Yevsey's life passed smoothly and evenly.
He wanted to please his master, even realized this would be of advantage
to him, and he felt he would succeed, though he behaved with watchful
circumspection and no warmth in his heart for the old man. The fear of
people engendered in him a desire to suit them, a readiness for all
kinds of services, in order to defend himself against the possibility of
attack. The constant expectation of danger developed a keen power of
observation, which still more deepened his mistrust.
He observed the strange life in the house without understanding it. From
basement to roof people lived close packed, and every day, from morning
until night, they crawled about in the tenement like crabs in a basket.
Here they worked more than in the village, and, it seemed, were imbued
with even keener bitterness. They lived restlessly, noisily, and
hurriedly, as if to get through all the work as soon as possible in
preparation of a holiday, which they wanted to meet as free people,
washed, clean, peaceful, and tranquilly joyous. The heart of the boy
sank within him, and the question constantly recurred:
"Will it pass away?"
But the holiday never came. The people spurred one another on, wrangled,
and sometimes fought. Scarcely a day passed on which they did not speak
ill of one another.
In the mornings the master went down to the shop, while Yevsey remained
in the apartment to put it in order. This accomplished, he washed
himself, went to the tavern for boiling water, and then returned to the
shop, where he drank the morning tea with his master. While breakfasting
the old man almost invariably asked him:
"Well, what now?"
"Nothing."
"Nothing is little."
Once, however, Yevsey had a different answer.
"To-day the watchmaker told the furrier's cook that you received stolen
articles."
Yevsey said this unexpectedly to himself, and was instantly seized with
a tremble of fear. He bowed his head. The old man laughed quietly, and
said in a drawling voice without sincerity:
"The scoundrel!" His dark, dry lips quivered. "Thank you for telling me.
Thank you! You see how the people don't love me."
From that time Yevsey began to pay close attention to the conversation
of the tenants, and promptly repeated everything he heard to his master,
speaking in a quiet, calm voice and looking straight into his face.
Several days later, while putting his master's room into order, he found
a crumpled paper ruble on the floor, and when at tea the old man asked
him, "Well, what now?" Yevsey replied, "Here I have found a ruble."
"You found a ruble, did you? I found a gold piece," said the master
laughing.
Another time Yevsey picked up a twenty-kopek piece in the entrance to
the shop, which he also gave to the master. The old man slid his glasses
to the end of his nose, and rubbing the coin with his fingers looked
into the boy's face for a few seconds without speaking.
"According to the law," he said thoughtfully, "a third of what you find,
six kopeks, belongs to you." He was silent, sighed, and stuck the coin
into his vest pocket. "But anyway you're a stupid boy." Yevsey did not
get the six kopeks.
Quiet, unnoticed, and when noticed, obliging, Yevsey Klimkov scarcely
ever drew the attention of the people to himself, though he stubbornly
followed them with the broad, empty gaze of his owl-like eyes, with the
look that did not abide in the memory of those who met it.
From the first days the reticent quiet Rayisa Petrovna interested him
strongly. Every evening she put on a dark, rustling dress and a black
hat, and sallied forth. In the morning when he put the rooms in order
she was still asleep. He saw her only in the evening before supper, and
that not every day. Her life seemed mysterious to him, and her entire
taciturn being, her white face and stationary eyes, roused in him vague
suggestions of something peculiar. He persuaded himself that she lived
better and knew more than everybody else. A kindly feeling which he did
not understand sprang up in his heart for this woman. Every day she
appeared to him more and more beautiful.
Once he awoke at daybreak, and walked into the kitchen for a drink.
Suddenly he heard someone entering the door of the vestibule. He rushed
to his room in fright, lay down, and covered himself with the blanket,
trying to press himself to the chest as closely as possible. In a few
minutes he stuck out his ear, and in the kitchen heard heavy steps, the
rustle of a dress, and the voice of Rayisa Petrovna.
"Oh, oh, you--" she was saying.
Yevsey rose, walked to the door on tiptoe, and looked into the kitchen.
The quiet woman was sitting at the window taking off her hat. Her face
seemed whiter than ever, and tears streamed from her eyes. Her large
body swayed, her hands moved slowly.
"I know you!" she said, shaking her head. She rose to her feet,
supporting herself on the window-sill.
The bed in the master's room creaked. Yevsey quickly jumped back on his
chest, lay down, and wrapped himself up.
"They've done something bad to her," he thought, full of keen pity. At
the same time, however, he was inwardly glad of her tears. They brought
this woman, who lived a secret nocturnal existence, nearer to him.
The next moment someone seemed to be passing by him with sly steps. He
raised his head, and suddenly jumped from the chest, as if burned by the
thin angry shout:
"Ugh! Go away!"
Then there was some hissing. The master in his nightgown hastily came
out of the kitchen, stopped, and said to Yevsey in a whistling voice:
"Sleep! Sleep! What's the matter? Sleep!"
The next morning in the shop the old man asked him:
"Were you frightened last night?"
"Yes."
"She was in her cups. It happens to her sometimes."
Though the question trembled on his lips, Yevsey did not dare to ask
what her occupation was. Some minutes later the old man asked:
"Do you like her?"
"I do."
"Well," said the master sternly, "even if you do, you ought to know that
she's an extremely shrewd woman. She is silent, but bad. She's a sinner.
Yes, that's what she is. Do you know what she does? She's a musician.
She plays the piano." The old man accurately described a piano, and
added didactically, "A person who plays the piano is called a pianist.
And do you know what a house of ill fame is?"
From the talk of the furriers and glaziers in the yard Yevsey already
knew something about disreputable resorts; but desiring to learn more he
answered:
"I don't know."
The old man gave him a lengthy explanation in words very intelligible to
Yevsey. He spoke with heat, occasionally spitting and wrinkling up his
face to express his disgust of the abomination. Yevsey regarded the old
man with his watery eyes, and for some reason did not believe in his
aversion.
"So you see, every evening she plays in a house like that, and depraved
women dance with drunken men to the accompaniment of her music. The men
are all crooks, some of them, maybe, even murderers." Raspopov sighed in
exhaustion, and wiped his perspiring face. "Don't trust her. You
understand? I tell you, she's a cunning woman, and she's mean."
The boy believed everything the master told him about the piano and the
house of ill fame, but failed to be impressed by a single word regarding
the woman. In fact, everything the old man said of her merely increased
the cautious, ever-watchful feeling of mistrust with which Yevsey
treated his master, and by coloring Rayisa Petrovna with a still deeper
tinge of the unusual, made her seem even more beautiful in his eyes.
Another object of Yevsey's curiosity besides Rayisa was Anatol,
apprentice to the glazier, Kuzin, a thin, flat-nosed boy with ragged
hair, dirty, always jolly, and always steeped in the odor of oil. He had
a high ringing voice, which Yevsey liked very much to hear when he
shouted:
"Wi-i-ndow pa-anes."
He spoke to Yevsey first. Yevsey was sweeping the stairway when he
suddenly heard from below the loud question:
"Say there, kid, what government are you from?"
"From this government," answered Yevsey.
"I am from the government of Kostrom. How old are you?"
"Thirteen."
"I am, too. Come along with me."
"Where to?"
"To the river to go in bathing."
"I have to stay in the shop."
"To-day is Sunday."
"That doesn't make any difference."
"Well, go to the devil."
The glazier boy disappeared. Yevsey was not offended by his oath.
Anatol was off the whole day carrying a box of glass about the city, and
usually returned home just as the shop was being closed. Then almost the
entire evening his indefatigable voice, his laughter, whistling, and
singing would rise from the yard. Everybody scolded him, yet all loved
to meddle with him and laugh at his pranks. Yevsey was surprised at the
boldness with which the ragged, snub-nosed boy behaved toward the
grown-up folk, and he experienced a sense of envy when he saw the
gold-embroidery girl run about the yard in chase of the jolly, insolent
fellow. He was powerfully drawn to the glazier boy, for whom he found a
place in his vague fancies of a clean and quiet life.
Once, after supper, Yevsey asked the master:
"May I go down in the yard?"
The old man consented reluctantly.
"Go, but don't stay long. Be sure not to stay long."
Another time when Yevsey put the same request the master added:
"No good will come of your being in the yard."
Yevsey ran down the stairway quickly, and seated himself in the shade to
observe Anatol. The yard was small and hemmed in on all sides by the
high houses. The tenants, workingmen and women, and servants, sat
resting on the rubbish heaps against the walls. In the center of the
ring Anatol was giving a performance.
"The furrier Zvorykin going to church!" he shouted.
To his astonishment Yevsey saw the little stout furrier with hanging
lower lip and eyes painfully screwed up. Thrusting out his abdomen and
leaning his head to one side, Anatol struggled toward the gate in short
steps, reluctance depicted in his walk. The people sitting around
laughed and shouted approval.
"Zvorykin returning from the saloon!"
Now Anatol swayed through the yard, his feet dragging along feebly, his
arms hanging limp, a dull look in his wide-open eyes, his mouth gaping
hideously yet comically. He stopped, tapped himself on the chest, and
said in a wheezy pitiful voice:
"God--how satisfied I am with everything and everybody! Lord, how good
and pleasant everything is to Thy servant, Yakov Ivanich. But the
glazier Kuzin is a blackguard--a scamp before God, a jackass before all
the people--that's true, God--"
The audience roared, but Yevsey did not laugh. He was oppressed by a
twofold feeling of astonishment and envy. The desire to see this boy
frightened and wronged mingled with the expectation of new pranks. He
felt vexed and unpleasant because the glazier boy did not show up men
who inflicted hurt, but merely funny men. Yevsey sat there with mouth
agape and a stupid expression on his face, his owlish eyes staring.
"Here goes glazier Kuzin!"
Before Yevsey appeared the gaunt red muzhik always half drunk, the
sleeves of his dirty shirt tucked up, his right hand thrust in the
breast of his apron, his left hand deliberately stroking his
beard--Kuzin had a reddish forked beard. He was frowning and surly and
moved slowly, like a heavy cart-load. Looking sidewise he screeched in a
cracked, hoarse voice:
"You are carrying on again, you heretic? Am I to listen to this nonsense
for long? You blasted, confounded--"
"Skinflint Raspopov!" announced Anatol.
The smooth, sharp little figure of Yevsey's master crept past him moving
his feet noiselessly. He worked his nose as if smelling something,
nodded his head quickly, and kept tugging at the tuft on his chin with
his little hand. In this characterization something loathsome, pitiful,
and laughable became quite apparent to Yevsey, whose vexation rose. He
felt sure his master was not such as the young glazier represented him
to be.
Next, Anatol took to mimicking members of the audience. Inexhaustible,
stimulated by the applause, he tinkled until late at night like a little
bell, evoking kindly, cheerful laughter. Sometimes the man who was
touched would rush to catch him, and a noisy chase about the yard would
ensue.
Yevsey sighed. Anatol noticed him, and pulled him by the hand into the
middle of the yard, where he introduced him to the audience.
"Here he is--sugar and soap. Skinflint Raspopov's cousin morel."
Turning the boy's little figure in all directions, he poured forth a
flowing stream of strange comic words about his master, about Rayisa
Petrovna, and about Yevsey himself.
"Let me go!" Yevsey quietly demanded, trying to tear his hand from
Anatol's strong grip, in the meantime listening attentively in the
endeavor to understand the hints, the filth of which he felt. Whenever
Yevsey struggled hard to tear himself away, the audience, usually the
women, said lazily to Anatol:
"Let him go."
For some reason their intercession was disagreeable to Yevsey. It
exasperated Anatol, too, who began to push and pinch his victim and
challenge him to a fight. Some of the men urged the boys on.
"Well--fight! See which will do the other up."
The women objected:
"A fight! Thanks, we're not interested. Don't."
Yevsey again felt something unpleasant in these words.
Finally Anatol scornfully pushed Yevsey aside.
"Oh, you kid!"
The next morning Yevsey met Anatol outside the house carrying his box of
glass, and suddenly, without desiring to do it, he said to him:
"Why do you make fun of me?"
The glazier boy looked at him.
"What of it?"
Yevsey was unable to reply.
"Do you want to fight?" asked Anatol again. "Come to our shed. I will
wait for you until evening."
He spoke calmly and in a business-like way.
"No, I don't want to fight," replied Yevsey quietly.
"Then you needn't! I'd lick you anyway," said the glazier, and added
with assurance, "I certainly would."
Yevsey sighed. He could not understand this boy, but he longed to
understand him. So he asked a second time:
"I say, why do you make fun of me?"
Anatol apparently felt awkward. He winked his lively eyes, smiled, and
suddenly shouted in anger:
"Go to the devil! What are you bothering me about? I'll give it to you
so--"
Yevsey quickly ran into the shop, and for a whole day felt the itching
of an undeserved insult. This did not put an end to his inclination for
Anatol, but it forced him to leave the yard whenever Anatol noticed him,
and he dismissed the glazier boy from the sphere of his dreams.