In the morning Rayisa half dressed, with a kneaded face and dim eyes,
gave Yevsey his coffee without speaking to him. Dorimedont coughed and
spat in her room. Now his dull voice began to sound even louder and more
authoritative than ever. At dinner and supper he munched noisily, licked
his lips, thrust his thick tongue far out, bellowed, and looked at the
food greedily before he began to eat. His red pimply face grew glossy,
and his little grey eyes glided over Yevsey's face like two cold bugs,
unpleasantly tickling his skin.
"I know how hard life is, brother," he said. "I know what's what. I know
what a pound of good and what a pound of bad is worth to a man, yes,
siree. And you had good luck to come to me at once. Here I have placed
you in a position, and I am going to push you farther and farther to the
highest point possible--if you aren't a fool, of course."
He swung his bulky body as he spoke, and the chair under him groaned.
Yevsey as he listened to his talk felt that this man could force him to
do everything he wanted.
Sometimes the spy announced boastfully in self-applause:
"I received thanks again to-day from my chief Filip Filippovich. He even
gave me his hand."
Once at supper Dorimedont pulled Yevsey's ear and began a recital.
"About two months ago I was sitting in a restaurant near a railroad
station, and I saw a man eating cutlets. He kept looking around and
consulting his watch. You must know, Yevsey, that an honest man with an
easy mind doesn't glance around in all directions. People do not
interest him, and he always knows the time. The only persons who look
about for people are the agents of the Department of Safety and
criminals. Of course, I kept my eye on the gentleman. The suburban train
pulled in, another little gentleman comes into the restaurant, a dark
fellow with a little beard, apparently a Jew. He wore two flowers in his
buttonhole, a red and a white one--a sign. I see them greet each other
with their eyes. 'Aha!' thinks I. The dark man ordered something to eat,
drank a glass of Selters, and walked out. The one who had been in the
restaurant first followed him leisurely, and I after them."
Dorimedont puffed up his cheeks, and then blew a stream of air steeped
with the odor of meat and beer into Yevsey's face. Yevsey ducked his
head, and the spy burst out laughing. Then he belched noisily, and
continued raising his thick finger.
"For a month and twenty-three days I tracked the two men. Finally I
reported them. I said I was on the track of suspicious people. They went
away, and came back again. Who are they? The fair-haired fellow who had
eaten the cutlet said, 'It's none of your business.' But the Jew gave
his real name, and on inquiry it turned out we needed the man. Along
with him we took a woman known to us--the third time she fell into our
hands. We went to various other places, picked the people up like
mushrooms. But we knew the whole gang. I was a good deal put out, when
suddenly yesterday the fair-haired man gave us his name. He turned out
to be an important fellow escaped from Siberia. Well, well, New Year I
am to expect a reward."
Rayisa listened looking over the spy's head, while she slowly chewed a
crust of bread and bit off little pieces at a time.
"You catch them, and catch them, but they're not exterminated," she said
lazily.
The spy smiled, and answered impressively:
"You don't understand politics. That's why you talk nonsense, my dear.
We don't want to exterminate these people altogether. They serve as
sparks to show us where the fire really begins. That's what Filip
Filippovich says, and he himself was once a political, moreover, a Jew.
Yes, yes. It's a very sharp game."
Yevsey's gaze wandered gloomily about the contracted room. The walls
papered in yellow were hung with portraits of Czars, generals, and naked
women. These motley, obtrusive spots fairly cut the eyes, recalling
sores and wounds on the body of a sick person. The furniture, smelling
of whiskey and warm, greasy food, pressed close against the walls, as if
to withdraw from the people. The lamp burned under a green shade, and
cast dead shadows upon the faces.
For some reason Yevsey recollected the old sickly flat-nosed beggar with
the restless eyes of a sharper, whom he met almost every day on his way
to the office. The beggar pretended to be a jolly fellow, and would
chant garrulously as he stretched out his hand for alms:
"Stout of body, red of nose,
Pining for the want of booze;
Prithee, help God's pilgrim true,
Charity to whom 'tis due!
Help my burning thirst to slake,
Rum, oh rum, for the Lord's sake!"
The spy put his hand across the table, and pulled Yevsey's hair.
"When I speak, you must listen."
Dorimedont often beat Klimkov. Though his blows were not painful, they
were particularly insulting, as if he struck not the face but the soul.
He was especially fond of hitting Yevsey on the head with the heavy ring
he wore on his finger, when he would knock the boy's skull so that a
strange dry cracking sound was emitted. Each time Yevsey was dealt a
blow Rayisa would say indifferently, moving her brows:
"Stop, Dorimedont Lukin. Don't."
"Well, well, he won't be chopped to pieces. He has to be taught."
Rayisa grew thinner, blue circles appeared under her eyes, her gaze
became still more immobile and dull. On evenings when the spy was away
from home she sent Yevsey for whiskey, which she gulped down in little
glassfuls at a time. Then she spoke to him in an even voice. What she
said was confused and unintelligible, and she frequently halted and
sighed. Her large body grew flabby, she undid one button after the
other, untied her ribbons, and half-dressed spread herself on the
armchair like sour dough.
"I am bored," she said shaking her head. "Bored! If you were handsomer,
or older, you might divert me in my gloom. Oh, how useless you are!"
Yevsey hung his head in silence. His heart was pricked with the burning
cold of insult.
"Well, why are you staring at the floor?" he heard her sad complaining.
"Others at your age would have started to love girls long ago; they live
a living life. While you--oh, how irresponsive you are!"
Sometimes, after she had drunk whiskey, she drew him to herself, and
toyed with him. This awoke a complex feeling of fear, shame, and sharp
yet not bold curiosity. He shut his eyes tightly, and yielded himself
silently, involuntarily, to the power of her shameless, coarse hands.
The weak, anæmic boy was oppressed by the debilitating premonition of
something terrible.
"Go to bed, go! Oh, my God!" she exclaimed, pushing him away,
dissatisfied and disgusted.
Yevsey left her to go to the anteroom in which he slept. Gradually
losing the undefined warm feeling he had for her, he withdrew into
himself more and more.
As he lay in bed filled with a sense of insult and sharp, disagreeable
excitement, he heard Rayisa singing in a thick cooing voice--always the
same song--and heard the clink of the bottle against the glass.
But once on a dark night when fine streams of autumn rain lashed the
window near his room with a howl, Rayisa succeeded in arousing in the
youngster the feeling she needed.
"There, now," she said, smiling a drunken smile. "Now you are my
paramour. You see how good it is? Eh?"
He stood at the bed also intoxicated of a sudden. His feet trembled, he
was out of breath. He looked at her large, soft body, at her broad face
spread in a smile. He was no longer ashamed, but his heart was seized
with the grief of loss, and it sank within him outraged. For some reason
he wanted to weep. But he was silent. This woman was a stranger to him,
unnecessary and unpleasant; all the good kind feelings he had cherished
for her were at one gulp swallowed up by her greedy body, and
disappeared into it without leaving a trace, like belated drops in a
muddy pool.
"We'll live together, and we'll give Dorimedont the go-by, the pig."
"But won't he find out?" inquired Yevsey quietly.
"Oh, you little coward, come here!"
He did not dare to refuse, but now the woman was no longer able to
overcome his enmity to her. She toyed with him a long time, and smiled
with an air of having been offended. Then she roughly pushed his bony
body from her, uttered an oath, and went away.
When Yevsey was left alone he thought in despair.
"Now she will ruin me. She'll store this up against me. I am lost."
He looked through the window. Something formless and frightened throbbed
in the darkness. It wept, lashed the window with a doleful howl, scraped
along the wall, jumped on the roof, and fell down into the street
moaning and wailing. A cautious seductive thought stole into his mind.
"Suppose I tell Kapiton Ivanovich to-morrow that she suffocated the old
man!"
The question frightened Yevsey, and for a long time he was unable to
push it away.
"She will ruin me, one way or the other," he answered himself. Yet the
question persistently stood before him beckoning to him.
In the morning, however, it seemed that Rayisa had forgotten about the
tragic, violent incident of the night before. She gave him his bread and
coffee lazily and with an indifferent air. As always, she was half sick
from the previous day's drinking. By neither word nor look did she hint
of her changed relation to him.
He left for the office somewhat calmed, and from that day he began to
remain in the office for night work. He would walk home very slowly so
as to arrive as late as possible, because it was difficult for him to
remain alone with the woman. He was afraid to speak to her, dreading
lest she remember that night when she had destroyed Yevsey's feeling for
her. Feeble though it had been, it had yet been dear to him.
Yakov Zarubin and Yevsey's chief, Kapiton Ivanovich, the man with the
grey mustache, whom everybody called Smokestack behind his back,
remained in the chancery with him for night work more frequently than
the others. The chief's shaven face was often covered with little red
stubble, which glistened golden from afar, and at close range resembled
tiny twigs. From under his grey lashes and the eyelids that drooped
wearily spiritless eyes gleamed angrily. He spoke in a grumbling growl,
and incessantly smoked thick yellow cigarettes. The clouds of bluish
smoke always hovering about his large white head distinguished him from
all the others workers, and won him the nickname, Smokestack.
"What a grave man he is," Yevsey once said to Zarubin.
"He's cracked in the upper story," Zarubin answered, pointing to his
head. "He spent almost a whole year in an insane asylum. But he's a
quiet man."
Yevsey saw that sometimes the Smokestack took a small black book from
the pocket of his long grey jacket, brought it close to his face, and
mumbled something through his mustache, which moved up and down.
"Is that a prayer-book?"
"I don't know."
Zarubin's swarthy face quivered spasmodically. His little eyes bulged,
he swung himself over toward Yevsey, and whispered hotly.
"Do you go to girls?"
"No."
"Why?"
Yevsey answered in embarrassment:
"I'm afraid."
"Ugh! Come with me. All right? We can get it for nothing. We need only
twenty-five kopeks for beer. If we say we are from the Department of
Police, they'll let us in, and give us girls for nothing. They are
afraid of police officers. Everybody is afraid of us." In a still lower
voice, but with more fire and appetite he continued. "And what girls
there _are_! Stout, warm, like down feather-beds! They're the best, by
golly! Some fondle you like your own mother, stroke your head, and so
you fall asleep. It's good!"
"Have you a mother?"
"Yes, only I live with my aunt. My mother is a sow. She's a lewd woman,
and lives with a butcher for her support. I don't go to her. The butcher
won't let me. Once I went there, and he kicked me on the back. Ugh!"
Zarubin's little mouse ears quivered, his narrow eyes rolled queerly, he
tugged at the black down on his upper lip with a convulsive movement of
his fingers, and throbbed all over with excitement.
"Why are you such a quiet fellow? You ought to be bolder, or else
they'll crush you with work. I was afraid at first, too, so they rode
all over me. Come, let's be friends for the rest of our lives!"
Though Yevsey did not like Zarubin and was intimidated by his extreme
agility, he replied:
"All right. Let's be friends."
"Your hand. There, it's done! So to-morrow we'll go to the girls?"
"No, I won't go."
They did not notice the Smokestack coming up to them.
"Well, Yakov, who will do whom?" he growled.
"We're not fighting," said Zarubin, sullenly and disrespectfully.
"You lie," said the Smokestack. "Say, Klimkov, don't give in to him, do
you hear?"
"I do," said Yevsey rising before him.
A feeling of reverent curiosity drew him to the man. Once, as usual
unexpectedly to himself, he took courage to speak to the Smokestack.
"Kapiton Ivanovich."
"What is it?"
"I want to ask you, if you please--"
Without looking at him, the Smokestack said:
"Get up some spunk! Get up some spunk!"
"Why do people live so badly?" Yevsey brought out with a great effort.
The old man raised his heavy brows.
"What business is it of yours?" he rejoined, looking into Klimkov's
face.
Yevsey was staggered. The old man's question was like a blow on the
chest. It stood before him in all the power of its inexplicable
simplicity.
"Aha!" said the old man quietly. Then he drew his brows together,
whipped a black book from his pocket, and tapping it with his finger
said, "The New Testament. Have you read it?"
"Yes."
"Did you understand it?"
"No," answered Yevsey timidly.
"Read it again. Well, anyway--" Moving his mustache the old man hid the
book in his pocket. "I've been reading this book for three years, yes,
three years. Nobody understands it. It's a book for children, for the
pure of heart. No one can understand it."
He grumbled kindly, and Yevsey felt a desire to ask more questions. They
did not formulate themselves, however. The old man lighted a cigarette,
the smoke enveloped him, and he apparently forgot about his
interlocutor. Klimkov glided off quietly. His attraction for the
Smokestack had grown stronger, and he thought:
"It would be good for me to sit nearer to him."
Henceforth this became his dream, which, however, came into direct
conflict with the dream of Yakov Zarubin.
"You know what?" Zarubin said in a hot whisper. "Let's try to get into
the Department of Safety, and become political spies. Then what a life
we'll lead! Ugh!"
Yevsey was silent. The political spies frightened him because of their
stern eyes and the mystery surrounding their dark business and dark
life.