Before the departure of the tailor's wife there had come to live under
the flat occupied by my employers a black-eyed young lady, with her
little girl and her mother, a gray-haired old woman, everlastingly
smoking cigarettes in an amber mouthpiece. The young lady was very
beautiful, imperious, and proud. She spoke in a pleasant, deep voice.
She looked at every one with head held high and unblinking eyes, as if
they were all far away from her, and she could hardly see them. Nearly
every day her black soldier-servant, Tuphyaev, brought a thin-legged,
brown horse to the steps of her flat. The lady came out in a long,
steel-colored, velvet dress, wearing white gauntleted gloves and tan
boots. Holding the train of her skirt and a whip with a lilac-colored
stone in its handle in one hand, with the other little hand she
lovingly stroked the horse's muzzle. He fixed his great eyes upon her,
trembling all over, and softly trampled the soaked ground under his
hoofs.
"Robaire, Robaire," she said in a low voice, and patted the beautiful,
arched neck of the steed with a firm hand.
Then setting her foot on the knee of Tuphyaev, she sprang lightly into
the saddle, and the horse, prancing proudly, went through the gateway.
She sat in the saddle as easily as if she were part of it. She was
beautiful with that rare kind of beauty which always seems new and
wonderful, and always fills the heart with an intoxicating joy. When
I looked at her I thought that Diana of Poitiers, Queen Margot, the
maiden La Vallière, and other beauties, heroines of historical novels,
were like her.
She was constantly surrounded by the officers of the division which was
stationed in the town, and in the evenings they used to visit her, and
play the piano, violin, guitar, and dance and sing. The most frequent
of her visitors was Major Olessov, who revolved about her on his short
legs, stout, red-faced, gray-haired, and as greasy as an engineer on a
steamboat. He played the guitar well, and bore himself as the humble,
devoted servant of the lady.
As radiantly beautiful as her mother was the little five-year-old,
curly-haired, chubby girl. Her great, dark-blue eyes looked about her
gravely, calmly expectant, and there was an air of thoughtfulness about
her which was not at all childish.
Her grandmother was occupied with housekeeping from morning to
night, with the help of Tuphyaev, a morose, taciturn man, and a fat,
cross-eyed housemaid. There was no nursemaid, and the little girl lived
almost without any notice being taken of her, playing about all day on
the front steps or on a heap of planks near them. I often went out to
play with her in the evenings, for I was very fond of her. She soon
became used to me, and would fall asleep in my arms while I was telling
her a story. When this happened, I used to carry her to bed. Before
long it came about that she would not go to sleep, when she was put to
bed, unless I went to say good night to her. When I went to her, she
would hold out her plump hand with a grand air and say:
"Good-by till to-morrow. Grandmother, how ought I to say it?"
"God preserve you!" said the grandmother, blowing a cloud of dark-blue
smoke from her mouth and thin nose.
"God preserve you till to-morrow! And now I am going to sleep," said
the little girl, rolling herself up in the bedclothes, which were
trimmed with lace.
The grandmother corrected her.
"Not till to-morrow, but for always."
"But does n't to-morrow mean for always?"
She loved the word "to-morrow," and whatever pleased her specially
she carried forward into the future. She would stick into the ground
flowers that had been plucked or branches that had been broken by the
wind, and say:
"To-morrow this will be a garden."
"To-morrow, some time, I shall buy myself a horse, and ride on
horseback like mother."
She was a clever child, but not very lively, and would often break off
in the midst of a merry game to become thoughtful, or ask unexpectedly:
"Why do priests have hair like women?"
If she stung herself with nettles, she would shake her finger at them,
saying:
"You wait! I shall pray God to do something vewy bady to you. God can
do bad things to every one; He can even punish mama." Sometimes a soft,
serious melancholy descended upon her. She would press close to me,
gazing up at the sky with her blue, expectant eyes, and say:
"Sometimes grandmother is cross, but mama never; she on'y laughs. Every
one loves her, because she never has any time. People are always coming
to see her and to look at her because she is so beautiful. She is
'ovely, mama is. 'Oseph says so--'ovely!"
I loved to listen to her, for she spoke of a world of which I knew
nothing. She spoke willingly and often about her mother, and a new life
gradually opened out before me. I was again reminded of Queen Margot,
which deepened my faith in books and also my interest in life. One day
when I was sitting on the steps waiting for my people, who had gone for
a walk, and the little girl had dozed off in my arms, her mother rode
up on horseback, sprang lightly to the ground, and, throwing back her
head, asked:
"What, is she asleep?"
"Yes."
"That's right."
The soldier Tuphyaev came running to her and took the horse. She stuck
her whip into her belt and, holding out her arms, said:
"Give her to me!"
"I'll carry her in myself."
"Come on!" cried the lady, as if I had been a horse, and she stamped
her foot on the step.
The little girl woke up, blinking, and, seeing her mother, held out her
arms to her. They went away.
I was used to being shouted at, but I did not like this lady to shout
at me. She had only to give an order quietly, and every one obeyed her.
In a few minutes the cross-eyed maid came out for me. The little girl
was naughty, and would not go to sleep without saying good night.
It was not without pride in my bearing toward the mother that I entered
the drawing-room, where the little girl was sitting on the knees of her
mother, who was deftly undressing her.
"Here he is," she said. "He has come--this monster."
"He is not a monster, but my boy."
"Really? Very good. Well, you would like to give something to your boy,
would n't you?"
"Yes, I should."
"A good idea! I will see to it, and you will go to bed."
"Good-by till to-morrow," said the little girl, holding out her hand to
me. "God preserve you till to-morrow!"
The lady exclaimed in surprise:
"Who taught you to say that? Grandmother?"
"Ye-es."
When the child had left the room the lady beckoned to me.
"What shall we give you?"
I told her that I did not want anything; but could she let me have a
book to read?
She lifted my chin with her warm, scented fingers, and asked, with a
pleasant smile:
"So you are fond of reading? Yes; what books have you read?"
When she smiled she looked more beautiful than ever. I confusedly told
her the names of several books.
"What did you find to like in them?" she asked, laying her hand on the
table and moving her fingers slightly.
A strong, sweet smell of some sort of flowers came from her, mixed with
the odor of horse-sweat. She looked at me through her long eyelashes,
thoughtfully grave. No one had ever looked at me like that before.
The room was packed as tightly as a bird's nest with beautiful, soft
furniture. The windows were covered with thick green curtains; the
snowy white tiles of the stove gleamed in the half-light; beside the
stove shone the glossy surface of a black piano; and from the walls,
in dull-gold frames, looked dark writings in large Russian characters.
Under each writing hung a large dark seal by a cord. Everything about
her looked at that woman as humbly and timidly as I did.
I explained to her as well as I could that my life was hard and
uninteresting and that reading helped me to forget it.
"Yes; so that's what it is," she said, standing up. "It is not a bad
idea, and, in fact, it is quite right. Well, what shall we do? I will
get some books for you, but just now I have none. But wait! You can
have this one."
She took a tattered book with a yellow cover from the couch.
"When you have read this I will give you the second volume; there are
four."
I went away with the "Secrets of Peterburg," by Prince Meshtcheski,
and began to read the book with great attention. But before I had read
many pages I saw that the Peterburgian "secrets" were considerably less
interesting than those of Madrid, London, or Paris. The only part which
took my fancy was the fable of _Svoboda_ (Liberty) and _Palka_ (stick).
"I am your superior," said _Svoboda_, "because I am cleverer."
But _Palka_ answered her:
"No, it is I who am your superior, because I am stronger than you."
They disputed and disputed and fought about it. _Palka_ beat _Svoboda_,
and, if I remember rightly, _Svoboda_ died in the hospital as the
result of her injuries.
There was some talk of nihilists in this book. I remember that,
according to Prince Meshtcheski, a nihilist was such a poisonous person
that his very glance would kill a fowl. What he wrote about nihilists
struck me as being offensive and rude, but I understood nothing else,
and fell into a state of melancholy. It was evident that I could not
appreciate good books; for I was convinced that it was a good book.
Such a great and beautiful lady could never read bad books.
"Well, did you like it?" she asked me when I took back the yellow novel
by Meshtcheski.
I found it very hard to answer no; I thought it would make her angry.
But she only laughed, and going behind the _portière_ which led into
her sleeping-chamber, brought back a little volume in a binding of
dark-blue morocco leather.
"You will like this one, only take care not to soil it."
This was a volume of Pushkin's poems. I read all of them at once,
seizing upon them with a feeling of greed such as I experienced
whenever I happened to visit a beautiful place that I had never seen
before. I always tried to run all over it at once. It was like roaming
over mossy hillocks in a marshy wood, and suddenly seeing spread before
one a dry plain covered with flowers and bathed in sun-rays. For a
second one gazes upon it enchanted, and then one begins to race about
happily, and each contact of one's feet with the soft growth of the
fertile earth sends a thrill of joy through one.
Pushkin had so surprised me with the simplicity and music of poetry
that for a long time prose seemed unnatural to me, and it did not come
easy to read it. The prologue to "Ruslan" reminded me of grandmother's
best stories, all wonderfully compressed into one, and several lines
amazed me by their striking truth.
There, by ways which few observe,
Are the trails of invisible wild creatures.
I repeated these wonderful words in my mind, and I could see those
footpaths so familiar to me, yet hardly visible to the average being. I
saw the mysterious footprints which had pressed down the grass, which
had not had time to shake off the drops of dew, as heavy as mercury.
The full, sounding lines of poetry were easily remembered. They
adorned everything of which they spoke as if for a festival. They made
me happy, my life easy and pleasant. The verses rang out like bells
heralding me into a new life. What happiness it was to be educated!
The magnificent stories of Pushkin touched me more closely, and were
more intelligible to me than anything I had read. When I had read them
a few times I knew them by heart, and when I went to bed I whispered
the verses to myself, with my eyes closed, until I fell asleep. Very
often I told these stories to the orderlies, who listened and laughed,
and abused me jokingly. Sidorov stroked my head and said softly:
"That's fine, is n't it? O Lord--"
The awakening which had come to me was noticed by my employers. The old
lady scolded me.
"You read too much, and you have not cleaned the samovar for four
days, you young monkey! I shall have to take the rolling-pin to you--"
What did I care for the rolling-pin? I took refuge in verses.
Loving black evil with all thy heart,
O old witch that thou art!
The lady rose still higher in my esteem. See what books she read! She
was not like the tailor's porcelain wife.
When I took back the book, and handed it to her with regret, she said
in a tone which invited confidence:
"Did you like it? Had you heard of Pushkin before?"
I had read something about the poet in one of the newspapers, but I
wanted her to tell me about him, so I said that I had never heard of
him.
Then she briefly told me the life and death of Pushkin, and asked,
smiling like a spring day:
"Do you see how dangerous it is to love women?"
All the books I had read had shown me it was really dangerous, but also
pleasant, so I said:
"It is dangerous, yet every one falls in love. And women suffer for
love, too."
She looked at me, as she looked at every one, through her lashes, and
said gravely:
"You think so? You understand that? Then the best thing I can wish you
is that you may not forget it."
And then she asked me what verses I liked best.
I began to repeat some from memory, with gesticulations. She listened
silently and gravely, then rose, and, walking up and down the room,
said thoughtfully:
"We shall have to have you taught, my little wild animal. I must think
about it. Your employers--are they relatives of yours?"
When I answered in the affirmative she exclaimed: "Oh!" as if she
blamed me for it.
She gave me "The Songs of Béranger," a special edition with engravings,
gilt edges, and a red leather binding. These songs made me feel giddy,
with their strange mixture of bitter grief and boisterous happiness.
With a cold chill at my heart I read the bitter words of "The Old
Beggar."
Homeless worm, have I disturbed you?
Crush me under your feet!
Why be pitiful? Crush me quickly!
Why is it that you have never taught me,
Nor given me an outlet for my energy?
From the grub an ant might have come.
I might have died in the love of my fellows.
But dying as an old tramp,
I shall be avenged on the world!
And directly after this I laughed till I cried over the "Weeping
Husband." I remembered especially the words of Béranger:
A happy science of life
Is not hard for the simple.
Béranger aroused me to moods of joyfulness, to a desire to be saucy,
and to say something rude to people,--rude, sharp words. In a very
short time I had become proficient in this art. His verses I learned by
heart, and recited them with pleasure to the orderlies, running into
the kitchen, where they sat for a few minutes at a time.
But I soon had to give this up because the lines,
But such a hat is not becoming
To a young girl of seventeen,
gave rise to an offensive conversation about girls that made me
furiously disgusted, and I hit the soldier Ermokhin over the head with
a saucepan. Sidorov and the other orderlies tore me away from his
clumsy hands, but I made up my mind from that time to go no more to the
officers' kitchen.
I was not allowed to walk about the streets. In fact, there was no time
for it, since the work had so increased. Now, in addition to my usual
duties as housemaid, yardman, and errand-boy, I had to nail calico to
wide boards, fasten the plans thereto, and copy calculations for my
master's architectural work. I also had to verify the contractor's
accounts, for my master worked from morning to night, like a machine.
At that time the public buildings of the _Yarmarka_[1] were private
property. Rows of shops were built very rapidly, and my master had
the contracts for the reconstruction of old shops and the erection of
new ones. He drew up plans for the rebuilding of vaults, the throwing
out of a dormer-window, and such changes. I took the plans to an old
architect, together with an envelop in which was hidden paper money
to the value of twenty-five rubles. The architect took the money, and
wrote under the plans: "The plans are correct, and the inspection of
the work has been performed by me. Imraik." As a matter of fact, he had
not seen the original of the plans, and he could not inspect the work,
as he was always obliged to stay at home by reason of his malady.
[Footnote 1: Market-place.]
I used to take bribes to the inspector of the _Yarmarka_ and to other
necessary people, from whom I received what the master called papers,
which permitted all kinds of illegalities. For this service I obtained
the right to wait for my employers at the door on the front steps when
they went out to see their friends in the evenings. This did not often
happen, but when it did, they never returned until after midnight. I
used to sit at the top of the steps, or on the heap of planks opposite
them, for hours, looking into the windows of my lady's flat, thirstily
listening to the gay conversation and the music.
The windows were open. Through the curtains and the screen of flowers
I could see the fine figures of officers moving about the room. The
rotund major waddled about, and she floated about, dressed with
astonishing simplicity, but beautifully.
In my own mind I called her "Queen Margot."
"This is the gay life that they write about in French books," I
thought, looking in at the window. And I always felt rather sad about
it. A childish jealousy made it painful for me to see "Queen Margot"
surrounded by men, who buzzed about her like bees over flowers.
Her least-frequent visitor was a tall, unhappy-looking officer, with a
furrowed brow and deep-sunken eyes, who always brought his violin with
him and played marvelously--so marvelously that the passers-by used
to stop under the window, and all the dwellers in the street used to
gather round. Even my employers, if they happened to be at home, would
open the window, listen, and praise. I never remember their praising
any one else except the subdeacon of the cathedral, and I knew that a
fish-pie was more pleasing to them than any kind of music.
Sometimes this officer sang, or recited verses in a muffled voice,
sighing strangely and pressing his hand to his brow. Once when I was
playing under the window with the little girl and "Queen Margot" asked
him to sing, he refused for a long time. Then he said clearly:
"Only a song has need of beauty,
While beauty has no need of songs."
I thought these lines were lovely, and for some reason I felt sorry for
the officer.
What I liked best was to look at my lady when she sat at the piano,
alone in the room, and played. Music intoxicated me, and I could see
nothing but the window, and beyond that, in the yellow light of the
lamp, the finely formed figure of the woman, with her haughty profile
and her white hands hovering like birds over the keys. I gazed at her,
listened to the plaintive music, and dreamed. If I could find some
treasure, I would give it all to her, so that she should be rich. If
I had been Skobelev, I would have declared war on the Turks again. I
would have taken money for ransoms, and built a house for her on the
Otkossa, the best site in the whole town, and made her a present of it.
If only she would leave this street, where every one talked offensively
about her. The neighbors, the servants belonging to our yard, and
my employers more than all spoke about "Queen Margot" as evilly and
spitefully as they had talked about the tailor's wife, though more
cautiously, with lowered voices, and looking about them as they spoke.
They were afraid of her, probably because she was the widow of a very
distinguished man. The writings on the walls of her rooms, too, were
privileges bestowed on her husband's ancestors by the old Russian
emperors Goudonov, Alexei, and Peter the Great. This was told me by
the soldier Tuphyaev, a man of education, who was always reading the
gospels. Or it may have been that people were afraid lest she should
thrash them with her whip with the lilac-colored stone in the handle.
It was said that she had once struck a person of position with it.
But words uttered under the breath are no better than words uttered
aloud. My lady lived in a cloud of enmity--an enmity which I could not
understand and which tormented me.
Now that I knew there was another life; that there were different
people, feelings, and ideas, this house and all its tenants aroused
in me a feeling of disgust that oppressed me more and more. It was
entangled in the meshes of a dirty net of disgraceful tittle-tattle,
there was not a single person in it of whom evil was not spoken. The
regimental chaplain, though he was ill and miserable, had a reputation
for being a drunkard and a rake; the officers and their wives were
living, according to my employers, in a state of sin; the soldiers'
conversation about women, which ran on the same lines, had become
repulsive to me. But my employers disgusted me most of all. I knew
too well the real value of their favorite amusement, namely, the
merciless judgment of other people. Watching and commenting on the
crimes of others was the only amusement in which they could indulge
without paying for it. They amused themselves by putting those about
them verbally on the rack, and, as it were, revenged themselves on
others because they lived so piously, laboriously, and uninterestingly
themselves.
When they spoke vilely about "Queen Margot" I was seized by a
convulsion of feeling which was not childish at all. My heart swelled
with hatred for the backbiters. I was overcome by an irresistible
desire to do harm to every one, to be insolent, and sometimes a flood
of tormenting pity for myself and every one else swept over me. That
dumb pity was more painful than hatred.
I knew more about my queen than they did, and I was always afraid that
they would find out what I knew.
On Sundays, when my employers had gone to the cathedral for high mass,
I used to go to her the first thing in the morning. She would call
me into her bedroom, and I sat in a small arm-chair, upholstered in
gold-colored silk, with the little girl on my knee, and told the mother
about the books I had read. She lay in a wide bed, with her cheek
resting on her small hands, which were clasped together. Her body was
hidden under a counterpane, gold in color, like everything else in the
bedroom; her dark hair lay in a plait over her swarthy shoulder and her
breast, and sometimes fell over the side of the bed till it touched the
floor.
As she listened to me she looked into my face with her soft eyes and a
hardly perceptible smile and said:
"That's right."
Even her kind smile was, in my eyes, the condescending smile of a
queen. She spoke in a deep, tender voice, and it seemed to me that it
said always:
"I know that I am immeasurably above all other people; no one of them
is necessary to me."
Sometimes I found her before her mirror, sitting in a low chair and
doing her hair, the ends of which lay on her knees, over the arms, and
back of the chair, and fell almost to the floor. Her hair was as long
and thick as grandmother's. She put on her stockings in my presence,
but her clean nudity aroused in me no feeling of shame. I had only a
joyful feeling of pride in her. A flowerlike smell always came from
her, protecting her from any evil thoughts concerning her.
I felt sure that the love of the kitchen and the pantry was unknown to
Queen Margot. She knew something different, a higher joy, a different
kind of love.
But one day, late in the afternoon, on going into her drawing-room, I
heard from the bedroom the ringing laugh of the lady of my heart. A
masculine voice said:
"Wait a minute! Good Lord! I can't believe--"
I ought to have gone away. I knew that, but I could not.
"Who is that?" she asked. "You? Come in!"
The bedroom was heavy with the odor of flowers. It was darkened, for
the curtains were drawn. Queen Margot lay in bed, with the bedclothes
drawn up to her chin, and beside her, against the wall, sat, clad only
in his shirt, with his chest bared, the officer violinist. On his
breast was a scar which lay like a red streak from the right shoulder
to the nipple and was so vivid that even in the half-light I could see
it distinctly. The hair of the officer was ruffled comically, and for
the first time I saw a smile on his sad, furrowed countenance. He was
smiling strangely. His large, feminine eyes looked at the "queen" as if
it were the first time he had gazed upon her beauty.
"This is my friend," said Queen Margot. I did not know whether she were
referring to me or to him.
"What are you looking so frightened about?" I heard her voice as if
from a distance. "Come here."
When I went to her she placed her hands on my bare neck and said:
"You will grow up and you will be happy. Go along!"
I put the book on the shelf, took another, and went away as best I
could.
Something seemed to grate in my heart. Of course I did not think for a
moment that my queen loved as other women nor did the officer give me
reason to think so. I saw his face before me, with that smile. He was
smiling for joy, like a child who has been pleasantly surprised, and
his sad face was wonderfully transfigured. He had to love her. Could
any one not love her? And she also had cause to bestow her love upon
him generously. He played so wonderfully, and could quote poetry so
touchingly.
But the very fact that I had to find these consolations showed me
clearly that all was not well with my attitude toward what I had seen
or even toward Queen Margot herself. I felt that I had lost something,
and I lived for several days in a state of deep dejection. One day I
was turbulently and recklessly insolent, and when I went to my lady for
a book, she said to me sternly:
"You seem to be a desperate character from what I have heard. I did not
know that."
I could not endure this, and I began to explain how nauseating I found
the life I had to lead, and how hard it was for me to hear people
speaking ill of her. Standing in front of me, with her hand on my
shoulder, she listened at first attentively and seriously; but soon she
was laughing and pushing me away from her gently.
"That will do; I know all about it. Do you understand? I know."
Then she took both my hands and said to me very tenderly:
"The less attention you pay to all that, the better for you. You wash
your hands very badly."
She need not have said this. If she had had to clean the brasses, and
wash the floor and the dirty cloths, her hands would not have been any
better than mine, I think.
"When a person knows how to live, he is slandered; they are jealous of
him. And if he doesn't know how to live, they despise him," she said
thoughtfully, drawing me to her, and looking into my eyes with a smile.
"Do you love me?"
"Yes."
"Very much?"
"Yes."
"But how?"
"I don't know."
"Thank you! You are a good boy. I like people to love me." She smiled,
looked as if she were going to say something more, but remained silent,
still keeping me in her arms. "Come oftener to see me; come whenever
you can."
I took advantage of this, and she did me a lot of good. After dinner my
employers used to lie down, and I used to run down-stairs. If she was
at home, I would stay with her for an hour and sometimes even longer.
"You must read Russian books; you must know all about Russian life."
She taught me, sticking hair-pins into her fragrant hair with rosy
fingers. And she enumerated the Russian authors, adding:
"Will you remember them?"
She often said thoughtfully, and with an air of slight vexation:
"We must have you taught, and I am always forgetting. _Ach_, my God!"
After sitting with her, I ran down-stairs with a new book in my hands,
feeling as if I had been washed inside.
I had already read Aksakov's "Family Chronicle," the glorious Russian
poem "In the Forests," the amazing "Memoirs of a Hunter," several
volumes of Grebenkov and Solugub, and the poetry of Venevitinov,
Odoevski, and Tutchev. These books laved my soul, washing away the
husks of barren and bitter reality. I felt that these were good books,
and realized that they were indispensable to me. One result of reading
them was that I gained a firm conviction that I was not alone in the
world, and the fact that I should not be lost took root in my soul.
When grandmother came to see me I used to tell her joyfully about Queen
Margot, and she, taking a pinch of snuff with great enjoyment, said
heartily:
"Well, well; that is very nice. You see, there are plenty of good
people about. You only have to look for them, and then you will find
them."
And one day she suggested:
"How would it be if I went to her and said thank you for what she does
for you?"
"No; it is better not."
"Well, if you don't want me to----Lord! Lord! how good it all is! I
would like to go on living for ever and ever!"
Queen Margot never carried out her project of having me taught, for an
unpleasant affair happened on the feast of the Holy Trinity that nearly
ruined me.
Not long before the holiday my eyelids became terribly swollen, and my
eyes were quite closed up. My employers were afraid that I should go
blind, and I also was afraid. They took me to the well-known doctor,
Genrikh Rodzevich, who lanced my eyelids and for days I lay with my
eyes bandaged, in tormenting, black misery. The day before the feast of
the Trinity my bandages were taken off, and I walked about once more,
feeling as if I had come back from a grave in which I had been laid
alive. Nothing can be more terrible than to lose one's sight. It is an
unspeakable injury which takes away a hundred worlds from a man.
The joyful day of the Holy Trinity arrived, and, as an invalid, I
was off duty from noon and went to the kitchen to pay a visit to the
orderlies. All of them, even the strict Tuphyaev, were drunk, and
toward evening Ermokhin struck Sidorov on the head with a block of
wood. The latter fell senseless to the ground, and Ermokhin, terrified,
ran out to the causeway.
An alarming rumor that Sidorov had been murdered soon spread over the
yard. People gathered on the steps and looked at the soldier stretched
motionless across the threshold. There were whispers that the police
ought to be sent for, but no one went to fetch them, and no one could
be persuaded to touch the soldier.
Then the washerwoman Natalia Kozlovski, in a new, blue frock, with a
white neckerchief, appeared on the scene. She pushed the people aside
angrily, went into the entrance passage, squatted down, and said loudly:
"Fools! He is alive! Give me some water!"
They began to protest.
"Don't meddle with what is not your business!"
"Water, I tell you!" she cried, as if there were a fire. She lifted
her new frock over her knees in a businesslike manner, spread out her
underskirt, and laid the soldier's bleeding head on her knees.
The crowd dispersed, disapproving and fearful.
In the dim light of the passage I could see the eyes of the washerwoman
full of tears, flashing angrily in her white, round face. I took her a
pail of water, and she ordered me to throw it over the head and breast
of Sidorov with the caution:
"Don't spill it over me. I am going to pay a visit to some friends."
The soldier came to himself, opened his dull eyes, and moaned.
"Lift him up," said Natalia, holding him under the armpits with her
hands outstretched lest he should soil her frock. We carried the
soldier into the kitchen and laid him on the bed. She wiped his face
with a wet cloth, and went away, saying:
"Soak the cloth in water and hold it to his head. I will go and find
that fool. Devils! I suppose they won't be satisfied until they have
drunk themselves into prison."
She went out, after slipping her soiled underpetticoat to the floor,
flinging it into a corner and carefully smoothing out her rustling,
crumpled frock.
Sidorov stretched himself, hiccupped, sighed. Warm drops of thick blood
fell on my bare feet from his head. This was unpleasant, but I was too
frightened to move my feet away from those drops.
It was bitter. The sun shone festively out in the yard; the steps
of the houses and the gate were decorated with young birch; to each
pedestal were tied freshly cut branches of maple and mountain ash. The
whole street was gay with foliage; everything was young, new. Ever
since the morning I had felt that the spring holiday had come to stay,
and that it had made life cleaner, brighter, and happier.
The soldier was sick. The stifling odor of warm vodka and green onion
filled the kitchen. Against the window were pressed dull, misty, broad
faces, with flattened noses, and hands held against their cheeks, which
made them look hideous.
The soldier muttered as he recollected himself:
"What happened to me? Did I fall, Ermokhin? Go-o-od comrade!" Then he
began to cough, wept drunken tears, and groaned, "My little sister! my
little sister!"
He stood up, tottering, wet. He staggered, and, falling back heavily
upon the bed, said, rolling his eyes strangely:
"They have quite killed me!"
This struck me as funny.
"What the devil are you laughing at?" he asked, looking at me dully.
"What is there to laugh at? I am killed forever!"
He began to hit out at me with both hands, muttering:
"The first time was that of Elias the prophet; the second time, St.
George on his steed; the third--Don't come near me! Go away, wolf!"
"Don't be a fool!" I said.
He became absurdly angry, roared, and stamped his feet.
"I am killed, and you--"
With his heavy, slow, dirty hand he struck me in the eyes. I set up a
howl, and blindly made for the yard, where I ran into Natalia leading
Ermokhin by the arm, crying: "Come along, horse! What is the matter
with you?" she asked, catching hold of me.
"He has come to himself."
"Come to himself, eh?" she drawled in amazement. And drawing Ermokhin
along, she said, "Well, werwolf, you may thank your God for this!"
I washed my eyes with water, and, looking through the door of the
passage, saw the soldiers make their peace, embracing each other and
crying. Then they both tried to embrace Natalia, but she hit out at
them, shouting:
"Take your paws off me, curs! What do you take me for? Make haste and
get to sleep before your masters come home, or there will be trouble
for you!"
She made them lie down as if they were little children, the one on the
floor, the other on the pallet-bed, and when they began to snore, came
out into the porch.
"I am in a mess, and I was dressed to go out visiting, too! Did he
hit you? What a fool! That's what it does--vodka! Don't drink, little
fellow, never drink."
Then I sat on the bench at the gate with her, and asked how it was that
she was not afraid of drunken people.
"I am not afraid of sober people, either. If they come near me, this
is what they get!" She showed me her tightly clenched, red fist. "My
dead husband was also given to drink too much, and once when he was
drunk I tied his hands and feet. When he had slept it off, I gave him
a birching for his health. 'Don't drink; don't get drunk when you are
married,' I said. 'Your wife should be your amusement, and not vodka.'
Yes, I scolded him until I was tired, and after that he was like wax in
my hands."
"You are strong," I said, remembering the woman Eve, who deceived even
God Himself.
Natalia replied, with a sigh:
"A woman needs more strength than a man. She has to have strength
enough for two, and God has bestowed it upon her. Man is an unstable
creature."
She spoke calmly, without malice, sitting with her arms folded over her
large bosom, resting her back against the fence, her eyes fixed sadly
on the dusty gutter full of rubbish. Listening to her clever talk,
I forgot all about the time. Suddenly I saw my master coming along
arm in arm with the mistress. They were walking slowly, pompously,
like a turkey-cock with his hen, and, looking at us attentively, said
something to each other.
I ran to open the front door for them, and as she came up the steps the
mistress said to me, venomously:
"So you are courting the washerwoman? Are you learning to carry on with
ladies of that low class?"
This was so stupid that it did not even annoy me but I felt offended
when the master said, laughing:
"What do you expect? It is time."
The next morning when I went into the shed for the wood I found an
empty purse, in the square hole which was made for the hook of the
door. As I had seen it many times in the hands of Sidorov I took it to
him at once.
"Where is the money gone?" he asked, feeling inside the purse with his
fingers. "Thirty rubles there were! Give them here!"
His head was enveloped in a turban formed of a towel. Looking yellow
and wasted, he blinked at me angrily with his swollen eyes, and refused
to believe that I had found the purse empty.
Ermokhin came in and backed him up, shaking his head at me.
"It is he who has stolen it. Take him to his master. Soldiers do not
steal from soldiers."
These words made me think that he had stolen the money himself and
had thrown the purse into my shed. I called out to his face, without
hesitation:
"Liar! You stole it yourself!"
I was convinced that I had guessed right when I saw his wooden face
drawn crooked with fear and rage. As he writhed, he cried shrilly:
"Prove it!"
How could I prove it? Ermokhin dragged me, with a shout, across the
yard. Sidorov followed us, also shouting. Several people put their
heads out of the windows. The mother of Queen Margot looked on,
smoking calmly. I realized that I had fallen in the esteem of my lady,
and I went mad.
I remember the soldiers dragging me by the arms and my employers
standing before them, sympathetically agreeing with them, as they
listened to the complaint. Also the mistress saying:
"Of course he took it! He was courting the washerwoman at the gate last
evening, and he must have had some money. No one gets anything from her
without money."
"That's true," cried Ermokhin.
I was swept off my feet, consumed by a wild rage. I began to abuse the
mistress, and was soundly beaten.
But it was not so much the beating which tortured me as the thought
of what my Queen Margot was now thinking of me. How should I ever set
myself right in her eyes? Bitter were my thoughts in that dreadful
time. I did not strangle myself only because I had not the time to do
so.
Fortunately for me, the soldiers spread the story over the whole yard,
the whole street, and in the evening, as I lay in the attic, I heard
the loud voice of Natalia Kozlovski below.
"No! Why should I hold my tongue? No, my dear fellow, get away! Get
along with you! Go away, I say! If you don't, I will go to your
gentleman, and he will give you something!"
I felt at once that this noise was about me. She was shouting near our
steps; her voice rang out loudly and triumphantly.
"How much money did you show me yesterday? Where did you get it from?
Tell us!"
Holding my breath with joy, I heard Sidorov drawl sadly:
_"Aie! aie_! Ermokhin--"
"And the boy has had the blame for it? He has been beaten for it, eh?"
I felt like running down to the yard, dancing there for joy, kissing
the washerwoman out of gratitude; but at that moment, apparently from
the window, my mistress cried:
"The boy was beaten because he was insolent. No one believed that he
was a thief except you, you slut!"
"Slut yourself, madam! You are nothing better than a cow, if you will
permit me to say so."
I listened to this quarrel as if it were music. My heart burned with
hot tears of self-pity, and gratitude to Natalia. I held my breath in
the effort to keep them back.
Then the master came slowly up to the attic, sat on a projecting beam
near me, and said, smoothing his hair:
"Well, brother Pyeshkov, and so you had nothing to do with it?"
I turned my face away without speaking.
"All the same, your language was hideous," he went on. I announced
quietly:
"As soon as I can get up I shall leave you."
He sat on in silence, smoking a cigarette. Looking fixedly at its end,
he said in a low voice:
"What of it? That is your business. You are not a little boy any
longer; you must look about and see what is the best thing for
yourself."
Then he went away. As usual, I felt sorry for him.
Four days after this I left that house. I had a passionate desire to
say good-by to Queen Margot, but I had not the audacity to go to her,
though I confess I thought that she would have sent for me herself.
When I bade good-by to the little girl I said:
"Tell your mother that I thank her very much, will you?"
"Yes, I will," she promised, and she smiled lovingly and tenderly.
"Good-by till to-morrow, eh? Yes?"
I met her again twenty years later, married to an officer in the
_gendarmerie_.