CHAPTER X

PREVIOUS to his quarrel with Mayakin, Foma had caroused because of the

weariness of life, out of curiosity, and half indifferently; now he led

a dissipated life out of spite, almost in despair; now he was filled

with a feeling of vengeance and with a certain insolence toward men, an

insolence which astonished even himself at times. He saw that the people

about him, like himself, lacked support and reason, only they did not

understand this, or purposely would not understand it, so as not to

hinder themselves from living blindly, and from giving themselves

completely, without a thought, to their dissolute life. He found

nothing firm in them, nothing steadfast; when sober, they seemed to him

miserable and stupid; when intoxicated, they were repulsive to him, and

still more stupid. None of them inspired him with respect, with deep,

hearty interest; he did not even ask them what their names were; he

forgot where and when he made their acquaintance, and regarding them

with contemptuous curiosity, always longed to say and do something that

would offend them. He passed days and nights with them in different

places of amusement, and his acquaintances always depended just upon

the category of each of these places. In the expensive and elegant

restaurants certain sharpers of the better class of society surrounded

him--gamblers, couplet singers, jugglers, actors, and property-holders

who were ruined by leading depraved lives. At first these people treated

him with a patronizing air, and boasted before him of their refined

tastes, of their knowledge of the merits of wine and food, and then they

courted favours of him, fawned upon him, borrowed of him money which he

scattered about without counting, drawing it from the banks, and already

borrowing it on promissory notes. In the cheap taverns hair-dressers,

markers, clerks, functionaries and choristers surrounded him like

vultures; and among these people he always felt better--freer. In these

he saw plain people, not so monstrously deformed and distorted as that

“clean society” of the elegant restaurants; these were less depraved,

cleverer, better understood by him. At times they evinced wholesome,

strong emotions, and there was always something more human in them.

But, like the “clean society,” these were also eager for money, and

shamelessly fleeced him, and he saw it and rudely mocked them.

To be sure, there were women. Physically healthy, but not sensual, Foma

bought them, the dear ones and the cheap ones, the beautiful and the

ugly, gave them large sums of money, changed them almost every week,

and in general, he treated the women better than the men. He laughed at

them, said to them disgraceful and offensive words, but he could never,

even when half-drunk, rid himself of a certain bashfulness in their

presence. They all, even the most brazen-faced, the strongest and the

most shameless, seemed to him weak and defenseless, like small children.

Always ready to thrash any man, he never laid a hand on women, although

when irritated by something he sometimes abused them indecently. He felt

that he was immeasurably stronger than any woman, and every woman seemed

to him immeasurably more miserable than he was. Those of the women who

led their dissolute lives audaciously, boasting of their depravity,

called forth in Foma a feeling of bashfulness, which made him timid

and awkward. One evening, during supper hour, one of these women,

intoxicated and impudent, struck Foma on the cheek with a melon-rind.

Foma was half-drunk. He turned pale with rage, rose from his chair,

and thrusting his hands into his pockets, said in a fierce voice which

trembled with indignation:

“You carrion, get out. Begone! Someone else would have broken your head

for this. And you know that I am forbearing with you, and that my arm is

never raised against any of your kind. Drive her away to the devil!”

A few days after her arrival in Kazan, Sasha became the mistress of a

certain vodka-distiller’s son, who was carousing together with Foma.

Going away with her new master to some place on the Kama, she said to

Foma:

“Goodbye, dear man! Perhaps we may meet again. We’re both going the same

way! But I advise you not to give your heart free rein. Enjoy yourself

without looking back at anything. And then, when the gruel is eaten up,

smash the bowl on the ground. Goodbye!”

And she impressed a hot kiss upon his lips, at which her eyes looked

still darker.

Foma was glad that she was leaving him, he had grown tired of her and

her cold indifference frightened him. But now something trembled within

him, he turned aside from her and said in a low voice:

“Perhaps you will not live well together, then come back to me.”

“Thank you!” she replied, and for some reason or other burst into hoarse

laughter, which was uncommon with her.

Thus lived Foma, day in and day out, always turning around on one

and the same place, amid people who were always alike, and who never

inspired him with any noble feelings. And then he considered himself

superior to them, because the thoughts of the possibility of freeing

himself from this life was taking deeper and deeper root in his mind,

because the yearning for freedom held him in an ever firmer embrace,

because ever brighter were the pictures as he imagined himself drifting

away to the border of life, away from this tumult and confusion. More

than once, by night, remaining all by himself, he would firmly close his

eyes and picture to himself a dark throng of people, innumerably great

and even terrible in its immenseness. Crowded together somewhere in a

deep valley, which was surrounded by hillocks, and filled with a

dusty mist, this throng jostled one another on the same place in noisy

confusion, and looked like grain in a hopper. It was as though an

invisible millstone, hidden beneath the feet of the crowd, were grinding

it, and people moved about it like waves--now rushing downward to be

ground the sooner and disappear, now bursting upward in the effort to

escape the merciless millstone. There were also people who resembled

crabs just caught and thrown into a huge basket--clutching at one

another, they twined about heavily, crawled somewhere and interfered

with one another, and could do nothing to free themselves from

captivity.

Foma saw familiar faces amid the crowd: there his father is walking

boldly, sturdily pushing aside and overthrowing everybody on his way;

he is working with his long paws, massing everything with his chest, and

laughing in thundering tones. And then he disappears, sinking somewhere

in the depth, beneath the feet of the people. There, wriggling like

a snake, now jumping on people’s shoulders, now gliding between their

feet, his godfather is working with his lean, but supple and sinewy

body. Here Lubov is crying and struggling, following her father, with

abrupt but faint movements, now remaining behind him, now nearing him

again. Striding softly with a kind smile on her face, stepping aside

from everybody, and making way for everyone, Aunt Anfisa is slowly

moving along. Her image quivers in the darkness before Foma, like the

modest flame of a wax candle. And it dies out and disappears in the

darkness. Pelagaya is quickly going somewhere along a straight road.

There Sophya Pavlovna Medinskaya is standing, her hands hanging

impotently, just as she stood in her drawing-room when he saw her last.

Her eyes were large, but some great fright gleams in them. Sasha,

too, is here. Indifferent, paying no attention to the jostling, she is

stoutly going straight into the very dregs of life, singing her songs

at the top of her voice, her dark eyes fixed in the distance before her.

Foma hears tumult, howls, laughter, drunken shouts, irritable disputes

about copecks--songs and sobs hover over this enormous restless heap of

living human bodies crowded into a pit. They jump, fall, crawl, crush

one another, leap on one another’s shoulders, grope everywhere like

blind people, stumbling everywhere over others like themselves,

struggle, and, falling, disappear from sight. Money rustles, soaring

like bats over the heads of the people, and the people greedily stretch

out their hands toward it, the gold and silver jingles, bottles rattle,

corks pop, someone sobs, and a melancholy female voice sings:

“And so let us live while we can, And then--e’en grass may cease to

grow!”

This wild picture fastened itself firmly in Foma’s mind, and growing

clearer, larger and more vivid with each time it arose before him,

rousing in his breast something chaotic, one great indefinite feeling

into which fell, like streams into a river, fear and revolt and

compassion and wrath and many another thing. All this boiled up within

his breast into strained desire, which was thrusting it asunder into a

desire whose power was choking him, and his eyes were filled with tears;

he longed to shout, to howl like a beast, to frighten all the people,

to check their senseless bustle, to pour into the tumult and vanity of

their life something new, his own--to tell them certain loud firm words,

to guide them all into one direction, and not one against another.

He desired to seize them by their heads, to tear them apart one from

another, to thrash some, to fondle others, to reproach them all, to

illumine them with a certain fire.

There was nothing in him, neither the necessary words, nor the fire;

all he had was the longing which was clear to him, but impossible of

fulfillment. He pictured himself above life outside of the deep valley,

wherein people were bustling about; he saw himself standing firmly on

his feet and--speechless. He might have cried to the people:

“See how you live! Aren’t you ashamed?”

And he might have abused them. But if they were to ask on hearing his

voice:

“And how ought we to live?”

It was perfectly clear to him that after such a question he would have

to fly down head foremost from the heights there, beneath the feet of

the throng, upon the millstone. And laughter would accompany him to his

destruction.

Sometimes he was delirious under the pressure of this nightmare. Certain

meaningless and unconnected words burst from his lips; he even perspired

from this painful struggle within him. At times it occurred to him that

he was going mad from intoxication, and that that was the reason why

this terrible and gloomy picture was forcing itself into his mind. With

a great effort of will he brushed aside these pictures and excitements;

but as soon as he was alone and not very drunk, he was again seized by

his delirium and again grew faint under its weight. And his thirst for

freedom was growing more and more intense, torturing him by its force.

But tear himself away from the shackles of his wealth he could not.

Mayakin, who had Foma’s full power of attorney to manage his affairs,

acted now in such a way that Foma was bound to feel almost every day the

burden of the obligations which rested upon him. People were

constantly applying to him for payments, proposing to him terms for the

transportation of freight. His employees overwhelmed him in person and

by letter with trifles with which he had never before concerned himself,

as they used to settle these trifles at their own risk. They looked for

him and found him in the taverns, questioned him as to what and how

it should be done; he would tell them sometimes without at all

understanding in what way this or that should be done. He noticed their

concealed contempt for him, and almost always saw that they did not do

the work as he had ordered, but did it in a different and better way. In

this he felt the clever hand of his godfather, and understood that the

old man was thus pressing him in order to turn him to his way. And at

the same time he noticed that he was not the master of his business,

but only a component part of it, and an insignificant part at that. This

irritated him and moved him farther away from the old man, it augumented

his longing to tear himself away from his business, even at the cost of

his own ruin. Infuriated, he flung money about the taverns and dives,

but this did not last long. Yakov Tarasovich closed his accounts in the

banks, withdrawing all deposits. Soon Foma began to feel that even on

promissory notes, they now gave him the money not quite as willingly as

before. This stung his vanity; and his indignation was roused, and

he was frightened when he learned that his godfather had circulated a

rumour in the business world that he, Foma, was out of his mind, and

that, perhaps, it might become necessary to appoint a guardian for

him. Foma did not know the limits of his godfather’s power, and did not

venture to take anyone’s counsel in this matter. He was convinced that

in the business world the old man was a power, and that he could do

anything he pleased. At first it was painful for him to feel Mayakin’s

hand over him, but later he became reconciled to this, renounced

everything, and resumed his restless, drunken life, wherein there was

only one consolation--the people. With each succeeding day he became

more and more convinced that they were more irrational and altogether

worse than he--that they were not the masters of life, but its slaves,

and that it was turning them around, bending and breaking them at its

will, while they succumbed to it unfeelingly and resignedly, and none

of them but he desired freedom. But he wanted it, and therefore proudly

elevated himself above his drinking companions, not desiring to see in

them anything but wrong.

One day in a tavern a certain half-intoxicated man complained to him of

his life. This was a small-sized, meagre man, with dim, frightened eyes,

unshaven, in a short frock coat, and with a bright necktie. He blinked

pitifully, his ears quivered spasmodically, and his soft little voice

also trembled.

“I’ve struggled hard to make my way among men; I’ve tried everything,

I’ve worked like a bull. But life jostled me aside, crushed me under

foot, gave me no chance. All my patience gave way. Eh! and so I’ve taken

to drink. I feel that I’ll be ruined. Well, that’s the only way open to

me!”

“Fool!” said Foma with contempt. “Why did you want to make your way

among men? You should have kept away from them, to the right. Standing

aside, you might have seen where your place was among them, and then

gone right to the point!”

“I don’t understand your words.” The little man shook his close-cropped,

angular head.

Foma laughed, self-satisfied.

“Is it for you to understand it?” “No; do you know, I think that he whom

God decreed--”

“Not God, but man arranges life!” Foma blurted out, and was even himself

astonished at the audacity of his words. And the little man glancing at

him askance also shrank timidly.

“Has God given you reason?” asked Foma, recovering from his

embarrassment.

“Of course; that is to say, as much as is the share of a small man,”

said Foma’s interlocutor irresolutely.

“Well, and you have no right to ask of Him a single grain more! Make

your own life by your own reason. And God will judge you. We are all in

His service. And in His eyes we are all of equal value. Understand?”

It happened very often that Foma would suddenly say something which

seemed audacious even to himself, and which, at the same time, elevated

him in his own eyes. There were certain unexpected, daring thoughts

and words, which suddenly flashed like sparks, as though an impression

produced them from Foma’s brains. And he noticed more than once that

whatever he had carefully thought out beforehand was expressed by him

not quite so well, and more obscure, than that which suddenly flashed up

in his heart.

Foma lived as though walking in a swamp, in danger of sinking at each

step in the mire and slime, while his godfather, like a river loach,

wriggled himself on a dry, firm little spot, vigilantly watching the

life of his godson from afar.

After his quarrel with Foma, Yakov Tarasovich returned home, gloomy

and pensive. His eyes flashed drily, and he straightened himself like a

tightly-stretched string. His wrinkles shrank painfully, his face seemed

to have become smaller and darker, and when Lubov saw him in this state

it appeared to her that he was seriously ill, but that he was forcing

and restraining himself. Mutely and nervously the old man flung himself

about the room, casting in reply to his daughter’s questions, dry curt

words, and finally shouted to her:

“Leave me alone! You see it has nothing to do with you.”

She felt sorry for him when she noticed the gloomy and melancholy

expression of his keen, green eyes; she made it her duty to question

him as to what had happened to him, and when he seated himself at

the dinner-table she suddenly approached him, placed her hands on

his shoulders, and looking down into his face, asked him tenderly and

anxiously:

“Papa, are you ill? tell me!”

Her caresses were extremely rare; they always softened the lonely old

man, and though he did not respond to them for some reason or other he

nevertheless could not help appreciating them. And now he shrugged his

shoulders, thus throwing off her hands and said:

“Go, go to your place. How the itching curiosity of Eve gives you no

rest.”

But Lubov did not go away; persistingly looking into his eyes, she

asked, with an offended tone in her voice:

“Papa, why do you always speak to me in such a way as though I were a

small child, or very stupid?”

“Because you are grown up and yet not very clever. Yes! That’s the whole

story! Go, sit down and eat!”

She walked away and silently seated herself opposite her father,

compressing her lips for affront. Contrary to his habits Mayakin ate

slowly, stirring his spoon in his plate of cabbage-soup for a long time,

and examining the soup closely.

“If your obstructed mind could but comprehend your father’s thoughts!”

said he, suddenly, as he sighed with a sort of whistling sound.

Lubov threw her spoon aside and almost with tears in her voice, said:

“Why do you insult me, papa? You see that I am alone, always alone! You

understand how difficult my life is, and you never say a single kind

word to me. You never say anything to me! And you are also lonely; life

is difficult for you too, I can see it. You find it very hard to live,

but you alone are to blame for it! You alone!

“Now Balaam’s she-ass has also started to talk!” said the old man,

laughing. “Well! what will be next?”

“You are very proud of your wisdom, papa.”

“And what else?”

“That isn’t good; and it pains me greatly. Why do you repulse me? You

know that, save you, I have no one.”

Tears leaped to her eyes; her father noticed them, and his face

quivered.

“If you were not a girl!” he exclaimed. “If you had as much brains as

Marfa Poosadnitza, for instance. Eh, Lubov? Then I’d laugh at everybody,

and at Foma. Come now, don’t cry!”

She wiped her eyes and asked:

“What about Foma?”

“He’s rebellious. Ha! ha! he says: ‘Take away my property, give me

freedom!’ He wants to save his soul in the kabak. That’s what entered

Foma’s head.”

“Well, what is this?” asked Lubov, irresolutely. She wanted to say that

Foma’s desire was good, that it was a noble desire if it were earnest,

but she feared to irritate her father with her words, and she only gazed

at him questioningly.

“What is it?” said Mayakin, excitedly, trembling. “That either comes to

him from excessive drinking, or else--Heaven forbid--from his mother,

the orthodox spirit. And if this heathenish leaven is going to rise in

him I’ll have to struggle hard with him! There will be a great conflict

between us. He has come out, breast foremost, against me; he has at once

displayed great audacity. He’s young--there’s not much cunning in him

as yet. He says: ‘I’ll drink away everything, everything will go up in

smoke! I’ll show you how to drink!’”

Mayakin lifted his hand over his head, and, clenching his fist,

threatened furiously.

“How dare you? Who established the business? Who built it up? You? Your

father. Forty years of labour were put into it, and you wish to destroy

it? We must all go to our places here all together as one man, there

cautiously, one by one. We merchants, tradesmen, have for centuries

carried Russia on our shoulders, and we are still carrying it. Peter the

Great was a Czar of divine wisdom, he knew our value. How he supported

us! He had printed books for the express purpose of teaching us

business. There I have a book which was printed at his order by Polidor

Virgily Oorbansky, about inventory, printed in 1720. Yes, one must

understand this. He understood it, and cleared the way for us. And now

we stand on our own feet, and we feel our place. Clear the way for us!

We have laid the foundation of life, instead of bricks we have laid

ourselves in the earth. Now we must build the stories. Give us freedom

of action! That’s where we must hold our course. That’s where the

problem lies; but Foma does not comprehend this. But he must understand

it, must resume the work. He has his father’s means. When I die mine

will be added to his. Work, you puppy! And he is raving. No, wait! I’ll

lift you up to the proper point!”

The old man was choking with agitation and with flashing eyes looked at

his daughter so furiously as though Foma were sitting in her place. His

agitation frightened Lubov, but she lacked the courage to interrupt her

father, and she looked at his stern and gloomy face in silence.

“The road has been paved by our fathers, and you must walk on it. I have

worked for fifty years to what purpose? That my children may resume it

after I am gone. My children! Where are my children?”

The old man drooped his head mournfully, his voice broke down, and he

said sadly, as if he were speaking unto himself:

“One is a convict, utterly ruined; the other, a drunkard. I have little

hope in him. My daughter, to whom, then, shall I leave my labour before

my death? If I had but a son-in-law. I thought Foma would become a man

and would be sharpened up, then I would give you unto him, and with you

all I have--there! But Foma is good for nothing, and I see no one else

in his stead. What sort of people we have now! In former days the

people were as of iron, while now they are of india-rubber. They are all

bending now. And nothing--they have no firmness in them. What is it? Why

is it so?”

Mayakin looked at his daughter with alarm. She was silent.

“Tell me,” he asked her, “what do you need? How, in your opinion, is it

proper to live? What do you want? You have studied, read, tell me what

is it that you need?”

The questions fell on Lubov’s head quite unexpectedly to her, and she

was embarrassed. She was pleased that her father asked her about this

matter, and was at the same time afraid to reply, lest she should

be lowered in his estimation. And then, gathering courage, as though

preparing to jump across the table, she said irresolutely and in a

trembling voice:

“That all the people should be happy and contented; that all the people

should be equal, all the people have an equal right to life, to the

bliss of life, all must have freedom, even as they have air. And

equality in everything!”

At the beginning of her agitated speech her father looked at her face

with anxious curiosity in his eyes, but as she went on hastily hurling

her words at him his eyes assumed an altogether different expression,

and finally he said to her with calm contempt:

“I knew it before--you are a gilded fool!”

She lowered her head, but immediately raised it and exclaimed sadly:

“You have said so yourself--freedom.”

“You had better hold your tongue!” the old man shouted at her rudely.

“You cannot see even that which is visibly forced outside of each man.

How can all the people be happy and equal, since each one wants to be

above the other? Even the beggar has his pride and always boasts of

something or other before other people. A small child, even he wants to

be first among his playmates. And one man will never yield to another;

only fools believe in it. Each man has his own soul, and his own face;

only those who love not their souls and care not for their faces can

be planed down to the same size. Eh, you! You’ve read much trash, and

you’ve devoured it!”

Bitter reproach and biting contempt were expressed on the old man’s

face. He noisily pushed his chair away from the table, jumped up, and

folding his hands behind his back, began to dart about in the room with

short steps, shaking his head and saying something to himself in an

angry, hissing whisper. Lubov, pale with emotion and anger, feeling

herself stupid and powerless before him, listening to his whisper, and

her heart palpitated wildly.

“I am left alone, alone, like Job. Oh Lord! What shall I do? Oh, alone!

Am I not wise? Am I not clever? But life has outwitted me also. What

does it love? Whom does it fondle? It beats the good, and suffers not

the bad to go unpunished, and no one understands life’s justice.”

The girl began to feel painfully sorry for the old man; she was seized

with an intense yearning to help him; she longed to be of use to him.

Following him with burning eyes, she suddenly said in a low voice:

“Papa, dear! do not grieve. Taras is still alive. Perhaps he--”

Mayakin stopped suddenly as though nailed to the spot, and he slowly

lifted his head.

“The tree that grew crooked in its youth and could not hold out will

certainly break when it’s old. But nevertheless, even Taras is a straw

to me now. Though I doubt whether he is better than Foma. Gordyeeff has

a character, he has his father’s daring. He can take a great deal on

himself. But Taraska, you recalled him just in time. Yes!”

And the old man, who a moment ago had lost his courage to the point of

complaining, and, grief-stricken had run about the room like a mouse

in a trap, now calmly and firmly walked up with a careworn face to the

table, carefully adjusted his chair, and seated himself, saying:

“We’ll have to sound Taraska. He lives in Usolye at some factory. I was

told by some merchants--they’re making soda there, I believe. I’ll find

out the particulars. I’ll write to him.”

“Allow me to write to him, papa!” begged Lubov, softly, flushing,

trembling with joy.

“You?” asked Mayakin, casting a brief glance at her; he then became

silent, thought awhile and said:

“That’s all right. That’s even better! Write to him. Ask him whether he

isn’t married, how he lives, what he thinks. But then I’ll tell you what

to write when the time has come.”

“Do it at once, papa,” said the girl.

“It is necessary to marry you off the sooner. I am keeping an eye on

a certain red-haired fellow. He doesn’t seem to be stupid. He’s been

polished abroad, by the way.

“Is it Smolin, papa?” asked Lubov, inquisitively and anxiously.

“And supposing it is he, what of it?” inquired Yakov Tarasovich in a

business-like tone.

“Nothing, I don’t know him,” replied Lubov, indefinitely.

“We’ll make you acquainted. It’s time, Lubov, it’s time. Our hopes for

Foma are poor, although I do not give him up.”

“I did not reckon on Foma--what is he to me?”

“That’s wrong. If you had been cleverer perhaps he wouldn’t have gone

astray! Whenever I used to see you together, I thought: ‘My girl will

attract the fellow to herself! That will be a fine affair!’ But I was

wrong. I thought that you would know what is to your advantage

without being told of it. That’s the way, my girl!” said the father,

instructively.

She became thoughtful as she listened to his impressive speech. Robust

and strong, Lubov was thinking of marriage more and more frequently

of late, for she saw no other way out of her loneliness. The desire to

forsake her father and go away somewhere in order to study something,

to do something. This desire she had long since overcome, even as she

conquered in herself many another longing just as keen, but shallow

and indefinite. From the various books she had read a thick sediment

remained within her, and though it was something live it had the life

of a protoplasm. This sediment developed in the girl a feeling of

dis-satisfaction with her life, a yearning toward personal independence,

a longing to be freed from the heavy guardianship of her father, but she

had neither the power to realize these desires, nor the clear conception

of their realization. But nature had its influence on her, and at the

sight of young mothers with children in their arms Lubov often felt a

sad and mournful languor within her. At times stopping before the mirror

she sadly scrutinized in it her plump, fresh face with dark circles

around her eyes, and she felt sorry for herself. She felt that life was

going past her, forgetting her somewhere on the side. Now listening to

her father’s words she pictured to herself what sort of man Smolin might

be. She had met him when he was yet a Gymnasium student, his face was

covered with freckles, he was snub-nosed, always clean, sedate and

tiresome. He danced heavily, awkwardly, he talked uninterestingly.

A long time had passed since then, he had been abroad, had studied

something there, how was he now? From Smolin her thoughts darted to

her brother, and with a sinking heart she thought: what would he say in

reply to her letter? What sort of a man was he? The image of her brother

as she had pictured it to herself prevented her from seeing both her

father and Smolin, and she had already made up her mind not to consent

to marry before meeting Taras, when suddenly her father shouted to her:

“Eh, Lubovka! Why are you thoughtful? What are you thinking of mostly?”

“So, everything goes so swiftly,” replied Luba, with a smile.

“What goes swiftly?”

“Everything. A week ago it was impossible to speak with you about Taras,

while now--”

“‘Tis need, my girl! Need is a power, it bends a steel rod into a

spring. And steel is stubborn. Taras, we’ll see what he is! Man is to

be appreciated by his resistance to the power of life; if it isn’t life

that wrings him, but he that wrings life to suit himself, my respects to

that man! Allow me to shake your hand, let’s run our business together.

Eh, I am old. And how very brisk life has become now! With each

succeeding year there is more and more interest in it, more and more

relish to it! I wish I could live forever, I wish I could act all the

time!” The old man smacked his lips, rubbed his hands, and his small

eyes gleamed greedily.

“But you are a thin-blooded lot! Ere you have grown up you are already

overgrown and withered. You live like an old radish. And the fact that

life is growing fairer and fairer is incomprehensible to you. I have

lived sixty-seven years on this earth, and though I am now standing

close to my grave I can see that in former years, when I was young,

there were fewer flowers on earth, and the flowers were not quite as

beautiful as they are now. Everything is growing more beautiful! What

buildings we have now! What different trade implements. What huge

steamers! A world of brains has been put into everything! You look and

think; what clever fellows you are--Oh people! You merit reward and

respect! You’ve arranged life cleverly. Everything is good, everything

is pleasant. Only you, our successors, you are devoid of all live

feelings! Any little charlatan from among the commoners is cleverer than

you! Take that Yozhov, for instance, what is he? And yet he represents

himself as judge over us, and even over life itself--he has courage. But

you, pshaw! You live like beggars! In your joy you are beasts, in your

misfortune vermin! You are rotten! They ought to inject fire into your

veins, they ought to take your skin off and strew salt upon your raw

flesh, then you would have jumped!”

Yakov Tarasovich, small-sized, wrinkled and bony, with black, broken

teeth in his mouth, bald-headed and dark, as though burned by the heat

of life and smoked in it, trembled in vehement agitation, showering

jarring words of contempt upon his daughter, who was young, well-grown

and plump. She looked at him with a guilty expression in her eyes,

smiled confusedly, and in her heart grew a greater and greater respect

for the live old man who was so steadfast in his desires.

.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

And Foma went on straying and raving, passing his days and nights

in taverns and dens, and mastering more and more firmly his

contemptuously-hateful bearing toward the people that surrounded him. At

times they awakened in him a sad yearning to find among them some sort

of resistance to his wicked feeling, to meet a worthy and courageous man

who would cause him to blush with shame by his burning reproach. This

yearning became clearer--each time it sprang up in him it was a longing

for assistance on the part of a man who felt that he had lost his way

and was perishing.

“Brethren!” he cried one day, sitting by the table in a tavern,

half-intoxicated, and surrounded by certain obscure and greedy people,

who ate and drank as though they had not had a piece of bread in their

mouths for many a long day before.

“Brethren! I feel disgusted. I am tired of you! Beat me unmercifully,

drive me away! You are rascals, but you are nearer to one another than

to me. Why? Am I not a drunkard and a rascal as well? And yet I am a

stranger to you! I can see I am a stranger. You drink out of me and

secretly you spit upon me. I can feel it! Why do you do it?”

To be sure, they could treat him in a different way. In the depth of his

soul perhaps not one of them considered himself lower than Foma, but he

was rich, and this hindered them from treating him more as a companion,

and then he always spoke certain comically wrathful, conscience-rending

words, and this embarrassed them. Moreover, he was strong and ready to

fight, and they dared not say a word against him. And that was just what

he wanted. He wished more and more intensely that one of these people

he despised would stand up against him, face to face, and would tell

him something strong, which, like a lever, would turn him aside from the

sloping road, whose danger he felt, and whose filth he saw, being filled

with helpless aversion for it.

And Foma found what he needed.

One day, irritated by the lack of attention for him, he cried to his

drinking-companions:

“You boys, keep quiet, every one of you! Who gives you to drink and to

eat? Have you forgotten it? I’ll bring you in order! I’ll show you how

to respect me! Convicts! When I speak you must all keep quiet!”

And, indeed, all became silent; either for fear lest they might lose his

good will, or, perhaps, afraid that he, that healthy and strong beast,

might beat them. They sat in silence about a minute, concealing their

anger at him, bending over the plates and attempting to hide from him

their fright and embarrassment. Foma measured them with a self-satisfied

look, and gratified by their slavish submissiveness, said boastfully:

“Ah! You’ve grown dumb now, that’s the way! I am strict! I--”

“You sluggard!” came some one’s calm, loud exclamation.

“Wha-at?” roared Foma, jumping up from his chair. “Who said that?”

Then a certain, strange, shabby-looking man arose at the end of the

table; he was tall, in a long frock-coat, with a heap of grayish hair

on his large head. His hair was stiff, standing out in all directions in

thick locks, his face was yellow, unshaven, with a long, crooked nose.

To Foma it seemed that he resembled a swab with which the steamer decks

are washed, and this amused the half-intoxicated fellow.

“How fine!” said he, sarcastically. “What are you snarling at, eh? Do

you know who I am?”

With the gesture of a tragic actor the man stretched out to Foma his

hand, with its long, pliant fingers like those of a juggler, and he said

in a deep hoarse basso:

“You are the rotten disease of your father, who, though he was a

plunderer, was nevertheless a worthy man in comparison with you.”

Because of the unexpectedness of this, and because of his wrath, Foma’s

heart shrank. He fiercely opened his eyes wide and kept silent, finding

no words to reply to this insolence. And the man, standing before him,

went on hoarsely, with animation, beastlike rolling his large, but dim

and swollen, eyes:

“You demand of us respect for you, you fool! How have you merited it?

Who are you? A drunkard, drinking away the fortune of your father. You

savage! You ought to be proud that I, a renowned artist, a disinterested

and faithful worshipper at the shrine of art, drink from the same

bottle with you! This bottle contains sandal and molasses, infused with

snuff-tobacco, while you think it is port wine. It is your license for

the name of savage and ass.”

“Eh, you jailbird!” roared Foma, rushing toward the artist. But he was

seized and held back. Struggling in the arms of those that seized him,

he was compelled to listen without replying, to the thundering, deep and

heavy bass of the man who resembled a swab.

“You have thrown to men a few copecks out of the stolen roubles, and

you consider yourself a hero! You are twice a thief. You have stolen the

roubles and now you are stealing gratitude for your few copecks! But

I shall not give it to you! I, who have devoted all my life to the

condemnation of vice, I stand before you and say openly: ‘You are a fool

and a beggar because you are too rich! Here lies the wisdom: all the

rich are beggars.’ That’s how the famous coupletist, Rimsky-Kannibalsky,

serves Truth!”

Foma was now standing meekly among the people that had closely

surrounded him, and he eagerly listened to the coupletist’s thundering

words, which now aroused in him a sensation as though somebody was

scratching a sore spot, and thus soothing the acute itching of the pain.

The people were excited; some attempted to check the coupletist’s flow

of eloquence, others wanted to lead Foma away somewhere. Without saying

a word he pushed them aside and listened, more and more absorbed by the

intense pleasure of humiliation which he felt in the presence of these

people. The pain irritated by the words of the coupletist, caressed

Foma’s soul more and more passionately, and the coupletist went on

thundering, intoxicated with the impurity of his accusation:

“You think that you are the master of life? You are the low slave of the

rouble.”

Someone in the crowd hiccoughed, and, evidently displeased with himself

for this, cursed each time he hiccoughed:

“Oh devil.”

And a certain, unshaven, fat-faced man took pity on Foma, or, perhaps,

became tired of witnessing that scene, and, waving his hands, he drawled

out plaintively:

“Gentlemen, drop that! It isn’t good! For we are all sinners! Decidedly

all, believe me!”

“Well, speak on!” muttered Foma. “Say everything! I won’t touch you.”

The mirrors on the walls reflected this drunken confusion, and the

people, as reflected in the mirrors, seemed more disgusting and hideous

than they were in reality.

“I do not want to speak!” exclaimed the coupletist, “I do not want to

cast the pearls of truth and of my wrath before you.”

He rushed forward, and raising his head majestically, turned toward the

door with tragic footsteps.

“You lie!” said Foma, attempting to follow him. “Hold on! you have made

me agitated, now calm me.”

They seized him, surrounded him and shouted something to him while

he was rushing forward, overturning everybody. When he met tactile

obstacles on his way the struggle with them gave him ease, uniting all

his riotous feelings into one yearning to overthrow that which hindered

him. And now, after he had jostled them all aside and rushed out into

the street, he was already less agitated. Standing on the sidewalk he

looked about the street and thought with shame:

“How could I permit that swab to mock me and abuse my father as a

thief?”

It was dark and quiet about him, the moon was shining brightly, and

a light refreshing breeze was blowing. Foma held his face to the cool

breeze as he walked against the wind with rapid strides, timidly looking

about on all sides, and wishing that none of the company from the tavern

would follow him. He understood that he had lowered himself in the eyes

of all these people. As he walked he thought of what he had come to: a

sharper had publicly abused him in disgraceful terms, while he, the

son of a well-known merchant, had not been able to repay him for his

mocking.

“It serves me right!” thought Foma, sadly and bitterly. “That serves

me right! Don’t lose your head, understand. And then again, I wanted

it myself. I interfered with everybody, so now, take your share!” These

thoughts made him feel painfully sorry for himself. Seized and sobered

by them he kept on strolling along the streets, and searching for

something strong and firm in himself. But everything within him was

confused; it merely oppressed his heart, without assuming any definite

forms. As in a painful dream he reached the river, seated himself on the

beams by the shore, and began to look at the calm dark water, which was

covered with tiny ripples. Calmly and almost noiselessly flowed on the

broad, mighty river, carrying enormous weights upon its bosom. The river

was all covered with black vessels, the signal lights and the stars were

reflected in its water; the tiny ripples, murmuring softly, were

gently breaking against the shore at the very feet of Foma. Sadness was

breathed down from the sky, the feeling of loneliness oppressed Foma.

“Oh Lord Jesus Christ!” thought he, sadly gazing at the sky. “What a

failure I am. There is nothing in me. God has put nothing into me. Of

what use am I? Oh Lord Jesus!”

At the recollection of Christ Foma felt somewhat better--his loneliness

seemed alleviated, and heaving a deep sigh, he began to address God in

silence:

“Oh Lord Jesus Christ! Other people do not understand anything either,

but they think that all is known to them, and therefore it is easier for

them to live. While I--I have no justification. Here it is night, and I

am alone, I have no place to go, I am unable to say anything to anybody.

I love no one--only my godfather, and he is soulless. If Thou hadst but

punished him somehow! He thinks there is none cleverer and better on

earth than himself. While Thou sufferest it. And the same with me. If

some misfortune were but sent to me. If some illness were to overtake

me. But here I am as strong as iron. I am drinking, leading a gay life.

I live in filth, but the body does not even rust, and only my soul

aches. Oh Lord! To what purpose is such a life?”

Vague thoughts of protest flashed one after another through the mind

of the lonely, straying man, while the silence about him was growing

deeper, and night ever darker and darker. Not far from the shore lay a

boat at anchor; it rocked from side to side, and something was creaking

in it as though moaning.

“How am I to free myself from such a life as this?” reflected Foma,

staring at the boat. “And what occupation is destined to be mine?

Everybody is working.”

And suddenly he was struck by a thought which appeared great to him:

“And hard work is cheaper than easy work! Some man will give himself up

entire to his work for a rouble, while another takes a thousand with one

finger.”

He was pleasantly roused by this thought. It seemed to him that he

discovered another falsehood in the life of man, another fraud which

they conceal. He recalled one of his stokers, the old man Ilya, who,

for ten copecks, used to be on watch at the fireplace out of his turn,

working for a comrade eight hours in succession, amid suffocating heat.

One day, when he had fallen sick on account of overwork, he was lying on

the bow of the steamer, and when Foma asked him why he was thus ruining

himself, Ilya replied roughly and sternly:

“Because every copeck is more necessary to me than a hundred roubles to

you. That’s why!”

And, saying this, the old man turned his body, which was burning with

pain, with its back to Foma.

Reflecting on the stoker his thoughts suddenly and without any effort,

embraced all those petty people that were doing hard work. He wondered,

Why do they live? What pleasure is it for them to live on earth? They

constantly do but their dirty, hard work, they eat poorly, are poorly

clad, they drink. One man is sixty years old, and yet he keeps on

toiling side by side with the young fellows. And they all appeared to

Foma as a huge pile of worms, which battled about on earth just to

get something to eat. In his memory sprang up his meetings with these

people, one after another--their remarks about life--now sarcastic and

mournful, now hopelessly gloomy remarks--their wailing songs. And now he

also recalled how one day in the office Yefim had said to the clerk who

hired the sailors:

“Some Lopukhin peasants have come here to hire themselves out, so don’t

give them more than ten roubles a month. Their place was burned down to

ashes last summer, and they are now in dire need--they’ll work for ten

roubles.”

Sitting on the beams, Foma rocked his whole body to and fro, and out of

the darkness, from the river, various human figures appeared silently

before him--sailors, stokers, clerks, waiters, half-intoxicated painted

women, and tavern-loungers. They floated in the air like shadows;

something damp and brackish came from them, and the dark, dense throng

moved on slowly, noiselessly and swiftly, like clouds in an autumn sky.

The soft splashing of the waves poured into his soul like sadly sighing

music. Far away, somewhere on the other bank of the river, burned a

wood-pile; embraced by the darkness on all sides, it was at times almost

absorbed by it, and in the darkness it trembled, a reddish spot scarcely

visible to the eye. But now the fire flamed up again, the darkness

receded, and it was evident that the flame was striving upward. And then

it sank again.

“Oh Lord, Oh Lord!” thought Foma, painfully and bitterly, feeling that

grief was oppressing his heart with ever greater power. “Here I am,

alone, even as that fire. Only no light comes from me, nothing but fumes

and smoke. If I could only meet a wise man! Someone to speak to. It is

utterly impossible for me to live alone. I cannot do anything. I wish I

might meet a man.”

Far away, on the river, two large purple fires appeared, and high above

them was a third. A dull noise resounded in the distance, something

black was moving toward Foma.

“A steamer going up stream,” he thought. “There may be more than a

hundred people aboard, and none of them give a single thought to me.

They all know whither they are sailing. Every one of them has something

that is his own. Every one, I believe, understands what he wants. But

what do I want? And who will tell it to me? Where is such a man?”

The lights of the steamer were reflected in the river, quivering in

it; the illumined water rushed away from it with a dull murmur, and the

steamer looked like a huge black fish with fins of fire.

A few days elapsed after this painful night, and Foma caroused again. It

came about by accident and against his will. He had made up his mind to

restrain himself from drinking, and so went to dinner in one of the

most expensive hotels in town, hoping to find there none of his

familiar drinking-companions, who always selected the cheaper and less

respectable places for their drinking bouts. But his calculation proved

to be wrong; he at once came into the friendly joyous embrace of the

brandy-distiller’s son, who had taken Sasha as mistress.

He ran up to Foma, embraced him and burst into merry laughter.

“Here’s a meeting! This is the third day I have eaten here, and I am

wearied by this terrible lonesomeness. There is not a decent man in the

whole town, so I have had to strike up an acquaintance with newspaper

men. They’re a gay lot, although at first they played the aristocrat and

kept sneering at me. After awhile we all got dead drunk. They’ll be here

again today--I swear by the fortune of my father! I’ll introduce you to

them. There is one writer of feuilletons here; you know, that some one

who always lauded you, what’s his name? An amusing fellow, the devil

take him! Do you know it would be a good thing to hire one like that for

personal use! Give him a certain sum of money and order him to amuse!

How’s that? I had a certain coupletist in my employ,--it was rather

entertaining to be with him. I used to say to him sometimes: ‘Rimsky!

give us some couplets!’ He would start, I tell you, and he’d make you

split your sides with laughter. It’s a pity, he ran off somewhere. Have

you had dinner?”

“Not yet. And how’s Aleksandra?” asked Foma, somewhat deafened by the

loud speech of this tall, frank, red-faced fellow clad in a motley

costume.

“Well, do you know,” said the latter with a frown, “that Aleksandra of

yours is a nasty woman! She’s so obscure, it’s tiresome to be with her,

the devil take her! She’s as cold as a frog,--brrr! I guess I’ll send

her away.”

“Cold--that’s true,” said Foma and became pensive. “Every person must

do his work in a first class manner,” said the distiller’s son,

instructively. “And if you become some one’s s mistress you must perform

your duty in the best way possible, if you are a decent woman. Well,

shall we have a drink?”

They had a drink. And naturally they got drunk. A large and noisy

company gathered in the hotel toward evening. And Foma, intoxicated, but

sad and calm, spoke to them with heavy voice:

“That’s the way I understand it: some people are worms, others sparrows.

The sparrows are the merchants. They peck the worms. Such is their

destined lot. They are necessary But I and you--all of you--are to no

purpose. We live so that we cannot be compared to anything--without

justification, merely at random. And we are utterly unnecessary. But

even these here, and everybody else, to what purpose are they? You must

understand that. Brethren! We shall all burst! By God! And why shall

we burst? Because there is always something superfluous in us, there

is something superfluous in our souls. And all our life is superfluous!

Comrades! I weep. To what purpose am I? I am unnecessary! Kill me, that

I may die; I want to die.”

And he wept, shedding many drunken tears. A drunken, small-sized,

swarthy man sat down close to him, began to remind him of something,

tried to kiss him, and striking a knife against the table, shouted:

“True! Silence! These are powerful words! Let the elephants and the

mammoths of the disorder of life speak! The raw Russian conscience

speaks holy words! Roar on, Gordyeeff! Roar at everything!” And again

he clutched at Foma’s shoulders, flung himself on his breast, raising

to Foma’s face his round, black, closely-cropped head, which was

ceaselessly turning about on his shoulders on all sides, so that Foma

was unable to see his face, and he was angry at him for this, and kept

on pushing him aside, crying excitedly:

“Get away! Where is your face? Go on!”

A deafening, drunken laughter smote the air about them, and choking with

laughter, the son of the brandy-distiller roared to someone hoarsely:

“Come to me! A hundred roubles a month with board and lodging! Throw the

paper to the dogs. I’ll give you more!”

And everything rocked from side to side in rhythmic, wave-like movement.

Now the people moved farther away from Foma, now they came nearer to

him, the ceiling descended, the floor rose, and it seemed to Foma that

he would soon be flattened and crushed. Then he began to feel that he

was floating somewhere over an immensely wide and stormy river, and,

staggering, he cried out in fright:

“Where are we floating? Where is the captain?”

He was answered by the loud, senseless laughter of the drunken crowd,

and by the shrill, repulsive shout of the swarthy little man:

“True! we are all without helm and sails. Where is the captain? What?

Ha, ha, ha!”

Foma awakened from this nightmare in a small room with two windows, and

the first thing his eyes fell upon was a withered tree. It stood near

the window; its thick trunk, barkless, with a rotten heart, prevented

the light from entering the room; the bent, black branches, devoid of

leaves, stretched themselves mournfully and helplessly in the air,

and shaking to and fro, they creaked softly, plaintively. A rain was

falling; streams of water were beating against the window-panes, and

one could hear how the water was falling to the ground from the roof,

sobbing there. This sobbing sound was joined by another sound--a shrill,

often interrupted, hasty scratching of a pen over paper, and then by a

certain spasmodic grumbling.

When he turned with difficulty his aching, heavy head on the pillow,

Foma noticed a small, swarthy man, who sat by the table hastily

scratching with his pen over the paper, shaking his round head

approvingly, wagging it from side to side, shrugging his shoulders,

and, with all his small body clothed in night garments only, constantly

moving about in his chair, as though he were sitting on fire, and could

not get up for some reason or other. His left hand, lean and thin, was

now firmly rubbing his forehead, now making certain incomprehensible

signs in the air; his bare feet scraped along the floor, a certain vein

quivered on his neck, and even his ears were moving. When he turned

toward Foma, Foma saw his thin lips whispering something, his

sharp-pointed nose turned down to his thin moustache, which twitched

upward each time the little man smiled. His face was yellow, bloated,

wrinkled, and his black, vivacious small sparkling eyes did not seem to

belong to him.

Having grown tired of looking at him, Foma slowly began to examine the

room with his eyes. On the large nails, driven into the walls, hung

piles of newspapers, which made the walls look as though covered with

swellings. The ceiling was pasted with paper which had been white once

upon a time; now it was puffed up like bladders, torn here and there,

peeled off and hanging in dirty scraps; clothing, boots, books, torn

pieces of paper lay scattered on the floor. Altogether the room gave one

the impression that it had been scalded with boiling water.

The little man dropped the pen, bent over the table, drummed briskly on

its edge with his fingers and began to sing softly in a faint voice:

“Take the drum and fear not,--And kiss the sutler girl aloud--That’s the

sense of learning--And that’s philosophy.”

Foma heaved a deed sigh and said:

“May I have some seltzer?”

“Ah!” exclaimed the little man, and jumping up from his chair, appeared

at the wide oilcloth-covered lounge, where Foma lay. “How do you do,

comrade! Seltzer? Of course! With cognac or plain?”

“Better with cognac,” said Foma, shaking the lean, burning hand which

was outstretched to him, and staring fixedly into the face of the little

man.

“Yegorovna!” cried the latter at the door, and turning to Foma, asked:

“Don’t you recognise me, Foma Ignatyevich?”

“I remember something. It seems to me we had met somewhere before.”

“That meeting lasted for four years, but that was long ago! Yozhov.”

“Oh Lord!” exclaimed Foma, in astonishment, slightly rising from the

lounge. “Is it possible that it is you?”

“There are times, dear, when I don’t believe it myself, but a real fact

is something from which doubt jumps back as a rubber ball from iron.”

Yozhov’s face was comically distorted, and for some reason or other his

hands began to feel his breast.

“Well, well!” drawled out Foma. “But how old you have grown! Ah-ah! How

old are you?”

“Thirty.”

“And you look as though you were fifty, lean, yellow. Life isn’t sweet

to you, it seems? And you are drinking, too, I see.”

Foma felt sorry to see his jolly and brisk schoolmate so worn out,

and living in this dog-hole, which seemed to be swollen from burns. He

looked at him, winked his eyes mournfully and saw that Yozhov’s face

was for ever twitching, and his small eyes were burning with irritation.

Yozhov was trying to uncork the bottle of water, and thus occupied, was

silent; he pressed the bottle between his knees and made vain efforts to

take out the cork. And his impotence moved Foma.

“Yes; life has sucked you dry. And you have studied. Even science seems

to help man but little,” said Gordyeeff plaintively.

“Drink!” said Yozhov, turning pale with fatigue, and handing him the

glass. Then he wiped his forehead, seated himself on the lounge beside

Foma, and said:

“Leave science alone! Science is a drink of the gods; but it has not yet

fermented sufficiently, and, therefore is not fit for use, like vodka

which has not yet been purified from empyreumatic oil. Science is not

ready for man’s happiness, my friend. And those living people that use

it get nothing but headaches. Like those you and I have at present. Why

do you drink so rashly?”

“I? What else am I to do?” asked Foma, laughing. Yozhov looked at Foma

searchingly with his eyes half closed, and he said:

“Connecting your question with everything you jabbered last night, I

feel within my troubled soul that you, too, my friend, do not amuse

yourself because life is cheerful to you.”

“Eh!” sighed Foma, heavily, rising from the lounge. “What is my life?

It is something meaningless. I live alone. I understand nothing. And yet

there is something I long for. I yearn to spit on all and then disappear

somewhere! I would like to run away from everything. I am so weary!”

“That’s interesting!” said Yozhov, rubbing his hands and turning about

in all directions. “This is interesting, if it is true and deep, for

it shows that the holy spirit of dissatisfaction with life has already

penetrated into the bed chambers of the merchants, into the death

chambers of souls drowned in fat cabbage soup, in lakes of tea and other

liquids. Give me a circumstantial account of it. Then, my dear, I shall

write a novel.”

“I have been told that you have already written something about me?”

inquired Foma, with curiosity, and once more attentively scrutinized his

old friend unable to understand what so wretched a creature could write.

“Of course I have! Did you read it?”

“No, I did not have the chance.”

“And what have they told you?”

“That you gave me a clever scolding.”

“Hm! And doesn’t it interest you to read it yourself?” inquired Yozhov,

scrutinizing Gordyeeff closely.

“I’ll read it!” Foma assured him, feeling embarrassed before Yozhov, and

that Yozhov was offended by such regard for his writings. “Indeed, it is

interesting since it is about myself,” he added, smiling kindheartedly

at his comrade.

In saying this he was not at all interested, and he said it merely out

of pity for Yozhov. There was quite another feeling in him; he wished to

know what sort of a man Yozhov was, and why he had become so worn

out. This meeting with Yozhov gave rise in him to a tranquil and kind

feeling; it called forth recollections of his childhood, and these

flashed now in his memory,--flashed like modest little lights, timidly

shining at him from the distance of the past. Yozhov walked up to the

table on which stood a boiling samovar, silently poured out two glasses

of tea as strong as tar, and said to Foma:

“Come and drink tea. And tell me about yourself.”

“I have nothing to tell you. I have not seen anything in life. Mine is

an empty life! You had better tell me about yourself. I am sure you know

more than I do, at any rate.”

Yozhov became thoughtful, not ceasing to turn his whole body and to

waggle his head. In thoughtfulness his face became motionless, all its

wrinkles gathered near his eyes and seemed to surround them with rays,

and because of this his eyes receded deeper under his forehead.

“Yes, my dear, I have seen a thing or two, and I know a great deal,” he

began, with a shake of the head. “And perhaps I know even more than it

is necessary for me to know, and to know more than it is necessary is

just as harmful to man as it is to be ignorant of what it is essential

to know. Shall I tell you how I have lived? Very well; that is, I’ll

try. I have never told any one about myself, because I have never

aroused interest in anyone. It is most offensive to live on earth

without arousing people’s interest in you!”

“I can see by your face and by everything else that your life has not

been a smooth one!” said Foma, feeling pleased with the fact that, to

all appearances, life was not sweet to his comrade as well. Yozhov drank

his tea at one draught, thrust the glass on the saucer, placed his feet

on the edge of the chair, and clasping his knees in his hands, rested

his chin upon them. In this pose, small sized and flexible as rubber, he

began:

“The student Sachkov, my former teacher, who is now a doctor of

medicine, a whist-player and a mean fellow all around, used to tell me

whenever I knew my lesson well: ‘You’re a fine fellow, Kolya! You are

an able boy. We proletariats, plain and poor people, coming from the

backyard of life, we must study and study, in order to come to the

front, ahead of everybody. Russia is in need of wise and honest people.

Try to be such, and you will be master of your fate and a useful member

of society. On us commoners rest the best hopes of the country. We are

destined to bring into it light, truth,’ and so on. I believed him, the

brute. And since then about twenty years have elapsed. We proletariats

have grown up, but have neither appropriated any wisdom, nor brought

light into life. As before, Russia is still suffering from its chronic

disease--a superabundance of rascals; while we, the proletariats, take

pleasure in filling their dense throngs. My teacher, I repeat, is a

lackey, a characterless and dumb creature, who must obey the orders of

the mayor. While I am a clown in the employ of society. Fame pursues me

here in town, dear. I walk along the street and I hear one driver say to

another: ‘There goes Yozhov! How cleverly he barks, the deuce take him!’

Yes! Even this cannot be so easily attained.”

Yozhov’s face wrinkled into a bitter grimace, and he began to laugh,

noiselessly, with his lips only. Foma did not understand his words, and,

just to say something, he remarked at random:

“You didn’t hit, then, what you aimed at?”

“Yes, I thought I would grow up higher. And so I should! So I should, I

say!”

He jumped up from his chair and began to run about in the room,

exclaiming briskly in a shrill voice:

“But to preserve one’s self pure for life and to be a free man in it,

one must have vast powers! I had them. I had elasticity, cleverness.

I have spent all these in order to learn something which is absolutely

unnecessary to me now. I have wasted the whole of myself in order to

preserve something within myself. Oh devil! I myself and many others

with me, we have all robbed ourselves for the sake of saving up

something for life. Just think of it: desiring to make of myself a

valuable man, I have underrated my individuality in every way possible.

In order to study, and not die of starvation, I have for six years in

succession taught blockheads how to read and write, and had to bear

a mass of abominations at the hands of various papas and mammas, who

humiliated me without any constraint. Earning my bread and tea, I

could not, I had not the time to earn my shoes, and I had to turn to

charitable institutions with humble petitions for loans on the strength

of my poverty. If the philanthropists could only reckon up how much of

the spirit they kill in man while supporting the life of his body! If

they only knew that each rouble they give for bread contains ninety-nine

copecks’ worth of poison for the soul! If they could only burst from

excess of their kindness and pride, which they draw from their holy

activity! There is none on earth more disgusting and repulsive than he

who gives alms, even as there is none more miserable than he who accepts

it!”

Yozhov staggered about in the room like a drunken man, seized with

madness, and the paper under his feet was rustling, tearing, flying in

scraps. He gnashed his teeth, shook his head, his hands waved in the air

like broken wings of a bird, and altogether it seemed as though he

were being boiled in a kettle of hot water. Foma looked at him with a

strange, mixed sensation; he pitied Yozhov, and at the same time he was

pleased to see him suffering.

“I am not alone, he is suffering, too,” thought Foma, as Yozhov spoke.

And something clashed in Yozhov’s throat, like broken glass, and creaked

like an unoiled hinge.

“Poisoned by the kindness of men, I was ruined through the fatal

capacity of every poor fellow during the making of his career, through

the capacity of being reconciled with little in the expectation of

much. Oh! Do you know, more people perish through lack of proper

self-appreciation than from consumption, and perhaps that is why the

leaders of the masses serve as district inspectors!”

“The devil take the district inspectors!” said Foma, with a wave of the

hand. “Tell me about yourself.”

“About myself! I am here entire!” exclaimed Yozhov, stopping short in

the middle of the room, and striking his chest with his hands. “I have

already accomplished all I could accomplish. I have attained the rank of

the public’s entertainer--and that is all I can do! To know what should

be done, and not to be able to do it, not to have the strength for your

work--that is torture!”

“That’s it! Wait awhile!” said Foma, enthusiastically. “Now tell me what

one should do in order to live calmly; that is, in order to be satisfied

with one’s self.”

To Foma these words sounded loud, but empty, and their sounds died away

without stirring any emotion in his heart, without giving rise to a

single thought in his mind.

“You must always be in love with something unattainable to you. A man

grows in height by stretching himself upwards.”

Now that he had ceased speaking of himself, Yozhov began to talk more

calmly, in a different voice. His voice was firm and resolute, and his

face assumed an expression of importance and sternness. He stood in the

centre of the room, his hand with outstretched fingers uplifted, and

spoke as though he were reading:

“Men are base because they strive for satiety. The well-fed man is an

animal because satiety is the self-contentedness of the body. And the

self-contentedness of the spirit also turns man into animal.”

Again he started as though all his veins and muscles were suddenly

strained, and again he began to run about the room in seething

agitation.

“A self-contented man is the hardened swelling on the breast of society.

He is my sworn enemy. He fills himself up with cheap truths, with gnawed

morsels of musty wisdom, and he exists like a storeroom where a stingy

housewife keeps all sorts of rubbish which is absolutely unnecessary to

her, and worthless. If you touch such a man, if you open the door into

him, the stench of decay will be breathed upon you, and a stream of some

musty trash will be poured into the air you breathe. These unfortunate

people call themselves men of firm character, men of principles and

convictions. And no one cares to see that convictions are to them but

the clothes with which they cover the beggarly nakedness of their souls.

On the narrow brows of such people there always shines the inscription

so familiar to all: calmness and confidence. What a false inscription!

Just rub their foreheads with firm hand and then you will see the real

sign-board, which reads: ‘Narrow mindedness and weakness of soul!’”

Foma watched Yozhov bustling about the room, and thought mournfully:

“Whom is he abusing? I can’t understand; but I can see that he has been

terribly wounded.”

“How many such people have I seen!” exclaimed Yozhov, with wrath and

terror. “How these little retail shops have multiplied in life! In

them you will find calico for shrouds, and tar, candy and borax for the

extermination of cockroaches, but you will not find anything fresh, hot,

wholesome! You come to them with an aching soul exhausted by loneliness;

you come, thirsting to hear something that has life in it. And they

offer to you some worm cud, ruminated book-thoughts, grown sour with

age. And these dry, stale thoughts are always so poor that, in order

to give them expression, it is necessary to use a vast number of

high-sounding and empty words. When such a man speaks I say to myself:

‘There goes a well-fed, but over-watered mare, all decorated with bells;

she’s carting a load of rubbish out of the town, and the miserable

wretch is content with her fate.’”

“They are superfluous people, then,” said Foma. Yozhov stopped short in

front of him and said with a biting smile on his lips:

“No, they are not superfluous, oh no! They exist as an example, to show

what man ought not to be. Speaking frankly, their proper place is

the anatomical museums, where they preserve all sorts of monsters and

various sickly deviations from the normal. In life there is nothing that

is superfluous, dear. Even I am necessary! Only those people, in whose

souls dwells a slavish cowardice before life, in whose bosoms there are

enormous ulcers of the most abominable self-adoration, taking the places

of their dead hearts--only those people are superfluous; but even they

are necessary, if only for the sake of enabling me to pour my hatred

upon them.”

All day long, until evening, Yozhov was excited, venting his blasphemy

on men he hated, and his words, though their contents were obscure to

Foma, infected him with their evil heat, and infecting called forth in

him an eager desire for combat. At times there sprang up in him distrust

of Yozhov, and in one of these moments he asked him plainly:

“Well! And can you speak like that in the face of men?”

“I do it at every convenient occasion. And every Sunday in the

newspaper. I’ll read some to you if you like.”

Without waiting for Foma’s reply, he tore down from the wall a few

sheets of paper, and still continuing to run about the room, began to

read to him. He roared, squeaked, laughed, showed his teeth and looked

like an angry dog trying to break the chain in powerless rage. Not

grasping the ideals in his friend’s creations, Foma felt their daring

audacity, their biting sarcasm, their passionate malice, and he was as

well pleased with them as though he had been scourged with besoms in a

hot bath.

“Clever!” he exclaimed, catching some separate phrase. “That’s cleverly

aimed!”

Every now and again there flashed before him the familiar names of

merchants and well-known citizens, whom Yozhov had stung, now stoutly

and sharply, now respectfully and with a fine needle-like sting.

Foma’s approbation, his eyes burning with satisfaction, and his excited

face gave Yozhov still more inspiration, and he cried and roared ever

louder and louder, now falling on the lounge from exhaustion, now

jumping up again and rushing toward Foma.

“Come, now, read about me!” exclaimed Foma, longing to hear it. Yozhov

rummaged among a pile of papers, tore out one sheet, and holding it

in both hands, stopped in front of Foma, with his legs straddled wide

apart, while Foma leaned back in the broken-seated armchair and listened

with a smile.

The notice about Foma started with a description of the spree on the

rafts, and during the reading of the notice Foma felt that certain

particular words stung him like mosquitoes. His face became more

serious, and he bent his head in gloomy silence. And the mosquitoes went

on multiplying.

“Now that’s too much!” said he, at length, confused and dissatisfied.

“Surely you cannot gain the favour of God merely because you know how to

disgrace a man.”

“Keep quiet! Wait awhile!” said Yozhov, curtly, and went on reading.

Having established in his article that the merchant rises beyond doubt

above the representatives of other classes of society in the matter

of nuisance and scandal-making, Yozhov asked: “Why is this so?” and

replied:

“It seems to me that this predilection for wild pranks comes from the

lack of culture in so far as it is dependent upon the excess of energy

and upon idleness. There cannot be any doubt that our merchant class,

with but few exceptions, is the healthiest and, at the same time, most

inactive class.”

“That’s true!” exclaimed Foma, striking the table with his fist. “That’s

true! I have the strength of a bull and do the work of a sparrow.”

“Where is the merchant to spend his energy? He cannot spend much of it

on the Exchange, so he squanders the excess of his muscular capital in

drinking-bouts in kabaky; for he has no conception of other applications

of his strength, which are more productive, more valuable to life. He is

still a beast, and life has already become to him a cage, and it is

too narrow for him with his splendid health and predilection for

licentiousness. Hampered by culture he at once starts to lead a

dissolute life. The debauch of a merchant is always the revolt of a

captive beast. Of course this is bad. But, ah! it will be worse yet,

when this beast, in addition to his strength, shall have gathered some

sense and shall have disciplined it. Believe me, even then he will not

cease to create scandals, but they will be historical events. Heaven

deliver us from such events! For they will emanate from the merchant’s

thirst for power; their aim will be the omnipotence of one class,

and the merchant will not be particular about the means toward the

attainment of this aim.

“Well, what do you say, is it true?” asked Yozhov, when he had finished

reading the newspaper, and thrown it aside.

“I don’t understand the end,” replied Foma. “And as to strength, that is

true! Where am I to make use of my strength since there is no demand for

it! I ought to fight with robbers, or turn a robber myself. In general

I ought to do something big. And that should be done not with the

head, but with the arms and the breast. While here we have to go to the

Exchange and try to aim well to make a rouble. What do we need it for?

And what is it, anyway? Has life been arranged in this form forever?

What sort of life is it, if everyone is grieved and finds it too narrow

for him? Life ought to be according to the taste of man. If it is narrow

for me, I must move it asunder that I may have more room. I must break

it and reconstruct it. But nod? That’s where the trouble lies! What

ought to be done that life may be freer? That I do not understand, and

that’s all there is to it.”

“Yes!” drawled out Yozhov. “So that’s where you’ve gone! That, dear, is

a good thing! Ah, you ought to study a little! How are you about books?

Do you read any?”

“No, I don’t care for them. I haven’t read any.”

“That’s just why you don’t care for them.” “I am even afraid to read

them. I know one--a certain girl--it’s worse than drinking with her! And

what sense is there in books? One man imagines something and prints it,

and others read it. If it is interesting, it’s all right. But learn from

a book how to live!--that is something absurd. It was written by man,

not by God, and what laws and examples can man establish for himself?”

“And how about the Gospels? Were they not written by men?”

“Those were apostles. Now there are none.”

“Good, your refutation is sound! It is true, dear, there are no

apostles. Only the Judases remained, and miserable ones at that.”

Foma felt very well, for he saw that Yozhov was attentively listening

to his words and seemed to be weighing each and every word he uttered.

Meeting such bearing toward him for the first time in his life, Foma

unburdened himself boldly and freely before his friend, caring nothing

for the choice of words, and feeling that he would be understood because

Yozhov wanted to understand him.

“You are a curious fellow!” said Yozhov, about two days after their

meeting. “And though you speak with difficulty, one feels that there is

a great deal in you--great daring of heart! If you only knew a little

about the order of life! Then you would speak loud enough, I think.

Yes!”

“But you cannot wash yourself clean with words, nor can you then free

yourself,” remarked Foma, with a sigh. “You have said something about

people who pretend that they know everything, and can do everything. I

also know such people. My godfather, for instance. It would be a

good thing to set out against them, to convict them; they’re a pretty

dangerous set!”

“I cannot imagine, Foma, how you will get along in life if you preserve

within you that which you now have,” said Yozhov, thoughtfully.

“It’s very hard. I lack steadfastness. Of a sudden I could perhaps do

something. I understand very well that life is difficult and narrow for

every one of us. I know that my godfather sees that, too! But he profits

by this narrowness. He feels well in it; he is sharp as a needle, and

he’ll make his way wherever he pleases. But I am a big, heavy man,

that’s why I am suffocating! That’s why I live in fetters. I could free

myself from everything with a single effort: just to move my body with

all my strength, and then all the fetters will burst!”

“And what then?” asked Yozhov.

“Then?” Foma became pensive, and, after a moment’s thought, waved his

hand. “I don’t know what will be then. I shall see!”

“We shall see!” assented Yozhov.

He was given to drink, this little man who was scalded by life. His

day began thus: in the morning at his tea he looked over the local

newspapers and drew from the news notices material for his feuilleton,

which he wrote right then and there on the corner of the table. Then he

ran to the editorial office, where he made up “Provincial Pictures”

out of clippings from country newspapers. On Friday he had to write

his Sunday feuilleton. For all they paid him a hundred and twenty-five

roubles a month; he worked fast, and devoted all his leisure time to

the “survey and study of charitable institutions.” Together with Foma he

strolled about the clubs, hotels and taverns till late at night, drawing

material everywhere for his articles, which he called “brushes for

the cleansing of the conscience of society.” The censor he styled as

“superintendent of the diffusion of truth and righteousness in life,” the

newspaper he called “the go-between, engaged in introducing the reader

to dangerous ideas,” and his own work, “the sale of a soul in retail,”

and “an inclination to audacity against holy institutions.”

Foma could hardly make out when Yozhov jested and when he was in

earnest. He spoke of everything enthusiastically and passionately, he

condemned everything harshly, and Foma liked it. But often, beginning to

argue enthusiastically, he refuted and contradicted himself with equal

enthusiasm or wound up his speech with some ridiculous turn. Then it

appeared to Foma that that man loved nothing, that nothing was firmly

rooted within him, that nothing guided him. Only when speaking of

himself he talked in a rather peculiar voice, and the more impassioned

he was in speaking of himself, the more merciless and enraged was he

in reviling everything and everybody. And his relation toward Foma was

dual; sometimes he gave him courage and spoke to him hotly, quivering in

every limb.

“Go ahead! Refute and overthrow everything you can! Push forward with

all your might. There is nothing more valuable than man, know this! Cry

at the top of your voice: ‘Freedom! Freedom!”

But when Foma, warmed up by the glowing sparks of these words, began to

dream of how he should start to refute and overthrow people who, for the

sake of personal profit, do not want to broaden life, Yozhov would often

cut him short:

“Drop it! You cannot do anything! People like you are not needed. Your

time, the time of the strong but not clever, is past, my dear! You are

too late! There is no place for you in life.”

“No? You are lying!” cried Foma, irritated by contradiction.

“Well, what can you accomplish?”

“I?”

“You!”

“Why, I can kill you!” said Foma, angrily, clenching his fist.

“Eh, you scarecrow!” said Yozhov, convincingly and pitifully, with a

shrug of the shoulder. “Is there anything in that? Why, I am anyway half

dead already from my wounds.”

And suddenly inflamed with melancholy malice, he stretched himself and

said:

“My fate has wronged me. Why have I lowered myself, accepting the sops

of the public? Why have I worked like a machine for twelve years in

succession in order to study? Why have I swallowed for twelve long years

in the Gymnasium and the University the dry and tedious trash and the

contradictory nonsense which is absolutely useless to me? In order

to become feuilleton-writer, to play the clown from day to day,

entertaining the public and convincing myself that that is necessary and

useful to them. Where is the powder of my youth? I have fired off

all the charge of my soul at three copecks a shot. What faith have I

acquired for myself? Only faith in the fact that everything in this life

is worthless, that everything must be broken, destroyed. What do I love?

Myself. And I feel that the object of my love does not deserve my love.

What can I accomplish?”

He almost wept, and kept on scratching his breast and his neck with his

thin, feeble hands.

But sometimes he was seized with a flow of courage, and then he spoke in

a different spirit:

“I? Oh, no, my song is not yet sung to the end! My breast has imbibed

something, and I’ll hiss like a whip! Wait, I’ll drop the newspaper,

I’ll start to do serious work, and write one small book, which I will

entitle ‘The Passing of the Soul’; there is a prayer by that name, it

is read for the dying. And before its death this society, cursed by the

anathema of inward impotence, will receive my book like incense.”

Listening to each and every word of his, watching him and comparing his

remarks, Foma saw that Yozhov was just as weak as he was, that he, too,

had lost his way. But Yozhov’s mood still infected Foma, his speeches

enriched Foma’s vocabulary, and sometimes he noticed with joyous delight

how cleverly and forcibly he had himself expressed this or that idea. He

often met in Yozhov’s house certain peculiar people, who, it seemed to

him, knew everything, understood everything, contradicted everything,

and saw deceit and falsehood in everything. He watched them in silence,

listened to their words; their audacity pleased him, but he was

embarrassed and repelled by their condescending and haughty bearing

toward him. And then he clearly saw that in Yozhov’s room they were all

cleverer and better than they were in the street and in the hotels. They

held peculiar conversations, words and gestures for use in the room,

and all this was changed outside the room, into the most commonplace and

human. Sometimes, in the room, they all blazed up like a huge woodpile,

and Yozhov was the brightest firebrand among them; but the light of this

bonfire illuminated but faintly the obscurity of Foma Gordyeeff’s soul.

One day Yozhov said to him:

“Today we will carouse! Our compositors have formed a union, and they

are going to take all the work from the publisher on a contract. There

will be some drinking on this account, and I am invited. It was I who

advised them to do it. Let us go? You will give them a good treat.”

“Very well!” said Foma, to whom it was immaterial with whom he passed

the time, which was a burden to him.

In the evening of that day Foma and Yozhov sat in the company of

rough-faced people, on the outskirts of a grove, outside the town.

There were twelve compositors there, neatly dressed; they treated Yozhov

simply, as a comrade, and this somewhat surprised and embarrassed Foma,

in whose eyes Yozhov was after all something of a master or superior

to them, while they were really only his servants. They did not seem to

notice Gordyeeff, although, when Yozhov introduced Foma to them, they

shook hands with him and said that they were glad to see him. He

lay down under a hazel-bush, and watched them all, feeling himself a

stranger in this company, and noticing that even Yozhov seemed to have

got away from him deliberately, and was paying but little attention

to him. He perceived something strange about Yozhov; the little

feuilleton-writer seemed to imitate the tone and the speech of the

compositors. He bustled about with them at the woodpile, uncorked

bottles of beer, cursed, laughed loudly and tried his best to resemble

them. He was even dressed more simply than usual.

“Eh, brethren!” he exclaimed, with enthusiasm. “I feel well with you!

I’m not a big bird, either. I am only the son of the courthouse guard,

and noncommissioned officer, Matvey Yozhov!”

“Why does he say that?” thought Foma. “What difference does it make

whose son a man is? A man is not respected on account of his father, but

for his brains.”

The sun was setting like a huge bonfire in the sky, tinting the clouds

with hues of gold and of blood. Dampness and silence were breathed from

the forest, while at its outskirts dark human figures bustled about

noisily. One of them, short and lean, in a broad-brimmed straw hat,

played the accordion; another one, with dark moustache and with his cap

on the back of his head, sang an accompaniment softly. Two others tugged

at a stick, testing their strength. Several busied themselves with the

basket containing beer and provisions; a tall man with a grayish beard

threw branches on the fire, which was enveloped in thick, whitish

smoke. The damp branches, falling on the fire, crackled and rustled

plaintively, and the accordion teasingly played a lively tune, while the

falsetto of the singer reinforced and completed its loud tones.

Apart from them all, on the brink of a small ravine, lay three young

fellows, and before them stood Yozhov, who spoke in a ringing voice:

“You bear the sacred banner of labour. And I, like yourselves, am a

private soldier in the same army. We all serve Her Majesty, the Press.

And we must live in firm, solid friendship.”

“That’s true, Nikolay Matveyich!” some one’s thick voice interrupted

him. “And we want to ask you to use your influence with the publisher!

Use your influence with him! Illness and drunkenness cannot be treated

as one and the same thing. And, according to his system, it comes out

thus; if one of us gets drunk he is fined to the amount of his day’s

earnings; if he takes sick the same is done. We ought to be permitted

to present the doctor’s certificate, in case of sickness, to make it

certain; and he, to be just, ought to pay the substitute at least half

the wages of the sick man. Otherwise, it is hard for us. What if three

of us should suddenly be taken sick at once?”

“Yes; that is certainly reasonable,” assented Yozhov. “But, my friends,

the principle of cooperation--”

Foma ceased listening to the speech of his friend, for his attention was

diverted by the conversation of others. Two men were talking; one was

a tall consumptive, poorly dressed and angry-looking man; the other a

fair-haired and fair-bearded young man.

“In my opinion,” said the tall man sternly, and coughing, “it is

foolish! How can men like us marry? There will be children. Do we have

enough to support them? The wife must be clothed--and then you can’t

tell what sort of a woman you may strike.”

“She’s a fine girl,” said the fair-haired man, softly. “Well, it’s now

that she is fine. A betrothed girl is one thing, a wife quite another.

But that isn’t the main point. You can try--perhaps she will really be

good. But then you’ll be short of means. You will kill yourself with

work, and you will ruin her, too. Marriage is an impossible thing for

us. Do you mean to say that we can support a family on such earnings?

Here, you see, I have only been married four years, and my end is near.

I have seen no joy--nothing but worry and care.”

He began to cough, coughed for a long time, with a groan, and when he

had ceased, he said to his comrade in a choking voice:

“Drop it, nothing will come of it!”

His interlocutor bent his head mournfully, while Foma thought:

“He speaks sensibly. It’s evident he can reason well.”

The lack of attention shown to Foma somewhat offended him and aroused in

him at the same time a feeling of respect for these men with dark faces

impregnated with lead-dust. Almost all of them were engaged in practical

serious conversation, and their remarks were studded with certain

peculiar words. None of them fawned upon him, none bothered him with

love, with his back to the fire, and he saw before him a row of brightly

illuminated, cheerful and simple faces. They were all excited from

drinking, but were not yet intoxicated; they laughed, jested, tried to

sing, drank, and ate cucumbers, white bread and sausages. All this had

for Foma a particularly pleasant flavour; he grew bolder, seized by

the general good feeling, and he longed to say something good to these

people, to please them all in some way or other. Yozhov, sitting by

his side, moved about on the ground, jostled him with his shoulder and,

shaking his head, muttered something indistinctly.

“Brethren!” shouted the stout fellow. “Let’s strike up the student song.

Well, one, two!”

“Swift as the waves,”

Someone roared in his bass voice:

“Are the days of our life.”

“Friends!” said Yozhov, rising to his feet, a glass in his hand. He

staggered, and leaned his other hand against Foma’s head. The started

song was broken off, and all turned their heads toward him.

“Working men! Permit me to say a few words, words from the heart. I am

happy in your company! I feel well in your midst. That is because you

are men of toil, men whose right to happiness is not subject to doubt,

although it is not recognised. In your ennobling midst, Oh honest

people, the lonely man, who is poisoned by life, breathes so easily, so

freely.”

Yozhov’s voice quivered and quaked, and his head began to shake. Foma

felt that something warm trickled down on his hand, and he looked up at

the wrinkled face of Yozhov, who went on speaking, trembling in every

limb:

“I am not the only one. There are many like myself, intimidated by fate,

broken and suffering. We are more unfortunate than you are, because

we are weaker both in body and in soul, but we are stronger than you

because we are armed with knowledge, which we have no opportunity to

apply. We are gladly ready to come to you and resign ourselves to you

and help you to live. There is nothing else for us to do! Without you

we are without ground to stand on; without us, you are without light!

Comrades! we were created by Fate itself to complete one another!”

“What does he beg of them?” thought Foma, listening to Yozhov’s words

with perplexity. And examining the faces of the compositors he saw that

they also looked at the orator inquiringly, perplexedly, wearily.

“The future is yours, my friends!” said Yozhov, faintly, shaking his

head mournfully as though feeling sorry for the future, and yielding

to these people against his will the predominance over it. “The future

belongs to the men of honest toil. You have a great task before you! You

have to create a new culture, everything free, vital and bright! I, who

am one of you in flesh and in spirit; who am the son of a soldier; I

propose a toast to your future! Hurrah!”

Yozhov emptied his glass and sank heavily to the ground. The compositors

unanimously took up his broken exclamation, and a powerful, thundering

shout rolled through the air, causing the leaves on the trees to

tremble.

“Let’s start a song now,” proposed the stout fellow again.

“Come on!” chimed in two or three voices. A noisy dispute ensued as to

what to sing. Yozhov listened to the noise, and, turning his head from

one side to another, scrutinized them all.

“Brethren,” Yozhov suddenly cried again, “answer me. Say a few words in

reply to my address of welcome.”

Again--though not at once--all became silent, some looking at him with

curiosity, others concealing a grin, still others with an expression of

dissatisfaction plainly written on their faces. And he again rose from

the ground and said, hotly:

“Two of us here are cast away by life--I and that other one. We both

desire the same regard for man and the happiness of feeling ourselves

useful unto others. Comrades! And that big, stupid man--”

“Nikolay Matveyich, you had better not insult our guest!” said someone

in a deep, displeased voice.

“Yes, that’s unnecessary,” affirmed the stout fellow, who had invited

Foma to the fireside. “Why use offensive language?”

A third voice rang out loudly and distinctly:

“We have come together to enjoy ourselves--to take a rest.”

“Fools!” laughed Yozhov, faintly. “Kind-hearted fools! Do you pity him?

But do you know who he is? He is of those people who suck your blood.”

“That will do, Nikolay Matveyich!” they cried to Yozhov. And all began

to talk, paying no further attention to him. Foma felt so sorry for his

friend that he did not even take offence. He saw that these people

who defended him from Yozhov’s attacks were now purposely ignoring the

feuilleton-writer, and he understood that this would pain Yozhov if he

were to notice it. And in order to take his friend away from possible

unpleasantness, he nudged him in the side and said, with a kind-hearted

laugh:

“Well, you grumbler, shall we have a drink? Or is it time to go home?”

“Home? Where is the home of the man who has no place among men?” asked

Yozhov, and shouted again: “Comrades!”

Unanswered, his shout was drowned in the general murmur. Then he drooped

his head and said to Foma:

“Let’s go from here.”

“Let’s go. Though I don’t mind sitting a little longer. It’s

interesting. They behave so nobly, the devils. By God!”

“I can’t bear it any longer. I feel cold. I am suffocating.”

“Well, come then.”

Foma rose to his feet, removed his cap, and, bowing to the compositors,

said loudly and cheerfully:

“Thank you, gentlemen, for your hospitality! Good-bye!”

They immediately surrounded him and spoke to him persuasively:

“Stay here! Where are you going? We might sing all together, eh?”

“No, I must go, it would be disagreeable to my friend to go alone. I am

going to escort him. I wish you a jolly feast!”

“Eh, you ought to wait a little!” exclaimed the stout fellow, and then

whispered:

“Some one will escort him home!”

The consumptive also remarked in a low voice:

“You stay here. We’ll escort him to town, and get him into a cab

and--there you are!”

Foma felt like staying there, and at the same time was afraid of

something. While Yozhov rose to his feet, and, clutching at the sleeves

of his overcoat, muttered:

“Come, the devil take them!”

“Till we meet again, gentlemen! I’m going!” said Foma and departed amid

exclamations of polite regret.

“Ha, ha, ha!” Yozhov burst out laughing when he had got about twenty

steps away from the fire. “They see us off with sorrow, but they are

glad that I am going away. I hindered them from turning into beasts.”

“It’s true, you did disturb them,” said Foma. “Why do you make such

speeches? People have come out to enjoy themselves, and you obtrude

yourself upon them. That bores them!”

“Keep quiet! You don’t understand anything!” cried Yozhov, harshly.

“You think I am drunk? It’s my body that is intoxicated, but my soul is

sober, it is always sober; it feels everything. Oh, how much meanness

there is in the world, how much stupidity and wretchedness! And

men--these stupid, miserable men.”

Yozhov paused, and, clasping his head with his hands, stood for awhile,

staggering.

“Yes!” drawled out Foma. “They are very much unlike one another.

Now these men, how polite they are, like gentlemen. And they reason

correctly, too, and all that sort of thing. They have common sense. Yet

they are only labourers.”

In the darkness behind them the men struck up a powerful choral song.

Inharmonious at first, it swelled and grew until it rolled in a huge,

powerful wave through the invigorating nocturnal air, above the deserted

field.

“My God!” said Yozhov, sadly and softly, heaving a sigh. “Whereby are

we to live? Whereon fasten our soul? Who shall quench its thirsts for

friendship brotherhood, love, for pure and sacred toil?”

“These simple people,” said Foma, slowly and pensively, without

listening to his companion s words, absorbed as he was in his own

thoughts, “if one looks into these people, they’re not so bad! It’s even

very--it is interesting. Peasants, labourers, to look at them plainly,

they are just like horses. They carry burdens, they puff and blow.”

“They carry our life on their backs,” exclaimed Yozhov with irritation.

“They carry it like horses, submissively, stupidly. And this

submissiveness of theirs is our misfortune, our curse!”

And Foma, carried away by his own thought, argued:

“They carry burdens, they toil all their life long for mere trifles.

And suddenly they say something that wouldn’t come into your mind in a

century. Evidently they feel. Yes, it is interesting to be with them.”

Staggering, Yozhov walked in silence for a long time, and suddenly he

waved his hand in the air and began to declaim in a dull, choking voice,

which sounded as though it issued from his stomach:

“Life has cruelly deceived me, I have suffered so much pain.”

“These, dear boy, are my own verses,” said he, stopping short and

nodding his head mournfully. “How do they run? I’ve forgotten. There is

something there about dreams, about sacred and pure longings, which are

smothered within my breast by the vapour of life. Oh!”

“The buried dreams within my breast Will never rise again.”

“Brother! You are happier than I, because you are stupid. While I--”

“Don’t be rude!” said Foma, irritated. “You would better listen how they

are singing.”

“I don’t want to listen to other people’s songs,” said Yozhov, with

a shake of the head. “I have my own, it is the song of a soul rent in

pieces by life.”

And he began to wail in a wild voice:

“The buried dreams within my breast Will never rise again... How great

their number is!”

“There was a whole flower garden of bright, living dreams and hopes.

They perished, withered and perished. Death is within my heart. The

corpses of my dreams are rotting there. Oh! oh!”

Yozhov burst into tears, sobbing like a woman. Foma pitied him, and felt

uncomfortable with him. He jerked at his shoulder impatiently, and said:

“Stop crying! Come, how weak you are, brother!” Clasping his head in

his hand Yozhov straightened up his stooping frame, made an effort and

started again mournfully and wildly:

“How great their number is! Their sepulchre how narrow! I clothed them

all in shrouds of rhyme And many sad and solemn songs O’er them I sang

from time to time!”

“Oh, Lord!” sighed Foma in despair. “Stop that, for Christ’s sake! By

God, how sad!”

In the distance the loud choral song was rolling through the darkness

and the silence. Some one was whistling, keeping time to the refrain,

and this shrill sound, which pierced the ear, ran ahead of the billow of

powerful voices. Foma looked in that direction and saw the tall, black

wall of forest, the bright fiery spot of the bonfire shining upon it,

and the misty figures surrounding the fire. The wall of forest was like

a breast, and the fire like a bloody wound in it. It seemed as though

the breast was trembling, as the blood coursed down in burning streams.

Embraced in dense gloom from all sides the people seemed on the

background of the forest, like little children; they, too, seemed to

burn, illuminated by the blaze of the bonfire. They waved their hands

and sang their songs loudly, powerfully.

And Yozhov, standing beside Foma, spoke excitedly:

“You hard-hearted blockhead! Why do you repulse me? You ought to

listen to the song of the dying soul, and weep over it, for, why was it

wounded, why is it dying? Begone from me, begone! You think I am drunk?

I am poisoned, begone!”

Without lifting his eyes off the forest and the fire, so beautiful in

the darkness, Foma made a few steps aside from Yozhov and said to him in

a low voice:

“Don’t play the fool. Why do you abuse me at random?”

“I want to remain alone, and finish singing my song.”

Staggering, he, too, moved aside from Foma, and after a few seconds

again exclaimed in a sobbing voice:

“My song is done! And nevermore

Shall I disturb their sleep of death,

Oh Lord, Oh Lord, repose my soul!

For it is hopeless in its wounds,

Oh Lord, repose my soul.”

Foma shuddered at the sounds of their gloomy wailing, and he hurried

after Yozhov; but before he overtook him the little feuilleton-writer

uttered a hysterical shriek, threw himself chest down upon the ground

and burst out sobbing plaintively and softly, even as sickly children

cry.

“Nikolay!” said Foma, lifting him by the shoulders. “Cease crying;

what’s the matter? Oh Lord. Nikolay! Enough, aren’t you ashamed?”

But Yozhov was not ashamed; he struggled on the ground, like a fish

just taken from the water, and when Foma had lifted him to his feet, he

pressed close to Foma’s breast, clasping his sides with his thin arms,

and kept on sobbing.

“Well, that’s enough!” said Foma, with his teeth tightly clenched.

“Enough, dear.”

And agitated by the suffering of the man who was wounded by the

narrowness of life, filled with wrath on his account, he turned his face

toward the gloom where the lights of the town were glimmering, and, in

an outburst of wrathful grief, roared in a deep, loud voice:

“A-a-ana-thema! Be cursed! Just wait. You, too, shall choke! Be cursed!”