the
heart. "Truly you are a kind man....; Life has persecuted you in
vain.... What an eagle you would have been in your own place!"
The Captain could not live without eloquent speeches.
"What does 'in my own place' mean? No one really knows his own place
in life, and every one of us crawls into his harness. The place of the
merchant Judas Petunikoff ought to be in penal servitude, but he still
walks through the streets in daylight, and even intends to build a
factory. The place of our teacher ought to be beside a wife and
half-a-dozen children, but he is loitering in the public-house of
Vaviloff. And then, there is yourself. You are going to seek a
situation as a hall porter or waiter, but I can see that you ought to
be a soldier in the army, because you are no fool, are patient and
understand discipline. Life shuffles us like cards, you see, and it is
only accidentally, and only for a time, that we fall into our own
places!"
Such farewell speeches often served as a preface to the continuation of
their acquaintance, which again began with drinking and went so far
that the client would spend his last farthing. Then the Captain would
stand him treat, and they would drink all they had.
A repetition of similar doings did not affect in the least the good
relations of the parties.
The teacher mentioned by the Captain was another of those customers who
were thus reformed only in order that they should sin again. Thanks to
his intellect, he was the nearest in rank to the Captain, and this was
probably the cause of his falling so low as dosshouse life, and of his
inability to rise again. It was only with him that Aristid Kuvalda
could philosophise with the certainty of being understood. He valued
this, and when the reformed teacher prepared to leave the dosshouse in
order to get a corner in town for himself, then Aristid Kuvalda
accompanied him so sorrowfully and sadly that it ended, as a rule, in
their both getting drunk and spending all their money. Probably
Kuvalda arranged the matter intentionally so that the teacher could not
leave the dosshouse, though he desired to do so with all his heart.
Was it possible for Aristid Kuvalda, a nobleman (as was evident from
his speeches), one who was accustomed to think, though the turn of fate
may have changed his position, was it possible for him not to desire to
have close to him a man like himself? We can pity our own faults in
others.
This teacher had once taught at an institution in one of the towns on
the Volga, but in consequence of some story was dismissed. After this
he was a clerk in a tannery, but again had to leave. Then he became a
librarian in some private library, subsequently following other
professions. Finally, after passing examinations in law he became a
lawyer, but drink reduced him to the Captain's dosshouse. He was tall,
round-shouldered, with a long sharp nose and bald head. In his bony
and yellow face, on which grew a wedge-shaped beard, shone large,
restless eyes, deeply sunk in their sockets, and the corners of his
mouth drooped sadly down. He earned his bread, or rather his drink, by
reporting for the local papers. He sometimes earned as much as fifteen
roubles. These he gave to the Captain and said:
"It is enough. I am going back into the bosom of culture. Another
week's hard work and I shall dress respectably, and then Addio, mio
caro!"
"Very exemplary! As I heartily sympathise with your decision, Philip,
I shall not give you another glass all this week," the Captain warned
him sternly.
"I shall be thankful! .... You will not give me one drop?"
The Captain heard in his voice a beseeching note to which he turned a
deaf ear.
"Even though you roar, I shall not give it you!"
"As you like, then," sighed the teacher, and went away to continue his
reporting. But after a day or two he would return tired and thirsty,
and would look at the Captain with a beseeching glance out of the
corners of his eyes, hoping that his friend's heart would soften.
The Captain in such cases put on a serious face and began speaking with
killing irony on the theme of weakness of character, of the animal
delight of intoxication, and on such subjects as suited the occasion.
One must do him justice: he was captivated by his role of mentor and
moralist, but the lodgers dogged him, and, listening sceptically to his
exhortations to repentance, would whisper aside to each other:
"Cunning, skilful, shifty rogue! I told you so, but you would not
listen. It's your own fault!"
"His honour is really a good soldier. He goes first and examines the
road behind him!"
The teacher then hunted here and there till he found his friend again
in some corner, and grasping his dirty coat, trembling and licking his
dry lips, looked into his face with a deep, tragic glance, without
articulate words.
"Can't you?" asked the Captain sullenly.
The teacher answered by bowing his head and letting it fall on his
breast, his tall, thin body trembling the while.
"Wait another day ... perhaps you will be all right then," proposed
Kuvalda. The teacher sighed, and shook his head hopelessly.
The Captain saw that his friend's thin body trembled with the thirst
for the poison, and took some money from his pocket.
"In the majority of cases it is impossible to fight against fate," said
he, as if trying to justify himself before someone. But if the teacher
controlled himself for a whole week then there was a touching farewell
scene between the two friends, which ended as a rule in the
eating-house of Vaviloff. The teacher did not spend all his money, but
spent at least half on the children of the main street. The poor are
always rich in children, and in the dirt and ditches of this street
there were groups of them from morning to night, hungry, naked and
dirty. Children are the living flowers of the earth, but these had the
appearance of flowers that have faded prematurely, because they grew in
ground where there was no healthy nourishment. Often the teacher would
gather them round him, would buy them bread, eggs, apples and nuts, and
take them into the fields by the river side. There they would sit and
greedily eat everything he offered them, after which they would begin
to play, filling the fields for a mile around with careless noise and
laughter. The tall, thin figure of the drunkard towered above these
small people, who treated him familiarly, as if he were one of their
own age. They called him "Philip," and did not trouble to prefix
"Uncle" to his name. Playing around him, like little wild animals, they
pushed him, jumped upon his back, beat him upon his bald head, and
caught hold of his nose. All this must have pleased him, as he did not
protest against such liberties. He spoke very little to them, and when
he did so he did it cautiously as if afraid that his words would hurt
or contaminate them. He passed many hours thus as their companion and
plaything, watching their lively faces with his gloomy eyes. Then he
would thoughtfully and slowly direct his steps to the eatinghouse of
Vaviloff, where he would drink silently and quickly till all his senses
left him.
* * * * *
Almost every day after his reporting he would bring a newspaper, and
then gather round him all these creatures that once were men.
On seeing him, they would come forward from all corners of the
court-yard, drunk, or suffering from drunken headache, dishevelled,
tattered, miserable, and pitiable. Then would come the barrel-like,
stout Aleksei Maksimovitch Simtsoff, formerly Inspector of Woods and
Forests, under the Department of Appendages, but now trading in
matches, ink, blacking, and lemons. He was an old man of sixty, in a
canvas overcoat and a wide-brimmed hat, the greasy borders of which hid
his stout fat red face. He had a thick white beard, out of which a
small red nose turned gaily heavenwards. He had thick, crimson lips
and watery, cynical eyes. They called him "Kubar," a name which well
described his round figure and buzzing speech. After him, Kanets
appeared from some corner--a dark, sad-looking, silent drunkard: then
the former governor of the prison, Luka Antonovitch Martyanoff, a man
who existed on "remeshok," "trilistika," and "bankovka,"* and many such
cunning games, not much appreciated by the police. He would throw his
hard and oft-scourged body on the grass beside the teacher, and,
turning his eyes round and scratching his head, would ask in a hoarse,
bass voice, "May I?"
*Note by translator.--Well-known games of chance, played by the lower
classes. The police specially endeavour to stop them, but
unsuccessfully.
Then appeared Pavel Solntseff, a man of thirty years of age, suffering
from consumption. The ribs of his left side had been broken in a
quarrel, and the sharp, yellow face, like that of a fox, always wore a
malicious smile. The thin lips, when opened, exposed two rows of
decayed black teeth, and the rags on his shoulders swayed backwards and
forwards as if they were hung on a clothes pole. They called him
"Abyedok." He hawked brushes and bath brooms of his own manufacture,
good strong brushes made from a peculiar kind of grass.
Then followed a lean and bony man of whom no one knew anything, with a
frightened expression in his eyes, the left one of which had a squint.
He was silent and timid, and had been imprisoned three times for theft
by the High Court of Justice and the Magisterial Courts. His family
name was Kiselnikoff, but they called him Paltara Taras, because he was
a head and shoulders taller than his friend, Deacon Taras, who had been
degraded from his office for drunkenness and immorality. The Deacon
was a short, thick-set person, with the chest of an athlete and a
round, strong head. He danced skilfully, and was still more skilful at
swearing. He and Paltara Taras worked in the wood on the banks of the
river, and in free hours he told his friend or any one who would
listen, "Tales of my own composition," as he used to say. On hearing
these stories, the heroes of which always seemed to be saints, kings,
priests, or generals, even the inmates of the dosshouse spat and rubbed
their eyes in astonishment at the imagination of the Deacon, who told
them shameless tales of lewd, fantastic adventures, with blinking eyes
and a passionless expression of countenance. The imagination of this
man was powerful and inexhaustible; he could go on relating and
composing all day, from morning to night, without once repeating what
he had said before. In his expression you sometimes saw the poet gone
astray, sometimes the romancer, and he always succeeded in making his
tales realistic by the effective and powerful words in which he told
them.
There was also a foolish young man called Kuvalda Meteor. One night he
came to sleep in the dosshouse and had remained ever since among these
men, much to their astonishment. At first they did not take much
notice of him. In the daytime, like all the others, he went away to
find something to eat, but at nights he always loitered around this
friendly company till at last the Captain took notice of him.
"Boy! What business have you here on this earth?"
The boy answered boldly and stoutly:
"I am a barefooted tramp ...."
The Captain looked critically at him. This youngster had long hair and
a weak face, with prominent cheek-bones and a turned-up nose. He was
dressed in a blue blouse without a waistband, and on his head he wore
the remains of a straw hat, while his feet were bare.
"You are a fool!" decided Aristid Kuvalda. "What are you knocking
about here for? You are of absolutely no use to us ... Do you drink
vodki? ... No? ... Well, then, can you steal?" Again, "No." "Go
away, learn, and come back again when you know something, and are a man
..."
The youngster smiled.
"No. I shall live with you."
"Why?"
"Just because ..."
"Oh you ... Meteor!" said the Captain.
"I will break his teeth for him," said Martyanoff.
"And why?" asked the youngster.
"Just because...."
"And I will take a stone and hit you on the head," the young man
answered respectfully.
Martyanoff would have broken his bones, had not Kuvalda interrupted
with:
"Leave him alone.... Is this a home to you or even to us? You have no
sufficient reason to break his teeth for him. You have no better
reason than he for living with us."
"Well, then, Devil take him! ... We all live in the world without
sufficient reason.... We live, and why? Because! He also because ...
let him alone...."
"But it is better for you, young man, to go away from us," the teacher
advised him, looking him up and down with his sad eyes. He made no
answer, but remained. And they soon became accustomed to his presence,
and ceased to take any notice of him. But he lived among them, and
observed everything.
The above were the chief members of the Captain's company, and he
called them with kind-hearted sarcasm "Creatures that once were men."
For though there were men who had experienced as much of the bitter
irony of fate as these men, yet they were not fallen so low. Not
infrequently, respectable men belonging to the cultured classes are
inferior to those belonging to the peasantry, and it is always a fact
that the depraved man from the city is immeasurably worse than the
depraved man from the village. This fact was strikingly illustrated by
the contrast between the formerly well-educated men and the mujiks who
were living in Kuvalda's shelter.
The representative of the latter class was an old mujik called Tyapa.
Tall and angular, he kept his head in such a position that his chin
touched his breast. He was the Captain's first lodger, and it was said
of him that he had a great deal of money hidden somewhere, and for its
sake had nearly had his throat cut some two years ago: ever since then
he carried his head thus. Over his eyes hung greyish eyebrows, and,
looked at in profile, only his crooked nose was to be seen. His shadow
reminded one of a poker. He denied that he had money, and said that
they "only tried to cut his throat out of malice," and from that day he
took to collecting rags, and that is why his head was always bent as if
incessantly looking on the ground. When he went about shaking his
head, and minus a walking-stick in his hand, and a bag on his back--the
signs of his profession--he seemed to be thinking almost to madness,
and, at such times, Kuvalda spoke thus, pointing to him with his finger:
"Look, there is the conscience of Merchant Judas Petunikoff. See how
disorderly, dirty, and low is the escaped conscience."
Tyapa, as a rule, spoke in a hoarse and hardly audible voice, and that
is why he spoke very little, and loved to be alone. But whenever a
stranger, compelled to leave the village, appeared in the dosshouse,
Tyapa seemed sadder and angrier, and followed the unfortunate about
with biting jeers and a wicked chuckling in his throat. He either put
some beggar against him, or himself threatened to rob and beat him,
till the frightened mujik would disappear from the dosshouse and never
more be seen. Then Tyapa was quiet again, and would sit in some corner
mending his rags, or else reading his Bible, which was as dirty, worn,
and old as himself. Only when the teacher brought a newspaper and
began reading did he come from his corner once more. As a rule, Tyapa
listened to what was read silently and sighed often, without asking
anything of anyone. But once when the teacher, having read the paper,
wanted to put it away, Tyapa stretched out his bony hand, and said,
"Give it to me ..."
"What do you want it for?"
"Give it to me ... Perhaps there is something in it about us ..."
"About whom?"
"About the village."
They laughed at him, and threw him the paper. He took it, and read in
it how in the village the hail had destroyed the cornfields, how in
another village fire destroyed thirty houses, and that in a third a
woman had poisoned her family,--in fact, everything that it is
customary to write of,--everything, that is to say, which is bad, and
which depicts only the worst side of the unfortunate village. Tyapa
read all this silently and roared, perhaps from sympathy, perhaps from
delight at the sad news.
He passed the whole Sunday in reading his Bible, and never went out
collecting rags on that day. While reading, he groaned and sighed
continually. He kept the book close to his breast, and was angry with
any one who interrupted him or who touched his Bible.
"Oh, you drunken blackguard," said Kuvalda to him, "what do you
understand of it?"
"Nothing, wizard! I don't understand anything, and I do not read any
books ... But I read ..."
"Therefore you are a fool ..." said the Captain, decidedly. "When there
are insects in your head, you know it is uncomfortable, but if some
thoughts enter there too, how will you live then, you old toad?"
"I have not long to live," said Tyapa, quietly.
Once the teacher asked how he had learned to read.
"In prison," answered Tyapa, shortly.
"Have you been there?"
"I was there...."
"For what?"
"Just so.... It was a mistake.... But I brought the Bible out with me
from there. A lady gave it to me.... It is good in prison, brother."
"Is that so? And why?"
"It teaches one.... I learned to read there.... I also got this
book.... And all these you see, free...."
When the teacher appeared in the dosshouse, Tyapa had already lived
there for some time. He looked long into the teacher's face, as if to
discover what kind of a man he was. Tyapa often listened to his
conversation, and once, sitting down beside him, said:
"I see you are very learned.... Have you read the Bible?"
"I have read it...."
"I see; I see.... Can you remember it?"
"Yes.... I remember it...."
Then the old man leaned to one side and gazed at the other with a
serious, suspicious glance.
"There were the Amalekites, do you remember?"
"Well?"
"Where are they now?"
"Disappeared ... Tyapa ... died out ..."
The old man was silent, then asked again: "And where are the
Philistines?"
"These also ..."
"Have all these died out?"
"Yes ... all ..."
"And so ... we also will die out?"
"There will come a time when we also will die," said the teacher
indifferently.
"And to what tribe of Israel do we belong?"
The teacher looked at him, and began telling him about Scythians and
Slavs....
The old man became all the more frightened, and glanced at his face.
"You are lying!" he said scornfully, when the teacher had finished.
"What lie have I told?" asked the teacher.
"You mentioned tribes that are not mentioned in the Bible."
He got up and walked away, angry and deeply insulted.
"You will go mad, Tyapa," called the teacher after him with conviction.
Then the old man came back again, and stretching out his hand,
threatened him with his crooked and dirty finger.
"God made Adam--from Adam were descended the Jews, that means that all
people are descended from Jews ... and we also ..."
"Well?"
"Tartars are descended from Ishmael, but he also came of the Jews ..."
"What do you want to tell me all this for?"
"Nothing! Only why do you tell lies?" Then he walked away, leaving
his companion in perplexity. But after two days he came again and sat
by him.
"You are learned ... Tell me, then, whose descendants are we? Are we
Babylonians, or who are we?"
"We are Slavs, Tyapa," said the teacher, and attentively awaited his
answer, wishing to understand him.
"Speak to me from the Bible. There are no such men there."
Then the teacher began criticising the Bible. The old man listened,
and interrupted him after a long while.
"Stop ... Wait! That means that among people known to God there are
no Russians? We are not known to God? Is it so? God knew all those
who are mentioned in the Bible ... He destroyed them by sword and fire,
He destroyed their cities; but He also sent prophets to teach them.
That means that He also pitied them. He scattered the Jews and the
Tartars ... But what about us? Why have we prophets no longer?"
"Well, I don't know!" replied the teacher, trying to understand the old
man. But the latter put his hand on the teacher's shoulder, and slowly
pushed him backwards and forwards, and his throat made a noise as if he
were swallowing something....
"Tell me! You speak so much ... as if you knew everything. It makes
me sick to listen to you ... you darken my soul.... I should be better
pleased if you were silent. Who are we, eh? Why have we no prophets?
Ha, ha! ... Where were we when Christ walked on this earth? Do you
see? And you too, you are lying.... Do you think that all die out?
The Russian people will never disappear.... You are lying.... It has
been written in the Bible, only it is not known what name the Russians
are given. Do you see what kind of people they are? They are
numberless.... How many villages are there on the earth? Think of all
the people who live on it, so strong, so numerous! And you say that
they will die out; men shall die, but God wants the people, God the
Creator of the earth! The Amalekites did not die out. They are either
German or French.... But you, eh, you! Now then, tell me why we are
abandoned by God? Have we no punishments nor prophets from the Lord?
Who then will teach us?" Tyapa spoke strongly and plainly, and there
was faith in his words. He had been speaking a long time, and the
teacher, who was generally drunk and in a speechless condition, could
not stand it any longer. He looked at the dry, wrinkled old man, felt
the great force of these words, and suddenly began to pity himself. He
wished to say something so strong and convincing to the old man that
Tyapa would be disposed in his favour; he did not wish to speak in such
a serious, earnest way, but in a soft and fatherly tone. And the
teacher felt as if something were rising from his breast into his
throat ... But he could not find any powerful words.
"What kind of a man are you? ... Your soul seems to be torn away--and
you still continue speaking ... as if you knew something ... It would
be better if you were silent."
"Ah, Tyapa, what you say is true," replied the teacher, sadly. "The
people ... you are right ... they are numberless ... but I am a
stranger to them ... and they are strangers to me ... Do you see where
the tragedy of my life is hidden? ... But let me alone! I shall suffer
... and there are no prophets also ... No. You are right, I speak a
great deal ... But it is no good to anyone. I shall be always silent
... Only don't speak with me like this ... Ah, old man, you do not
know ... You do not know ... And you cannot understand."
And in the end the teacher cried. He cried so easily and so freely,
with such torrents of flowing tears, that he soon found relief.
"You ought to go into a village ... become a clerk or a teacher ...
You would be well fed there. What are you crying for?" asked Tyapa,
sadly.
But the teacher was crying as if the tears quieted and comforted him.
From this day they became friends, and the "creatures that once were
men," seeing them together, said: "The teacher is friendly with Tyapa
... He wishes his money. Kuvalda must have put this into his head ...
To look about to see where the old man's fortune is ..."
Probably they did not believe what they said. There was one strange
thing about these men, namely, that they painted themselves to others
worse than they actually were. A man who has good in him does not mind
sometimes showing his worse nature.
* * * * *
When all these people were gathered round the teacher, then the reading
of the newspaper would begin.
"Well, what does the newspaper discuss to-day? Is there any
feuilleton?"
"No," the teacher informs him.
"Your publisher seems greedy ... but is there any leader?"
"There is one to-day.... It appears to be by Gulyaeff."
"Aha! Come, out with it. He writes cleverly, the rascal."
"'The taxation of immovable property,'" reads the teacher, "'was
introduced some fifteen years ago, and up to the present it has served
as the basis for collecting these taxes in aid of the city revenue ...'"
"That is simple," comments Captain Kuvalda. "It continues to serve.
That is ridiculous. To the merchant who is moving about in the city,
it is profitable that it should continue to serve. Therefore it does
continue."
"The article, in fact, is written on the subject," says the teacher.
"Is it? That is strange, it is more a subject for a feuilleton..."
"Such a subject must be treated with plenty of pepper...."
Then a short discussion begins. The people listen attentively, as only
one bottle of vodki has been drunk.
After the leader, they read the local events, then the court
proceedings, and, if in the police court it reports that the defendant
or plaintiff is a merchant, then Aristid Kuvalda sincerely rejoices.
If someone has robbed the merchant, "That is good," says he. "Only it
is a pity they robbed him of so little." If his horses have broken
down, "It is sad that he is still alive." If the merchant has lost his
suit in court, "It is a pity that the costs were not double the amount."
"That would have been illegal," remarks the teacher
"Illegal! But is the merchant himself legal?" inquires Kuvalda,
bitterly. "What is the merchant? Let us investigate this rough and
uncouth phenomenon. First of all, every merchant is a mujik. He comes
from a village, and in course of time becomes a merchant. In order to
be a merchant, one must have money. Where can the mujik get the money
from? It is well known that he does not get it by honest hard work,
and that means that the mujik, somehow or other, has been swindling.
That is to say, a merchant is simply a dishonest mujik."
"Splendid!" cry the people, approving the orator's deduction, and Tyapa
bellows all the time, scratching his breast. He always bellows like
this as he drinks his first glass of vodki, when he has a drunken
headache. The Captain beams with joy. They next read the
correspondence. This is, for the Captain, "an abundance of drinks," as
he himself calls it. He always notices how the merchants make this
life abominable, and how cleverly they spoil everything. His speeches
thunder at and annihilate merchants. His audience listens to him with
the greatest pleasure, because he swears atrociously. "If I wrote for
the papers," he shouts, "I would show up the merchant in his true
colours ... I would show that he is a beast, playing for a time the
role of a man. I understand him! He is a rough boor, does not know the
meaning of the words 'good taste,' has no notion of patriotism, and his
knowledge is not worth five kopecks."
Abyedok, knowing the Captain's weak point, and fond of making other
people angry, cunningly adds:
"Yes, since the nobility began to make acquaintance with hunger, men
have disappeared from the world ..."
"You are right, you son of a spider and a toad. Yes, from the time
that the noblemen fell, there have been no men. There are only
merchants, and I hate them."
"That is easy to understand, brother, because you, too, have been
brought down by them ..."
"I? I was ruined by love of life ... Fool that I was, I loved life,
but the merchant spoils it, and I cannot bear it, simply for this
reason, and not because I am a nobleman. But if you want to know the
truth, I was once a man, though I was not noble. I care now for
nothing and nobody ... and all my life has been tame--a sweetheart who
has jilted me--therefore I despise life, and am indifferent to it."
"You lie!" says Abyedok.
"I lie?" roars Aristid Kuvalda, almost crimson with anger.
"Why shout?" comes in the cold sad voice of Martyanoff.
"Why judge others? Merchants, noblemen ... what have we to do with
them?"
"Seeing that we are" ... puts in Deacon Taras.
"Be quiet, Abyedok," says the teacher, goodnaturedly.
"Why do you provoke him?" He does not love either discussion or noise,
and when they quarrel all around him his lips form into a sickly
grimace, and he endeavours quietly and reasonably to reconcile each
with the other, and if he does not succeed in this he leaves the
company. Knowing this, the Captain, if he is not very drunk, controls
himself, not wishing to lose, in the person of the teacher, one of the
best of his listeners.
"I repeat," he continues, in a quieter tone, "that I see life in the
hands of enemies, not only enemies of the noble but of everything good,
avaricious and incapable of adorning existence in any way."
"But all the same," says the teacher, "merchants, so to speak, created
Genoa, Venice, Holland--and all these were merchants, merchants from
England, India, the Stroyanoff merchants ..."
"I do not speak of these men, I am thinking of Judas Petunikoff, who is
one of them...."
"And you say you have nothing to do with them?" asks the teacher,
quietly.
"But do you think that I do not live? Aha! I do live, but I suppose I
ought not to be angry at the fact that life is desecrated and robbed of
all freedom by these men."
"And they dare to laugh at the kindly anger of the Captain, a man
living in retirement?" says Abyedok, teasingly.
"Very well! I agree with you that I am foolish. Being a creature who
was once a man, I ought to blot out from my heart all those feelings
that once were mine. You may be right, but then how could I or any of
you defend ourselves if we did away with all these feelings?"
"Now then, you are talking sense," says the teacher, encouragingly.
"We want other feelings and other views on life.... We want something
new ... because we ourselves are a novelty in this life...."
"Doubtless this is most important for us," remarks the teacher.
"Why?" asks Kanets. "Is it not all the same whatever we say or think?
We have not got long to live ... I am forty, you are fifty ... there
is no one among us younger than thirty, and even at twenty one cannot
live such a life long."
"And what kind of novelty are we?" asked Abyedok, mockingly.
"Since nakedness has always existed ..."
"Yes, and it created Rome," said the teacher.
"Yes, of course," says the Captain, beaming with joy. "Romulus and
Remus, eh? We also shall create when our time comes ..."
"Violation of public peace," interrupts Abyedok. He laughs in a
self-satisfied way. His laughter is impudent and insolent, and is
echoed by Simtsoff, the Deacon and Paltara Taras. The naive eyes of
young Meteor light up, and his cheeks flush crimson.
Kanets speaks, and it seems as if he were hammering their heads.
"All these are foolish illusions ... fiddle-sticks!"
It was strange to see them reasoning in this manner, these outcasts
from life, tattered, drunken with vodki and wickedness, filthy and
forlorn. Such conversations rejoiced the Captain's heart. They gave
him an opportunity of speaking more, and therefore he thought himself
better than the rest. However low he may fall, a man can never deny
himself the delight of feeling cleverer, more powerful, or even better
fed than his companions. Aristid Kuvalda abused this pleasure, and
never could have enough of it, much to the disgust of Abyedok, Kubar,
and others of these creatures that once were men, who were less
interested in such things.
Politics, however, were more to the popular taste. The discussions as
to the necessity of taking India or of subduing England were lengthy
and protracted. Nor did they speak with less enthusiasm of the radical
measure of clearing Jews off the face of the earth. On this subject
Abyedok was always the first to propose dreadful plans to effect the
desired end, but the Captain, always first in every other argument, did
not join in this one. They also spoke much and impudently about women,
but the teacher always defended them, and sometimes was very angry when
they went so far as to pass the limits of decency. They all, as a
rule, gave in to him, because they did not look upon him as a common
person, and also because they wished to borrow from him on Saturdays
the money which he had earned during the week. He had many privileges.
They never beat him, for instance, on these occasions when the
conversation ended in a free fight. He had the right to bring women
into the dosshouse; a privilege accorded to no one else, as the Captain
had previously warned them.
"No bringing of women to my house," he had said. "Women, merchants and
philosophers, these are the three causes of my ruin. I will horsewhip
anyone bringing in women. I will horsewhip the woman also.... And as
to the philosopher I'll knock his head off for him." And
notwithstanding his age he could have knocked anyone's head off, for he
possessed wonderful strength. Besides that, whenever he fought or
quarrelled, he was assisted by Martyanoff, who was accustomed during a
general fight to stand silently and sadly back to back with Kuvalda,
when he became an all-destroying and impregnable engine of war. Once
when Simtsoff was drunk, he rushed at the teacher for no reason
whatever, and getting hold of his head tore out a bunch of hair.
Kuvalda, with one stroke of his fist in the other's chest sent him
spinning, and he fell to the ground. He was unconscious for almost
half-an-hour, and when he came to himself, Kuvalda compelled him to eat
the hair he had torn from the teacher's head. He ate it, preferring
this to being beaten to death.
Besides reading newspapers, fighting and indulging in general
conversation, they amused themselves by playing cards. They played
without Martyanoff because he could not play honestly. After cheating
several times, he openly confessed:
"I cannot play without cheating ... it is a habit of mine."
"Habits do get the better of you," assented Deacon Taras. "I always
used to beat my wife every Sunday after Mass, and when she died I
cannot describe how extremely dull I felt every Sunday. I lived
through one Sunday--it was dreadful, the second I still controlled
myself, the third Sunday I struck my Asok.... She was angry and
threatened to summon me. Just imagine if she had done so! On the
fourth Sunday, I beat her just as if she were my own wife! After that
I gave her ten roubles, and beat her according to my own rules till I
married again!" ...
"You are lying, Deacon! How could you marry a second time?"
interrupted Abyedok.
"Ay, just so... She looked after my house...."
"Did you have any children?" asked the teacher.
"Five of them.... One was drowned ... the oldest ... he was an amusing
boy! Two died of diphtheria ... One of the daughters married a
student and went with him to Siberia. The other went to the University
of St. Petersburg and died there ... of consumption they say. Ye--es,
there were five of them.... Ecclesiastics are prolific, you know." He
began explaining why this was so, and they laughed till they nearly
burst at his tales. When the laughter stopped, Aleksei Maksimovitch
Simtsoff remembered that he too had once had a daughter.
"Her name was Lidka ... she was very stout ..." More than this he did
not seem to remember, for he looked at them all, was silent and smiled
... in a guilty way. Those men spoke very little to each other about
their past, and they recalled it very seldom and then only its general
outlines. When they did mention it, it was in a cynical tone.
Probably, this was just as well, since, in many people, remembrance of
the past kills all present energy and deadens all hope for the future.
* * * * *
On rainy, cold, or dull days in the late autumn, these "creatures that
once were men" gathered in the eatinghouse of Vaviloff. They were well
known there, where some feared them as thieves and rogues, and some
looked upon them contemptuously as hard drinkers, although they
respected them, thinking that they were clever.
The eating-house of Vaviloff was the club of the main street, and the
"creatures that once were men" were its most intellectual members. On
Saturday evenings or Sunday mornings, when the eating-house was packed,
the "creatures that once were men" were only too welcome guests. They
brought with them, besides the forgotten and poverty-stricken
inhabitants of the street, their own spirit, in which there was
something that brightened the lives of men exhausted and worn out in
the struggle for existence, as great drunkards as the inhabitants of
Kuvalda's shelter, and, like them, outcasts from the town. Their
ability to speak on all subjects, their freedom of opinion, skill in
repartee, courage in the presence of those of whom the whole street was
in terror, together with their daring demeanour, could not but be
pleasing to their companions. Then, too, they were well versed in law,
and could advise, write petitions, and help to swindle without
incurring the risk of punishment. For all this they were paid with
vodki and flattering admiration of their talents.
The inhabitants of the street were divided into two parties according
to their sympathies. One was in favour of Kuvalda, who was thought "a
good soldier, clever, and courageous," the other was convinced of the
fact that the teacher was "superior" to Kuvalda. The latter's admirers
were those who were known to be drunkards, thieves, and murderers, for
whom the road from beggary to prison was inevitable. But those who
respected the teacher were men who still had expectations, still hoped
for better things, who were eternally occupied with nothing, and who
were nearly always hungry.
The nature of the teacher's and Kuvalda's relations towards the street
may be gathered from the following:
Once in the eating-house they were discussing the resolution passed by
the Corporation regarding the main street, viz., that the inhabitants
were to fill up the pits and ditches in the street, and that neither
manure nor the dead bodies of domestic animals should be used for the
purpose, but only broken tiles, etc., from the ruins of other houses.
"Where am I going to get these same broken tiles and bricks? I could
not get sufficient bricks together to build a hen-house," plaintively
said Mokei Anisimoff, a man who hawked kalaches (a sort of white bread)
which were baked by his wife.
"Where can you get broken bricks and lime rubbish? Take bags with you,
and go and remove them from the Corporation buildings. They are so old
that they are of no use to anyone, and you will thus be doing two good
deeds; firstly, by repairing the main street; and secondly, by adorning
the city with a new Corporation building."
"If you want horses get them from the Lord Mayor, and take his three
daughters, who seem quite fit for harness. Then destroy the house of
Judas Petunikoff and pave the street with its timbers. By the way,
Mokei, I know out of what your wife baked to-day's kalaches; out of the
frames of the third window and the two steps from the roof of Judas'
house."
When those present had laughed and joked sufficiently over the
Captain's proposal, the sober market gardener, Pavlyugus asked:
"But seriously, what are we to do, your honour? ... Eh? What do you
think?"
"I? I shall neither move hand nor foot. If they wish to clean the
street let them do it."
"Some of the houses are almost coming down...."
"Let them fall; don't interfere; and when they fall ask help from the
city. If they don't give it you, then bring a suit in court against
them! Where does the water come from? From the city! Therefore let
the city be responsible for the destruction of the houses."
"They will say it is rain-water."
"Does it destroy the houses in the city? Eh? They take taxes from you
but they do not permit you to speak! They destroy your property and at
the same time compel you to repair it!" And half the radicals in the
street, convinced by the words of Kuvalda, decided to wait till the
rain-water came down in huge streams and swept away their houses. The
others, more sensible, found in the teacher a man who composed for them
an excellent and convincing report for the Corporation. In this report
the refusal of the street's inhabitants to comply with the resolution
of the Corporation was so well explained that the Corporation actually
entertained it. It was decided that the rubbish left after some
repairs had been done to the barracks should be used for mending and
filling up the ditches in their street, and for the transport of this
five horses were given by the fire brigade. Still more, they even saw
the necessity of laying a drain-pipe through the street. This and many
other things vastly increased the popularity of the teacher. He wrote
petitions for them and published various remarks in the newspapers.
For instance, on one occasion Vaviloff's customers noticed that the
herrings and other provisions of the eating-house were not what they
should be, and after a day or two they saw Vaviloff standing at the bar
with the newspaper in his hand making a public apology.
"It is true, I must acknowledge, that I bought old and not very good
herrings, and the cabbage ... also ... was old. It is only too well
known that anyone can put many a five-kopeck piece in his pocket in
this way. And what is the result? It has not been a success; I was
greedy, I own, but the cleverer man has exposed me, so we are quits ..."
This confession made a very good impression on the people, and it also
gave Vaviloff the opportunity of still feeding them with herrings and
cabbages which were not good, though they failed to notice it, so much
were they impressed.
This incident was very significant, because it increased not only the
teacher's popularity, but also the effect of press opinion.
It often happened, too, that the teacher read lectures on practical
morality in the eating-house.
"I saw you," he said to the painter Yashka Tyarin, "I saw you, Yakov,
beating your wife ..."
Yashka was "touched with paint" after two glasses of vodki, and was in
a slightly uplifted condition.
The people looked at him, expecting him to make a row, and all were
silent.
"Did you see me? And how did it please you?" asks Yashka.
The people control their laughter.
"No; it did not please me," replies the teacher. His tone is so
serious that the people are silent.
"You see I was just trying it," said Yashka, with bravado, fearing that
the teacher would rebuke him. "The wife is satisfied.... She has not
got up yet to-day...."
The teacher, who was drawing absently with his fingers on the table,
said, "Do you see, Yakov, why this did not please me? ... Let us go
into the matter thoroughly, and understand what you are really doing,
and what the result may be. Your wife is pregnant. You struck her
last night on her sides and breast. That means that you beat not only
her but the child too. You may have killed him, and your wife might
have died or else have become seriously ill. To have the trouble of
looking after a sick woman is not pleasant. It is wearing, and would
cost you dear, because illness requires medicine, and medicine money.
If you have not killed the child, you may have crippled him, and he
will be born deformed, lop-sided, or hunch-backed. That means that he
will not be able to work, and it is only too important to you that he
should be a good workman. Even if he be born ill, it will be bad
enough, because he will keep his mother from work, and will require
medicine. Do you see what you are doing to yourself? Men who live by
hard work must be strong and healthy, and they should have strong and
healthy children.... Do I speak truly?"
"Yes," assented the listeners.
"But all this will never happen," says Yashka, becoming rather
frightened at the prospect held out to him by the teacher. "She is
healthy, and I cannot have reached the child ... She is a devil--a
hag!" he shouts angrily. "I would ... She will eat me away as rust
eats iron."
"I understand, Yakov, that you cannot help beating your wife," the
teacher's sad and thoughtful voice again breaks in. "You have many
reasons for doing so ... It is your wife's character that causes you to
beat her so incautiously ... But your own dark and sad life ..."
"You are right!" shouts Yakov. "We live in darkness, like the
chimney-sweep when he is in the chimney!"
"You are angry with your life, but your wife is patient; the closest
relation to you--your wife, and you make her suffer for this, simply
because you are stronger than she. She is always with you, and cannot
get away. Don't you see how absurd you are?"
"That is so.... Devil take it! But what shall I do? Am I not a man?"
"Just so! You are a man.... I only wish to tell you that if you
cannot help beating her, then beat her carefully and always remember
that you may injure her health or that of the child. It is not good to
beat pregnant women ... on their belly or on their sides and chests....
Beat her, say, on the neck ... or else take a rope and beat her on some
soft place ..."
The orator finished his speech and looked upon his hearers with his
dark, pathetic eyes, seeming to apologise to them for some unknown
crime.
The public understands it. They understand the morale of the creature
who was once a man, the morale of the public-house and much misfortune.
"Well, brother Yashka, did you understand? See how true it is!"
Yakov understood that to beat her incautiously might be injurious to
his wife. He is silent, replying to his companions' jokes with
confused smiles.
"Then again, what is a wife?" philosophises the baker, Mokei Anisimoff.
"A wife ... is a friend ... if we look at the matter in that way. She
is like a chain, chained to you for life ... and you are both just like
galley slaves. And if you try to get away from her, you cannot, you
feel the chain ..."
"Wait," says Yakovleff; "but you beat your wife too."
"Did I say that I did not? I beat her... There is nothing else
handy... Do you expect me to beat the wall with my fist when my
patience is exhausted?"
"I feel just like that too..." says Yakov.
"How hard and difficult our life is, my brothers! There is no real
rest for us anywhere!"
"And even you beat your wife by mistake," some one remarks humorously.
And thus they speak till far on in the night or till they have
quarrelled, the usual result of drink or of passions engendered by such
discussions.
The rain beats on the windows, and outside the cold wind is blowing.
The eating-house is close with tobacco smoke, but it is warm, while the
street is cold and wet. Now and then, the wind beats threateningly on
the windows of the eating-house, as if bidding these men to come out
and be scattered like dust over the face of the earth. Sometimes a
stifled and hopeless groan is heard in its howling which again is
drowned by cold, cruel laughter. This music fills one with dark, sad
thoughts of the approaching winter, with its accursed short, sunless
days and long nights, of the necessity of possessing warm garments and
plenty to eat. It is hard to sleep through the long winter nights on
an empty stomach. Winter is approaching. Yes, it is approaching...
How to live?
These gloomy forebodings created a strong thirst among the inhabitants
of the main street, and the sighs of the "creatures that once were men"
increased with the wrinkles on their brows, their voices became thick
and their behaviour to each other more blunt. And brutal crimes were
committed among them, and the roughness of these poor unfortunate
outcasts was apt to increase at the approach of that inexorable enemy,
who transformed all their lives into one cruel farce. But this enemy
could not be captured because it was invisible.
Then they began beating each other brutally, and drank till they had
drunk everything which they could pawn to the indulgent Vaviloff. And
thus they passed the autumn days in open wickedness, in suffering which
was eating their hearts out, unable to rise out of this vicious life
and in dread of the still crueller days of winter.
Kuvalda in such cases came to their assistance with his philosophy.
"Don't lose your temper, brothers, everything has an end, this is the
chief characteristic of life. The winter will pass, summer will follow
... a glorious time, when the very sparrows are filled with rejoicing."
But his speeches did not have any effect--a mouthful of even the
freshest and purest water will not satisfy a hungry man.
Deacon Taras also tried to amuse the people by singing his songs and
relating his tales. He was more successful, and sometimes his
endeavours ended in a wild and glorious orgy at the eating-house. They
sang, laughed and danced, and for hours behaved like madmen. After
this they again fell into a despairing mood, sitting at the tables of
the eating-house, in the black smoke of the lamp and the tobacco; sad
and tattered, speaking lazily to each other, listening to the wild
howling of the wind, and thinking how they could get enough vodki to
deaden their senses.
And their hand was against every man, and every man's hand against them.