God punished me through my son. Sometimes I can’t get it out of my
head,--I’ll tell you right away what he went and done to himself.
And besides, just consider that it really was very hard,--I used to
look at this big-headed fellow, and what a vexation would take hold
on me! “May this and that befall you,” I’d think, “you was born, with
a silver spoon in your mouth! Even though you be a cripple, yet how
rich you live.... Whereas mine is all sound, and yet he don’t eat or
drink as much on a holiday as you do on a week-day, just so.” Then I
started in to notice,--it looked like he’d fallen in love with me;
well, now, he just wouldn’t take his eyes off my face. By that time
he was already sixteen, and had taken to wearing wide trousers, and
to belting his blouse; a red-haired moustache started cropping out.
But he was homely, tow-haired, green-eyed--God deliver me! His face
was broad, but he himself was as thin as a bone. At first, evidently,
he got it into his head that he could be pleasing,--he began to dress
up, to buy polly-seeds, and used to play on his accordeon so fine
that you could listen to him for hours. He played well, to tell the
truth. When he seen that his affair weren’t coming along, he grew
quiet and thoughtful-like. Once I was standing in the balcony, and
I see him crawling through the yard with a new German accordeon. He
had shaved and combed himself once more; had put on a three-buttoned
blouse with a high collar, fastening at the side; his head was thrown
back,--looking for me, that is. He looked and he looked; his eyes
became longing-like and dim, and then he began a polka:
“Let us go, let us go,
I would dance a polka through;
Dancing makes one braver; so
I can speak my love for you....”
But, like as if I hadn’t noticed him, I took and threw down a
slop-bowl, with water! I threw it down, and then was scared myself. But
he crawls, he struggles up the stairs, drying himself with one hand and
dragging the accordeon by the other. His eyes were lowered, and he was
all white, and he spoke meek-like, all aquiver:
“May your hands wither. What you’ve done is a sin, Nastiya.”
And that was all.... True, he was a peaceful one.
He was losing flesh at that time, not by the day but by the hour; and
the doctor had already said that he wasn’t long for this world, that
he was bound to die from a consumption. It made me shudder even as
much as to touch him. But then a poor person ain’t got no call to be
particular,--money can do anything, and so he started in to bribe me.
Just as soon as everybody used to fall asleep, right off he’d call me
to him,--either into the garden or into his room. (He lived apart from
everybody, living downstairs; his room was large, warm, and yet bleak;
all the windows looked out into the yard, the ceiling was low, the wall
paper was old and brown.)
“You just sit with me a while,” he says, “and I’ll give you some money
for that. I don’t want anything from you,--I have simply fallen in
love with you, and want to be with you; these walls have near drove me
crazy.”
Well, I’d take the money and sit for a while, and I got together about
half a hundred in that way. And then I had about four hundred of wages
and interest laid by. So, thinks I to myself, it’s about time now
for me to be crawling out of the harness, bit by bit. But, to tell
the honest truth, it was a pity to do so,--I wanted to bide my time
for another year or so, to save up a little more. But the main thing
was,--he had let it slip once when he was talking with me,--he had a
little toy saving bank that he was keeping most secret,--he had gotten
over two hundred roubles in trifling sums from his mother. Naturally,
with him lying sick, always abed, and all alone, his mother would
thrust the money upon him to cheer him up. But no matter how I tried
not to, I still would think once in a while: “The Lord forgive my
transgression, but it would be best if he gave that money to me! It’s
of no use to him, anyway; he’s like to die at any moment; whereas I’d
be well-fixed for all time with it.” I just waited to see how this
business might be worked, as cleverly as possible. I became more kind
to him, of course; began to sit with him more often. I used to come
into his room, and then look over my shoulder on purpose, as though I
had come in by stealth. I’d close the door and begin speaking in a low
whisper:
“There now,” I’d say, “I’ve got away; let’s sit together like a lovin’
couple.”
Making believe, that is, like I had a meeting arranged with him, but
that I was losing my courage, and yet at the same time was glad that I
had got through with my work and could now be with him. Then I began
to put on a weary air, to pretend I was in deep thought. And he was
always trying to get the reason out of me:
“Nast, why have you grown so sad?”
“Oh, just so! I’ve got more than my share of trouble!”
And then I’d top that with a sigh, become quiet, and lean my cheek on
my hand.
“But just what,” he’d say, “is the matter?”
“Well,” I says, “poor folks got a lot of things the matter with them,
but who ever worries about them? I wouldn’t even want to bore you with
them.”
Well, he guessed what was what pretty soon. He was clever, like I
said,--he’d be a match even for a healthy person. One day I came into
his room,--it was, as I remember even now, in mid-Lent; the weather was
sort of gloomy, wet, with a fog outside; everybody in the house was
sleeping after dinner. I come into his room with some needle-work in
my hands,--I was sewing something or other for myself; I sat down near
his bed and was just wanting to heave a sigh, and again make believe
I was aweary, and then start leading him on to my idea easy-like,
when he starts in talking about it himself. I can see him right now,
lying in his pink blouse,--brand new, never yet washed; in blue wide
trousers; in new small boots with patent-leather tops; his legs laid
one acrost the other, and him looking out of the corner of his eye.
His sleeves was wide, the trousers wider still, and his little legs
and arms like match-sticks; his head was heavy, big, and he were all
little himself,--it even made a body unwell to see him. To look at him,
he seemed a boy, yet his face was that of an old man, although it was
somehow youngish at the same time,--that was on account of him being
clean-shaved,--and he had a thick moustache. (Come to think of it, he
shaved himself every day, that’s how fast his beard would grow; his
hands looked like they was covered with tow, and the hair upon them was
all red, too.) Well, as I was saying, he’s lying there, his hair parted
on one side, his face turned toward the wall; he was picking at the
wall-paper, and all of a sudden he says;
“Nast!”
I even shuddered all over.
“What is it, Nicanor Matveich?”
And meanwhile my own heart rolled up to my mouth.
“Do you know where my toy bank is lying?”
“No,” I says, “how should I know that, Nicanor Matveich? I never had no
evil designs in my mind upon you.”
“Get up; draw out the bottom drawer in the wardrobe; take out the old
accordeon,--that’s where the toy bank is. Let me have it here.”
“But what do you want it for?”
“Just so,--I want to count the money.”
I got at the drawer, opened the cover of the accordeon,--and there,
stuffed into the bellows, was a tin elephant,--feeling pretty heavy.
I take it out and hand it to him. He takes it, rattles it, lays it
by him,--just like a baby, he was, honest to God,--and goes off into
thought about something. He keeps silent, and he keeps silent; then he
smiles, and says:
“To-day, Nast, I had a fine dream. I even woke up before daybreak on
account of it, and it has made me feel very good all day, up to dinner.
Just look,--I have even shaved myself, and have got all dressed up for
you.”
“But then, Nicanor Matveich, you always go about neat-dressed, anyway.”
And I don’t understand myself what I’m saying, I’m that excited.
“Well,” says he, “I guess I will be able to go about in the other
world. You can’t even imagine what a good-looking fellow I’m going to
be in the other world!”
I even got to feeling sorry for him.
“It’s a sin to make fun of such things, Nicanor Matveich, and I can’t
even understand why you say such things. Perhaps,” I says, “God will
send you health yet. You’d do better to tell me what your dream was.”
He started in beating about the bush again; started in to smile
wryly,--“What good am I alive!” he says. Then he began, without rhyme
or reason, to talk about a cow we had:
“For God’s sake,” says he, “tell mother to sell it; I can’t stand it no
more, that’s how tired I am of it; I lie here in bed and look at the
little barn where she’s kept, and she always looks back at me through
the bars,”--and all the while he’s rattling the money, and keeps from
looking me in the eyes. And I listen, and also can’t understand half of
what he’s saying,--just like two persons out of their minds, we was,
saying anything that came into our heads. Finally I couldn’t stand
it no more; for, thinks I, everybody will wake up at any second, and
they’ll be calling for a samovar, and then the whole business falls
through! And so I interrupt him as soon as I can, going in for cunning:
“But no,” I says, “you’d better tell me what dream you saw.... _Was it
anything about us two?_”
Of course, I wanted to say something that would please him, and I
struck it so right that he even changed colour entirely, and cast his
eyes down. All of a sudden he takes the toy bank, gets a little key out
of his trousers’-pocket, and wants to open it,--and can’t, nohow; just,
can’t get at the key-hole, his hands are trembling so. At last he does
manage to open it and pours out all it held onto his belly,--I remember
it all like it was now: there was two paper bills and eight gold
pieces; he scoops it all into his hand, and suddenly says in a whisper:
“Could you kiss me just once?”
My hands and feet just got numb from fright. But he’s carrying on like
he was going out of his mind, whispering, stretching upward to me:
“Nastechka, just once! God is my witness I will never say another word,
never ask again!”
I looked over my shoulder,--well, thinks I, I might just as well be
hanged for a sheep as for a lamb,--and I kissed him. So he was all just
gasping; he grabbed me around the neck, caught my lips, and I guess he
didn’t let me go for a whole minute. Then he shoves all the money into
my hand,--and turns his face to the wall.
“Go,” he says.
I ran out and went straight into my room. I put the money away under
lock and key, grabbed hold of a lemon, and started in to rub my lips.
I rubbed them so hard that they simply turned all white. I was awful
afraid, to tell the truth, that I might get a consumption from him....
Well and good,--this business, then, turned out all right, glory
be to God; so I begin to lay my plans for the next move, of more
importance,--the one which I had the most struggles about. I felt that
there was trouble brewing; I was afraid he wouldn’t let me leave my
place. “He’ll start in,” thinks I, “to pester me with his love, will
want to become my husband on account of this money.” But no; nothing
happens, I see. He don’t try to annoy me; he treats me rightly, the
same like before, as though nothing had taken place between us,--even
more modestly, it looks like,--and he don’t call me into his room:
that meant he was keeping his word. Then I bring the talk around to my
going away, putting it up to my master and mistress: it’s time for me
to see about my son a little, now; to be free for a little while. They
won’t even hear of it. And as for him, you can understand how he felt,
without my saying a word about it. I hinted about my going away to him
at one time,--so he just got all white. He turns his face to the wall,
and says with a sort of a bitter little smile:
“You have no right to do it,” he says. “You have led me on, have got me
used to you. You must wait,--I will die soon. But if you go away now, I
will strangle myself.”
A fine modest fellow he turned out to be, didn’t he? “Ah,” thinks I,
“damn your shameless eyes! Here I have forced myself to do like you
wanted, but you take to threatening me! Oh, no, you haven’t come across
one of that sort in me!” And I started looking for an excuse harder
than ever. About that time, most luckily, the mistress gave birth to
another girl, and a wet-nurse was hired for her; so I picked on that,
saying that I couldn’t get along with her. She was, to tell the truth,
a wicked, daft old woman; even the mistress herself was afraid of her.
And she used to drink, on top of that,--there was always a demijohn on
duty under her bed,--and she couldn’t bear anybody to be near her. So
she began saying things about me, making trouble in all sorts of ways.
Either I hadn’t pressed the linen right, or else I didn’t know how to
wait at table at all.... But, if you was just to say one word to her,
she’d get all in a trembling passion and run off to complain. She’d sob
out loud, and, of course, not so much because she had been offended,
but just dissembling. The further it went, the worse it got, so I up
and says to the master and mistress:
“So and so,” I says, “let me go; I can’t bear to live on account of
that old woman; I will lay hands on myself.”
And in the meanwhile, I already had my eye on a house on Glukhaya
Ulitza.[11] Well, hearing me speak like that, the mistress didn’t even
try to hold me any longer. True, when she was saying good-bye to me,
she wanted me to come and live with them again, awful hard; or just to
come on some holidays, or on birthdays:
[11] Blind Alley would be the nearest English equivalent. _Trans._
“You must,” she says, “always come to put things in order, to get
everything ready. It’s only when you’re around,” she says, “that I feel
easy. I have grown used to you, like you was one of the family.”
She saw me off with all honours,--which meant that she no longer held
any grudge against me; she baked a great big white loaf, putting in a
whole salt-cellar full of sugar. I thank her in all sorts of ways, but,
of course, she wasn’t anything much in my life,--so I thinks one thing,
and I says another. I promised her all she wanted and more, scraping
and bowing low before her,--and went my ways. And at once, with the
Lord’s blessing, I got busy. I bought the house I had in mind, and
opened a dram shop. The trade started off awful good,--in the evening,
when I’d come to counting what I’d taken in during the day, there would
be thirty, or forty, or sometimes all of forty-five roubles in the
till,--and so I got the idea of opening up a store as well, so as, you
understand, to get them coming and going. My husband’s sister had long
since married a watchman in the Red Cross; he was calling me gossip all
the time, and was friendly with me,--so I went to him, got a trifling
loan for all sorts of fixtures, permits, and started in doing business.
And right then Vanniya had finished his apprenticeship. I took counsel
with folks that knew a thing or two as to where I could place him, now.
“Why,” says they, “where else would you place him, when there’s no end
of work in your own house?”
And they were right, at that. So I put Vanniya into the store, and stay
in the dram shop myself. And then we were off! And, of course, I had
even forgot to think of all this past nonsense,--although, to tell the
honest truth, the poor cripple had just taken to his bed, at the time
I was going away. Never a word out of him to anybody, but just lies
down, just like he were dead, forgetting his accordeon even. Suddenly,
lo, and behold ye, Polkanikha comes into my yard,--this same wet-nurse.
(The little boys had nick-named her Polkanikha.[12]) She comes, and she
says:
[12] Wife-of-a-regiment. _Trans._
“A certain man has told me to give you his regards; says you should
come and pay him a visit, without fail.”
I went all hot and cold from vexation and shame! “What a darling, to
be sure!” thinks I to myself. “What an idea he has gotten into his
head! What a mate he has found for himself!” I couldn’t hold in and I
says:
“I got no use for his regards; he ought to keep in mind the state
he’s in, and you, you old devil, ought to be ashamed to try and be a
go-between. Do you hear me, or don’t you?”
She just stopped short. She stands, all stooping, her swollen eyes
glowing at me from under her brows, and just shaking her cabbage head;
she’d grown daft, either from the heat or from vodka.
“Oh, you heartless creature!” says she. “He was even crying about you,”
she says. “All last evening he lay with his face to the wall, and
sobbing out loud.”
“Well,” says I, “am I to start weeping bucketfuls? And wasn’t he
ashamed, the red-head, to be bawling before folks? Why, what a baby! Or
was he weaned from the breast, or something?”
And so I put the old woman out as empty-handed as she had come, and
didn’t go myself. And right soon after that he took and really did
strangle himself. Right then, of course, I felt great regret because
I hadn’t gone; but at that time I had other things to think about,
besides him. I had one disgrace coming on top of another, right in my
own house.
I had rented out two rooms in the house; one was taken by the policeman
on our post,--a fine, serious-minded, respectable man, Chaikin by name;
a young lady prostitute came into the other. Flaxen-fair she was, kind
of young, and not at all bad to look at,--rather good-looking. She was
called Phenia. Kholin the contractor used to come to see her,--he was
keeping her; well, I relied on that, and let her take the room. But
right here some disagreement took place between them, and so he left
her. What was to be done? She had nothing to pay with, but I couldn’t
chase her out,--she had run up a debt of eight roubles.
“Miss,” says I, “you must earn off anybody; I don’t keep no open house
for strangers.”
“I will try,” she says.
“But then, somehow a body can’t see you trying. Instead of trying, you
always stick at home evening after evening. It’s no use,” I says, “to
be placing your hopes on Chaikin.”
“I will try. It makes me conscience-struck, just to hear you.”
“A-ah!” I says, “what a conscience you must have, to be sure!”
She’ll try and she’ll try,--but there was no trying of any sort, if the
truth be told. She did try to get around Chaikin but he wouldn’t even
as much as look at her. Then I see that she’s going after my boy. No
matter when I look, he’s always hanging around her. All of a sudden, he
gets a notion of getting a new jacket.
“Oh, no,” I says, “you’ll wait a while! As it is, I’m dressing you like
any fine young gentleman; now it’s boots, now it’s a cap. I, now, used
to deny myself everything, used to figure every copper as a gold piece,
yet I’d supply you with everything.”
“I’m not a bad-looker,” says he.
“You daft loon,” says I, “what am I to do, sell the house, or
something, on account of your good looks?”
I notice that my business is getting poorer. I started having
shortages, losses. I’d sit down to drink my tea,--and even that had
lost its taste for me. I started in to watch. I’d be sitting in the
dram shop, and yet be listening all the time--I’d put my ear to the
partition, without stirring, and listen. I’d hear them rumbling one
day, I’d hear them rumbling the next.... I begun scolding him about it.
“And what business is that of yours?” he says. “Maybe I want to marry
her.”
“So that’s how,--it’s none of your own mother’s business! I see your
intention long since,” I says, “only this is never going to be in this
eternity.”
“She’s mad in love with me; you can’t understand her; she is tender and
shy.”
“A fine love you can expect,” I says, “from a deboshed slut like
that! She’s making fun of you, you fool,” I says. “She’s got the bad
disease,” I says, “all her legs is covered with sores.”
He seemed turned to stone for a while; his eyes was all puckered up,
like he was looking at the bridge of his nose, and he kept silent.
“Well,” thinks I, “glory be to the Lord, I got him in the right spot.”
But still, I was frightened to death: it was plain to be seen, you
understand, that the poor fellow had fallen hard. “So that means,”
thinks I, “that I must finish her off as fast as I can.” I take
counsel with my gossip, and with Chaikin. “Tell me, now, what am I to
do with them?” “Why,” they say, “catch them on the spot, of course,
and throw them out,--and there’s the long and the short of it.” And
here is what they thought up. I made believe I was going out calling.
I went away, walked for some time through the streets, and about six
o’clock,--when Chaikin was relieved, that is,--I set out for home,
soft and easy. I run up and push the door,--just as I thought, it was
locked. I knock,--no answer. And Chaikin was already standing around
the corner. Then I started knocking on the windows, until the panes
jarred. Suddenly the latch clicks,--and Vanniya comes out. He’s as
white as chalk. I hit him on the shoulder with all my might,--and go
straight into the room. And there it was just like a feast had been
laid out,--empty beer bottles; weak table wine; sardines; a large
herring, all cleaned, as rosy as amber,--everything from the store.
Phenka was sitting on a chair, with a blue ribbon in her braid. Soon as
she saw me, she jumped up, staring at me with all her eyes; she was all
white, and her very lips had turned blue from fear,--she thought I’d go
for her, to beat her. But I just says, natural-like,--although I could
scarcely breath; I was throwing my shawl open, and then muffling myself
up again, by turns:
“What have you got here?” I says; “is it a bethrothal, or something?
Or is it somebody’s birthday? Well, why don’t you welcome a body, why
don’t you treat me to something?”
They don’t say a word.
“Well,” I says, “why don’t you say something? Why don’t you speak,
little son? Is that the kind of a host you are, my pet? So that’s where
my hard-earned money flies away, I see!”
He even got his dander up:
“I am of full age myself!”
“So-o,” I says, “and what about me? That means that I’m to rent a hutch
or something from your grace and this here little bitch? To get out of
my own house? Is that it, eh, so I’ve warmed a viper in my bosom, have
I?”
And then he starts yelling at me!
“You have no right to insult her! You have been young yourself at one
time,--you ought to understand what love is!”
And Chaikin, the minute he heard that uproar, was right there: he
jumped in without a word, grabbed Vannka by the shoulders, and straight
into a lumber room with him, under lock and key. (An awful strong man,
he was,--like a bandit or something!) He turns the key on him, and says
to Phenka:
“You are listed as a miss, but I can make a wolf out of you!”
(Meaning he’d make a note on her passport that would make her hounded
like a wolf.)
“Do you want me to do that,” he says, “or don’t you? Vacate this room
for us this very day, so’s there won’t be even a whiff of you left!”
She went into tears. But I added something on top of that.
“Let her first get the money what’s coming to me!” I says. “Or else I
won’t even let her take away the least little lousy trunk of hers. Let
her get my money ready, or I’ll let the whole town know about her!”
Well, so we packed her off that same evening. When I was chasing her
out, she took on something awful. She cried and she couldn’t catch her
breath for sobbing; she even tore her hair. Of course, her fix wasn’t
any too sweet. Where was she to go? All her goods, all her booty,
was her own person. But never the less she went off. Vanniya, too,
quieted down for a while. He was let out from under lock and key in
the morning,--and never a peep out of him; he was very much scared,
and you could see by his face that he was conscience-stricken. He
settled down to work. And so I even rejoiced and was set at rest,--but
not for long. Again there were leaks from the till; and this here
street-walker started sending a boy into the shop, and my son, now,
would supply her with all sorts of delicacies! Now he’d give her all
the sugar she wanted, now tea, now tobacco.... Or a handkerchief, or
soap, again and again,--whatever came to his hand.... How was a body
to watch him all the time? And then he started in to drink, harder and
harder. At last he neglected the store entirely: he didn’t even live at
home, come to think of it,--he’d just come in and eat, and then he’d
be off again without as much as a by-your-leave. Every day he’d go
off to see her; he’d put a bottle under his coat, and away with him;
and this same vodka, now, was already dear then. I run around like a
chicken without its head,--from the dram-shop to the store, from the
store to the dram-shop; and by that time I was afraid to tell him as
much as a word,--he had become a downright tramp! He always was a
good-looker,--he took after me entirely; his face was very fair and
soft,--just like a young lady, he was; he had clear, intelligent eyes;
was well-built, broad-shouldered, with chestnut curly hair.... But now
his mug was all bloated; his hair got shaggy and came down over his
collar; his eyes got bleary, and he got all tattered and had begun to
stoop. He always kept silent now, looking at the bridge of his nose all
the time,--in deep thought, like.
“Don’t you bother me now,” he’d say, “I’m liable to do something that
will lead to prison.”