When Yevsey awoke he saw that in the corner to which he had directed his
mute prayer there were no ikons, but two pictures on the wall, one
representing a hunter with a green feather in his hat kissing a stout
girl, the other a fair-haired woman with naked bosom, holding a flower
in her hand.
He sighed as he looked around his room without interest. When he had
washed and dressed he seated himself at the window. The middle of the
street upon which he looked, the pavements, and the houses were all
dirty. The horses plodded along shaking their heads, damp drivers sat on
the box-seats, also shaking as if they had come unscrewed. The people as
always were hurrying somewhere. To-day, when splashed with mud, they
seemed less dangerous than usual.
Yevsey was hungry. But he did not know whether he had the right to ask
for tea and bread, and remained motionless as a stone until he heard a
knock on the wall, upon which he went to the door of Piotr's room.
"Have you had tea yet?" asked the spy, who was still lying in bed.
"No."
"Ask for it."
Piotr stuck his bare feet out of the bed, and looked at his fingers as
he stretched them.
"We'll drink tea, and then you'll go with me," he said yawning. "I'll
show you a man, and you will follow him. You must go wherever he goes,
you understand? Note the time he enters a house and how long he stays
there. If he leaves the house, or meets another man on the way, notice
the appearance of that man and then--well, you won't understand
everything at the very first." Piotr looked at Klimkov, whistled
quietly, and turning aside continued lazily, "Last night Sasha babbled
about various things here--he upbraided everybody--don't think of saying
anything about it. Take care. He's a sick man, and drinks, but he's a
power. _You_ can't hurt _him_, but _he'll_ eat _you_ up alive. Remember
that. Why, brother, he was a student once himself, and he knows their
business down to a 't.' He was even put in prison for political offence.
And now he gets a hundred rubles a month, and not only Filip Filippovich
but even the general calls on him for advice. Yes, indeed." Piotr drew
his flabby face, crumpled with sleep, in a frown, his grey eyes lowered
with dissatisfaction. He dressed while he spoke in a bored, grumbling
voice. "Our work is not a joke. If you catch people by their throats in
a trice, then of course--but first you must tramp about a hundred versts
for each one, and sometimes more. You must know where each man was at a
given time, with whom he was, in fact, you have to know
everything--everything."
The evening before, notwithstanding the agitations of the day; Klimkov
had found Piotr an interesting, clever person. Now, however, seeing that
he spoke with an effort, that he moved about reluctantly, and that
everything dropped from his hands, Yevsey felt bolder in his presence.
"Must we walk the streets the whole day long?" he plucked up the courage
to ask.
"Sometimes you have a night outing, too, in the cold, thirty degrees
Centigrade. A very evil demon invented our profession."
"And when they all will have been caught?"
"Who?"
"The unfaithful ones, the enemies."
"Say revolutionists, or political offenders. You and I won't catch
everyone of them. They all seem to be born twins."
At tea Piotr opened his book. On looking into it, he suddenly grew
animated. He jumped from his chair, quickly laid out the cards, and
began to calculate--"One thousand two hundred and sixteenth deal. I have
three of spades, seven of hearts, ace of diamonds."
Before leaving the house he put on a black overcoat and an imitation
sheepskin cap, and stuck a portfolio in his hand, making himself look
like an official.
"Don't walk alongside me on the street," he said sternly, "and don't
speak to me. I will enter a certain house; you go into the dvornik's
lodging, tell him you have to wait for Timofeyev. I'll soon--"
Fearing he would lose Piotr in the crowd Yevsey walked behind him
without removing his eyes from his figure. But all of a sudden Piotr
disappeared. Klimkov was at a loss. He rushed forward, then stopped, and
pressed himself against a lamp-post. Opposite him rose a large house
with gratings over the dark windows of the first story. Through the
narrow entrance he saw a bleak gloomy yard paved with large stones.
Klimkov was afraid to enter. He looked all around him uneasily shifting
from one foot to the other.
A man with a reddish little beard now walked out with hasty steps. He
wore a sort of sleeveless jacket and a cap with a visor pulled down on
his forehead. He winked his grey eyes at Yevsey, and said in a low tone:
"Come here. Why didn't you go to the dvornik?"
"I lost you," Yevsey admitted.
"Lost? Look out! You might get it in the neck for that. Listen. Three
doors away from here is the Zemstvo Board building. A man will soon
leave the place who works there. His name is Dmitry Ilyich Kurnosov.
Remember. You are to follow him. You understand? Come, and I will show
him to you."
Several minutes later Klimkov like a little dog was quickly following a
man in a worn overcoat and a crumpled black hat. The man was large and
strong. He walked rapidly, swung a cane, and rapped it on the asphalt
vigorously. Black hair with a sprinkling of grey fell from under his hat
on his ears and the back of his neck.
Yevsey was suddenly overcome by a feeling of pity, which was a rare
thing with him. It imperiously demanded action. Perspiring from
agitation he darted across the street in short steps, ran forward,
recrossed the street, and met the man breast to breast. Before him
flashed a dark-bearded face, with meeting brows, a smile reflected in
blue eyes, and a broad forehead seamed with wrinkles. The man's lips
moved. He was evidently singing or speaking to himself.
Klimkov stopped and wiped the perspiration from his face with his hands.
Then he followed the man with bent head and eyes cast to the ground,
raising them only now and then in order not to lose the object of his
observation from sight.
"Not young," he thought. "A poor man apparently. It all comes from
poverty and from fear, too."
He remembered the Smokestack, and trembled.
"He'll kill me," he thought. Then he grew sorry for the Smokestack.
The buildings looked down upon him with dim, tired eyes. The noise of
the street crept into his ears insistently, the cold liquid mud squirted
and splashed. Klimkov was overcome by a sense of gloomy monotony. He
recalled Rayisa, and was drawn to move aside, away from the street.
The man he was tracking stopped at the steps of a house, pushed the bell
button, raised his hat, fanned his face with it, and flung it back on
his head, leaving bare part of a bald skull. Yevsey stationed himself
five steps away at the curb. He looked pityingly into the man's face,
and felt the need to tell him something. The man observed him, frowned,
and turned away. Yevsey, disconcerted, dropped his head, and sat down on
the curb.
"If he only had insulted me," he thought. "But this way, without any
provocation, it's not good, it's not good."
"From the Department of Safety?" he heard a low hissing voice. The
question was asked by a tall reddish muzhik with a dirty apron and a
broom in his hands.
"Yes," responded Yevsey, and the very same instant thought, "I ought not
to have told him."
"A new one again?" remarked the janitor. "You are all after Kurnosov?"
"Yes."
"So? Tell the officers that this morning a guest came to him from the
railroad station with trunks, three trunks. He hasn't registered yet
with the police. He has twenty-four hours' time. A little sort of a
pretty fellow with a small mustache. He wears clean clothes." The
dvornik ran the broom over the pavement several times, and sprinkled
Yevsey's shoes and trousers with mud. Presently he stopped to remark,
"You can be seen here. They aren't fools either, they notice your kind.
You ought to stand at the gates."
Yevsey obediently stepped to the gates. Suddenly he noticed Yakov
Zarubin on the other side of the street wearing a new overcoat and
gloves and carrying a cane. The black derby hat was tilted on his head,
and as he walked along the pavement he smiled and ogled like a street
girl confident of her beauty.
"Good morning," he said, looking around. "I came to replace you. Go to
Somov's café on Lebed Street, ask for Nikolay Pavlov there."
"Are you in the Department of Safety, too?" asked Yevsey.
"I got there ten days before you. Why?"
Yevsey looked at him, at his beaming swart countenance.
"Was it you who told about me?"
"And didn't you betray the Smokestack?"
After thinking a while Yevsey answered glumly:
"I did it after you had betrayed me. You were the only one I told."
"And you were the only one the Smokestack told. Ugh!" Yakov laughed, and
gave Yevsey a poke on the shoulder. "Go quick, you crooked chicken!" He
walked by Yevsey's side swinging his cane. "This is a good position. I
understand so much. You can live like a lord, walk about, and look at
everything. You see this suit? Now the girls show me especial
attention."
Soon he took leave of Yevsey, and turned back quickly. Klimkov following
him with an inimical glance fell to thinking. He considered Yakov a
dissolute, empty fellow, whom he placed lower than himself, and it was
offensive to see him so well satisfied and so elegantly dressed.
"He informed against me. If I told about the Smokestack it was out of
fear. But why did he do it?" He made mental threats against Yakov.
"Wait, we will see who's the better man."
When he asked at the café for Nikolay Pavlov, he was shown a stairway,
which he ascended. At the top he heard Piotr's voice on the other side
of a door.
"There are fifty-two cards to a pack. In the city in my district there
are thousands of people, and I know a few hundred of them maybe. I know
who lives with whom, and what and where each of them works. People
change, but cards remain one and the same."
Besides Sasha there was another man in the room with Piotr, a tall,
well-built person, who stood at the window reading a paper, and did not
move when Yevsey entered.
"What a stupid mug!" were the words with which Sasha met Yevsey, fixing
an evil look upon his face. "It must be made over. Do you hear,
Maklakov?"
The man reading the paper turned his head, and looked at Yevsey with
large bright eyes.
"Yes," he said.
Piotr, who seemed to be excited and had dishevelled hair, asked Yevsey
what he had seen. The remnants of dinner stood on the table; the odor of
grease and sauer-kraut titillated Yevsey's nostrils, and gave him a keen
appetite. He stood before Piotr, who was cleaning his teeth with a
goose-quill, and in a dispassionate voice repeated the information the
janitor had given him. At the first words of the account Maklakov put
his hands and the paper behind his back, and inclined his head. He
listened attentively twirling his mustache, which like the hair on his
head was a peculiar light shade, a sort of silver with a tinge of
yellow. The clean, serious face with the knit brows and the calm eyes,
the confident pose of his powerful body clad in a close-fitting, well
made, sober suit, the strong bass voice--all this distinguished Maklakov
advantageously from Piotr and Sasha.
"Did the janitor himself carry the trunks in?" he asked Yevsey.
"He didn't say."
"That means he did not carry them in. He would have told you whether
they were heavy or light. They carried them in themselves. Evidently
that's the way it was."
"The printing office?" asked Sasha.
"Literature, the current number."
"Well, we must have a search made," said Sasha gruffly, and uttered an
ugly oath, shaking his fist.
"I must find the printing-press. Get me type, boys, and I'll fix up a
printing-press myself. I'll find the donkeys. We'll give them all that's
necessary. Then we'll arrest them, and we'll have lots of money."
"Not a bad scheme!" exclaimed Piotr.
Maklakov looked at Yevsey, and asked:
"Have you had your dinner yet?"
"No."
"Take your dinner," said Piotr with a nod toward the table. "Be quick
about it."
"Why treat him to remnants?" asked Maklakov calmly. Then he stepped to
the door, opened it, and called out, "Dinner, please."
"You try," Sasha snuffled to Piotr, "to persuade that idiot Afanasov to
give us the printing-press they seized last year."
"Very well, I'll try," Piotr assented meditatively.
Maklakov did not look at them, but silently twisted his mustache. Dinner
was served. A round pock-marked modest-looking man made his appearance
in the room at the same time as the waiter. He smiled at everyone
benevolently, and shook Yevsey's hand vigorously.
"My name is Solovyov," he said to him. "Have you heard the news,
friends? This evening there will be a banquet of the revolutionists at
Chistov's hall. Three of our fellows will go there as butlers, among
others you, Piotr."
"I again?" shouted Piotr, and his face became covered with red blotches.
His anger made him look older. "The third time in two months that I have
had to play lackey! Excuse me! I don't want to."
"Don't address me on the subject," said Solovyov affably.
"What does it mean? Why do they choose just me to be a servant?"
"You look like one," said Sasha, with a smile.
"There will be three," Solovyov repeated sighing. "What do you say to
having some beer? All right?"
Piotr opened the door, and shouted in an irritated voice:
"Half a dozen beer," and he went to the window clenching his fists and
cracking his knuckles.
"There, you see, Maklakov?" said Sasha. "Among us no one wants to work
seriously, with enthusiasm. But the revolutionists are pushing right
on--banquets, meetings, a shower of literature, open propaganda in the
factories!"
Maklakov maintained silence, and did not look at Sasha. Round Solovyov
then took up the word, smiling amiably.
"I caught a girl to-day at the railroad station with books. I had
already noticed her in a villa in the summer. 'Well,' thought I, 'amuse
yourself, my dear.' To-day, as I was walking in the station with no
people to track, I was looking about, and there I see her marching along
carrying a handbag. I went up to her, and respectfully proposed that she
have a couple of words with me. I noticed she started and paled, and hid
the bag behind her back. 'Ah,' thinks I, 'my dear little stupid, you've
gotten yourself into it.' Well, I immediately took her to the police
station, they opened her luggage, and there was the last issue of
'Emancipation' and a whole lot more of their noxious trash. I took the
girl to the Department of Safety. What else was I to do? If you can't
get Krushin pike, you must eat blinkers. In the carriage she kept her
little face turned away from me. I could see her cheeks burned and there
were tears in her eyes. But she kept mum. I asked her, 'Are you
comfortable, madam?' Not a word in reply."
Solovyov chuckled softly. Trembling rays of wrinkles covered his face.
"Who is she?" asked Maklakov.
"Dr. Melikhov's daughter."
"Ah," drawled Sasha, "I know him."
"A respectable man. He has the orders of Vladimir and Anna," remarked
Solovyov.
"I know him," repeated Sasha. "A charlatan, like all the rest. He tried
to cure me."
"God alone can cure you now," said Solovyov in his affable tone. "You
are ruining your health quickly."
"Go to the devil!" roared Sasha.
Maklakov asked without turning his gaze from the window:
"Did the girl cry?"
"No. But she didn't exactly rejoice. You know it's always unpleasant to
me to take girls, because in the first place I have a daughter myself."
"What are you waiting for, Maklakov?" demanded Sasha testily.
"Until he gets through eating his dinner. I have time."
"Say, you, chew faster!" Sasha bawled at Klimkov.
"Yes, yes, hurry," Piotr observed drily.
As he ate his dinner, Klimkov listened to the talk attentively, and
observed the people while he himself remained unnoticed. He noted with
satisfaction that all of them except Sasha did not seem bad, not worse
or more horrible than others. He was seized with a desire to ingratiate
himself with them, make himself useful to them. He put down the knife
and fork, and quickly wiped his lips with the soiled napkin.
"I am done."
The door was flung open, and a loose-limbed fellow, his dress in
disorder, his body bent and stooping, darted into the room, and hissed:
"Ssh! Ssh!"
He thrust his head into the corridor, listened, then carefully closed
the door. "Doesn't it lock? Where is the key?" He looked around, and
drew a deep breath. "Thank God!" he exclaimed.
"Eh, you dunce," sneered Sasha. "Well, what is it? Do they want to lick
you again?"
The man ran up to him. Panting and wiping the sweat from his face, he
began, to mutter in a low voice:
"They did, of course. They wanted to kill me with a hammer. Two followed
me from the prison. I was there on business. As I walked out, they were
standing at the gate, two of them, and one of them had a hammer in his
pocket."
"Maybe it was a revolver," suggested Solovyov stretching his neck.
"A hammer."
"Did you see it?" inquired Sasha sarcastically.
"Ah, don't I know? They agreed to do me up with a hammer, without making
any noise. One--"
He adjusted his necktie, buttoned his coat, searched for something in
his pockets, and smoothed his curly head, which was covered with sweat.
His hands incessantly flashed about his body; they seemed ready to break
off any moment. His bony grey face was dank with perspiration, his dark
eyes rolled from side to side, now screwed up, now opened wide. Suddenly
they became fixed. With unfeigned horror depicted in them they rested
upon Yevsey's face, as the man backed to the door.
"Who's that? Who's that?" he demanded hoarsely.
Maklakov went up to him, and took his hand.
"Calm yourself, Yelizar. He's one of our own, a new one."
"Do you know him?"
"Jackass!" came Sasha's exasperated voice. "You ought to see a
physician."
"Have you ever been pushed under a trolley car? Not yet? Then wait
before you call names."
"Just look, Maklakov," began Sasha, but the man continued in extreme
excitement:
"Have you ever been beaten at night by unknown people? Do you
understand? Unknown people! There are hundreds of thousands such people
unknown to me in the city, hundreds of thousands. They are everywhere,
and I am a single one. I am always among them, do you understand?"
Now Solovyov began to speak in his soft, reassuring voice, which was
drowned, however, by the new burst of words coming from the shattered
man, who carried in himself a whirlwind of fear. Klimkov immediately
grew dizzy, overwhelmed by the alarming whisper of his talk, blinded by
the motion of his broken body, and the darting of his cowardly hands. He
expected that now something huge and black would tear its way through
the door, would fill the room, and crush everybody.
"It's time for us to go," said Maklakov, touching his shoulder.
When they were sitting in the cab Yevsey sullenly remarked:
"I am not fit for this work."
"Why?" asked Maklakov.
"I am timid."
"That'll pass away."
"Nothing will pass away."
"Everything," rejoined Maklakov calmly.
It was cold and dark, and sleet was falling. The reflections of the
lights lay upon the mud in golden patches, which the people and horses
tramped upon and extinguished. The two men were silent for a long time.
Yevsey, his brain empty, looked into space, and felt that Maklakov was
watching his face, in wait for something.
"You'll get used to it," Maklakov went on, "but if you have another
position, leave it at once. Have you?"
"No."
"Is it long since you've been in the Department of Safety?"
"Yesterday."
"That accounts for it."
"Now where am I to go?" inquired Yevsey quietly.
Maklakov instead of replying to the question asked:
"Have you relatives?"
"No. I have no one."
The spy leaned over, though without saying anything. His eyes were half
shut. As he drew his breath through his nose, the thin hair of his
mustache quivered. The thick sounds of a bell floated in the air, soft
and warm, and the pensive song of copper crept mournfully over the roofs
of the houses without rising under the heavy cloud that covered the city
with a solid dark canopy.
"To-morrow is Sunday," said Maklakov in a low tone. "Do you go to
church?"
"No."
"Why not?"
"I don't know. Just so. It's close there."
"I do. I love the morning service. The choristers sing, and the sun
looks through the windows. That is always good."
Maklakov's simple words emboldened Yevsey. He felt a desire to speak of
himself.
"It is nice to sing," he began. "When I was a little boy I sang in the
church in our village. When I sang I didn't know where I was. It was
just the same as if I didn't exist."
"Here we are," said Maklakov.
Yevsey sighed, and looked sadly at the long structure of the railway
station, which all of a sudden loomed up before them and barred the way.
They went to the platform where a large public had already gathered, and
leaned up against the wall. Maklakov dropped his lids over his eyes, and
seemed to be falling into a doze. The spurs of the gendarmes began to
jingle, a well-shaped woman with dark eyes and a swarthy face laughed in
a resonant young voice.
"Remember the woman there who is laughing and the man beside her," said
Maklakov in a distinct whisper. "Her name is Sarah Lurye, an
accoucheure. She lives in the Sadovoy, No. 7. She was in prison and in
exile, a very clever woman. The old man is also a former exile, a
journalist."
Suddenly Maklakov seemed to become frightened. He pulled his hat down
over his face with a quick movement of his hand, and continued in a
still lower voice:
"The tall man in the black suit and the shaggy hat, red-haired, do you
see him?"
Yevsey nodded his head.
"He's the author Mironov. He has been in prison four times already, in
different cities. Do you read books?"
"No."
"A pity. He writes interestingly."
The black iron worm with a horn on its head and three fiery eyes uttered
a scream, and glided into the station, the metal of its huge body
rumbling. It stopped, and hissed spitefully, filling the air with its
thick white breath. The hot steamy odor knocked Yevsey in the face. The
black bustling figures of people quickly darted before his eyes, seeming
strangely small in contrast with the overwhelming size of the train.
It was the first time Yevsey had seen the mass of iron at such close
range. It seemed alive and endowed with feeling. It attracted his
attention powerfully, at the same time arousing a hostile, painful
premonition. The large red wheels turned, the steel lever glittered,
rising and falling like a gigantic knife. Maklakov utter a subdued
exclamation.
"What is it?" asked Yevsey.
"Nothing," answered the spy vexed. His cheeks reddened, and he bit his
lips. By his look Yevsey guessed that he was following the author, who
was walking along without haste, twirling his mustache. He was
accompanied by an elderly, thick-set man, with an unbuttoned coat and a
summer hat on a large head. This man laughed aloud, and exclaimed as he
raised his bearded red face:
"You understand? I rode and rode--"
The author lifted his head, and bowed to somebody. His head was smoothly
shorn, his forehead lofty. He had high cheek bones, a broad nose, and
narrow eyes. Klimkov found his face coarse and disagreeable. There was
something military and harsh in it, due to his large red mustache.
"Come," said Maklakov. "They will probably go together. You must be very
careful. The man who just arrived is an experienced man."
In the street they took a cab again.
"Follow that carriage," Maklakov said angrily to the driver. He was
silent for a long time, sitting with bent back and swaying body. "Last
year in the summer," he finally muttered, "I was in his house making a
search."
"The writer's house?" asked Yevsey.
"Yes. Drive on farther," Maklakov ordered quickly noticing that the cab
in front had stopped. "Quick!"
A minute later he jumped from the cab, and thrust some money into the
driver's hand.
"Wait," he said to Yevsey, and disappeared in the damp darkness. Yevsey
heard his voice. "Excuse me, is this Yakovlev's house?"
Someone answered in a hollow voice:
"This is Pertzev's."
"And which is Yakovlev's?"
"I don't know."
"Pardon me."
Yevsey leaned against the fence, counting Maklakov's tardy steps.
"It's a simple thing--just to follow people," he thought.
The spy came up to him, and said in a satisfied tone:
"We have nothing to do here. To-morrow morning you will put on a
different suit, and we'll keep an eye on this house."
They walked down the street. The sound of Maklakov's talk kept knocking
at Klimkov's ears like the rumble of a drum.
"Remember the faces, the dress, and the gait of the people that pass
this house. There are no two people alike. Each one has something
peculiar to himself. You must learn at once to seize upon this peculiar
something in a person--in his eyes, in his voice, in the way in which he
holds out his hands when he walks, in the manner in which he lifts his
hat in greeting. Our work above all demands a good memory."
Yevsey felt that the spy talked with concealed enmity toward him; which
aggrieved him.
"You have an exceedingly marked face, especially your eyes. That won't
do. You mustn't go about without a mask, without the dress peculiar to a
certain occupation. Your figure, you in general, resemble a hawker of
dry-goods. So you ought to carry about a box of stuffs, pins, needles,
tape, ribbon, and all sorts of trifles. I will see that you get such a
box. Then you can go into the kitchens and get acquainted with the
servants." Maklakov was silent, removed his beard, fixed his hat, and
began to walk more slowly. "Servants are always ready to do something
unpleasant for the masters. It's easy to get something out of them,
especially the women--cooks, nurses, chambermaids. They like to gossip.
However, I'm chilled through," he ended in a different voice. "Let's go
to a café."
"I have no money."
"That's all right."
In the café he said to the owner in a stern voice:
"Give me a glass of cognac, a large one, and two beers. Will you have
some cognac?"
"No, I don't drink," answered Yevsey, embarrassed.
"That's good."
The spy looked carefully into Klimkov's face, smoothed his mustache,
closed his eyes for a minute, and stretched his whole body, so that his
bones cracked. When he had drunk the cognac, he remarked in an
undertone:
"It's good you are such a taciturn fellow. What do you think about, eh?"
Yevsey dropped his head, and did not answer at once.
"About everything, about myself."
"But what in particular?"
Maklakov's eyes gleamed softly.
"I think perhaps it would be better for me to enter a monastery," Yevsey
answered sincerely.
"Why?"
"Just so."
"Do you believe in God?"
After a moment's thought Yevsey said as if excusing himself:
"I do. Only I am not for God, but for myself. What am I to God?"
"Well, let's drink."
Klimkov bravely gulped down a glass of beer. It was cold and bitter, and
sent a shiver through his body. He licked his lips with his tongue, and
suddenly asked:
"Do they beat you often?"
"Me? Who?" the spy exclaimed amazed and offended.
"Not you, but all the spies in general."
"You must say 'agents,' not 'spies,'" Maklakov corrected him smiling.
"They get beaten, yes, they get beaten. I have never been beaten."
He became lost in reflection. His shoulders drooped, and a shadow crept
over his white face.
"Ours is a dog's occupation. People look upon us in an ugly enough
light." Suddenly his face broke into a smile, and he bent toward Yevsey.
"Only once in five years did I see a man--human conduct toward me. It
was in Mironov's house. I came to him with gendarmes in the uniform of a
sergeant-inspector. I was not well at the time. I had fever, and was
scarcely able to stand on my feet. He received us civilly, with a smile.
He wore a slightly embarrassed air. Such a large man, with long hands
and a mustache like a cat's. He walked with us from room to room,
addressed us all with the respectful plural 'you,' and if he came in
contact with any of us, he excused himself. We all felt awkward in his
presence--the colonel, the procurator, and we small fry. Everybody knew
the man; his pictures appeared in the newspapers. They say he's even
known abroad. And here we were paying him a night visit! We felt sort of
abashed. I noticed him look at me. Then he walked up closer to me, and
said, 'You ought to sit down. You look as if you were feeling ill. Sit
down.' His words upset me. I sat down, and I thought to myself, 'Go away
from me.' And he said, 'Will you take a powder?' All of us were silent.
I saw that no one looked at me or him." Maklakov laughed quietly. "He
gave me quinine in a capsule, and I chewed it. I began to feel an
insufferable bitterness in my mouth and a turmoil in my soul. I felt I
would drop if I tried to stand. Here the colonel interfered, and ordered
me to be taken to the police office. The search just then happened to
end. The procurator excused himself to Mironov, and said, 'I must arrest
you.' 'Well, what of it?' he said. 'Arrest me. Everyone does what he
can.' He said it so simply with a smile."
Yevsey liked the story. It touched his heart softly, as if embracing it
with a caress. The desire awoke in him again to make himself useful to
Maklakov.
"He's a good man," he thought.
The spy sighed. He called for another glass of cognac, and sipped it
slowly. He seemed suddenly to grow thin, and he dropped his head on the
table.
Yevsey wanted to speak, to ask questions. Various words darted about in
disorder in his brain, for some reason failing to arrange themselves in
intelligible and clear language. Finally, after many efforts, Yevsey
found what he wanted to ask.
"He, too, is in the service of our enemies?"
"Who?" asked the spy, scarcely raising his head.
"The writer."
"What enemies? What do you mean?" The spy's face was mocking, and his
lips curled in aversion. Yevsey grew confused, and Maklakov without
awaiting his answer arose, and tossed a silver coin on the table.
"Charge it up," he said to someone.
He put on his hat, and without a word to Klimkov walked to the door.
Yevsey followed on tiptoe, not daring to put on his hat.
"Be at the place at nine o'clock to-morrow. You will be relieved at
twelve," said Maklakov in the street. He thrust his hands in his coat
pockets, and disappeared.
"He didn't say 'good-by,'" thought Yevsey aggrieved, walking along the
deserted street.
When he entered within the circles of light thrown by the street lamps,
he slackened his pace, and instinctively hastened over the parts
enveloped in obscurity. He felt ill. Darkness surrounded him on all
sides. It was cold. The gluey, bitter taste of beer penetrated from his
mouth into his chest, and his heart beat unevenly. Languid thoughts
stirred in his head like heavy flakes of autumn snow.
"There, I've served a day. How they all are--these different days. If
only somebody liked me."
At night Yevsey dreamed that his cousin Yashka seated himself on his
chest, seized him by the throat, and choked him. He awoke, and heard
Piotr's angry dry thin voice in the other room:
"I spit upon the Czar's empire and all this hum-buggery!"
A woman laughed, and someone's thin voice sounded:
"Hush, hush, don't bawl."
"I have no time to calculate who is right, and who is wrong. I am not a
fool, I am young, and I ought to live. This rapscallion reads me
lectures about autocracy, and I fuss about for three hours as a waiter,
near every sort of scamp. My feet ache, my back pains from the bows. If
the autocracy is dear to you, then don't be stingy with your money. But
I won't sell my pride to the autocracy for a mere penny. To the devil
with it!"
Yevsey looked drowsily through the window, his gaze losing itself in the
sleepy depth of the autumn morning. Blinded, he quietly flung himself
back in bed, and again fell asleep.
Several hours later he was sitting on the curb opposite Pertzev's house.
He walked back and forth a long time, counted the windows in the house,
measured its width with his steps, studied in all its details the grey
front flabby with old age, and finally grew tired. But he had not much
time to rest. The writer himself came out of the door with an overcoat
flung over his shoulders, no overshoes on his feet, his hat on one side
of his head. He walked across the street straight up to Yevsey.
"He will give me a slap in the face," thought Yevsey, looking at the
sullen face and the lowering red brows. He tried to rise and go away,
but was unable to move, chained to the spot by fear.
"Why are you sitting here?" he heard an angry voice.
"Nothing."
"Get away from here."
"I can't."
"Here's a letter. Go. Give it to him who sent you here."
"I can't."
"Why not?"
The large blue eyes commanded. Yevsey had not the power to disobey the
look. Turning his face aside he mumbled:
"I--I--I have no permission--to take anything from you--or to converse
with you. I am going away."
"Yes, go away," the author commanded, and for some reason smiled a
morose smile.
Klimkov took the grey envelope, and walked away, without asking himself
where he was going. He held the envelope in his right hand on a level
with his breast, as if it were something murderous, threatening unknown
misfortune. His fingers ached as from cold.
"What is going to happen to me?" knocked importunately at his brain.
Suddenly he noticed the envelope was not sealed. This amazed him. He
stopped, looked around, and quickly removed the letter.
"Take this dunce away from me. Mironov," he read.
He heaved a sigh of relief.
"I must give this to Maklakov. He will scold me. Maybe I ought to turn
back. But it's not necessary. Somebody else will come soon anyway."
Though his fear had disappeared, Yevsey felt sad from the realization of
his unfitness for the position, and he felt heavy at the thought that he
had again failed to suit the spy, whom he liked so much.
He found Maklakov at dinner in the company of a little squint-eyed man
dressed in black.
"Let me introduce you. Klimkov--Krasavin."
Yevsey put his hand in his pocket to get out the letter, and said in an
embarrassed tone:
"This is the way it happened--"
Maklakov held up his hand.
"You will tell me later. Sit down, and have your dinner."
His face was weary, his eyes dim, his light straight hair dishevelled.
"Evidently got drunk yesterday," thought Yevsey.
"No, Timofey Vasilyevich," the squint-eyed man said coldly and solemnly.
"You are not right. There's something pleasant in every line of work if
you love it."
Maklakov looked at him, and drank a large glass of whiskey in one gulp.
"They are people, we are people, that doesn't signify anything. One says
this, another says that, and I do just as I please."
The squint-eyed man noticed that Yevsey was looking at his eyeballs as
they rolled apart, and put on a pair of glasses with tortoise-shell
rims. His movements were soft and alert, like a black cat's. His teeth
were small and sharp, his nose straight and thin. When he spoke his rosy
ears moved. His crooked fingers kept quickly rolling a crumb of bread
into little pellets, which he placed on the edge of his plate.
"An assistant?" he asked, nodding his head toward Yevsey.
"Yes."
"How's business, young man?"
"I just began yesterday."
"Oh, oh!" Krasavin nodded his head. Pinching his thin dark mustache, he
began to speak fluently: "Of course, Timofey Vasilyevich, you can't step
on the trail of life's destiny. According to God's law, children grow
old, people die. Only all this doesn't concern you and me. We received
our appointed task. We are told to catch the people who infringe on law
and order. That's all. It's a hard business, it's a clever business. To
use a figure of speech, it is a kind of hunt."
Maklakov rose from the table, and walked into a corner, from where he
beckoned to Yevsey.
"Well, what is it?"
Yevsey gave him the note. The spy read it, looked into Klimkov's face in
astonishment, and read it again.
"From whom is this?" he asked in a low voice.
Yevsey answered in an embarrassed whisper.
"He himself gave it to me. He came out into the street."
In the expectation of a rebuke, or even a blow, he bent his neck. But
hearing a low laugh he cautiously raised his head, and saw the spy
looking at the envelope with a broad smile on his face and a merry gleam
in his eyes.
"Oh, you strange fellow," said Maklakov. "Now keep quiet about this, you
droll creature."
"Can I congratulate you on a successful piece of work?" asked Krasavin.
"You can. Yes." Maklakov said aloud, walking up to him.
"That's good, young man," remarked Krasavin encouragingly. His pupils
with green sparks flashing in them turned inward to the bridge of his
nose, and his nostrils quivered and expanded.
"But the Japs licked us after all, Gavrilo," Maklakov exclaimed merrily,
rubbing his hands.
"I cannot in the least comprehend your joy in this event," said Krasavin
wagging his ears. "Although it was instructive, as many say, still so
much Russian blood was shed and the insufficiency of our strength was
made so apparent."
"And who is to blame?"
"The Japs. What do they want? Every country ought to live within
itself."
They started a discussion, to which Yevsey, rejoiced over Maklakov's
attitude, did not pay any attention. He looked into the spy's face, and
thought it would be well to live with him instead of Piotr, who scolded
at the authorities, and maybe would be arrested as they had arrested the
Smokestack.
Krasavin left. Maklakov took out the letter, read it once more, and
burst into a laugh, looking at Yevsey.
"Now don't say a word about it to anybody. Do you understand? He came
out himself?"
"Yes. He came out, and said, 'Get away from here.'" Yevsey smiled
guiltily.
"You see another one in his place would have stroked you with a cat's
paw." Screwing up his eyes the spy looked through the window, and said
slowly, "Yes, you ought to take to peddling wares. I told you so. To-day
you are free. I have no more commissions for you. Be off with you. Have
a good time. I'll try one of these days to fix you up differently.
Good-by."
Maklakov held out his hand. Yevsey touched it gratefully, and walked
away happy.