When the snows came, grandfather once more took me to grandmother's
sister.
"It will do you no harm," he said to me.
I seemed to have had a wonderful lot of experience during the summer.
I felt that I had grown older and cleverer, and the dullness of my
master's house seemed worse than ever. They fell ill as often as
ever, upsetting their stomachs with offensive poisons, and giving one
another detailed accounts of the progress of their illnesses. The old
woman prayed to God in the same terrible and malignant way. The young
mistress had grown thin, but she moved about just as pompously and
slowly as when she was expecting her child. When she stitched at the
baby-clothes she always sang the same song softly to herself:
"Spiria, Spiria, Spiridon,
Spiria, my little brother,
I will sit in the sledge myself
And Spiria on the foot-board."
If any one went into the room she left off singing at once and cried
angrily:
"What do you want?"
I fully believed that she knew no other song but that.
In the evenings they used to call me into the sitting-room, and the
order was given:
"Now tell us how you lived on the boat."
I sat on a chair near the door and spoke. I liked to recall a different
life from this which I was forced to lead against my will. I was so
interested that I forgot my audience, but not for long.
The women, who had never been on a boat, asked me:
"But it was very alarming, was n't it?"
I did not understand. Why should it be alarming?
"Why, the boat might go down any moment, and every one would be
drowned."
The master burst out laughing, and I, although I knew that boats did
not sink just because there were deep places, could not convince the
women. The old woman was certain that the boat did not float on the
water, but went along on wheels on the bottom of the river, like a cart
on dry land.
"If they are made of iron, how can they float? An ax will not float; no
fear!"
"But a scoop does not sink in the water."
"There's a comparison to make! A scoop is a small thing, nothing to
speak of."
When I spoke of Smouri and his books they regarded me with contempt.
The old lady said that only fools and heretics wrote books.
"What about the Psalms and King David?"
"The Psalms are sacred writings, and King David prayed God to forgive
him for writing the Psalms."
"Where does it say so?"
"In the palms of my hands; that's where! When I get hold of you by the
neck you will learn where."
She knew everything; she spoke on all subjects with conviction and
always savagely.
"A Tatar died on the Pechorka, and his soul came out of his mouth as
black as tar."
"Soul? Spirit?" I said, but she cried contemptuously:
"Of a Tatar! Fool!"
The young mistress was afraid of books, too.
"It is very injurious to read books, and especially when you are
young," she said. "At home, at Grebeshka, there was a young girl of
good family who read and read, and the end of it was that she fell in
love with the deacon, and the deacon's wife so shamed her that it was
terrible to see. In the street, before everybody."
Sometimes I used words out of Smouri's books, in one of which, one
without beginning or end, was written, "Strictly speaking, no one
person really invented powder; as is always the case, it appeared at
the end of a long series of minor observations and discoveries." I do
not know why I remembered these words so well. What I liked best of
all was the joining of two phrases, "strictly speaking, no one person
really invented powder." I was aware of force underlying them; but they
brought me sorrow, ludicrous sorrow. It happened thus.
One day when my employers proposed that I should tell them about
something which had happened on the boat I answered:
"I have n't anything left to tell, strictly speaking." This amazed
them. They cried:
"What? What's that you said?"
And all four began to laugh in a friendly fashion, repeating:
"'Strictly speaking,'--ah, Lord!"
Even the master said to me:
"You have thought that out badly, old fellow." And for a long time
after that they used to call me:
"Hi, 'strictly speaking,' come here and wipe up the floor after the
baby, strictly speaking."
This stupid banter did not offend, but it greatly surprised, me. I
lived in a fog of stupefying grief, and I worked hard in order to
fight against it. I did not feel my inefficiencies when I was at work.
In the house were two young children. The nurses never pleased the
mistresses, and were continually being changed. I had to wait upon the
children, to wash baby-clothes every day, and every week I had to go to
the Jandarmski Fountain to rinse the linen. Here I was derided by the
washerwomen:
"Why are you doing women's work?"
Sometimes they worked me up to such a pitch that I slapped them with
the wet, twisted linen. They paid me back generously for this, but I
found them merry and interesting.
The Jandarmski Fountain ran along the bottom of a deep causeway
and fell into the Oka. The causeway cut the town off from the field
which was called, from the name of an ancient god, Yarilo. On that
field, near Semika, the inhabitants of the town had made a promenade.
Grandmother had told me that in the days of her youth people still
believed in Yarilo and offered sacrifices to him. They took a wheel,
covered it with tarred tow, and let it roll down the hill with cries
and songs, watching to see if the burning wheel would roll as far as
the Oka. If it did, the god Yarilo had accepted the sacrifice; the
summer would be sunny and happy.
The washerwomen were for the most part from Yarilo, bold, headstrong
women who had the life of the town at their finger-ends. It was very
interesting to hear their tales of the merchants, _chinovniks_, and
officers for whom they worked. To rinse the linen in winter in the
icy water of the river was work for a galley-slave. All the women had
their hands so frost-bitten that the skin was broken. Bending over
the stream, inclosed in a wooden trough, under an old penthouse full
of crevices, which was no protection against either wind or snow, the
women rinsed the linen. Their faces were flushed, pinched by the frost.
The frost burned their wet fingers; they could not bend them. Tears
trickled from their eyes, but they chatted all the time, telling one
another different stories, bearing themselves with a peculiar bravery
toward every one and everything.
The best of all the stories were told by Natalia Kozlovski, a woman of
about thirty, fresh-faced, strong, with laughing eyes and a peculiarly
facile and sharp tongue. All her companions had a high regard for her;
she was consulted on all sorts of affairs, and much admired for her
skill in work, for the neatness of her attire, and because she had
been able to send her daughter to the high school. When, bending under
the weight of two baskets of wet linen, she came down the hill on the
slippery footpath, they greeted her gladly, and asked solicitously:
"Well, and how is the daughter?"
"Very well, thank you; she is learning well, thank God!"
"Look at that now! She will be a lady."
"That's why I am having her taught. Where do the ladies with the
painted faces come from? They all come from us, from the black earth.
And where else should they come from? He who has the most knowledge has
the longest arms and can take more, and the one who takes the most has
the honor and glory. God sends us into the world as stupid children and
expects to take us back as wise old people, which means that we must
learn!"
When she spoke every one was silent, listening attentively to her
fluent, self-confident speech. They praised her to her face and behind
her back, amazed at her cleverness, her intellect; but no one tried to
imitate her. She had sewn brown leather from the leg of a boot, over
the sleeve of her bodice which saved her from the necessity of baring
her arms to the elbow, and prevented her sleeves from getting wet.
They all said what a good idea it was, but not one of them followed her
example. When I did so they laughed at me.
"_Ekh_, you? Letting a woman teach you!"
With reference to her daughter she said:
"That is an important affair. There will be one more young lady in the
world. Is that a small thing? But of course she may not be able to
finish her studies; she may die. And it is not an easy life for those
who are students, you see. There was that daughter of the Bakhilovs.
She studied and studied, and even became a teacher herself. Once you
become a teacher, you know, you are settled for life."
"Of course, if they marry, they can do without education; that is, if
they have something else to recommend them."
"A woman's wit lies not in her head."
It was strange and embarrassing to hear them speak about themselves
with such lack of reticence. I knew how sailors, soldiers, and tillers
of the soil spoke about women. I heard men always boasting among
themselves of their skill in deceiving women, of cunning in their
relations with them. I felt that their attitude toward "females"
was hostile, but generally there was a ring of something in these
boastings which led me to suppose that these stories were merely brag,
inventions, and not the truth.
The washerwomen did not tell one another about their love adventures,
but in whatever they said about men I detected an undercurrent of
derision, of malice, and I thought it might be true that woman was
strength.
"Even when they don't go about among their fellows and make friends,
they come to women, every one of them!" said Natalia one day, and an
old woman cried to her in a rheumy voice:
"And to whom else should they go? Even from God monks and hermits come
to us."
These conversations amid the weeping splash of the water, the slapping
of wet clothes on the ground, or against the dirty chinks, which
not even the snow could hide with its clean cover--these shameless,
malicious conversations about secret things, about that from which all
races and peoples have sprung, roused in me a timid disgust, forced
my thoughts and feelings to fix themselves on "the romances" which
surrounded and irritated me. For me the understanding of the "romances"
was closely intertwined with representations of obscure, immoral
stories.
However, whether I was with the washerwomen, or in the kitchen with the
orderlies or in cellars where lived the field laborers, I found it much
more interesting than to be at home, where the stilted conversations
were always on the same lines, where the same things happened over
and over again, arousing nothing but a feeling of constraint and
embittered boredom. My employers dwelt within the magic circle of food,
illness, sleep, and the anxieties attendant on preparing for eating
and sleeping. They spoke of sin and of death, of which they were much
afraid. They rubbed against one another as grains of corn are rubbed
against the grindstone, which they expect every moment to crush them.
In my free time I used to go into the shed to chop wood, desiring to be
alone. But that rarely happened. The orderlies used to come and talk
about the news of the yard.
Ermokhin and Sidorov came more often than the others. The former was
a long, bow-backed Kalougan, with thick, strong veins all over him,
a small head, and dull eyes. He was lazy and irritatingly stupid; he
moved slowly and clumsily, and when he saw a woman he blinked and bent
forward, just as if he were going to throw himself at her feet. All the
yard was amazed by his swift conquest of the cooks and the maids, and
envied him. They were all afraid of his bear-like strength. Sidorov, a
lean, bony native of Tula, was always sad, spoke softly, and loved to
gaze into dark corners. He would relate some incident in a low voice,
or sit in silence, looking into the darkest corner.
"What are you looking at?"
"I thought I saw a mouse running about. I love mice; they run to and
fro so quietly."
I used to write letters home for these orderlies--love-letters. I liked
this, but it was pleasanter to write letters for Sidorov than for any
of the others. Every Saturday regularly he sent a letter to his sister
at Tula.
He invited me into his kitchen, sat down beside me at the table, and,
rubbing his close-cropped hair hard, whispered in my ear:
"Well, go on. Begin it as it ought to be begun. 'My dearest sister, may
you be in good health for many years'--you know how it ought to go. And
now write, 'I received the ruble; only you need not have sent it. But
I thank you. I want for nothing; we live well here.' As a matter of
fact, we do not live at all well, but like dogs; but there is no need
to write that. Write that we live well. She is little, only fourteen
years old. Why should she know? Now write by yourself, as you have been
taught."
He pressed upon me from the left side, breathing into my ear hotly and
odorously, and whispered perseveringly:
"Write 'if any one speaks tenderly to you, you are not to believe him.
He wants to deceive you, and ruin you.'"
His face was flushed by his effort to keep back a cough. Tears stood in
his eyes. He leaned on the table and pushed against me.
"You are hindering me!"
"It is all right; go on! 'Above all, never believe gentlemen. They will
lead a girl wrong the first time they see her. They know exactly what
to say. And if you have saved any money, give it to the priest to keep
for you, if he is a good man. But the best thing, is to bury it in the
ground, and remember the spot.'"
It was miserable work trying to listen to this whisper, which was
drowned by the squeaking of the tin ventilator in the _fortochka._
I looked at the blackened front of the stove, at the china cupboard
covered with flies. The kitchen was certainly very dirty, overrun with
bugs, redolent with an acrid smell of burnt fat, kerosene, and smoke.
On the stove, among the sticks of wood, cockroaches crawled in and out.
A sense of melancholy stole over my heart. I could have cried with pity
for the soldier and his sister. Was it possible, was it right that
people should live like this?
I wrote something, no longer listening to Sidorov's whisper. I wrote of
the misery and repulsiveness of life, and he said to me, sighing:
"You have written a lot; thank you. Now she will know what she has to
be afraid of."
"There is nothing for her to be afraid of," I said angrily, although I
was afraid of many things myself.
The soldier laughed, and cleared his throat.
"What an oddity you are! How is there nothing to be afraid of? What
about gentlemen, and God? Is n't that something?"
When he received a letter from his sister he said restlessly:
"Read it, please. Be quick!"
And he made me read the badly scrawled, insultingly short, and
nonsensical letter three times.
He was good and kind, but he behaved toward women like all the others;
that is, with the primitive coarseness of an animal. Willingly and
unwillingly, as I observed these affairs, which often went on under my
eyes, beginning and ending with striking and impure swiftness, I saw
Sidorov arouse in the breast of a woman a kind feeling of pity for him
in his soldier's life, then intoxicate her with tender lies, and then
tell Ermokhin of his conquest, frowning and spitting his disgust, just
as if he had been taking some bitter medicine. This made my heart ache,
and I angrily asked the soldiers why they all deceived women, lied to
them, and then, jeering among themselves at the woman they had treated
so, gave her away and often beat her.
One of them laughed softly, and said:
"It is not necessary for you to know anything about such things. It is
all very bad; it is sin. You are young; it is too early for you."
But one day I obtained a more definite answer, which I have always
remembered.
"Do you think that she does not know that I am deceiving her?" he
said, blinking and coughing. "She kno-o-ows. She wants to be deceived.
Everybody lies in such affairs; they are a disgrace to all concerned.
There is no love on either side; it is simply an amusement. It is a
dreadful disgrace. Wait, and you will know for yourself. It was for
that God drove them out of paradise, and from that all unhappiness has
come."
He spoke so well, so sadly, and so penitently that he reconciled me a
little to these "romances." I began to have a more friendly feeling
toward him than towards Ermokhin, whom I hated, and seized every
occasion of mocking and teasing. I succeeded in this, and he often
pursued me across the yard with some evil design, which only his
clumsiness prevented him from executing.
"It is forbidden," went on Sidorov, speaking of women.
That it was forbidden I knew, but that it was the cause of human
unhappiness I did not believe. I saw that people were unhappy, but I
did not believe what he said, because I sometimes saw an extraordinary
expression in the eyes of people in love, and was aware of a peculiar
tenderness in those who loved. To witness this festival of the heart
was always pleasant to me.
However, I remember that life seemed to me to grow more and more
tedious, cruel, fixed for ever in those forms of it which I saw from
day to day. I did not dream of anything better than that which passed
interminably before my eyes.
But one day the soldiers told me a story which stirred me deeply. In
one of the flats lived a cutter-out, employed by the best tailor in
the town, a quiet, meek foreigner. He had a little, childless wife
who read books all day long. Over the noisy yard, amid houses full of
drunken people, these two lived, invisible and silent. They had no
visitors, and never went anywhere themselves except to the theater in
holiday-time.
The husband was engaged from early morning until late at night.
The wife, who looked like an undersized girl, went to the library
twice a week. I often saw her walking with a limp, as if she were
slightly lame, as far as the dike, carrying books in a strap, like a
school-girl. She looked unaffected, pleasant, new, clean, with gloves
on her small hands. She had a face like a bird, with little quick eyes,
and everything about her was pretty, like a porcelain figure on a
mantel-shelf. The soldiers said that she had some ribs missing in her
left side, and that was what made her sway so curiously as she walked;
but I thought this very nice, and at once set her above all the other
ladies in the yard--the officers' wives. The latter, despite their loud
voices, their variegated attire, and _haut tournure_, had a soiled look
about them, as if they had been lying forgotten for a long time, in a
dark closet among other unneeded things.
The little wife of the cutter-out was regarded in the yard as half
witted. It was said that she had lost her senses over books, and had
got into such a condition that she could not manage the housekeeping;
that her husband had to go to the market himself in search of
provisions, and order the dinner and supper of the cook, a great, huge
foreign female. She had only one red eye, which was always moist, and a
narrow pink crevice in place of the other. She was like her mistress,
they said of her. She did not know how to cook a dish of fried veal
and onions properly, and one day she ignominiously bought radishes,
thinking she was buying parsley. Just think what a dreadful thing that
was!
All three were aliens in the building, as if they had fallen by
accident into one of the compartments of a large hen-house. They
reminded me of a titmouse which, taking refuge from the frost, flies
through the _fortochka_ into a stifling and dirty habitation of man.
And then the orderlies told me how the officers had played an insulting
and wicked trick on the tailor's little wife. They took turns to write
her a letter every day, declaring their love for her, speaking of their
sufferings and of her beauty. She answered them, begging them to leave
her in peace, regretting that she had been the cause of unhappiness to
any one, and praying God that He would help them to give up loving her.
When any one of them received a letter like that, they used to read
it all together, and then make up another letter to her, signed by a
different person.
When they told me this story, the orderlies laughed too, and abused the
lady.
"She is a wretched fool, the crookback," said Ermokhin in a bass voice,
and Sidorov softly agreed with him.
"Whatever a woman is, she likes being deceived. She knows all about it."
I did not believe that the wife of the cutter-out knew that they
were laughing at her, and I resolved at once to tell her about it.
I watched for the cook to go down into the cellar, and I ran up the
dark staircase to the flat of the little woman, and slipped into the
kitchen. It was empty. I went on to the sitting-room. The tailor's
wife was sitting at the table. In one hand she held a heavy gold cup,
and in the other an open book. She was startled. Pressing the book to
her bosom, she cried in a low voice:
"Who is that? Auguste! Who are you?"
I began to speak quickly and confusedly, expecting every minute
that she would throw the book at me. She was sitting in a large,
raspberry-colored armchair, dressed in a pale-blue wrap with a fringe
at the hem and lace on the collar and sleeves over her shoulders was
spread her flaxen, wavy hair. She looked like an angel from the gates
of heaven. Leaning against the back of her chair, she looked at me with
round eyes, at first angrily, then in smiling surprise.
When I had said what I wanted to say, and, losing my courage, turned to
the door, she cried after me:
"Wait!"
Placing the cup on the tray, throwing the book on the table, and
folding her hands, she said in a husky, grown-up voice:
"What a funny boy you are! Come closer!"
I approached very cautiously. She took me by the hand, and, stroking it
with her cold, small fingers, said:
"Are you sure that no one sent you to tell me this? No? All right; I
see that you thought of it yourself."
Letting my hand go, she closed her eyes, and said softly and drawingly:
"So that is how the soldiers speak of me?"
"Leave this place," I advised her earnestly.
"Why?"
"They will get the better of you."
She laughed pleasantly. Then she asked:
"Do you study? Are you fond of books?"
"I have no time for reading."
"If you were fond of it, you would find the time. Well, thank you."
She held out a piece of silver money to me, grasped between her first
finger and her thumb. I felt ashamed to take that cold thing from her,
but I did not dare to refuse. As I went out, I laid it on the pedestal
of the stair-banisters.
I took away with me a deep, new impression from that woman. It was as
if a new day had dawned for me. I lived for several days in a state of
joy, thinking of the spacious room and the tailor's wife sitting in
it, dressed in pale blue and looking like an angel. Everything around
her was unfamiliarly beautiful. A dull-gold carpet lay under her feet;
the winter day looked through the silver panes of the window, warming
itself in her presence. I wanted very much to look at her again. How
would it be if I went to her and asked her for a book?
I acted upon this idea. Once more I saw her in the same place, also
with a book in her hand; but she had a red handkerchief tied round her
face, and her eyes were swollen. As she gave me a book with a black
binding, she indistinctly called out something. I went away feeling
sad, carrying the book, which smelt of creosote and aniseed drops. I
hid it in the attic, wrapping it up in a clean shirt and some paper;
for I was afraid that my employers might find it and spoil it.
They used to take the "Neva" for the sake of the patterns and prizes,
but they never read it. When they had looked at the pictures, they put
it away in a cupboard in the bedroom, and at the end of the year they
had been bound, placing them under the bed, where already lay three
volumes of "The Review of Painting." When I washed the floor in the
bedroom dirty water flowed under these books. The master subscribed to
the "Russian Courier," but when he read it in the evening he grumbled
at it.
"What the devil do they want to write all tins for? Such dull stuff!"
On Saturday, when I was putting away the linen in the attic, I
remembered about the book. I undid it from its wrappings, and read
the first lines: "Houses are like people; they all have physiognomies
of their own." The truth of this surprised me, and I went on reading
farther, standing at the dormer-window until I was too cold to stay
longer. But in the evening, when they had gone to vespers, I carried
the book into the kitchen and buried myself in the yellow, worn pages,
which were like autumn leaves. Without effort, they carried me into
another life, with new names and new standards, showed me noble heroes,
gloomy villains, quite unlike the people with whom I had to do. This
was a novel by Xavier de Montepaine. It was long, like all his novels,
simply packed with people and incidents, describing an unfamiliar,
vehement life. Everything in this novel was wonderfully clear and
simple, as if a mellow light hidden between the lines illuminated
the good and evil. It helped one to love and hate, compelling one
to follow with intense interest the fates of the people, who seemed
so inextricably entangled. I was seized with sudden desires to help
this person, to hinder that, forgetting that this life, which had so
unexpectedly opened before me, had its existence only on paper. I
forgot everything else in the exciting struggles. I was swallowed up by
a feeling of joy on one page, and by a feeling of grief on the next.
I read until I heard the bell ring in the front hall. I knew at once
who it was that was ringing, and why.
The candle had almost burned out. The candlestick, which I had cleaned
only that morning, was covered with grease; the wick of the lamp,
which I ought to have looked after, had slipped out of its place, and
the flame had gone out. I rushed about the kitchen trying to hide
the traces of my crime. I slipped the book under the stove-hole, and
began to put the lamp to rights. The nurse came running out of the
sitting-room.
"Are you deaf? They have rung!"
I rushed to open the door.
"Were you asleep?" asked the master roughly. His wife, mounting the
stairs heavily, complained that she had caught cold. The old lady
scolded me. In the kitchen she noticed the burned-out candle at once,
and began to ask me what I had been doing. I said nothing. I had only
just come down from the heights, and I was all to pieces with fright
lest they should find the book. She cried out that I would set the
house on fire. When the master and his wife came down to supper she
complained to them.
"There, you see, he has let the candle gutter, he will set the house on
fire."
While they were at supper the whole four of them lashed me with their
tongues, reminding me of all my crimes, wilful and involuntary,
threatening me with perdition; but I knew quite well that they were all
speaking not from ill-feeling, or for my good, but simply because they
were bored. And it was curious to observe how empty and foolish they
were compared with the people in books.
When they had finished eating, they grew heavy, and went wearily to
bed. The old woman, after disturbing God with her angry complaints,
settled herself on the stove and was silent. Then I got up, took the
book from the stove-hole, and went to the window. It was a bright
night, and the moon looked straight into the window; but my sight
was not good enough to see the small print. My desire to read was
tormenting me. I took a brass saucepan from the shelf and reflected
the light of the moon from it on the book; but it became still more
difficult and blurred. Then I betook myself to the bench in the corner
where the icon was, and, standing upon it, began to read by the light
of the small lamp. But I was very tired, and dozed, sinking down on the
bench. I was awakened by the cries and blows of the old woman. She was
hitting me painfully over the shoulders with the book, which she held
in her hand. She was red with rage, furiously tossing her brown head,
barefooted, and wearing only her night-dress. Victor roared from the
loft:
"Mamasha, don't make such a noise! You make life unbearable."
"She has found the book. She will tear it up!" I thought.
My trial took place at breakfast-time. The master asked me, sternly:
"Where did you get that book?"
The women exclaimed, interrupting each other. Victor sniffed
contemptuously at the pages and said:
"Good gracious! what does it smell of?"
Learning that the book belonged to the priest, they looked at it again,
surprised and indignant that the priest should read novels. However,
this seemed to calm them down a little, though the master gave me
another long lecture to the effect that reading was both injurious and
dangerous.
"It is the people who read books who rob trains and even commit
murders."
The mistress cried out, angry and terrified:
"Have you gone out of your mind? What do you want to say such things to
him for?"
I took Montepaine to the soldier and told him what had happened.
Sidorov took the book, opened a small trunk, took out a clean towel,
and, wrapping the novel in it, hid it in the trunk.
"Don't you take any notice of them. Come and read here. I shan't tell
any one. And if you come when I am not here, you will find the key
hanging behind the icon. Open the trunk and read."
The attitude my employers had taken with regard to the book raised it
to the height of an important and terrible secret in my mind. That
some "readers" had robbed a train or tried to murder some one did not
interest me, but I remembered the question the priest had asked me in
confession, the reading of the gymnasiast in the basement, the words
of Smouri, the "proper books," and grandfather's stories of the black
books of freemasonry. He had said:
"In the time of the Emperor Alexander Pavlovich of blessed memory
the nobles took up the study of 'black books' and freemasonry. They
planned to hand over the whole Russian people to the Pope of Rome, if
you please! But General Arakcheev caught them in the act, and, without
regard to their position, sent them all to Siberia, into prison. And
there they were; exterminated like vermin."
I remembered the _"umbra"_ of Smouri's book and "Gervase" and the
solemn, comical words:
Profane ones who are curious to know our business,
Never shall your weak eyes spy it out!
I felt that I was on the threshold of the discovery of some great
secret, and went about like a lunatic. I wanted to finish reading
the book, and was afraid that the soldier might lose it or spoil it
somehow. What should I say to the tailor's wife then?
The old woman watched me sharply to see that I did not run to the
orderly's room, and taunted me:
"Bookworm! Books! They teach dissoluteness. Look at that woman, the
bookish one. She can't even go to market herself. All she can do is
to carry on with the officers. She receives them in the daytime. I
kno-o-w."
I wanted to cry, "That's not true. She does not carry on," but I was
afraid to defend the tailor's wife, for then the old woman might guess
that the book was hers.
I had a desperately bad time of it for several days. I was distracted
and worried, and could not sleep for fear that Montepaine had come
to grief. Then one day the cook belonging to the tailor's household
stopped me in the yard and said:
"You are to bring back that book."
I chose the time after dinner, when my employers lay down to rest,
and appeared before the tailor's wife embarrassed and crushed. She
looked now as she had the first time, only she was dressed differently.
She wore a gray skirt and a black velvet blouse, with a turquoise
cross upon her bare neck. She looked like a hen bullfinch. When I
told her that I had not had time to read the book, and that I had
been forbidden to read, tears filled my eyes. They were caused by
mortification, and by joy at seeing this woman.
"Foo! what stupid people!" she said, drawing her fine brows together.
"And your master has such an interesting face, too! Don't you fret
about it. I will write to him."
"You must not! Don't write!" I begged her. "They will laugh at you and
abuse you. Don't you know that no one in the yard likes you, that they
all laugh at you, and say that you are a fool, and that some of your
ribs are missing?"
As soon as I had blurted this out I knew that I had said something
unnecessary and insulting to her. She bit her lower lip, and clapped
her hands on her hips as if she were riding on horseback. I hung my
head in confusion and wished that I could sink into the earth; but she
sank into a chair and laughed merrily, saying over and over again:
"Oh, how stupid! how stupid! Well, what is to be done?" she asked,
looking fixedly at me. Then she sighed and said, "You are a strange
boy, very strange."
Glancing into the mirror beside her, I saw a face with high cheek-bones
and a short nose, a large bruise on the forehead, and hair, which had
not been cut for a long time, sticking out in all directions. That is
what she called "a strange boy." The strange boy was not in the least
like a fine porcelain figure.
"You never took the money that I gave you. Why?"
"I did not want it."
She sighed.
"Well, what is to be done? If they will allow you to read, come to me
and I will give you some books."
On the mantel-shelf lay three books. The one which I had brought back
was the thickest. I looked at it sadly. The tailor's wife held out her
small, pink hand to me.
"Well, good-by!"
I touched her hand timidly, and went away quickly.
It was certainly true what they said about her not knowing anything.
Fancy calling two _gravities_ money! It was just like a child.
But it pleased me.