When Yevsey had been living with Kapiton Ivanovich only a few days, he
began to feel he was of some consequence. Formerly he had talked quietly
and respectfully with the gendarmes who served in the chancery. Now,
however, he called the old man Butenko to him in a stern voice, in order
to administer a rebuke.
"Look, flies in my inkstand! How can I write with flies in my ink?"
The grey soldier covered with crosses and medals entered into his usual
nonchalant, many-worded explanation.
"There are all in all thirty-four inkstands here, and there are
thousands of flies. All the flies want to drink. That's why they crawl
into the inkstands. What are they to do?"
"Wash it, and put in fresh ink," ordered Klimkov. Then he walked into
the dressing-room, where he stationed himself before the looking-glass
and carefully regarded his thin face, grey and angular, with its sharp
little nose and narrow lips. He searched for signs of a mustache, looked
into his watery and uncertain eyes.
"I must get my hair cut," he decided after failing to smooth the thin,
light tufts of hair on his head. "And I ought to wear starched collars;
my neck is too thin."
The very same evening he got his hair cut, bought two collars, and felt
himself still more a man.
The Smokestack was attentive and kind in his behavior toward Yevsey, but
often a smile of derision gleamed in his eyes which somewhat
disconcerted and awed the young fellow. Whenever the hunchback came, the
old man's face assumed a preoccupied expression, and his voice sounded
stern. He cut short almost everything the other man said with an
objection:
"It's not that--it's not so--no, you're no wiser than I am--your brain
is like a poor gun, it scatters the thought on all sides. You ought to
shoot so that the whole charge goes in the same direction."
The hunchback shook his head sadly, and answered in a thick voice:
"Wait. Good work cannot be done in a day. You must keep at it."
"Time flies, the enemy grows."
"By the way, I noticed a man the other day," said the hunchback, "who
took lodgings not far from my place. He was tall, had a pointed beard
and screwed-up eyes, and walked quickly. I asked the dvornik where he
was working. He told me the man had come to look for a position. I
immediately wrote a letter to the Department of Safety. You see?"
The Smokestack interrupted his talk with a wide sweep of his arm.
"That's not important. The house is damp, that's why there are roaches
in it. You won't get rid of them that way. The house must be made dry."
Another time in the course of the evening the Smokestack said:
"I am a soldier. I commanded half a company, and I understand life. It
is necessary for everybody to be thoroughly familiar with the laws and
regulations. Such knowledge produces unanimity. What hinders knowledge
of the law? Poverty and stupidity; stupidity in itself being a result of
poverty. Why doesn't he fight poverty? In want is the root of human
folly and of hostility to him, the Czar."
Yevsey greedily swallowed the old man's words, and believed them. The
root of all human misfortune is poverty. That was clear and simple.
Hence come envy, malice, cruelty. Hence also greed and the fear of life
common to all people, the apprehension of one another. The Smokestack's
plan was also simple. The Czar was rich, the people poor; then let the
Czar give the people his riches, and all would be contented and good.
Yevsey's attitude toward people changed. He remained as obliging as
before, but became more self-assertive, and began to look upon others
condescendingly, with the eyes of a man who understands the secret of
life and can point out where the road lies to peace and calm.
He felt the need for boasting of his knowledge; so once, when lunching
in the café with Yakov Zarubin, he proudly expounded everything he had
heard from the old man and his hunchback friend.
Zarubin's narrow eyes flashed. He fidgetted in his seat, and for some
reason rumpled his hair by thrusting the fingers of both hands through
it.
"That's true, by golly!" he exclaimed in an undertone. "What the
devil--really! He has thousands of millions, and we are perishing here.
Who taught you all that?"
"Nobody," said Yevsey firmly. "I thought it out myself."
"No, tell me the truth. Where did you hear it?"
"I tell you, I came to the conclusion myself."
Yakov looked at him with satisfaction.
"If that's so," he said, "you haven't a bad head. But you're lying."
Yevsey felt affronted.
"It's all the same to me whether you believe me or not. It's the worse
for you if you don't."
"For me?" asked Yakov, and for some reason burst out laughing, merrily
and vigorously rubbing his hands.
Two days later the assistant captain Komov and a grey-eyed gentleman
with a round close-cropped head and a bored yellow face, came up to
Yevsey's table.
"Klimkov, betake yourself to the Department of Safety," said the captain
clearly and ominously. "Is your desk locked?"
"No."
Yevsey rose, but his legs trembled, and he dropped into his chair again.
The crop-haired man drew nearer.
"Permit me," he said drily, then pulled out the table drawer and took
out the papers.
Weak and uncomprehending Klimkov recovered his senses in a half dark
room at a desk covered with green felt. A wave of anguish rose and fell
in his breast. The floor heaved and billowed under his feet, and the
walls of the room, filled, as it were with green dusk, turned around
steadily. Over the table rose a man's white face framed in a thick black
beard and spotted by gleaming blue eye-glasses. Yevsey kept his eyes
fastened on the glass of the spectacles, on the blue bottomless
darkness, which drew him like a magnet and seemed to suck the blood from
his veins. Without waiting for a question Klimkov quietly told about the
Smokestack and his hunchback friend. He had understood their talks well,
and now spoke connectedly in great detail. He seemed to be removing a
thin layer of skin from his heart.
A high voice, which cut the ear, interrupted him.
"So? So these jackasses say the emperor the Czar is the fault of
everything?"
"Yes."
The man with the blue glasses slowly stretched out his hand, put the
telephone receiver to his ear, and asked in a sportive tone:
"Belkin, that you? Yes? See to it, old fellow, that search is made
to-night in the rooms of two scoundrels. Arrest them. Eh--eh--a clerk in
the chancery department, Kapiton Reüsov. Eh--eh--and a functionary of
the court of exchequer--Anton Driagin--what? Well, yes, of course."
Yevsey seized the edge of the table with his hand, feeling a dull pain
in his eyes.
"So, my friend," said the man with the black beard, throwing himself
back on the armchair. He smoothed his beard with both hands, played with
his pencil, flung it on the table, and thrust his hands into his
trousers' pockets. He was silent for a painfully long time, then he
asked sternly, emphasizing each word:
"What am I to do with you now?"
"Forgive me," came from Yevsey in a whisper.
"Klimkov?" mused the black-bearded man, ignoring Yevsey's reply. "Seems
to me I heard the name somewhere."
"Forgive me," repeated Yevsey.
"Do you feel yourself very guilty?"
"Very."
"That's good. What do you feel guilty of?"
Klimkov was silent. He felt as if the black-bearded man sitting so
comfortably and calmly in his chair would never let him leave the room.
"You don't know? Think!"
Klimkov drew more air into his lungs, and began to tell of Rayisa and
how she had suffocated the old man.
"Lukin?" the man with the blue goggles queried, yawning indifferently.
"Aha, that's why your name is familiar to me."
He walked over to Yevsey, lifted his chin with his finger, and looked
into his face for a few seconds. Then he rang.
A heavy tramp was heard, and a big pockmarked fellow with huge wrists
appeared at the door, and looked at Yevsey. He had a terrifying way of
spreading his red fingers like claws.
"Take him, Semyonov."
"To the corner cell?" asked the fellow in a hollow voice.
"Yes."
"Come," said Semyonov.
Klimkov wanted to drop on his knees. He was already bending his legs,
when the fellow seized him under the arm, and pulled him through the
long corridor, down the stone stairway.
"What's the matter, brat? Frightened?" he said, pushing Yevsey through a
small door. "Such a spider, no face, no skin, yet a rebel!"
His words completely crushed Yevsey. He walked forward with
out-stretched hands, and bumped against the wall. When he heard the
heavy clang of the iron door behind him, he squatted on the floor,
putting his hands about his knees and raising his knees to his drooping
head. A heavy silence descended upon him. It seemed to him he would die
instantly. Suddenly he jumped from the floor, and ran about the room
like a mouse. His groping hands felt the palette covered with a rough
blanket, a table, a chair. He ran to the door, touched it, noticed in
the wall opposite a little square window, and rushed toward the window.
It was below the level of the ground. The area between the ground and
the outer wall was laid over with horizontal bars through which the snow
sifted with a soft swish, creeping down the dirty panes. Klimkov turned
noiselessly toward the door, and leaned his forehead upon it.
"Forgive me. Let me out," he whispered in his anguish.
Then he dropped on the floor again, and lost consciousness, drowned in a
wave of despair.