IN the room which the tavern keeper, the Cossack Semyon Tchistopluy,
called the "travellers' room," that is kept exclusively for travellers,
a tall, broad-shouldered man of forty was sitting at the big unpainted
table. He was asleep with his elbows on the table and his head
leaning on his fist. An end of tallow candle, stuck into an old
pomatum pot, lighted up his light brown beard, his thick, broad
nose, his sunburnt cheeks, and the thick, black eyebrows overhanging
his closed eyes. . . . The nose and the cheeks and the eyebrows,
all the features, each taken separately, were coarse and heavy,
like the furniture and the stove in the "travellers' room," but
taken all together they gave the effect of something harmonious and
even beautiful. Such is the lucky star, as it is called, of the
Russian face: the coarser and harsher its features the softer and
more good-natured it looks. The man was dressed in a gentleman's
reefer jacket, shabby, but bound with wide new braid, a plush
waistcoat, and full black trousers thrust into big high boots.
On one of the benches, which stood in a continuous row along the
wall, a girl of eight, in a brown dress and long black stockings,
lay asleep on a coat lined with fox. Her face was pale, her hair
was flaxen, her shoulders were narrow, her whole body was thin and
frail, but her nose stood out as thick and ugly a lump as the man's.
She was sound asleep, and unconscious that her semi-circular comb
had fallen off her head and was cutting her cheek.
The "travellers' room" had a festive appearance. The air was full
of the smell of freshly scrubbed floors, there were no rags hanging
as usual on the line that ran diagonally across the room, and a
little lamp was burning in the corner over the table, casting a
patch of red light on the ikon of St. George the Victorious. From
the ikon stretched on each side of the corner a row of cheap
oleographs, which maintained a strict and careful gradation in the
transition from the sacred to the profane. In the dim light of the
candle end and the red ikon lamp the pictures looked like one
continuous stripe, covered with blurs of black. When the tiled
stove, trying to sing in unison with the weather, drew in the air
with a howl, while the logs, as though waking up, burst into bright
flame and hissed angrily, red patches began dancing on the log
walls, and over the head of the sleeping man could be seen first
the Elder Seraphim, then the Shah Nasir-ed-Din, then a fat, brown
baby with goggle eyes, whispering in the ear of a young girl with
an extraordinarily blank, and indifferent face. . . .
Outside a storm was raging. Something frantic and wrathful, but
profoundly unhappy, seemed to be flinging itself about the tavern
with the ferocity of a wild beast and trying to break in. Banging
at the doors, knocking at the windows and on the roof, scratching
at the walls, it alternately threatened and besought, then subsided
for a brief interval, and then with a gleeful, treacherous howl
burst into the chimney, but the wood flared up, and the fire, like
a chained dog, flew wrathfully to meet its foe, a battle began, and
after it--sobs, shrieks, howls of wrath. In all of this there was
the sound of angry misery and unsatisfied hate, and the mortified
impatience of something accustomed to triumph.
Bewitched by this wild, inhuman music the "travellers' room" seemed
spellbound for ever, but all at once the door creaked and the potboy,
in a new print shirt, came in. Limping on one leg, and blinking his
sleepy eyes, he snuffed the candle with his fingers, put some more
wood on the fire and went out. At once from the church, which was
three hundred paces from the tavern, the clock struck midnight. The
wind played with the chimes as with the snowflakes; chasing the
sounds of the clock it whirled them round and round over a vast
space, so that some strokes were cut short or drawn out in long,
vibrating notes, while others were completely lost in the general
uproar. One stroke sounded as distinctly in the room as though it
had chimed just under the window. The child, sleeping on the fox-skin,
started and raised her head. For a minute she stared blankly at the
dark window, at Nasir-ed-Din over whom a crimson glow from the fire
flickered at that moment, then she turned her eyes upon the sleeping
man.
"Daddy," she said.
But the man did not move. The little girl knitted her brow angrily,
lay down, and curled up her legs. Someone in the tavern gave a loud,
prolonged yawn. Soon afterwards there was the squeak of the swing
door and the sound of indistinct voices. Someone came in, shaking
the snow off, and stamping in felt boots which made a muffled thud.
"What is it?" a woman s voice asked languidly.
"Mademoiselle Ilovaisky has come, . . ." answered a bass voice.
Again there was the squeak of the swing door. Then came the roar
of the wind rushing in. Someone, probably the lame boy, ran to the
door leading to the "travellers' room," coughed deferentially, and
lifted the latch.
"This way, lady, please," said a woman's voice in dulcet tones.
"It's clean in here, my beauty. . . ."
The door was opened wide and a peasant with a beard appeared in the
doorway, in the long coat of a coachman, plastered all over with
snow from head to foot, and carrying a big trunk on his shoulder.
He was followed into the room by a feminine figure, scarcely half
his height, with no face and no arms, muffled and wrapped up like
a bundle and also covered with snow. A damp chill, as from a cellar,
seemed to come to the child from the coachman and the bundle, and
the fire and the candles flickered.
"What nonsense!" said the bundle angrily, "We could go perfectly
well. We have only nine more miles to go, mostly by the forest, and
we should not get lost. . . ."
"As for getting lost, we shouldn't, but the horses can't go on,
lady!" answered the coachman. "And it is Thy Will, O Lord! As though
I had done it on purpose!"
"God knows where you have brought me. . . . Well, be quiet. . . .
There are people asleep here, it seems. You can go. . . ."
The coachman put the portmanteau on the floor, and as he did so, a
great lump of snow fell off his shoulders. He gave a sniff and went
out.
Then the little girl saw two little hands come out from the middle
of the bundle, stretch upwards and begin angrily disentangling the
network of shawls, kerchiefs, and scarves. First a big shawl fell
on the ground, then a hood, then a white knitted kerchief. After
freeing her head, the traveller took off her pelisse and at once
shrank to half the size. Now she was in a long, grey coat with big
buttons and bulging pockets. From one pocket she pulled out a paper
parcel, from the other a bunch of big, heavy keys, which she put
down so carelessly that the sleeping man started and opened his
eyes. For some time he looked blankly round him as though he didn't
know where he was, then he shook his head, went to the corner and
sat down. . . . The newcomer took off her great coat, which made
her shrink to half her size again, she took off her big felt boots,
and sat down, too.
By now she no longer resembled a bundle: she was a thin little
brunette of twenty, as slim as a snake, with a long white face and
curly hair. Her nose was long and sharp, her chin, too, was long
and sharp, her eyelashes were long, the corners of her mouth were
sharp, and, thanks to this general sharpness, the expression of her
face was biting. Swathed in a closely fitting black dress with a
mass of lace at her neck and sleeves, with sharp elbows and long
pink fingers, she recalled the portraits of mediæval English ladies.
The grave concentration of her face increased this likeness.
The lady looked round at the room, glanced sideways at the man and
the little girl, shrugged her shoulders, and moved to the window.
The dark windows were shaking from the damp west wind. Big flakes
of snow glistening in their whiteness, lay on the window frame, but
at once disappeared, borne away by the wind. The savage music grew
louder and louder. . . .
After a long silence the little girl suddenly turned over, and said
angrily, emphasizing each word:
"Oh, goodness, goodness, how unhappy I am! Unhappier than anyone!"
The man got up and moved with little steps to the child with a
guilty air, which was utterly out of keeping with his huge figure
and big beard.
"You are not asleep, dearie?" he said, in an apologetic voice. "What
do you want?"
"I don't want anything, my shoulder aches! You are a wicked man,
Daddy, and God will punish you! You'll see He will punish you."
"My darling, I know your shoulder aches, but what can I do, dearie?"
said the man, in the tone in which men who have been drinking excuse
themselves to their stern spouses. "It's the journey has made your
shoulder ache, Sasha. To-morrow we shall get there and rest, and
the pain will go away. . . ."
"To-morrow, to-morrow. . . . Every day you say to-morrow. We shall
be going on another twenty days."
"But we shall arrive to-morrow, dearie, on your father's word of
honour. I never tell a lie, but if we are detained by the snowstorm
it is not my fault."
"I can't bear any more, I can't, I can't!"
Sasha jerked her leg abruptly and filled the room with an unpleasant
wailing. Her father made a despairing gesture, and looked hopelessly
towards the young lady. The latter shrugged her shoulders, and
hesitatingly went up to Sasha.
"Listen, my dear," she said, "it is no use crying. It's really
naughty; if your shoulder aches it can't be helped."
"You see, Madam," said the man quickly, as though defending himself,
"we have not slept for two nights, and have been travelling in a
revolting conveyance. Well, of course, it is natural she should be
ill and miserable, . . . and then, you know, we had a drunken driver,
our portmanteau has been stolen . . . the snowstorm all the time,
but what's the use of crying, Madam? I am exhausted, though, by
sleeping in a sitting position, and I feel as though I were drunk.
Oh, dear! Sasha, and I feel sick as it is, and then you cry!"
The man shook his head, and with a gesture of despair sat down.
"Of course you mustn't cry," said the young lady. "It's only little
babies cry. If you are ill, dear, you must undress and go to
sleep. . . . Let us take off your things!"
When the child had been undressed and pacified a silence reigned
again. The young lady seated herself at the window, and looked round
wonderingly at the room of the inn, at the ikon, at the stove. . . .
Apparently the room and the little girl with the thick nose, in
her short boy's nightgown, and the child's father, all seemed strange
to her. This strange man was sitting in a corner; he kept looking
about him helplessly, as though he were drunk, and rubbing his face
with the palm of his hand. He sat silent, blinking, and judging
from his guilty-looking figure it was difficult to imagine that he
would soon begin to speak. Yet he was the first to begin. Stroking
his knees, he gave a cough, laughed, and said:
"It's a comedy, it really is. . . . I look and I cannot believe my
eyes: for what devilry has destiny driven us to this accursed inn?
What did she want to show by it? Life sometimes performs such _'salto
mortale,'_ one can only stare and blink in amazement. Have you come
from far, Madam?"
"No, not from far," answered the young lady. "I am going from our
estate, fifteen miles from here, to our farm, to my father and
brother. My name is Ilovaisky, and the farm is called Ilovaiskoe.
It's nine miles away. What unpleasant weather!"
"It couldn't be worse."
The lame boy came in and stuck a new candle in the pomatum pot.
"You might bring us the samovar, boy," said the man, addressing
him.
"Who drinks tea now?" laughed the boy. "It is a sin to drink tea
before mass. . . ."
"Never mind boy, you won't burn in hell if we do. . . ."
Over the tea the new acquaintances got into conversation.
Mlle. Ilovaisky learned that her companion was called Grigory
Petrovitch Liharev, that he was the brother of the Liharev who was
Marshal of Nobility in one of the neighbouring districts, and he
himself had once been a landowner, but had "run through everything
in his time." Liharev learned that her name was Marya Mihailovna,
that her father had a huge estate, but that she was the only one
to look after it as her father and brother looked at life through
their fingers, were irresponsible, and were too fond of harriers.
"My father and brother are all alone at the farm," she told him,
brandishing her fingers (she had the habit of moving her fingers
before her pointed face as she talked, and after every sentence
moistened her lips with her sharp little tongue). "They, I mean
men, are an irresponsible lot, and don't stir a finger for themselves.
I can fancy there will be no one to give them a meal after the fast!
We have no mother, and we have such servants that they can't lay
the tablecloth properly when I am away. You can imagine their
condition now! They will be left with nothing to break their fast,
while I have to stay here all night. How strange it all is."
She shrugged her shoulders, took a sip from her cup, and said:
"There are festivals that have a special fragrance: at Easter,
Trinity and Christmas there is a peculiar scent in the air. Even
unbelievers are fond of those festivals. My brother, for instance,
argues that there is no God, but he is the first to hurry to Matins
at Easter."
Liharev raised his eyes to Mlle. Ilovaisky and laughed.
"They argue that there is no God," she went on, laughing too, "but
why is it, tell me, all the celebrated writers, the learned men,
clever people generally, in fact, believe towards the end of their
life?"
"If a man does not know how to believe when he is young, Madam, he
won't believe in his old age if he is ever so much of a writer."
Judging from Liharev's cough he had a bass voice, but, probably
from being afraid to speak aloud, or from exaggerated shyness, he
spoke in a tenor. After a brief pause he heaved a sign and said:
"The way I look at it is that faith is a faculty of the spirit. It
is just the same as a talent, one must be born with it. So far as
I can judge by myself, by the people I have seen in my time, and
by all that is done around us, this faculty is present in Russians
in its highest degree. Russian life presents us with an uninterrupted
succession of convictions and aspirations, and if you care to know,
it has not yet the faintest notion of lack of faith or scepticism.
If a Russian does not believe in God, it means he believes in
something else."
Liharev took a cup of tea from Mlle. Ilovaisky, drank off half in
one gulp, and went on:
"I will tell you about myself. Nature has implanted in my breast
an extraordinary faculty for belief. Whisper it not to the night,
but half my life I was in the ranks of the Atheists and Nihilists,
but there was not one hour in my life in which I ceased to believe.
All talents, as a rule, show themselves in early childhood, and so
my faculty showed itself when I could still walk upright under the
table. My mother liked her children to eat a great deal, and when
she gave me food she used to say: 'Eat! Soup is the great thing in
life!' I believed, and ate the soup ten times a day, ate like a
shark, ate till I was disgusted and stupefied. My nurse used to
tell me fairy tales, and I believed in house-spirits, in wood-elves,
and in goblins of all kinds. I used sometimes to steal corrosive
sublimate from my father, sprinkle it on cakes, and carry them up
to the attic that the house-spirits, you see, might eat them and
be killed. And when I was taught to read and understand what I read,
then there was a fine to-do. I ran away to America and went off to
join the brigands, and wanted to go into a monastery, and hired
boys to torture me for being a Christian. And note that my faith
was always active, never dead. If I was running away to America I
was not alone, but seduced someone else, as great a fool as I was,
to go with me, and was delighted when I was nearly frozen outside
the town gates and when I was thrashed; if I went to join the
brigands I always came back with my face battered. A most restless
childhood, I assure you! And when they sent me to the high school
and pelted me with all sorts of truths--that is, that the earth
goes round the sun, or that white light is not white, but is made
up of seven colours--my poor little head began to go round!
Everything was thrown into a whirl in me: Navin who made the sun
stand still, and my mother who in the name of the Prophet Elijah
disapproved of lightning conductors, and my father who was indifferent
to the truths I had learned. My enlightenment inspired me. I wandered
about the house and stables like one possessed, preaching my truths,
was horrified by ignorance, glowed with hatred for anyone who saw
in white light nothing but white light. . . . But all that's nonsense
and childishness. Serious, so to speak, manly enthusiasms began
only at the university. You have, no doubt, Madam, taken your degree
somewhere?"
"I studied at Novotcherkask at the Don Institute."
"Then you have not been to a university? So you don't know what
science means. All the sciences in the world have the same passport,
without which they regard themselves as meaningless . . . the
striving towards truth! Every one of them, even pharmacology, has
for its aim not utility, not the alleviation of life, but truth.
It's remarkable! When you set to work to study any science, what
strikes you first of all is its beginning. I assure you there is
nothing more attractive and grander, nothing is so staggering,
nothing takes a man's breath away like the beginning of any science.
From the first five or six lectures you are soaring on wings of the
brightest hopes, you already seem to yourself to be welcoming truth
with open arms. And I gave myself up to science, heart and soul,
passionately, as to the woman one loves. I was its slave; I found
it the sun of my existence, and asked for no other. I studied day
and night without rest, ruined myself over books, wept when before
my eyes men exploited science for their own personal ends. But my
enthusiasm did not last long. The trouble is that every science has
a beginning but not an end, like a recurring decimal. Zoology has
discovered 35,000 kinds of insects, chemistry reckons 60 elements.
If in time tens of noughts can be written after these figures.
Zoology and chemistry will be just as far from their end as now,
and all contemporary scientific work consists in increasing these
numbers. I saw through this trick when I discovered the 35,001-st
and felt no satisfaction. Well, I had no time to suffer from
disillusionment, as I was soon possessed by a new faith. I plunged
into Nihilism, with its manifestoes, its 'black divisions,' and all
the rest of it. I 'went to the people,' worked in factories, worked
as an oiler, as a barge hauler. Afterwards, when wandering over
Russia, I had a taste of Russian life, I turned into a fervent
devotee of that life. I loved the Russian people with poignant
intensity; I loved their God and believed in Him, and in their
language, their creative genius. . . . And so on, and so on. . . .
I have been a Slavophile in my time, I used to pester Aksakov with
letters, and I was a Ukrainophile, and an archæologist, and a
collector of specimens of peasant art. . . . I was enthusiastic
over ideas, people, events, places . . . my enthusiasm was endless!
Five years ago I was working for the abolition of private property;
my last creed was non-resistance to evil."
Sasha gave an abrupt sigh and began moving. Liharev got up and went
to her.
"Won't you have some tea, dearie?" he asked tenderly.
"Drink it yourself," the child answered rudely. Liharev was
disconcerted, and went back to the table with a guilty step.
"Then you have had a lively time," said Mlle. Ilovaisky; "you have
something to remember."
"Well, yes, it's all very lively when one sits over tea and chatters
to a kind listener, but you should ask what that liveliness has
cost me! What price have I paid for the variety of my life? You
see, Madam, I have not held my convictions like a German doctor of
philosophy, _zierlichmännerlich_, I have not lived in solitude, but
every conviction I have had has bound my back to the yoke, has torn
my body to pieces. Judge, for yourself. I was wealthy like my
brothers, but now I am a beggar. In the delirium of my enthusiasm
I smashed up my own fortune and my wife's--a heap of other people's
money. Now I am forty-two, old age is close upon me, and I am
homeless, like a dog that has dropped behind its waggon at night.
All my life I have not known what peace meant, my soul has been in
continual agitation, distressed even by its hopes . . . I have been
wearied out with heavy irregular work, have endured privation, have
five times been in prison, have dragged myself across the provinces
of Archangel and of Tobolsk . . . it's painful to think of it! I
have lived, but in my fever I have not even been conscious of the
process of life itself. Would you believe it, I don't remember a
single spring, I never noticed how my wife loved me, how my children
were born. What more can I tell you? I have been a misfortune to
all who have loved me. . . . My mother has worn mourning for me all
these fifteen years, while my proud brothers, who have had to wince,
to blush, to bow their heads, to waste their money on my account,
have come in the end to hate me like poison."
Liharev got up and sat down again.
"If I were simply unhappy I should thank God," he went on without
looking at his listener. "My personal unhappiness sinks into the
background when I remember how often in my enthusiasms I have been
absurd, far from the truth, unjust, cruel, dangerous! How often I
have hated and despised those whom I ought to have loved, and _vice
versa_, I have changed a thousand times. One day I believe, fall
down and worship, the next I flee like a coward from the gods and
friends of yesterday, and swallow in silence the 'scoundrel!' they
hurl after me. God alone has seen how often I have wept and bitten
my pillow in shame for my enthusiasms. Never once in my life have
I intentionally lied or done evil, but my conscience is not clear!
I cannot even boast, Madam, that I have no one's life upon my
conscience, for my wife died before my eyes, worn out by my reckless
activity. Yes, my wife! I tell you they have two ways of treating
women nowadays. Some measure women's skulls to prove woman is
inferior to man, pick out her defects to mock at her, to look
original in her eyes, and to justify their sensuality. Others do
their utmost to raise women to their level, that is, force them to
learn by heart the 35,000 species, to speak and write the same
foolish things as they speak and write themselves."
Liharev's face darkened.
"I tell you that woman has been and always will be the slave of
man," he said in a bass voice, striking his fist on the table. "She
is the soft, tender wax which a man always moulds into anything he
likes. . . . My God! for the sake of some trumpery masculine
enthusiasm she will cut off her hair, abandon her family, die among
strangers! . . . among the ideas for which she has sacrificed herself
there is not a single feminine one. . . . An unquestioning, devoted
slave! I have not measured skulls, but I say this from hard, bitter
experience: the proudest, most independent women, if I have succeeded
in communicating to them my enthusiasm, have followed me without
criticism, without question, and done anything I chose; I have
turned a nun into a Nihilist who, as I heard afterwards, shot a
gendarme; my wife never left me for a minute in my wanderings, and
like a weathercock changed her faith in step with my changing
enthusiasms."
Liharev jumped up and walked up and down the room.
"A noble, sublime slavery!" he said, clasping his hands. "It is
just in it that the highest meaning of woman's life lies! Of all
the fearful medley of thoughts and impressions accumulated in my
brain from my association with women my memory, like a filter, has
retained no ideas, no clever saying, no philosophy, nothing but
that extraordinary, resignation to fate, that wonderful mercifulness,
forgiveness of everything."
Liharev clenched his fists, stared at a fixed point, and with a
sort of passionate intensity, as though he were savouring each word
as he uttered it, hissed through his clenched teeth:
"That . . . that great-hearted fortitude, faithfulness unto death,
poetry of the heart. . . . The meaning of life lies in just that
unrepining martyrdom, in the tears which would soften a stone, in
the boundless, all-forgiving love which brings light and warmth
into the chaos of life. . . ."
Mlle. Ilovaisky got up slowly, took a step towards Liharev, and
fixed her eyes upon his face. From the tears that glittered on his
eyelashes, from his quivering, passionate voice, from the flush on
his cheeks, it was clear to her that women were not a chance, not
a simple subject of conversation. They were the object of his new
enthusiasm, or, as he said himself, his new faith! For the first
time in her life she saw a man carried away, fervently believing.
With his gesticulations, with his flashing eyes he seemed to her
mad, frantic, but there was a feeling of such beauty in the fire
of his eyes, in his words, in all the movements of his huge body,
that without noticing what she was doing she stood facing him as
though rooted to the spot, and gazed into his face with delight.
"Take my mother," he said, stretching out his hand to her with an
imploring expression on his face, "I poisoned her existence, according
to her ideas disgraced the name of Liharev, did her as much harm
as the most malignant enemy, and what do you think? My brothers
give her little sums for holy bread and church services, and outraging
her religious feelings, she saves that money and sends it in secret
to her erring Grigory. This trifle alone elevates and ennobles the
soul far more than all the theories, all the clever sayings and the
35,000 species. I can give you thousands of instances. Take you,
even, for instance! With tempest and darkness outside you are going
to your father and your brother to cheer them with your affection
in the holiday, though very likely they have forgotten and are not
thinking of you. And, wait a bit, and you will love a man and follow
him to the North Pole. You would, wouldn't you?"
"Yes, if I loved him."
"There, you see," cried Liharev delighted, and he even stamped with
his foot. "Oh dear! How glad I am that I have met you! Fate is kind
to me, I am always meeting splendid people. Not a day passes but
one makes acquaintance with somebody one would give one's soul for.
There are ever so many more good people than bad in this world.
Here, see, for instance, how openly and from our hearts we have
been talking as though we had known each other a hundred years.
Sometimes, I assure you, one restrains oneself for ten years and
holds one's tongue, is reserved with one's friends and one's wife,
and meets some cadet in a train and babbles one's whole soul out
to him. It is the first time I have the honour of seeing you, and
yet I have confessed to you as I have never confessed in my life.
Why is it?"
Rubbing his hands and smiling good-humouredly Liharev walked up and
down the room, and fell to talking about women again. Meanwhile
they began ringing for matins.
"Goodness," wailed Sasha. "He won't let me sleep with his talking!"
"Oh, yes!" said Liharev, startled. "I am sorry, darling, sleep,
sleep. . . . I have two boys besides her," he whispered. "They are
living with their uncle, Madam, but this one can't exist a day
without her father. She's wretched, she complains, but she sticks
to me like a fly to honey. I have been chattering too much, Madam,
and it would do you no harm to sleep. Wouldn't you like me to make
up a bed for you?"
Without waiting for permission he shook the wet pelisse, stretched
it on a bench, fur side upwards, collected various shawls and
scarves, put the overcoat folded up into a roll for a pillow, and
all this he did in silence with a look of devout reverence, as
though he were not handling a woman's rags, but the fragments of
holy vessels. There was something apologetic, embarrassed about his
whole figure, as though in the presence of a weak creature he felt
ashamed of his height and strength. . . .
When Mlle. Ilovaisky had lain down, he put out the candle and sat
down on a stool by the stove.
"So, Madam," he whispered, lighting a fat cigarette and puffing the
smoke into the stove. "Nature has put into the Russian an extraordinary
faculty for belief, a searching intelligence, and the gift of
speculation, but all that is reduced to ashes by irresponsibility,
laziness, and dreamy frivolity. . . . Yes. . . ."
She gazed wonderingly into the darkness, and saw only a spot of red
on the ikon and the flicker of the light of the stove on Liharev's
face. The darkness, the chime of the bells, the roar of the storm,
the lame boy, Sasha with her fretfulness, unhappy Liharev and his
sayings--all this was mingled together, and seemed to grow into
one huge impression, and God's world seemed to her fantastic, full
of marvels and magical forces. All that she had heard was ringing
in her ears, and human life presented itself to her as a beautiful
poetic fairy-tale without an end.
The immense impression grew and grew, clouded consciousness, and
turned into a sweet dream. She was asleep, though she saw the little
ikon lamp and a big nose with the light playing on it.
She heard the sound of weeping.
"Daddy, darling," a child's voice was tenderly entreating, "let's
go back to uncle! There is a Christmas-tree there! Styopa and Kolya
are there!"
"My darling, what can I do?" a man's bass persuaded softly. "Understand
me! Come, understand!"
And the man's weeping blended with the child's. This voice of human
sorrow, in the midst of the howling of the storm, touched the girl's
ear with such sweet human music that she could not bear the delight
of it, and wept too. She was conscious afterwards of a big, black
shadow coming softly up to her, picking up a shawl that had dropped
on to the floor and carefully wrapping it round her feet.
Mile. Ilovaisky was awakened by a strange uproar. She jumped up and
looked about her in astonishment. The deep blue dawn was looking
in at the window half-covered with snow. In the room there was a
grey twilight, through which the stove and the sleeping child and
Nasir-ed-Din stood out distinctly. The stove and the lamp were both
out. Through the wide-open door she could see the big tavern room
with a counter and chairs. A man, with a stupid, gipsy face and
astonished eyes, was standing in the middle of the room in a puddle
of melting snow, holding a big red star on a stick. He was surrounded
by a group of boys, motionless as statues, and plastered over with
snow. The light shone through the red paper of the star, throwing
a glow of red on their wet faces. The crowd was shouting in disorder,
and from its uproar Mile. Ilovaisky could make out only one couplet:
"Hi, you Little Russian lad,
Bring your sharp knife,
We will kill the Jew, we will kill him,
The son of tribulation. . ."
Liharev was standing near the counter, looking feelingly at the
singers and tapping his feet in time. Seeing Mile. Ilovaisky, he
smiled all over his face and came up to her. She smiled too.
"A happy Christmas!" he said. "I saw you slept well."
She looked at him, said nothing, and went on smiling.
After the conversation in the night he seemed to her not tall and
broad shouldered, but little, just as the biggest steamer seems to
us a little thing when we hear that it has crossed the ocean.
"Well, it is time for me to set off," she said. "I must put on my
things. Tell me where you are going now?"
"I? To the station of Klinushki, from there to Sergievo, and from
Sergievo, with horses, thirty miles to the coal mines that belong
to a horrid man, a general called Shashkovsky. My brothers have got
me the post of superintendent there. . . . I am going to be a coal
miner."
"Stay, I know those mines. Shashkovsky is my uncle, you know. But
. . . what are you going there for?" asked Mlle. Ilovaisky, looking
at Liharev in surprise.
"As superintendent. To superintend the coal mines."
"I don't understand!" she shrugged her shoulders. "You are going
to the mines. But you know, it's the bare steppe, a desert, so
dreary that you couldn't exist a day there! It's horrible coal, no
one will buy it, and my uncle's a maniac, a despot, a bankrupt
. . . . You won't get your salary!"
"No matter," said Liharev, unconcernedly, "I am thankful even for
coal mines."
She shrugged her shoulders, and walked about the room in agitation.
"I don't understand, I don't understand," she said, moving her
fingers before her face. "It's impossible, and . . . and irrational!
You must understand that it's . . . it's worse than exile. It is a
living tomb! O Heavens!" she said hotly, going up to Liharev and
moving her fingers before his smiling face; her upper lip was
quivering, and her sharp face turned pale, "Come, picture it, the
bare steppe, solitude. There is no one to say a word to there, and
you . . . are enthusiastic over women! Coal mines . . . and women!"
Mlle. Ilovaisky was suddenly ashamed of her heat and, turning away
from Liharev, walked to the window.
"No, no, you can't go there," she said, moving her fingers rapidly
over the pane.
Not only in her heart, but even in her spine she felt that behind
her stood an infinitely unhappy man, lost and outcast, while he,
as though he were unaware of his unhappiness, as though he had not
shed tears in the night, was looking at her with a kindly smile.
Better he should go on weeping! She walked up and down the room
several times in agitation, then stopped short in a corner and sank
into thought. Liharev was saying something, but she did not hear
him. Turning her back on him she took out of her purse a money note,
stood for a long time crumpling it in her hand, and looking round
at Liharev, blushed and put it in her pocket.
The coachman's voice was heard through the door. With a stern,
concentrated face she began putting on her things in silence. Liharev
wrapped her up, chatting gaily, but every word he said lay on her
heart like a weight. It is not cheering to hear the unhappy or the
dying jest.
When the transformation of a live person into a shapeless bundle
had been completed, Mlle. Ilovaisky looked for the last time round
the "travellers' room," stood a moment in silence, and slowly walked
out. Liharev went to see her off. . . .
Outside, God alone knows why, the winter was raging still. Whole
clouds of big soft snowflakes were whirling restlessly over the
earth, unable to find a resting-place. The horses, the sledge, the
trees, a bull tied to a post, all were white and seemed soft and
fluffy.
"Well, God help you," muttered Liharev, tucking her into the sledge.
"Don't remember evil against me . . . ."
She was silent. When the sledge started, and had to go round a huge
snowdrift, she looked back at Liharev with an expression as though
she wanted to say something to him. He ran up to her, but she did
not say a word to him, she only looked at him through her long
eyelashes with little specks of snow on them.
Whether his finely intuitive soul were really able to read that
look, or whether his imagination deceived him, it suddenly began
to seem to him that with another touch or two that girl would have
forgiven him his failures, his age, his desolate position, and would
have followed him without question or reasonings. He stood a long
while as though rooted to the spot, gazing at the tracks left by
the sledge runners. The snowflakes greedily settled on his hair,
his beard, his shoulders. . . . Soon the track of the runners had
vanished, and he himself covered with snow, began to look like a
white rock, but still his eyes kept seeking something in the clouds
of snow.