HIS father’s death stupefied Foma and filled him with a strange
sensation; quiet was poured into his soul--a painful, immovable quiet,
which absorbed all the sounds of life without accounting for it.
All sorts of acquaintances were bustling about him; they appeared,
disappeared, said something to him--his replies to them were untimely,
and their words called forth no images in him, drowning, without leaving
any trace, in the bottomless depths of the death-like silence which
filled his soul. He neither cried, nor grieved, nor thought of anything;
pale and gloomy, with knitted brow, he was attentively listening to this
quiet, which had forced out all his feelings, benumbed his heart and
tightly clutched his brains. He was conscious but of the purely physical
sensation of heaviness in all his frame and particularly in his breast,
and then it also seemed to him that it was always twilight, and even
though the sun was still high in the sky--everything on earth looked
dark and melancholy.
The funeral was arranged by Mayakin. Hastily and briskly he was bustling
about in the rooms, making much clatter with the heels of his boots;
he cried at the household help imperiously, clapped his godson on the
shoulder, consoling him:
“And why are you petrified? Roar and you will feel relieved. Your father
was old--old in body. Death is prepared for all of us, you cannot escape
it--consequently you must not be prematurely torpid. You cannot bring
him to life again with your sorrow, and your grief is unnecessary
to him, for it is said: ‘When the body is robbed of the soul by the
terrible angels, the soul forgets all relatives and acquaintances,’
which means that you are of no consequence to him now, whether you cry
or laugh. But the living must care for the living. You had better cry,
for this is human. It brings much relief to the heart.”
But neither did these words provoke anything in Foma’s head or in his
heart. He came to himself, however, on the day of the funeral, thanks to
the persistence of his godfather, who was assiduously and oddly trying
to rouse his sad soul.
The day of the funeral was cloudy and dreary. Amid a heavy cloud of dust
an enormous crowd of people, winding like a black ribbon, followed
the coffin of Ignat Gordyeeff. Here and there flashed the gold of the
priest’s robes, and the dull noise of the slow movement of the crowd
blended in harmony with the solemn music of the choir, composed of the
bishop’s choristers. Foma was pushed from behind and from the sides; he
walked, seeing nothing but the gray head of his father, and the mournful
singing resounded in his heart like a melancholy echo. And Mayakin,
walking beside him, kept on intrusively whispering in his ears:
“Look, what a crowd--thousands! The governor himself came out to
accompany your father to the church, the mayor, and almost the entire
city council. And behind you--just turn around! There goes Sophya
Pavlovna. The town pays its respects to Ignat.”
At first Foma did not listen to his godfather’s whisper, but when he
mentioned Medinskaya, he involuntarily looked back and noticed the
governor. A little drop of something pleasant fell into his heart at
the sight of this important personage, with a bright ribbon across
his shoulder, with orders on his breast, pacing after the coffin, an
expression of sorrow on his stern countenance.
“Blessed is the road where this soul goeth today,” Yakov Tarasovich
hummed softly, moving his nose, and he again whispered in his godson’s
ear:
“Seventy-five thousand roubles is such a sum that you can demand so many
escorts for it. Have you heard that Sonka is making arrangements for the
laying of the corner-stone on the fifteenth? Just forty days after the
death of your father.”
Foma again turned back, and his eyes met the eyes of Medinskaya. He
heaved a deep sigh at her caressing glance, and felt relieved at once,
as if a warm ray of light penetrated his soul and something melted
there. And then and there he considered that it was unbecoming him to
turn his head from side to side.
At church Foma’s head began to ache, and it seemed to him that
everything around and underneath him was shaking. In the stifling air,
filled with dust, with the breathing of the people and the smoke of
the incense, the flames of the candles were timidly trembling. The meek
image of Christ looked down at him from the big ikon, and the flames
of the candles, reflected in the tarnished gold of the crown over the
Saviour’s brow, reminded him of drops of blood.
Foma’s awakened soul was greedily feeding itself on the solemn, gloomy
poetry of the liturgy, and when the touching citation was heard, “Come,
let us give him the last kiss,” a loud, wailing sob escaped from Foma’s
chest, and the crowd in church was stirred to agitation by this outburst
of grief.
Having uttered the sob, Foma staggered. His godfather immediately caught
him by his arms and began to push him forward to the coffin, singing
quite loudly and with some anger:
“Kiss him who was but lately with us.
Kiss, Foma, kiss him--he is given over to the grave, covered with a stone.
He is settling down in darkness, and is buried with the dead.”
Foma touched his father’s forehead with his lips and sprang back from
the coffin with horror.
“Hold your peace! You nearly knocked me down,” Mayakin remarked to him,
in a low voice, and these simple, calm words supported Foma better than
his godfather’s hands.
“Ye that behold me mute and lifeless before you, weep for me, brethren
and friends,” begged Ignat through the mouth of the Church. But his son
was not crying any longer; his horror was called forth by the black,
swollen face of his father, and this horror somewhat sobered his soul,
which had been intoxicated by the mournful music of the Church’s lament
for its sinful son. He was surrounded by acquaintances, who were kindly
consoling him; he listened to them and understood that they all felt
sorry for him and that he became dear to them. And his godfather
whispered in his ear:
“See, how they all fawn upon you. The tom-cats have smelt the fat.”
These words were unpleasant to Foma, but they were useful to him, as
they caused him to answer at all events.
At the cemetery, when they sang for Ignat’s eternal memory, he cried
again bitterly and loud. His godfather immediately seized him by the
arms and led him away from the grave, speaking to him earnestly:
“What a faint-hearted fellow you are! Do I not feel sorry for him? I
have known his real value, while you were but his son. And yet, I do
not cry. For more than thirty years we lived together in perfect
harmony--how much had been spoken, how much thought--how much sorrow
drunk. You are young; it is not for you to grieve! Your life is before
you, and you will be rich in all sorts of friendship; while I am old,
and now that I buried my only friend, I am like a pauper. I can no
longer make a bosom friend!”
The old man’s voice began to jar and squeak queerly. His face was
distorted, his lips were stretched into a big grimace and were
quivering, and from his small eyes frequent tears were running over the
now contracted wrinkles of his face. He looked so pitiful and so unlike
himself, that Foma stopped short, pressed him close to his body with the
tenderness of a strong man and cried with alarm:
“Don’t cry, father--darling! Don’t cry.”
“There you have it!” said Mayakin, faintly, and, heaving a deep sigh, he
suddenly turned again into a firm and clever old man.
“You must not cry,” said he, mysteriously, seating himself in the
carriage beside his godson. “You are now the commander-in-chief in the
war and you must command your soldiers bravely. Your soldiers are the
roubles, and you have a great army of these. Make war incessantly!”
Surprised at the quickness of his transformation, Foma listened to his
words and for some reason or other they reminded him of those clods of
earth, which the people threw into Ignat’s grave upon his coffin.
“On whom am I to make war?” said Foma with a sigh.
“I’ll teach you that! Did your father tell you that I was a clever old
man and that you should mind me?”
“He did.”
“Then do mind me! If my mind should be added to your youthful strength,
a good victory might be won. Your father was a great man, but he did not
look far before him and he could not take my advice. He gained success
in life not with his mind, but more with his head. Oh, what will become
of you? You had better move into my house, for you will feel lonesome in
yours.”
“Aunt is there.”
“Aunt? She is sick. She will not live long.”
“Do not speak of it,” begged Foma in a low voice.
“And I will speak of it. You need not fear death--you are not an old
woman on the oven. Live fearlessly and do what you were appointed to
do. Man is appointed for the organisation of life on earth. Man is
capital--like a rouble, he is made up of trashy copper groshes and
copecks. From the dust of the earth, as it is said; and even as he
has intercourse with the world, he absorbs grease and oil, sweat and
tears--a soul and a mind form themselves in him. And from this he starts
to grow upward and downward. Now, you see his price is a grosh, now a
fifteen copeck silver piece, now a hundred roubles, and sometimes he is
above any price. He is put into circulation and he must bring interests
to life. Life knows the value of each of us and will not check our
course before time. Nobody, dear, works to his own detriment, if he is
wise. And life has saved up much wisdom. Are you listening?”
“I am.”
“And what do you understand?”
“Everything.”
“You are probably lying?” Mayakin doubted.
“But, why must we die?” asked Foma in a low voice.
Mayakin looked into his face with regret, smacked his lips and said:
“A wise man would never ask such a question. A wise man knows for
himself that if it is a river, it must be flowing somewhere, and if it
were standing in one place, it would be a swamp.”
“You’re simply mocking me at random,” said Foma, sternly. “The sea is
not flowing anywhere.”
“The sea receives all rivers into itself, and then, powerful storms rage
in it at times. Then the sea of life also submits on agitation, stirred
up by men, and death renovates the waters of the sea of life, that they
might not become spoiled. No matter how many people are dying, they are
nevertheless forever growing in number.”
“What of it? But my father is dead.”
“You will die as well.”
“Then what have I to do with the fact that people are growing in
number?” Foma smiled sadly.
“Eh, he, he!” sighed Mayakin. “That, indeed, concerns none of us. There,
your trousers probably reason in the same way: what have we to do with
the fact that there are all sorts of stuff in the world? But you do not
mind them--you wear them out and throw them away.”
Foma glanced at his godfather reproachfully, and noticing that the old
man was smiling, he was astonished and he asked respectfully:
“Can it be true, father, that you do not fear death?”
“Most of all I fear foolishness, my child,” replied Mayakin with humble
bitterness. “My opinion is this: if a fool give you honey, spit upon it;
if a wise man give you poison, drink it! And I will tell you that the
perch has a weak soul since his fins do not stand on end.”
The old man’s mocking words offended and angered Foma. He turned aside
and said:
“You can never speak without these subterfuges.”
“I cannot!” exclaimed Mayakin, and his eyes began to sparkle with alarm.
“Each man uses the very same tongue he has. Do I seem to be stern? Do
I?”
Foma was silent.
“Eh, you. Know this--he loves who teaches. Remember this well. And as to
death, do not think of it. It is foolish, dear, for a live man to think
of death. ‘Ecclesiastes’ reflected on death better than anybody else
reflected on it, and said that a living dog is better than a dead lion.”
They came home. The street near the house was crowded with carriages,
and from the open windows came loud sounds of talk. As soon as Foma
appeared in the hall, he was seized by the arms and led away to the
table and there was urged to drink and eat something. A marketplace
noise smote the air; the hall was crowded and suffocating. Silently,
Foma drank a glass of vodka, then another, and a third. Around him they
were munching and smacking their lips; the vodka poured out from the
bottles was gurgling, the wine-glasses were tinkling. They were speaking
of dried sturgeon and of the bass of the soloist of the bishop’s choir,
and then again of the dried sturgeon, and then they said that the mayor
also wished to make a speech, but did not venture to do so after the
bishop had spoken, fearing lest he should not speak so well as the
bishop. Someone was telling with feeling:
“The deceased one used to do thus: he would cut off a slice of salmon,
pepper it thickly, cover it with another slice of salmon, and then send
it down immediately after a drink.”
“Let us follow his example,” roared a thick basso. Offended to the
quick, Foma looked with a frown at the fat lips and at the jaws chewing
the tasty food, and he felt like crying out and driving away all these
people, whose sedateness had but lately inspired him with respect for
them.
“You had better be more kind, more sociable,” said Mayakin in a low
voice, coming up to him.
“Why are they gobbling here? Is this a tavern?” cried Foma, angrily.
“Hush,” Mayakin remarked with fright and hastily turned to look around
with a kind smile on his face.
But it was too late; his smile was of no avail. Foma’s words had been
overheard, the noise and the talk was subsiding, some of the guests
began to bustle about hurriedly, others, offended, frowned, put down
their forks and knives and walked away from the table, all looking at
Foma askance.
Silent and angry, he met these glances without lowering his eyes.
“I ask you to come up to the table!” cried Mayakin, gleaming amid the
crowd of people like an ember amid ashes. “Be seated, pray! They’re soon
serving pancakes.”
Foma shrugged his shoulders and walked off toward the door, saying
aloud:
“I shall not eat.”
He heard a hostile rumbling behind him and his godfather’s wheedling
voice saying to somebody:
“It’s for grief. Ignat was at once father and mother to him.”
Foma came out in the garden and sat down on the same place where his
father had died. The feeling of loneliness and grief oppressed his
heart. He unbuttoned the collar of his shirt to make his breathing
easier, rested his elbows on the table, and with his head tightly
pressed between his hands, he sat motionless. It was drizzling and the
leaves of the apple-tree were rustling mournfully under the drops of the
rain. He sat there for a long time alone, motionless, watching how the
small drops were falling from the apple-tree. His head was heavy from
the vodka, and in his heart there was a growing grudge against men.
Some indefinite, impersonal feelings and thoughts were springing up and
vanishing within him; before him flashed the bald skull of his godfather
with a little crown of silver hair and with a dark face, which resembled
the faces of the ancient ikons. This face with the toothless mouth and
the malicious smile, rousing in Foma hatred and fear, augmented in
him the consciousness of solitude. Then he recalled the kind eyes of
Medinskaya and her small, graceful figure; and beside her arose the
tall, robust, and rosy-cheeked Lubov Mayakina with smiling eyes and with
a big light golden-coloured braid. “Do not rely upon men, expect but
little at their hands”--his father’s words began to ring in his memory.
He sighed sadly and cast a glance around him. The tree leaves were
fluttering from the rain, and the air was full of mournful sounds. The
gray sky seemed as though weeping, and on the trees cold tears were
trembling. And Foma’s soul was dry, dark; it was filled with a painful
feeling of orphanhood. But this feeling gave birth to the question:
“How shall I live now that I am alone?”
The rain drenched his clothes, and when he felt that he was shivering
with cold he arose and went into the house.
Life was tugging him from all sides, giving him no chance to be
concentrated in thinking of and grieving for his father, and on the
fortieth day after Ignat’s death Foma, attired in holiday clothes,
with a pleasant feeling in his heart, went to the ceremony of the
corner-stone laying of the lodging-asylum. Medinskaya notified him in
a letter the day before, that he had been elected as a member of the
building committee and also as honorary member of the society of which
she was president. This pleased him and he was greatly agitated by the
part he was to play today at the laying of the corner-stone. On his way
he thought of how everything would be and how he should behave in order
not to be confused before the people.
“Eh, eh! Hold on!”
He turned around. Mayakin came hastening to him from the sidewalk.
He was in a frock-coat that reached his heels, in a high cap, and he
carried a huge umbrella in his hand.
“Come on, take me up there,” said the old man, cleverly jumping into the
carriage like a monkey. “To tell the truth, I was waiting for you. I was
looking around, thinking it was time for you to go.”
“Are you going there?” asked Foma.
“Of course! I must see how they will bury my friend’s money in the
ground.”
Foma looked at him askance and was silent. “Why do you frown upon me?
Don’t fear, you will also start out as a benefactor among men.”
“What do you mean?” asked Foma, reservedly. “I’ve read in the newspaper
this morning that you were elected as a member of the building committee
and also as an honorary member of Sophya’s society.”
“Yes.”
“This membership will eat into your pocket!” sighed Mayakin.
“That wouldn’t ruin me.”
“I don’t know it,” observed the old man, maliciously.
“I speak of this more because there is altogether very little wisdom in
this charity business, and I may even say that it isn’t a business at
all, but simply harmful nonsense.”
“Is it harmful to aid people?” asked Foma, hotly.
“Eh, you cabbage head!” said Mayakin with a smile. “You had better come
up to my house, I’ll open your eyes in regard to this. I must teach you!
Will you come?”
“Very well, I will come!” replied Foma.
“So. And in the meantime, hold yourself proud at the laying of the
corner-stone. Stand in view of everybody. If I don’t tell this to you,
you might hide yourself behind somebody’s back.”
“Why should I hide myself?” said Foma, displeased.
“That’s just what I say: there is no reason why. For the money was
donated by your father and you are entitled to the honour as his heir.
Honour is just the same as money. With honour a business man will get
credit everywhere, and everywhere there is a way open to him. Then come
forward, so that everybody may see you and that if you do five copecks’
worth of work, you should get a rouble in return for it. And if you will
hide yourself--nothing but foolishness will be the result.”
They arrived at their destination, where all the important people had
gathered already, and an enormous crowd of people surrounded the piles
of wood, bricks and earth. The bishop, the governor, the representatives
of the city’s aristocracy and the administration formed, together with
the splendidly dressed ladies, a big bright group and looked at the
efforts of the two stonemasons, who were preparing the bricks and the
lime. Mayakin and his godson wended their way toward this group. He
whispered to Foma:
“Lose no courage, these people have robbed their bellies to cover
themselves with silk.”
And he greeted the governor before the bishop, in a respectfully
cheerful voice.
“How do you do, your Excellency? Give me your blessing, your Holiness!”
“Ah, Yakov Tarasovich!” exclaimed the governor with a friendly smile,
shaking and squeezing Mayakin’s hand, while the old man was at the same
time kissing the bishop’s hand. “How are you, deathless old man?”
“I thank you humbly, your Excellency! My respects to Sophya Pavlovna!”
Mayakin spoke fast, whirling like a peg-top amid the crowd of people.
In a minute he managed to shake hands with the presiding justice of the
court, with the prosecutor, with the mayor--in a word, with all those
people whom he considered it necessary to greet first; such as these,
however, were few. He jested, smiled and at once attracted everybody’s
attention to his little figure, and Foma with downcast head stood
behind him, looking askance at these people wrapped in costly stuffs,
embroidered with gold; he envied the old man’s adroitness and lost his
courage, and feeling that he was losing his courage--he grew still
more timid. But now Mayakin seized him by the hand and drew him up to
himself.
“There, your Excellency, this is my godson, Foma, the late Ignat’s only
son.”
“Ah!” said the governor in his basso, “I’m very pleased. I sympathise
with you in your misfortune, young man!” he said, shaking Foma’s hand,
and became silent; then he added resolutely and confidently: “To lose a
father, that is a very painful misfortune.”
And, having waited about two seconds for Foma’s answer, he turned away
from him, addressing Mayakin approvingly:
“I am delighted with the speech you made yesterday in the city hall!
Beautiful, clever, Yakov Tarasovich. Proposing to use the money for this
public club, they do not understand the real needs of the population.”
“And then, your Excellency, a small capital means that the city will
have to add its own money.”
“Perfectly true! Perfectly true!”
“Temperance, I say, is good! Would to God that all were sober! I don’t
drink, either, but what is the use of these performances, libraries and
all that, since the people cannot even read?”
The governor replied approvingly.
“Here, I say, you better use this money for a technical institution. If
it should be established on a small plan, this money alone will suffice,
and in case it shouldn’t, we can ask for more in St. Petersburg--they’ll
give it to us. Then the city wouldn’t have to add of its own money, and
the whole affair would be more sensible.”
“Precisely! I fully agree with you! But how the liberals began to cry at
you! Eh? Ha, ha!”
“That has always been their business, to cry.”
The deep cough of the archdeacon of the cathedral announced the
beginning of the divine service.
Sophya Pavlovna came up to Foma, greeted him and said in a sad, low
voice:
“I looked at your face on the day of the funeral, and my heart saddened.
My God, I thought, how he must suffer!”
And Foma listened to her and felt as though he was drinking honey.
“These cries of yours, they shook my soul, my poor child! I may speak to
you this way, for I am an old woman already.”
“You!” exclaimed Foma, softly.
“Isn’t that so?” she asked, naively looking into his face.
Foma was silent, his head bent on his breast.
“Don’t you believe that I am an old woman?”
“I believe you; that is, I believe everything you may say; only this is
not true!” said Foma, feelingly, in a low voice.
“What is not true? What do you believe me?”
“No! not this, but that. I--excuse me! I cannot speak!” said Foma,
sadly, all aflush with confusion. “I am not cultured.”
“You need not trouble yourself on this account,” said Medinskaya,
patronisingly. “You are so young, and education is accessible
to everybody. But there are people to whom education is not only
unnecessary, but who can also be harmed by it. Those that are pure of
heart, sanguine, sincere, like children, and you are of those people.
You are, are you not?”
What could Foma say in answer to this question? He said sincerely:
“I thank you humbly!”
And noticing that his words called forth a gay gleam in Medinskaya’s
eyes, Foma appeared ridiculous and stupid in his own eyes; he
immediately became angry at himself and said in a muffled voice:
“Yes, I am such. I always speak my mind. I cannot deceive. If I see
something to laugh at, I laugh openly. I am stupid!”
“What makes you speak that way?” said the woman, reproachfully, and
adjusting her dress, she accidentally stroked Foma’s hand, in which he
held his hat. This made him look at his wrist and smile joyously and
confusedly.
“You will surely be present at the dinner, won’t you?” asked Medinskaya.
“Yes.”
“And tomorrow at the meeting in my house?”
“Without fail!”
“And perhaps sometime you will drop in, simply on a visit, wouldn’t
you?”
“I--I thank you! I’ll come!”
“I must thank you for the promise.”
They became silent. In the air soared the reverently soft voice of the
bishop, who recited the prayer expressively, outstretching his hand over
the place where the corner-stone of the house was laid:
“May neither the wind, nor water, nor anything else bring harm unto it;
may it be completed in thy benevolence, and free all those that are to
live in it from all kinds of calumny.”
“How rich and beautiful our prayers are, are they not?” asked
Medinskaya.
“Yes,” said Foma, shortly, without understanding her words and feeling
that he was blushing again.
“They will always be opponents of our commercial interests,” Mayakin
whispered loudly and convincingly, standing beside the city mayor, not
far from Foma. “What is it to them? All they want is somehow to deserve
the approval of the newspaper. But they cannot reach the main point.
They live for mere display, not for the organisation of life; these
are their only measures: the newspapers and Sweden! [Mayakin speaks of
Sweden, meaning Switzerland.--Translator’s note.] The doctor scoffed at
me all day yesterday with this Sweden. The public education, says he,
in Sweden, and everything else there is first-class! But what is Sweden,
anyway? It may be that Sweden is but a fib, is but used as an example,
and that there is no education whatever or any of the other things
there. And then, we don’t live for the sake of Sweden, and Sweden cannot
put us to test. We have to make our lip according to our own last. Isn’t
it so?”
And the archdeacon droned, his head thrown back:
“Eternal me-emo-ory to the founder of this ho-ouse!”
Foma shuddered, but Mayakin was already by his side, and pulling him by
the sleeve, asked:
“Are you going to the dinner?”
And Medinskaya’s velvet-like, warm little hand glided once more over
Foma’s hand.
The dinner was to Foma a real torture. For the first time in his
life among these uniformed people, he saw that they were eating and
speaking--doing everything better than he, and he felt that between him
and Medinskaya, who was seated just opposite him, was a high mountain,
not a table. Beside him sat the secretary of the society of which Foma
had been made an honorary member; he was a young court officer, bearing
the odd name of Ookhtishchev. As if to make his name appear more
absurd than it really was, he spoke in a loud, ringing tenor, and
altogether--plump, short, round-faced and a lively talker--he looked
like a brand new bell.
“The very best thing in our society is the patroness; the most
reasonable is what we are doing--courting the patroness; the most
difficult is to tell the patroness such a compliment as would satisfy
her; and the most sensible thing is to admire the patroness silently and
hopelessly. So that in reality, you are a member not of ‘the Society
of Solicitude,’ and so on, but of the Society of Tantaluses, which is
composed of persons bent on pleasing Sophya Medinskaya.”
Foma listened to his chatter, now and then looking at the patroness, who
was absorbed in a conversation with the chief of the police; Foma roared
in reply to his interlocutor, pretending to be busy eating, and he
wished that all this would end the sooner. He felt that he was wretched,
stupid, ridiculous and he was certain that everybody was watching and
censuring him. This tied him with invisible shackles, thus checking his
words and his thoughts. At last he went so far, that the line of various
physiognomies, stretched out by the table opposite him, seemed to him a
long and wavy white strip besprinkled with laughing eyes, and all these
eyes were pricking him unpleasantly and painfully.
Mayakin sat near the city mayor, waved his fork in the air quickly,
and kept on talking all the time, now contracting, now expanding the
wrinkles of his face. The mayor, a gray-headed, red-faced, short-necked
man, stared at him like a bull, with obstinate attention and at times he
rapped on the edge of the table with his big finger affirmatively. The
animated talk and laughter drowned his godfather’s bold speech, and Foma
was unable to hear a single word of it, much more so that the tenor of
the secretary was unceasingly ringing in his ears:
“Look, there, the archdeacon arose; he is filling his lungs with air; he
will soon proclaim an eternal memory for Ignat Matveyich.”
“May I not go away?” asked Foma in a low voice.
“Why not? Everybody will understand this.”
The deacon’s resounding voice drowned and seemed to have crushed the
noise in the hail; the eminent merchants fixed their eyes on the big,
wide-open mouth, from which a deep sound was streaming forth, and
availing himself of this moment, Foma arose from his seat and left the
hall.
After awhile he breathed freely and, sitting in his cab, thought sadly
that there was no place for him amid these people. Inwardly, he called
them polished. He did not like their brilliancy, their faces, their
smiles or their words, but the freedom and the cleverness of their
movements, their ability to speak much and on any subject, their pretty
costumes--all this aroused in him a mixture of envy and respect for
them. He felt sad and oppressed at the consciousness of being unable to
talk so much and so fluently as all these people, and here he recalled
that Luba Mayakina had more than once scoffed at him on this account.
Foma did not like Mayakin’s daughter, and since he had learned from his
father of Mayakin’s intention to marry him to Luba, the young Gordyeeff
began to shun her. But after his father’s death he was almost every day
at the Mayakins, and somehow Luba said to him one day:
“I am looking at you, and, do you know?--you do not resemble a merchant
at all.”
“Nor do you look like a merchant’s daughter,” said Foma, and looked at
her suspiciously. He did not understand the meaning of her words; did
she mean to offend him, or did she say these words without any kind
thoughts?
“Thank God for this!” said she and smiled to him a kind, friendly smile.
“What makes you so glad?” he asked.
“The fact that we don’t resemble our fathers.”
Foma glanced at her in astonishment and kept silent.
“Tell me frankly,” said she, lowering her voice, “you do not love my
father, do you? You don’t like him?”
“Not very much,” said Foma, slowly.
“And I dislike him very much.”
“What for?”
“For everything. When you grow wiser, you will know it yourself. Your
father was a better man.”
“Of course!” said Foma, proudly.
After this conversation an attachment sprang up between them almost
immediately, and growing stronger from day to day, it soon developed
into friendship, though a somewhat odd friendship it was.
Though Luba was not older than her god-brother, she nevertheless treated
him as an older person would treat a little boy. She spoke to him
condescendingly, often jesting at his expense; her talk was always full
of words which were unfamiliar to Foma; and she pronounced these
words with particular emphasis and with evident satisfaction. She was
especially fond of speaking about her brother Taras, whom she had never
seen, but of whom she was telling such stories as would make him look
like Aunt Anfisa’s brave and noble robbers. Often, when complaining of
her father, she said to Foma:
“You will also be just such a skinflint.”
All this was unpleasant to the youth and stung his vanity. But at
times she was straightforward, simple-minded, and particularly kind and
friendly to him; then he would unburden his heart before her, and for a
long time they would share each other’s thoughts and feelings.
Both spoke a great deal and spoke sincerely, but neither one understood
the other; it seemed to Foma that whatever Luba had to say was foreign
to him and unnecessary to her, and at the same time he clearly saw that
his awkward words did not at all interest her, and that she did not care
to understand them. No matter how long these conversations lasted, they
gave both of them the sensation of discomfort and dissatisfaction. As
if an invisible wall of perplexity had suddenly arisen and stood between
them. They did not venture to touch this wall, or to tell each other
that they felt it was there--they resumed their conversations, dimly
conscious that there was something in each of them that might bind and
unite them.
When Foma arrived at his godfather’s house, he found Luba alone. She
came out to meet him, and it was evident that she was either ill or out
of humour; her eyes were flashing feverishly and were surrounded with
black circles. Feeling cold, she muffled herself in a warm shawl and
said with a smile:
“It is good that you’ve come! For I was sitting here alone; it is
lonesome--I don’t feel like going anywhere. Will you drink tea?”
“I will. What is the matter with you, are you ill?”
“Go to the dining-room, and I’ll tell them to bring the samovar,” she
said, not answering his question.
He went into one of the small rooms of the house, whose two windows
overlooked the garden. In the middle of the room stood an oval table,
surrounded with old-fashioned, leather-covered chairs; on one partition
hung a clock in a long case with a glass door, in the corner was a
cupboard for dishes, and opposite the windows, by the walls, was an
oaken sideboard as big as a fair-sized room.
“Are you coming from the banquet?” asked Luba, entering.
Foma nodded his head mutely.
“Well, how was it? Grand?”
“It was terrible!” Foma smiled. “I sat there as if on hot coals. They
all looked there like peacocks, while I looked like a barn-owl.”
Luba was taking out dishes from the cupboard and said nothing to Foma.
“Really, why are you so sad?” asked Foma again, glancing at her gloomy
face.
She turned to him and said with enthusiasm and anxiety:
“Ah, Foma! What a book I’ve read! If you could only understand it!”
“It must be a good book, since it worked you up in this way,” said Foma,
smiling.
“I did not sleep. I read all night long. Just think of it: you read--and
it seems to you that the gates of another kingdom are thrown open
before you. And the people there are different, and their language is
different, everything different! Life itself is different there.”
“I don’t like this,” said Foma, dissatisfied. “That’s all fiction,
deceit; so is the theatre. The merchants are ridiculed there. Are they
really so stupid? Of course! Take your father, for example.”
“The theatre and the school are one and the same, Foma,” said Luba,
instructively. “The merchants used to be like this. And what deceit can
there be in books?”
“Just as in fairy--tales, nothing is real.”
“You are wrong! You have read no books; how can you judge? Books are
precisely real. They teach you how to live.”
“Come, come!” Foma waved his hand. “Drop it; no good will come out of
your books! There, take your father, for example, does he read books?
And yet he is clever! I looked at him today and envied him. His
relations with everybody are so free, so clever, he has a word for each
and every one. You can see at once that whatever he should desire he is
sure to attain.”
“What is he striving for?” exclaimed Luba. “Nothing but money. But there
are people that want happiness for all on earth, and to gain this end
they work without sparing themselves; they suffer and perish! How can my
father be compared with these?”
“You need not compare them. They evidently like one thing, while your
father likes another.”
“They do not like anything!”
How’s that?
“They want to change everything.”
“So they do strive for something?” said Foma, thoughtfully. “They do
wish for something?”
“They wish for happiness for all!” cried Luba, hotly. “I can’t
understand this,” said Foma, nodding his head. “Who cares there for my
happiness? And then again, what happiness can they give me, since I,
myself, do not know as yet what I want? No, you should have rather
looked at those that were at the banquet.”
“Those are not men!” announced Luba, categorically.
“I do not know what they are in your eyes, but you can see at once that
they know their place. A clever, easy-going lot.”
“Ah, Foma!” exclaimed Luba, vexed. “You understand nothing! Nothing
agitates you! You are an idler.”
“Now, that’s going too far! I’ve simply not had time enough to see where
I am.”
“You are simply an empty man,” said Luba, resolutely and firmly.
“You were not within my soul,” replied Foma, calmly. “You cannot know my
thoughts.”
“What is there that you should think of?” said Luba, shrugging her
shoulders.
“So? First of all, I am alone. Secondly, I must live. Don’t I understand
that it is altogether impossible for me to live as I am now? I do not
care to be made the laughing-stock of others. I cannot even speak
to people. No, nor can I think.” Foma concluded his words and smiled
confusedly.
“It is necessary to read, to study,” Luba advised him convincingly,
pacing up and down the room.
“Something is stirring within my soul,” Foma went on, not looking at
her, as though speaking to himself; “but I cannot tell what it is.
I see, for instance, that whatever my godfather says is clever and
reasonable. But that does not attract me. The other people are by far
more interesting to me.”
“You mean the aristocrats?” asked Luba.
“Yes.”
“That’s just the place for you!” said Luba, with a smile of contempt.
“Eh, you! Are they men? Do they have souls?”
“How do you know them? You are not acquainted with them.”
“And the books? Have I not read books about them?”
The maid brought in the samovar, and the conversation was interrupted.
Luba made tea in silence while Foma looked at her and thought of
Medinskaya. He was wishing to have a talk with her.
“Yes,” said the girl, thoughtfully, “I am growing more and more
convinced everyday that it is hard to live. What shall I do? Marry?
Whom? Shall I marry a merchant who will do nothing but rob people all
his life, nothing but drink and play cards? A savage? I do not want
it! I want to be an individual. I am such, for I know how wrong the
construction of life is. Shall I study? My father will not allow this.
Oh Lord! Shall I run away? I have not enough courage. What am I to do?”
She clasped her hands and bowed her head over the table.
“If you knew but how repulsive everything is. There is not a living soul
around here. Since my mother died, my father drove everyone away. Some
went off to study. Lipa, too, left us. She writes me:
‘Read.’ Ah, I am reading! I am reading!’ she exclaimed, with despair in
her voice, and after a moment’s silence she went on sadly:
“Books do not contain what the heart needs most, and there’s much I
cannot understand in them. And then, I feel weary to be reading all the
time alone, alone! I want to speak to a man, but there is none to speak
to! I feel disgusted. We live but once, and it is high time for me to
live, and yet there is not a soul! Wherefore shall I live? Lipa tells
me: ‘Read and you will understand it.’ I want bread and she gives me
a stone. I understand what one must do--one must stand up for what he
loves and believes. He must fight for it.”
And she concluded, uttering something like a moan:
“But I am alone! Whom shall I fight? There are no enemies here. There
are no men! I live here in a prison!”
Foma listened to her words, fixedly examining the fingers of his hand;
he felt that in her words was some great distress, but he could not
understand her. And when she became silent, depressed and sad, he found
nothing to tell her save a few words that were like a reproach:
“There, you yourself say that books are worthless to you, and yet you
instruct me to read.”
She looked into his face, and anger flashed in her eyes.
“Oh, how I wish that all these torments would awaken within you, the
torments that constantly oppress me. That your thoughts, like mine,
would rob you of your sleep, that you, too, would be disgusted with
everything, and with yourself as well! I despise every one of you. I
hate you!”
All aflush, she looked at him so angrily and spoke with so much
spitefulness, that in his astonishment he did not even feel offended by
her. She had never before spoken to him in such manner.
“What’s the matter with you?” he asked her.
“I hate you, too! You, what are you? Dead, empty; how will you live?
What will you give to mankind?” she said with malice, in a low voice.
“I’ll give nothing; let them strive for it themselves,” answered Foma,
knowing that these words would augment her anger.
“Unfortunate creature!” exclaimed the girl with contempt.
The assurance and the power of her reproaches involuntarily compelled
Foma to listen attentively to her spiteful words; he felt there was
common sense in them. He even came nearer to her, but she, enraged and
exasperated, turned away from him and became silent.
It was still light outside, and the reflection of the setting sun lay
still on the branches of the linden-trees before the windows, but the
room was already filled with twilight, and the sideboard, the clock and
the cupboard seemed to have grown in size. The huge pendulum peeped
out every moment from beneath the glass of the clock-case, and flashing
dimly, was hiding with a weary sound now on the right side, now on
the left. Foma looked at the pendulum and he began to feel awkward and
lonesome. Luba arose and lighted the lamp which was hanging over the
table. The girl’s face was pale and stern.
“You went for me,” said Foma, reservedly. “What for? I can’t
understand.”
“I don’t want to speak to you!” replied Luba, angrily.
“That’s your affair. But nevertheless, what wrong have I done to you?”
“You?
“I.”
“Understand me, I am suffocating! It is close here. Is this life? Is
this the way how to live? What am I? I am a hanger-on in my father’s
house. They keep me here as a housekeeper. Then they’ll marry me! Again
housekeeping. It’s a swamp. I am drowning, suffocating.”
“And what have I to do with it?” asked Foma.
“You are no better than the others.”
“And therefore I am guilty before you?”
“Yes, guilty! You must desire to be better.”
“But do I not wish it?” exclaimed Foma.
The girl was about to tell him something, but at this time the bell
began to ring somewhere, and she said in a low voice, leaning back in
her chair:
“It’s father.”
“I would not feel sorry if he stayed away a little longer,” said Foma.
“I wish I could listen to you some more. You speak so very oddly.”
“Ah! my children, my doves!” exclaimed Yakov Tarasovich, appearing in
the doorway. “You’re drinking tea? Pour out some tea for me, Lugava!”
Sweetly smiling, and rubbing his hands, he sat down near Foma and asked,
playfully jostling him in the side:
“What have you been cooing about?”
“So--about different trifles,” answered Luba.
“I haven’t asked you, have I?” said her father to her, with a grimace.
“You just sit there, hold your tongue, and mind your woman’s affairs.”
“I’ve been telling her about the dinner,” Foma interrupted his
godfather’s words.
“Aha! So-o-o. Well, then, I’ll also speak about the dinner. I have been
watching you of late. You don’t behave yourself sensibly!”
“What do you mean?” asked Foma, knitting his brow, ill pleased.
“I just mean that your behaviour is preposterous, and that’s all. When
the governor, for instance, speaks to you, you keep quiet.”
“What should I tell him? He says that it is a misfortune to lose a
father. Well, I know it. What could I tell him?”
“But as the Lord willed it so, I do not grumble, your Excellency. That’s
what you should have said, or something in this spirit. Governors, my
dear, are very fond of meekness in a man.”
“Was I to look at him like a lamb?” said Foma, with a smile.
“You did look like a lamb, and that was unnecessary. You must look
neither like a lamb, nor like a wolf, but just play off before him as
though saying: ‘You are our father, we are your children,’ and he will
immediately soften.”
“And what is this for?”
“For any event. A governor, my dear, can always be of use somewhere.”
“What do you teach him, papa?” said Luba, indignantly, in a low voice.
“Well, what?”
“To dance attendance.”
“You lie, you learned fool! I teach him politics, not dancing
attendance; I teach him the politics of life. You had better leave us
alone! Depart from evil, and prepare some lunch for us. Go ahead!”
Luba rose quickly and throwing the towel across the back of the chair,
left the room. Mayakin, winking his eyes, looked after her, tapped the
table with his fingers and said:
“I shall instruct you, Foma. I shall teach you the most genuine, true
knowledge and philosophy, and if you understand them, your life will be
faultless.”
Foma saw how the wrinkles on the old man’s forehead were twitching, and
they seemed to him like lines of Slavonic letters.
“First of all, Foma, since you live on this earth, it is your duty to
think over everything that takes place about you. Why? That you may
not suffer for your own senselessness, and may not harm others by your
folly. Now, every act of man is double-faced, Foma. One is visible to
all--this is the wrong side; the other is concealed--and that is the
real one. It is that one that you must be able to find in order to
understand the sense of the thing. Take for example the lodging-asylums,
the work-houses, the poor-houses and other similar institutions. Just
consider, what are they for?”
“What is there to consider here?” said Foma, wearily “Everybody knows
what they are for--for the poor and feeble.”
“Eh, dear! Sometimes everybody knows that a certain man is a rascal and
a scoundrel, and yet all call him Ivan or Peter, and instead of abusing
him they respectfully add his father’s name to his own.”
“What has this to do with it?”
“It’s all to the point. So you say that these houses are for the poor,
for beggars, consequently, in accordance with Christ’s commandment.
Very well! But who is the beggar? The beggar is a man, forced by fate
to remind us of Christ; he is a brother of Christ; he is the bell of the
Lord and he rings in life to rouse our conscience, to arouse the satiety
of the flesh of man. He stands by the window and sings out: ‘For the
sake of Christ!’ and by his singing he reminds us of Christ, of His holy
commandment to help the neighbour. But men have so arranged their life
that it is impossible for them to act according to the teachings of
Christ, and Jesus Christ has become altogether unnecessary to us. Not
one time, but perhaps a hundred thousand times have we turned Him
over to the cross, and yet we cannot drive Him altogether out of life,
because His poor brethren sing His Holy name on the streets and thus
remind us of Him. And now we have arranged to lock up these beggars
in separate houses that they should not walk around on the streets and
should not rouse our conscience.
“Cle-ver!” whispered Foma, amazed, staring fixedly at his godfather.
“Aha!” exclaimed Mayakin, his eyes beaming with triumph.
“How is it that my father did not think of this?” asked Foma, uneasily.
“Just wait! Listen further, it is still worse. So you see, we have
arranged to lock them up in all sorts of houses and that they might be
kept there cheaply, we have compelled those old and feeble beggars
to work and we need give no alms now, and since our streets have been
cleared of the various ragged beggars, we do not see their terrible
distress and poverty, and we may, therefore, think that all men on earth
are well-fed, shod and clothed. That’s what all these different houses
are for, for the concealment of the truth, for the banishment of Christ
from our life! Is this clear to you?”
“Yes!” said Foma, confused by the old man’s clever words.
“And this is not all. The pool is not yet baled out to the bottom!”
exclaimed Mayakin, swinging his hand in the air with animation.
The wrinkles of his face were in motion; his long, ravenous nose was
stirring, and in his voice rang notes of irritability and emotion.
“Now, let us look at this thing from the other side. Who contributes
most in favour of the poor, for the support of these houses, asylums,
poor-houses? The rich people, the merchants, our body of merchants.
Very well! And who commands our life and regulates it? The nobles, the
functionaries and all sorts of other people, not belonging to our class.
From them come the laws, the newspapers, science--everything from them.
Before, they were land-owners, now their land was snatched away from
them--and they started out in service. Very well! But who are the most
powerful people today? The merchant is the supreme power in an empire,
because he has the millions on his side! Isn’t that so?”
“True!” assented Foma, eager to hear the sooner that which was to
follow, and which was already sparkling in the eyes of his godfather.
“Just mark this,” the old man went on distinctly and impressively. “We
merchants had no hand in the arrangement of life, nor do we have a voice
or a hand in it today. Life was arranged by others, and it is they that
multiplied all sorts of scabs in life--idlers and poor unfortunates;
and since by multiplying them they obstructed life and spoilt it--it is,
justly judging, now their duty to purify it. But we are purifying it,
we contribute money for the poor, we look after them--we, judge it for
yourself, why should we mend another’s rags, since we did not tear them?
Why should we repair a house, since others have lived in it and since
it belongs to others? Were it not wiser for us to step aside and watch
until a certain time how rottenness is multiplying and choking those
that are strangers to us? They cannot conquer it, they have not the
means to do it. Then they will turn to us and say: ‘Pray, help us,
gentlemen!’ and we’ll tell them: ‘Let us have room for our work! Rank us
among the builders of this same life!’ And as soon as they do this we,
too, will have to clear life at one sweep of all sorts of filth and
chaff. Then the Emperor will see with his clear eyes who are really his
faithful servants, and how much wisdom they have saved up while their
hands were idle. Do you understand?”
“Of course, I do!” exclaimed Foma.
When his godfather spoke of the functionaries, Foma reminded himself
of the people that were present at the dinner; he recalled the brisk
secretary, and a thought flashed through his mind that this stout little
man has in all probability an income of no more than a thousand roubles
a year, while he, Foma, has a million. But that man lives so easily and
freely, while he, Foma, does not know how to live, is indeed abashed to
live. This comparison and his godfather’s speech roused in him a whirl
of thoughts, but he had time to grasp and express only one of them:
“Indeed, do we work for the sake of money only? What’s the use of money
if it can give us no power?”
“Aha!” said Mayakin, winking his eyes.
“Eh!” exclaimed Foma, offended. “How about my father? Have you spoken to
him?”
“I spoke to him for twenty years.”
“Well, how about him?”
“My words did not reach him. The crown of your father’s head was rather
thick. His soul was open to all, while his mind was hidden away far
within him. Yes, he made a blunder, and I am very sorry about the
money.”
“I am not sorry for the money.”
“You should have tried to earn even a tenth part of it, then speak.”
“May I come in?” came Luba’s voice from behind the door.
“Yes, step right in,” said the father.
“Will you have lunch now?” she asked, entering.
“Let us have it.”
She walked up to the sideboard and soon the dishes were rattling. Yakov
Tarasovich looked at her, moved his lips, and suddenly striking Foma’s
knee with his hand, he said to him:
“That’s the way, my godson! Think.”
Foma responded with a smile and thought: “But he’s clever--cleverer than
my father.”
But another voice within him immediately replied:
“Cleverer, but worse.”