MAYAKIN lived in an enormous two-story house near a big palisade, where
sturdy, old spreading linden trees were growing magnificently. The rank
branches covered the windows with a dense, dark embroidery, and the sun
in broken rays peeped into the small rooms, which were closely crowded
with miscellaneous furniture and big trunks, wherefore a stern and
melancholy semi-darkness always reigned there supreme. The family was
devout--the odour of wax, of rock-rose and of image-lamp oil filled the
house, and penitent sighs and prayers soared about in the air. Religious
ceremonials were performed infallibly, with pleasure, absorbing all the
free power of the souls of the dwellers of the house. Feminine figures
almost noiselessly moved about the rooms in the half-dark, stifling,
heavy atmosphere. They were dressed in black, wore soft slippers on
their feet, and always had a penitent look on their faces.
The family of Yakov Tarazovich Mayakin consisted of himself, his wife, a
daughter and five kinswomen, the youngest of whom was thirty-four years
old. These were alike devout and impersonal, and subordinate to Antonina
Ivanovna, the mistress of the house. She was a tall, thin woman, with
a dark face and with stern gray eyes, which had an imperious and
intelligent expression. Mayakin also had a son Taras, but his name
was never mentioned in the house; acquaintances knew that since the
nineteen-year-old Taras had gone to study in Moscow--he married there
three years later, against his father’s will--Yakov disowned him. Taras
disappeared without leaving any trace. It was rumoured that he had been
sent to Siberia for something.
Yakov Mayakin was very queerly built. Short, thin, lively, with a little
red beard, sly greenish eyes, he looked as though he said to each and
every one:
“Never mind, sir, don’t be uneasy. Even though I know you for what you
are, if you don’t annoy me I will not give you away.”
His beard resembled an egg in shape and was monstrously big. His high
forehead, covered with wrinkles, joined his bald crown, and it seemed
as though he really had two faces--one an open, penetrating and
intellectual face, with a long gristle nose, and above this face another
one, eyeless and mouthless, covered with wrinkles, behind which Mayakin
seemed to hide his eyes and his lips until a certain time; and when that
time had arrived, he would look at the world with different eyes and
smile a different smile.
He was the owner of a rope-yard and kept a store in town near the
harbour. In this store, filled up to the ceiling with rope, twine, hemp
and tow, he had a small room with a creaking glass door. In this room
stood a big, old, dilapidated table, and near it a deep armchair,
covered with oilcloth, in which Mayakin sat all day long, sipping
tea and always reading the same “Moskovskiya Vedomosty,” to which he
subscribed, year in and year out, all his life. Among merchants he
enjoyed the respect and reputation of a “brainy” man, and he was very
fond of boasting of the antiquity of his race, saying in a hoarse voice:
“We, the Mayakins, were merchants during the reign of ‘Mother’
Catherine, consequently I am a pure-blooded man.”
In this family Ignat Gordyeeff’s son lived for six years. By the time
he was seven years old Foma was a big-headed, broad-shouldered boy,
seemingly older that his years, both in his size and in the serious look
of his dark, almond-shaped eyes. Quiet, silent and persistent in his
childish desires, he spent all his days over his playthings, with
Mayakin’s daughter, Luba, quietly looked after by one of the kinswomen,
a stout, pock-marked old maid, who was, for some reason or other,
nicknamed “Buzya.” She was a dull, somewhat timid creature; and even to
the children she spoke in a low voice, in words of monosyllables. Having
devoted her time to learning prayers, she had no stories to tell Foma.
Foma was on friendly terms with the little girl, but when she angered
or teased him he turned pale, his nostrils became distended, his eyes
stared comically and he beat her audaciously. She cried, ran to her
mother and complained to her, but Antonina loved Foma and she paid but
little attention to her daughter’s complaints, which strengthened the
friendship between the children still more. Foma’s day was long and
uniform. Getting out of bed and washing himself, he used to place
himself before the image, and under the whispering of the pock-marked
Buzya he recited long prayers. Then they drank tea and ate many
biscuits, cakes and pies. After tea--during the summer--the children
went to the big palisade, which ran down to a ravine, whose bottom
always looked dark and damp, filling them with terror. The children were
not allowed to go even to the edge of the ravine, and this inspired in
them a fear of it. In winter, from tea time to dinner, they played in
the house when it was very cold outside, or went out in the yard to
slide down the big ice hill.
They had dinner at noon, “in Russian style,” as Mayakin said. At first a
big bowl of fat, sour cabbage soup was served with rye biscuits in,
but without meat, then the same soup was eaten with meat cut into small
pieces; then they ate roast meat--pork, goose, veal or rennet, with
gruel--then again a bowl of soup with vermicelli, and all this was
usually followed by dessert. They drank kvass made of red bilberries,
juniper-berries, or of bread--Antonina Ivanovna always carried a stock
of different kinds of kvass. They ate in silence, only now and then
uttering a sigh of fatigue; the children each ate out of a separate
bowl, the adults eating out of one bowl. Stupefied by such a dinner,
they went to sleep; and for two or three hours Mayakin’s house was
filled with snoring and with drowsy sighs.
Awaking from sleep, they drank tea and talked about local news, the
choristers, the deacons, weddings, or the dishonourable conduct of this
or that merchant. After tea Mayakin used to say to his wife:
“Well, mother, hand me the Bible.”
Yakov Tarasovich used to read the Book of Job more often than anything
else. Putting his heavy, silver-framed spectacles on his big, ravenous
nose, he looked around at his listeners to see whether all were in their
places.
They were all seated where he was accustomed to see them and on their
faces was a familiar, dull and timid expression of piety.
“There was a man in the land of Uz,” began Mayakin, in a hoarse voice,
and Foma, sitting beside Luba on the lounge in the corner of the room,
knew beforehand that soon his godfather would become silent and pat his
bald head with his hand. He sat and, listening, pictured to himself
this man from the land of Uz. The man was tall and bare, his eyes were
enormously large, like those of the image of the Saviour, and his voice
was like a big brass trumpet on which the soldiers played in the camps.
The man was constantly growing bigger and bigger; and, reaching the sky,
he thrust his dark hands into the clouds, and, tearing them asunder,
cried out in a terrible voice:
“Why is light given to a man whose way is hid, and whom God hath hedged
in?”
Dread fell on Foma, and he trembled, slumber fled from his eyes, he
heard the voice of his godfather, who said, with a light smile, now and
then pinching his beard:
“See how audacious he was!”
The boy knew that his godfather spoke of the man from the land of Uz,
and the godfather’s smile soothed the child. So the man would not break
the sky; he would not rend it asunder with his terrible arms. And then
Foma sees the man again--he sits on the ground, “his flesh is clothed
with worms and clods of dust, his skin is broken.” But now he is small
and wretched, he is like a beggar at the church porch.
Here he says:
“What is man, that he should be clean? And he which is born of woman,
that he should be righteous?” [These words attributed by Mayakin to Job
are from Eliphaz the Temanite’s reply--Translator’s Note.]
“He says this to God,” explained Mayakin, inspired. “How, says he, can I
be righteous, since I am made of flesh? That’s a question asked of God.
How is that?”
And the reader, triumphantly and interrogatively looks around at his
listeners.
“He merited it, the righteous man,” they replied with a sigh.
Yakov Mayakin eyes them with a smile, and says:
“Fools! You better put the children to sleep.”
Ignat visited the Mayakins every day, brought playthings for his son,
caught him up into his arms and hugged him, but sometimes dissatisfied
he said to him with ill-concealed uneasiness:
“Why are you such a bugbear? Oh! Why do you laugh so little?”
And he would complain to the lad’s godfather:
“I am afraid that he may turn out to be like his mother. His eyes are
cheerless.”
“You disturb yourself rather too soon,” Mayakin smilingly replied.
He, too, loved his godson, and when Ignat announced to him one day that
he would take Foma to his own house, Mayakin was very much grieved.
“Leave him here,” he begged. “See, the child is used to us; there! he’s
crying.”
“He’ll cease crying. I did not beget him for you. The air of the
place is disagreeable. It is as tedious here as in an old believer’s
hermitage. This is harmful to the child. And without him I am lonesome.
I come home--it is empty. I can see nothing there. It would not do for
me to remove to your house for his sake. I am not for him, he is for me.
So. And now that my sister has come to my house there will be somebody
to look after him.”
And the boy was brought to his father’s house.
There he was met by a comical old woman, with a long, hook-like nose and
with a mouth devoid of teeth. Tall, stooping, dressed in gray, with gray
hair, covered by a black silk cap, she did not please the boy at first;
she even frightened him. But when he noticed on the wrinkled face her
black eyes, which beamed so tenderly on him, he at once pressed his head
close to her knees in confidence.
“My sickly little orphan!” she said in a velvet-like voice that trembled
from the fulness of sound, and quietly patted his face with her hand,
“stay close to me, my dear child!”
There was something particularly sweet and soft in her caresses,
something altogether new to Foma, and he stared into the old woman’s
eyes with curiosity and expectation on his face. This old woman led him
into a new world, hitherto unknown to him. The very first day, having
put him to bed, she seated herself by his side, and, bending over the
child, asked him:
“Shall I tell you a story, Fomushka?”
And after that Foma always fell asleep amid the velvet-like sounds of
the old woman’s voice, which painted before him a magic life. Giants
defeating monsters, wise princesses, fools who turned out to be
wise--troops of new and wonderful people were passing before the boy’s
bewitched imagination, and his soul was nourished by the wholesome
beauty of the national creative power. Inexhaustible were the treasures
of the memory and the fantasy of this old woman, who oftentimes,
in slumber, appeared to the boy--now like the witch of the
fairy-tales--only a kind and amiable old witch--now like the beautiful,
all-wise Vasilisa. His eyes wide open, holding his breath, the boy
looked into the darkness that filled his chamber and watched it as it
slowly trembled in the light of the little lamp that was burning before
the image. And Foma filled this darkness with wonderful pictures of
fairy-tale life. Silent, yet living shadows, were creeping over the
walls and across the floor; it was both pleasant and terrible to him to
watch their life; to deal out unto them forms and colours, and, having
endowed them with life, instantly to destroy them all with a single
twinkle of the eyelashes. Something new appeared in his dark eyes,
something more childish and naive, less grave; the loneliness and the
darkness, awaking in him a painful feeling of expectation, stirred his
curiosity, compelled him to go out to the dark corner and see what
was hidden there beyond the thick veils of darkness. He went and found
nothing, but he lost no hope of finding it out.
He feared his father and respected him. Ignat’s enormous size, his
harsh, trumpet-like voice, his bearded face, his gray-haired head, his
powerful, long arms and his flashing eyes--all these gave to Ignat the
resemblance of the fairy-tale robbers.
Foma shuddered whenever he heard his voice or his heavy, firm steps; but
when the father, smiling kind-heartedly, and talking playfully in a loud
voice, took him upon his knees or threw him high up in the air with his
big hands the boy’s fear vanished.
Once, when the boy was about eight years old, he asked his father, who
had returned from a long journey:
“Papa, where were you?”
“On the Volga.”
“Were you robbing there?” asked Foma, softly.
“Wha-at?” Ignat drawled out, and his eyebrows contracted.
“Aren’t you a robber, papa? I know it,” said Foma, winking his eyes
slyly, satisfied that he had already read the secret of his father’s
life.
“I am a merchant!” said Ignat, sternly, but after a moment’s thought he
smiled kind-heartedly and added: “And you are a little fool! I deal in
corn, I run a line of steamers. Have you seen the ‘Yermak’? Well, that
is my steamer. And yours, too.”
“It is a very big one,” said Foma with a sigh.
“Well, I’ll buy you a small one while you are small yourself. Shall I?”
“Very well,” Foma assented, but after a thoughtful silence he again
drawled out regretfully: “But I thought you were a robber or a giant.”
“I tell you I am a merchant!” repeated Ignat, insinuatingly, and there
was something discontented and almost timorous in his glance at the
disenchanted face of his son.
“Like Grandpa Fedor, the Kalatch baker?” asked Foma, having thought
awhile.
“Well, yes, like him. Only I am richer than he. I have more money than
Fedor.”
“Have you much money?”
“Well, some people have still more.”
“How many barrels do you have?”
“Of what?”
“Of money, I mean.”
“Fool! Is money counted by the barrel?”
“How else?” exclaimed Foma, enthusiastically, and, turning his face
toward his father, began to tell him quickly: “Maksimka, the robber,
came once to a certain town and filled up twelve barrels with money
belonging to some rich man there. And he took different silverware and
robbed a church. And cut up a man with his sword and threw him down the
steeple because he tried to sound an alarm.”
“Did your aunt tell you that?” asked Ignat admiring his son’s
enthusiasm.
“Yes! Why?”
“Nothing!” said Ignat, laughing. “So you thought your father was a
robber.”
“And perhaps you were a robber long ago?”
Foma again returned to his theme, and it was evident on his face that he
would be very glad to hear an affirmative answer.
“I was never a robber. Let that end it.”
“Never?”
“I tell you I was not! What a queer little boy you are! Is it good to
be a robber? They are all sinners, the robbers. They don’t believe in
God--they rob churches. They are all cursed in the churches. Yes. Look
here, my son, you’ll have to start to study soon. It is time; you’ll
soon be nine years old. Start with the help of God. You’ll study during
the winter and in spring I’ll take you along with me on the Volga.”
“Will I go to school?” asked Foma, timidly.
“First you’ll study at home with auntie.” Soon after the boy would sit
down near the table in the morning and, fingering the Slavonic alphabet,
repeat after his aunt:
“Az, Buky, Vedy.”
When they reached “bra, vra, gra, dra” for a long time the boy could not
read these syllables without laughter. Foma succeeded easily in gaining
knowledge, almost without any effort, and soon he was reading the first
psalm of the first section of the psalter: “Blessed is the man that
walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly.”
“That’s it, my darling! So, Fomushka, that’s right!” chimed in his aunt
with emotion, enraptured by his progress.
“You’re a fine fellow, Foma!” Ignat would approvingly say when informed
of his son’s progress. “We’ll go to Astrakhan for fish in the spring,
and toward autumn I’ll send you to school!”
The boy’s life rolled onward, like a ball downhill. Being his teacher,
his aunt was his playmate as well. Luba Mayakin used to come, and when
with them, the old woman readily became one of them.
They played at “hide and seek” and “blind man’s buff;” the children
were pleased and amused at seeing Anfisa, her eyes covered with a
handkerchief, her arms outstretched, walking about the room carefully,
and yet striking against chairs and tables, or looking for them in each
and every commodious corner, saying:
“Eh, little rascals. Eh, rogues. Where have they hidden themselves? Eh?”
And the sun shone cheerfully and playfully upon the old worn-out body,
which yet retained a youthful soul, and upon the old life, that was
adorning, according to its strength and abilities, the life-path of two
children.
Ignat used to go to the Exchange early in the morning and sometimes
stayed away until evening; in the evening he used to go to the
town council or visiting or elsewhere. Sometimes he returned home
intoxicated. At first Foma, on such occasions, ran from him and hid
himself, then he became accustomed to it, and learned that his father
was better when drunk than sober: he was kinder and plainer and was
somewhat comical. If it happened at night, the boy was usually awakened
by his trumpet-like voice:
“Anfisa! Dear sister! Let me in to my son; let me in to my successor!”
And auntie answered him in a crying and reproachful voice:
“Go on. You better go to sleep, you cursed devil! Drunk again, eh? You
are gray already?”
“Anfisa! May I see my son, with one eye?” Foma knew that Anfisa would
not let him in, and he again fell asleep in spite of the noise of
their voices. But when Ignat came home intoxicated during the day he
immediately seized his son with his enormous paws and carried him about
the rooms, asking him with an intoxicated, happy laughter:
“Fomka! What do you wish? Speak! Presents? Playthings? Ask! Because you
must know there’s nothing in this world that I wouldn’t buy for you. I
have a million! Ha, ha, ha! And I’ll have still more! Understand? All’s
yours! Ha, ha!”
And suddenly his enthusiasm was extinguished like a candle put out by
a violent puff of the wind. His flushed face began to shake, his eyes,
burning red, filled with tears, and his lips expanded into a sad and
frightened smile.
“Anfisa, in case he should die, what am I to do then?”
And immediately after these words he was seized with fury.
“I’d burn everything!” he roared, staring wildly into some dark corner
of the room. “I’d destroy everything! I’d blow it up with dynamite!”
“Enough, you ugly brute! Do you wish to frighten the child? Or do you
want him to take sick?” interposed Anfisa, and that was sufficient for
Ignat to rush off hastily, muttering:
“Well, well, well! I am going, I am going, but don’t cry! Don’t make any
noise. Don’t frighten him.”
And when Foma was somewhat sick, his father, casting everything aside,
did not leave the house for a moment, but bothered his sister and his
son with stupid questions and advice; gloomy, sighing, and with fear in
his eyes, he walked about the house quite out of sorts.
“Why do you vex the Lord?” said Anfisa. “Beware, your grumblings will
reach Him, and He will punish you for your complaints against His
graces.”
“Eh, sister!” sighed Ignat. “And if it should happen? My entire life is
crumbling away! Wherefore have I lived? No one knows.”
Similar scenes and the striking transitions of his father from one mood
to another frightened the child at first, but he soon became accustomed
to all this, and when he noticed through the window that his father,
on coming home, was hardly able to get out of the sledge, Foma said
indifferently:
“Auntie, papa came home drunk again.”
.............................
Spring came, and, fulfilling his promise, Ignat took his son along on
one of his steamers, and here a new life, abounding in impressions, was
opened before Foma’s eyes.
The beautiful and mighty “Yermak,” Gordyeeff’s steam tow-boat, was
rapidly floating down the current, and on each side the shores of the
powerful and beautiful Volga were slowly moving past him--the left side,
all bathed in sunshine, stretching itself to the very end of the sky
like a pompous carpet of verdure; the right shore, its high banks
overgrown with woods, swung skyward, sinking in stern repose.
The broad-bosomed river stretched itself majestically between the
shores; noiselessly, solemnly and slowly flowed its waters, conscious of
their invincible power; the mountainous shore is reflected in the water
in a black shadow, while on the left side it is adorned with gold and
with verdant velvet by a border of sand and the wide meadows. Here and
there villages appear on mountain and on meadow, the sun shines bright
on the window-panes of the huts and on the yellow roofs of straw, the
church crosses sparkle amid the verdure of the trees, gray wind-mill
wings revolve lazily in the air, smoke from the factory chimney rises
skyward in thick, black curling clouds. Crowds of children in blue, red
or white shirts, standing on the banks, shouted loudly at the sight of
the steamer, which had disturbed the quiet of the river, and from under
the steamer’s wheels the cheerful waves are rushing toward the feet
of the children and splash against the bank. Now a crowd of children,
seated in a boat, rowed toward the middle of the river to rock there
on the waves as in a cradle. Trees stood out above the water; sometimes
many of them are drowned in the overflow of the banks, and these stand
in the water like islands. From the shore a melancholy song is heard:
“Oh, o-o-o, once more!”
The steamer passes many rafts, splashing them with waves. The beams are
in continual motion under the blows of the waves; the men on the rafts
in blue shirts, staggering, look at the steamer and laugh and shout
something. The big, beautiful vessel goes sidewise on the river; the
yellow scantlings with which it is loaded sparkle like gold and are
dimly reflected in the muddy, vernal water. A passenger steamer comes
from the opposite side and whistles--the resounding echo of the whistle
loses itself in the woods, in the gorges of the mountainous bank, and
dies away there. In the middle of the river the waves stirred up by the
two vessels strike against one another and splash against the steamers’
sides, and the vessels are rocked upon the water. On the slope of the
mountainous bank are verdant carpets of winter corn, brown strips of
fallow ground and black strips of ground tilled for spring corn. Birds,
like little dots, soar over them, and are clearly seen in the blue
canopy of the sky; nearby a flock is grazing; in the distance they look
like children’s toys; the small figure of the shepherd stands leaning on
a staff, and looks at the river.
The glare of the water--freedom and liberty are everywhere, the meadows
are cheerfully verdant and the blue sky is tenderly clear; a restrained
power is felt in the quiet motion of the water; above it the generous
May sun is shining, the air is filled with the exquisite odour of
fir trees and of fresh foliage. And the banks keep on meeting them,
caressing the eyes and the soul with their beauty, as new pictures
constantly unfold themselves.
Everything surrounding them bears the stamp of some kind of tardiness:
all--nature as well as men--live there clumsily, lazily; but in that
laziness there is an odd gracefulness, and it seems as though beyond the
laziness a colossal power were concealed; an invincible power, but as
yet deprived of consciousness, as yet without any definite desires and
aims. And the absence of consciousness in this half-slumbering life
throws shades of sadness over all the beautiful slope. Submissive
patience, silent hope for something new and more inspiriting are heard
even in the cry of the cuckoo, wafted to the river by the wind from the
shore. The melancholy songs sound as though imploring someone for help.
And at times there is in them a ring of despair. The river answers the
songs with sighs. And the tree-tops shake, lost in meditation. Silence.
Foma spent all day long on the captain’s bridge beside his father.
Without uttering a word, he stared wide-eyed at the endless panorama of
the banks, and it seemed to him he was moving along a broad silver path
in those wonderful kingdoms inhabited by the sorcerers and giants of his
familiar fairy-tales. At times he would load his father with questions
about everything that passed before them. Ignat answered him willingly
and concisely, but the boy was not pleased with his answers; they
contained nothing interesting and intelligible to him, and he did not
hear what he longed to hear. Once he told his father with a sigh:
“Auntie Anfisa knows better than you.”
“What does she know?” asked Ignat, smiling.
“Everything,” replied the boy, convincedly.
No wonderful kingdom appeared before him. But often cities appeared on
the banks of the river, just such cities as the one where Foma lived.
Some of them were larger, some smaller, but the people, and the houses,
and the churches--all were the same as in his own city. Foma examined
them in company with his father, but was still unsatisfied and returned
to the steamer gloomy and fatigued.
“Tomorrow we shall be in Astrakhan,” said Ignat one day.
“And is it just the same as the other cities?”
“Of course. How else should it be?”
“And what is beyond Astrakhan?”
“The sea. The Caspian Sea it is called.”
“And what is there?”
“Fishes, queer fellow! What else can there be in the water?”
“There’s the city Kitezh standing in the water.”
“That’s a different thing! That’s Kitezh. Only righteous people live
there.”
“And are there no righteous cities on the sea?”
“No,” said Ignat, and, after a moment’s silence, added: “The sea water is
bitter and nobody can drink it.”
“And is there more land beyond the sea?”
“Certainly, the sea must have an end. It is like a cup.”
“And are there cities there too?”
“Again cities. Of course! Only that land is not ours, it belongs to
Persia. Did you see the Persians selling pistachio-nuts and apricots in
the market?”
“Yes, I saw them,” replied Foma, and became pensive.
One day he asked his father:
“Is there much more land left?”
“The earth is very big, my dear! If you should go on foot, you couldn’t
go around it even in ten years.”
Ignat talked for a long time with his son about the size of the earth,
and said at length:
“And yet no one knows for certain how big it really is, nor where it
ends.”
“And is everything alike on earth?”
“What do you mean?”
“The cities and all?”
“Well, of course, the cities are like cities. There are houses,
streets--and everything that is necessary.”
After many similar conversations the boy no longer stared so often into
the distance with the interrogative look of his black eyes.
The crew of the steamer loved him, and he, too, loved those fine,
sun-burnt and weather-beaten fellows, who laughingly played with him.
They made fishing tackles for him, and little boats out of bark, played
with him and rowed him about the anchoring place, when Ignat went to
town on business. The boy often heard the men talking about his father,
but he paid no attention to what they said, and never told his father
what he heard about him. But one day, in Astrakhan, while the steamer
was taking in a cargo of fuel, Foma heard the voice of Petrovich, the
machinist:
“He ordered such a lot of wood to be taken in. What an absurd man! First
he loads the steamer up to the very deck, and then he roars. ‘You
break the machinery too often,’ he says. ‘You pour oil,’ he says, ‘at
random.’”
The voice of the gray and stern pilot replied:
“It’s all his exorbitant greediness. Fuel is cheaper here, so he is
taking all he can. He is greedy, the devil!”
“Oh, how greedy!”
This word, repeated many times in succession, fixed itself in Foma’s
memory, and in the evening, at supper, he suddenly asked his father:
“Papa!”
“What?”
“Are you greedy?”
In reply to his father’s questions Foma told him of the conversation
between the pilot and the machinist. Ignat’s face became gloomy, and his
eyes began to flash angrily.
“That’s how it is,” ejaculated Ignat, shaking his head. “Well,
you--don’t you listen to them. They are not your equals; don’t have
so much to do with them. You are their master, they are your servants,
understand that. If we choose to, we can put every one of them ashore.
They are cheap and they can be found everywhere like dogs. Understand?
They may say many bad things about me. But they say them, because I am
their master. The whole thing arises because I am fortunate and rich,
and the rich are always envied. A happy man is everybody’s enemy.”
About two days later there was a new pilot and another machinist on the
steamer.
“And where is Yakov?” asked the boy.
“I discharged him. I ordered him away.”
“For that?” queried Foma.
“Yes, for that very thing.”
“And Petrovich, too?”
“Yes, I sent him the same way.”
Foma was pleased with the fact that his father was able to change the
men so quickly. He smiled to his father, and, coming out on the deck,
walked up to a sailor, who sat on the floor, untwisting a piece of rope
and making a swab.
“We have a new pilot here,” announced Foma.
“I know. Good health to you, Foma Ignatich! How did you sleep?”
“And a new machinist, too.”
“And a new machinist. Are you sorry for Petrovich?”
“Really? And he was so good to you.”
“Well, why did he abuse my father?”
“Oh? Did he abuse him?”
“Of course he did. I heard it myself.”
“Mm--and your father heard it, too?”
“No, I told him.”
“You--so”--drawled the sailor and became silent, taking up his work
again.
“And papa says to me: ‘You,’ he says, ‘you are master here--you can
drive them all away if you wish.’”
“So,” said the sailor, gloomily looking at the boy, who was so
enthusiastically boasting to him of his supreme power. From that day
on Foma noticed that the crew did not regard him as before. Some became
more obliging and kind, others did not care to speak to him, and
when they did speak to him, it was done angrily, and not at all
entertainingly, as before. Foma liked to watch while the deck was being
washed: their trousers rolled up to their knees, or sometimes taken off
altogether, the sailors, with swabs and brushes in their hands, cleverly
ran about the deck, emptying pails of water on it, besprinkling one
another, laughing, shouting, falling. Streams of water ran in every
direction, and the lively noise of the men intermingled with the gray
splash of the water. Before, the boy never bothered the sailors in this
playful and light work; nay, he took an active part, besprinkling them
with water and laughingly running away, when they threatened to pour
water over him. But after Yakov and Petrovich had been discharged, he
felt that he was in everybody’s way, that no one cared to play with him
and that no one regarded him kindly. Surprised and melancholy, he left
the deck, walked up to the wheel, sat down there, and, offended, he
thoughtfully began to stare at the distant green bank and the dented
strip of woods upon it. And below, on the deck, the water was splashing
playfully, and the sailors were gaily laughing. He yearned to go down to
them, but something held him back.
“Keep away from them as much as possible,” he recalled his father’s
words; “you are their master.” Then he felt like shouting at the
sailors--something harsh and authoritative, so his father would scold
them. He thought a long time what to say, but could not think of
anything. Another two, three days passed, and it became perfectly clear
to him that the crew no longer liked him. He began to feel lonesome on
the steamer, and amid the parti-coloured mist of new impressions, still
more often there came up before Foma the image of his kind and gentle
Aunt Anfisa, with her stories, and smiles, and soft, ringing laughter,
which filled the boy’s soul with a joyous warmth. He still lived in the
world of fairy-tales, but the invisible and pitiless hand of reality
was already at work tearing the beautiful, fine web of the wonderful,
through which the boy had looked at everything about him. The incident
with the machinist and the pilot directed his attention to his
surroundings; Foma’s eyes became more sharp-sighted. A conscious
searchfulness appeared in them and in his questions to his father rang a
yearning to understand which threads and springs were managing the deeds
of men.
One day a scene took place before him: the sailors were carrying wood,
and one of them, the young, curly-haired and gay Yefim, passing the deck
of the ship with hand-barrows, said loudly and angrily:
“No, he has no conscience whatever! There was no agreement that I should
carry wood. A sailor--well, one’s business is clear--but to carry wood
into the bargain--thank you! That means for me to take off the skin I
have not sold. He is without conscience! He thinks it is clever to sap
the life out of us.”
The boy heard this grumbling and knew that it was concerning his father.
He also noticed that although Yefim was grumbling, he carried more wood
on his stretcher than the others, and walked faster than the others.
None of the sailors replied to Yefim’s grumbling, and even the one who
worked with him was silent, only now and then protesting against the
earnestness with which Yefim piled up the wood on the stretchers.
“Enough!” he would say, morosely, “you are not loading a horse, are
you?”
“And you had better keep quiet. You were put to the cart--cart it and
don’t kick--and should your blood be sucked--keep quiet again. What can
you say?”
Suddenly Ignat appeared, walked up to the sailor and, stopping in front
of him, asked sternly:
“What were you talking about?”
“I am talking--I know,” replied Yefim, hesitating. “There was no
agreement--that I must say nothing.”
“And who is going to suck blood?” asked Ignat, stroking his beard.
The sailor understood that he had been caught unawares, and seeing no
way out of it, he let the log of wood fall from his hands, rubbed his
palms against his pants, and, facing Ignat squarely, said rather boldly:
“And am I not right? Don’t you suck it?”
“I?”
“You.”
Foma saw that his father swung his hand. A loud blow resounded, and the
sailor fell heavily on the wood. He arose immediately and worked on in
silence. Blood was trickling from his bruised face on to the white bark
of the birch wood; he wiped the blood off his face with the sleeve of
his shirt, looked at his sleeve and, heaving a sigh, maintained silence,
and when he went past Foma with the hand-harrows, two big, turbid
tears were trembling on his face, near the bridge of his nose, and Foma
noticed them.
At dinner Foma was pensive and now and then glanced at his father with
fear in his eyes.
“Why do you frown?” asked his father, gently.
“Frown?”
“Are you ill, perhaps? Be careful. If there is anything, tell me.”
“You are strong,” said Foma of a sudden musingly.
“I? That’s right. God has favoured me with strength.”
“How hard you struck him!” exclaimed the boy in a low voice, lowering
his head.
Ignat was about to put a piece of bread with caviar into his mouth,
but his hand stopped, held back by his son’s exclamation; he looked
interrogatively at Foma’s drooping head and asked:
“You mean Yefim, don’t you?”
“Yes, he was bleeding. And how he walked afterward, how he cried,” said
the boy in a low voice.
“Mm,” roared Ignat, chewing a bite. “Well, are you sorry for him?”
“It’s a pity!” said Foma, with tears in his voice.
“Yes. So that’s the kind of a fellow you are,” said Ignat.
Then, after a moment’s silence, he filled a wineglass with vodka,
emptied it, and said sternly, in a slightly reprimanding tone:
“There is no reason why you should pity him. He brawled at random,
and therefore got what he deserved. I know him: he is a good fellow,
industrious, strong and not a bit foolish. But to argue is not his
business; I may argue, because I am the master. It isn’t simple to be
master. A punch wouldn’t kill him, but will make him wiser. That’s
the way. Eh, Foma! You are an infant, and you do not understand these
things. I must teach you how to live. It may be that my days on earth
are numbered.”
Ignat was silent for awhile, drank some more vodka and went on
instinctively:
“It is necessary to have pity on men. You are right in doing so. But you
must pity them sensibly. First look at a man, find out what good there
is in him, and what use may be made of him! And if you find him to
be strong and capable--pity and assist him. And if he is weak and
not inclined to work--spit upon him, pass him by. Just keep this in
mind--the man who complains against everything, who sighs and moans all
the time--that man is worth nothing; he merits no compassion and you
will do him no good whatever, even if you help him. Pity for such people
makes them more morose, spoils them the more. In your godfather’s house
you saw various kinds of people--unfortunate travellers and hangers-on,
and all sorts of rabble. Forget them. They are not men, they are just
shells, and are good for nothing. They are like bugs, fleas and other
unclean things. Nor do they live for God’s sake--they have no God. They
call His name in vain, in order to move fools to pity, and, thus pitied,
to fill their bellies with something. They live but for their bellies,
and aside from eating, drinking, sleeping and moaning they can do
nothing. And all they accomplish is the soul’s decay. They are in your
way and you trip over them. A good man among them--like fresh apples
among bad ones--may soon be spoilt, and no one will profit by it. You
are young, that’s the trouble. You cannot comprehend my words. Help him
who is firm in misery. He may not ask you for assistance, but think of
it yourself, and assist him without his request. And if he should happen
to be proud and thus feel offended at your aid, do not allow him to see
that you are lending him a helping hand. That’s the way it should be
done, according to common sense! Here, for example, two boards, let us
say, fall into the mud--one of them is a rotten one, the other, a good
sound board. What should you do? What good is there in the rotten board?
You had better drop it, let it stay in the mud and step on it so as not
to soil your feet. As to the sound board, lift it up and place it in the
sun; if it can be of no use to you, someone else may avail himself of
it. That’s the way it is, my son! Listen to me and remember. There is no
reason why Yefim should be pitied. He is a capable fellow, he knows his
value. You cannot knock his soul out with a box on the ear. I’ll just
watch him for about a week, and then I’ll put him at the helm. And
there, I am quite sure, he’ll be a good pilot. And if he should be
promoted to captain, he wouldn’t lose courage--he would make a clever
captain! That’s the way people grow. I have gone through this school
myself, dear. I, too, received more than one box on the ear when I was
of his age. Life, my son, is not a dear mother to all of us. It is our
exacting mistress.”
Ignat talked with his son about two hours, telling him of his own youth,
of his toils, of men; their terrible power, and of their weakness; of
how they live, and sometimes pretend to be unfortunate in order to live
on other people’s money; and then he told him of himself, and of how he
rose from a plain working man to be proprietor of a large concern. The
boy listened to his words, looked at him and felt as though his father
were coming nearer and nearer to him. And though his father’s story
did not contain the material of which Aunt Anfisa’s fairy-tales were
brimful, there was something new in it, something clearer and
more comprehensible than in her fairy-tales, and something just as
interesting. Something powerful and warm began to throb within his
little heart, and he was drawn toward his father. Ignat, evidently,
surmised his son’s feelings by his eyes: he rose abruptly from his seat,
seized him in his arms and pressed him firmly to his breast. And Foma
embraced his neck, and, pressing his cheek to that of his father, was
silent and breathed rapidly.
“My son,” whispered Ignat in a dull voice, “My darling! My joy! Learn
while I am alive. Alas! it is hard to live.”
The child’s heart trembled at this whisper; he set his teeth together,
and hot tears gushed from his eyes.
Until this day Ignat had never kindled any particular feeling in his
son: the boy was used to him; he was tired of looking at his enormous
figure, and feared him slightly, but was at the same time aware that his
father would do anything for him that he wanted. Sometimes Ignat would
stay away from home a day, two, a week, or possibly the entire summer.
And yet Foma did not even notice his absence, so absorbed was he by his
love for Aunt Anfisa. When Ignat returned the boy was glad, but he could
hardly tell whether it was his father’s arrival that gladdened him or
the playthings he brought with him. But now, at the sight of Ignat, the
boy ran to meet him, grasped him by the hand, laughed, stared into his
eyes and felt weary if he did not see him for two or three hours: His
father became interesting to him, and, rousing his curiosity, he fairly
developed love and respect for himself. Every time that they were
together Foma begged his father:
“Papa, tell me about yourself.”
.........................
The steamer was now going up the Volga. One suffocating night in July,
when the sky was overcast with thick black clouds, and everything on the
Volga was somewhat ominously calm, they reached Kazan and anchored near
Uslon at the end of an enormous fleet of vessels. The clinking of the
anchor chains and the shouting of the crew awakened Foma; he looked
out of the window and saw, far in the distance, small lights glimmering
fantastically: the water about the boat black and thick, like oil--and
nothing else could be seen. The boy’s heart trembled painfully and he
began to listen attentively. A scarcely audible, melancholy song reached
his ears--mournful and monotonous as a chant on the caravan the watchmen
called to one another; the steamer hissed angrily getting up steam.
And the black water of the river splashed sadly and quietly against the
sides of the vessels. Staring fixedly into the darkness, until his eyes
hurt, the boy discerned black piles and small lights dimly burning high
above them. He knew that those were barges, but this knowledge did
not calm him and his heart throbbed unevenly, and, in his imagination,
terrifying dark images arose.
“O-o-o,” a drawling cry came from the distance and ended like a wail.
Someone crossed the deck and went up to the side of the steamer.
“O-o-o,” was heard again, but nearer this time.
“Yefim!” some one called in a low voice on the deck. “Yefimka!”
“Well?”
“Devil! Get up! Take the boat-hook.”
“O-o-o,” someone moaned near by, and Foma, shuddering, stepped back from
the window.
The queer sound came nearer and nearer and grew in strength, sobbed and
died out in the darkness. While on the deck they whispered with alarm:
“Yefimka! Get up! A guest is floating!”
“Where?” came a hasty question, then bare feet began to patter about the
deck, a bustle was heard, and two boat-hooks slipped down past the boy’s
face and almost noiselessly plunged into the water.
“A gue-e-est!” Some began to sob near by, and a quiet, but very queer
splash resounded.
The boy trembled with fright at this mournful cry, but he could not tear
his hands from the window nor his eyes from the water.
“Light the lantern. You can’t see anything.”
“Directly.”
And then a spot of dim light fell over the water. Foma saw that the
water was rocking calmly, that a ripple was passing over it, as though
the water were afflicted, and trembled for pain.
“Look! Look!” they whispered on the deck with fright.
At the same time a big, terrible human face, with white teeth set
together, appeared on the spot of light. It floated and rocked in the
water, its teeth seemed to stare at Foma as though saying, with a smile:
“Eh, boy, boy, it is cold. Goodbye!”
The boat-hooks shook, were lifted in the air, were lowered again into
the water and carefully began to push something there.
“Shove him! Shove! Look out, he may be thrown under the wheel.”
“Shove him yourself then.”
The boat-hooks glided over the side of the steamer, and, scratching
against it, produced a noise like the grinding of teeth. Foma could
not close his eyes for watching them. The noise of feet stamping on the
deck, over his head, was gradually moving toward the stern. And then
again that moaning cry for the dead was heard:
“A gue-e-est!”
“Papa!” cried Foma in a ringing voice. “Papa!” His father jumped to his
feet and rushed toward him.
“What is that? What are they doing there?” cried Foma.
Wildly roaring, Ignat jumped out of the cabin with huge bounds. He soon
returned, sooner than Foma, staggering and looking around him, had time
to reach his father’s bed.
“They frightened you? It’s nothing!” said Ignat, taking him up in his
arms. “Lie down with me.”
“What is it?” asked Foma, quietly.
“It was nothing, my son. Only a drowned man. A man was drowned and he is
floating. That’s nothing! Don’t be afraid, he has already floated clear
of us.”
“Why did they push him?” interrogated the boy, firmly pressing close to
his father, and shutting his eyes for fright.
“It was necessary to do so. The water might have thrown him under the
wheel. Under ours, for instance. Tomorrow the police would notice
it, there would be trouble, inquests, and we would be held here for
examination. That’s why we shoved him along. What difference does it
make to him? He is dead; it doesn’t pain him; it doesn’t offend him. And
the living would be troubled on his account. Sleep, my son.
“So he will float on that way?”
“He will float. They’ll take him out somewhere and bury him.”
“And will a fish devour him?”
“Fish do not eat human bodies. Crabs eat them. They like them.”
Foma’s fright was melting, from the heat of his father’s body, but
before his eyes the terrible sneering face was still rocking in the
black water.
“And who is he?”
“God knows! Say to God about him: ‘Oh Lord, rest his soul! ’”
“Lord, rest his soul!” repeated Foma, in a whisper.
“That’s right. Sleep now, don’t fear. He is far away now! Floating on.
See here, be careful as you go up to the side of the ship. You may fall
overboard. God forbid! And--”
“Did he fall overboard?”
“Of course. Perhaps he was drunk, and that’s his end! And maybe he threw
himself into the water. There are people who do that. They go and throw
themselves into the water and are drowned. Life, my dear, is so arranged
that death is sometimes a holiday for one, sometimes it is a blessing
for all.”
“Papa.”
“Sleep, sleep, dear.”