It was done. The next day I told Titoff, just the way it happened.
He smiled, stroked his mustache and began again to torture me.
"You want to become my son. The way is open for you, Matvei; it is the
will of God and I make no objections. You're a serious, modest, healthy
young man. You pray for us, and in every way you are a treasure. I say
that without flattery. But in order to have enough to live on, one must
understand business, and your leanings that way are very weak. That's
the first thing. The second, you will be called to military service in
two years and you will have to go. Should you have some money saved up
by then, say some five hundred rubles, you might buy yourself off. I
could manage that for you. But without money you will have to go and
Olga will remain here, neither wife nor widow."
He struck me in the heart with these dull words. His mustache trembled
and a green fire burned in his eyes. I pictured military life to
myself. It was terrible and antipathetic to me. What kind of a soldier
would I make? The very fact that I would have to live with others in
the barracks was enough, and then the drinking and the swearing and
the brawls! Everything about the service seemed inhuman to me. Titoff's
words crushed me.
"That means," I said to him, "that I become a monk."
Titoff laughed.
"It is too late. They don't make you a monk right away, and novices are
recruited as well as laymen. No, Matvei, there is no way to bribe fate
but with money."
"Then give me the money," I said to him; "you have enough."
"Aha," he said, "what a lucky thought of yours! Only, how would I fare
by it? Perhaps I earned my money by heavy sins; perhaps I even sold my
soul to the devil for it? While I wallow in sin you lead a righteous
life. And you want to continue it at the expense of my sinning. It is
easy for a righteous one to attain heaven if a sinner carry him in
on his back. However, I refuse to be your horse. Better do your own
sinning. God will forgive you, for you have already merited it."
I looked at Titoff and he seemed to have suddenly grown yards taller
than I, and I was crawling somewhere at his feet. I understood that he
was making fun of me, and I stopped the discussion.
In the evening I told Olga what her father said. Tears shone in the
girl's eyes, and a little blue vein beat; near her ear. Its sad beating
found an echo in my heart. Olga said, smiling: "So things aren't going
as we want them to?"
"Oh, yes, they will go," I said.
I said these words thoughtlessly, but with them I gave my word of honor
to her and to myself, and I could not break it.
That day an unclean life began for me. It was a dark, drunken period,
and my soul flew hither and thither like a pigeon in a cloud of smoke.
I was sorry about Olga and I wanted her for my wife, for I loved
her. But above all I saw that Titoff was more powerful than I, and
stronger-willed; and it was insufferable to my pride. I had despised
his villainous ways and his wretched heart, when suddenly I discovered
that something strong lived in him, which looked down on me and
overpowered me.
It became known in the village that I had proposed and had been
refused. The girls tittered, the women stared at me, and Savelko made
new jokes. All this enraged me and my soul became dark within.
When I prayed I felt as if Titoff were behind me, breathing on the nape
of my neck, and I prayed incoherently and irreverently. My joy in God
left me and I thought only of my own affairs. What will become of me?
"Help me, O Lord," I prayed. "Teach me not to wander from Thy path and
not to lose my soul in sin. Thou art strong and merciful. Deliver Thy
servant from evil and strengthen him against temptation, that he may
not succumb to the wiles of his enemies nor grow to doubt the strength
of Thy love for Thy servant."
Thus I brought God down from the height of His indescribable beauty and
made Him do service as a help in my petty affairs, and having lowered
God, I myself sunk low.
Olga in her sorrow shrunk from day to day, like a burning wax candle. I
tried to imagine her living with some one else, but could not place any
one beside her except myself. By the strength of his love, man creates
another in his image, and so I thought that the girl understood my
soul, read my thoughts and was as indispensable to me as I to myself.
Her mother became even more depressed than before. She looked at me
with tears in her eyes and sighed. But Titoff hid his ugly hands,
walked up and down the room and circled silently around me like a raven
over a dying dog, who is about to pick out his eyes the moment death
came.
A month passed and I was at the same point where I left off. I felt as
if I were on the edge of a steep ravine which I did not know how to
cross. I was disgusted and heavy-hearted. Once Titoff walked up to me
in the office and said in a whisper:
"You have an opportunity now. Take it if you want to be a man."
The opportunity was of such a nature that if it succeeded the peasants
would lose much, the estate profit a bit and Titoff make about two
hundred rubles. He explained it and asked:
"Well, you don't dare?"
Had he asked it in some other way, I might not have fallen into his
clutches, but his words frenzied me.
"Not dare to steal? You don't need daring for that, but just meanness.
All right, let's steal."
Here he laughed, the scoundrel, and asked:
"What about the sin?"
"I'll take care of my own sins," I answered.
"Good," he said, "and know that from now on each day brings you nearer
the wedding."
He enticed me, fool that I was, like a wolf with a lamb in a trap.
And so it commenced. I wasn't stupid in business, and I had always
had enough audacity in me. We began to rob the peasants as if we were
playing a match. I followed each move he made with a bolder one. We
said not a word, only looked at each other. There was mockery in his
eyes and wrath burned in mine. He was the victor, and since I lost all
to him, I did not want to be outdone in wickedness by him. I falsified
the weights in measuring flax, I did not mark the fines when the
peasants' cattle strayed on the landlord's pastures, and I cheated the
peasants out of every kopeck I could. But I did not count the money nor
gather in the rubles myself. I let everything go to Titoff, which, of
course, did not make things easier either for me or the peasants.
In a word, I was as if possessed, and my heart was heavy and cold.
When I thought of God I burned with shame. Nevertheless, I threw
reproaches at Him more than once.
"Why dost Thou not keep me from falling with Thy strong arm? Why dost
Thou try me beyond my strength? Dost Thou not see, O Lord, how my soul
is being destroyed?"
There were times when Olga seemed strange to me, and when I looked at
her and thought, of her hostilely.
"For your sake, unhappy one, I am selling my soul."
After such words I grew ashamed of myself before her and became kind
and gentle--as gentle as possible.
But, of course, it was not out of pity for myself nor for the peasants
that I suffered and gnashed my teeth in wrath; but for sheer chagrin
that I could not conquer Titoff and that I had to act according to his
will. When I remembered the words he often used against pious people, I
became cold all over; and he saw the situation through and through and
triumphed.
"Well, my holy one," he said, "it is time to begin thinking of your own
nest. You will be too crowded here when you have a wife. You will have
children, of course."
He called me "holy one." I did not answer. He called me that more and
more often; but his daughter became all the more loving, all the more
tender to me. She understood clearly how heavy my heart was.
Then Titoff begged from the landlord, Loseff, when he went to pay his
respects to him, a little piece of land for me. They gave him a pretty
place behind the manor building, and he began to build us a little
house.
And I continued to oppress and to cheat.
Things began to move quickly. Our pockets swelled. The little house
began to be built and shone bright in the sun, like a golden cage for
Olga. Soon the roof was to be put on, and then the stove had to be
built, and in the fall it would be finished for us to move into.
One evening I was going home from the village of Jakimoffka, where I
had gone to take the cattle from some peasants for their debts. Just
as I stepped out of the wood which lay before the village, I saw my
house in the sunset burning like a torch. At first I thought it was the
reflection of the sun surrounding it with red rays which reached up to
heaven. But then I saw the people running and heard the fire crackle
and snap, and my heart suddenly broke. I saw that God was my enemy. Had
I had a stone then, I would have thrown it against heaven. I saw how my
thievish work was going up in smoke and ashes, and saw myself as if on
fire, and said:
"Thou desirest to show me, O Lord, that I have burnt my soul to dust
and ashes. Thou desirest to show me that. I do not believe it; I do not
wish Thy humiliation. It was not through Thy will that it burned but
because the peasants through hatred of me and Titoff set fire to it.
I do not wish to believe in Thy wrath, not because I am not worthy of
it, but because this wrath is not worthy of Thee. Thou didst not wish
to lend Thy help to the weak in the hour of his need, so that he could
withstand sin. Thus, Thou art the guilty One, not I. As in a dark wood,
which was already full grown, so I stepped into sin. How could I then
have kept myself free from it?"
But these foolish words could neither console me nor make me right.
They only awoke in my soul an evil obstinacy. My house burned down more
quickly than my wrath. For a long time I stood on the edge of the wood,
leaning against the trunk of a tree and haggled with God, while Olga's
white face, bathed in tears and drawn with pain, rose up before my
eyes. And I spoke to God boldly, as to one familiar:
"Thou art strong. So will I be also. Thus it should be for justice'
sake."
The fire was quenched and all became quiet and dark. Only a few flames
thrust their tongues out into the night, like the sobs of a child after
it has stopped crying.
The night was cloudy and the river shone like a flaming sword which
some one had lost in the field. I could have clutched at this sword and
swung it high in the air to hear it ring over the earth.
Toward midnight I reached the village. At the door of the house were
Olga and her father. They awaited me.
"Where were you?" Titoff asked.
"I stood on the hill and watched the fire."
"Why didn't you come to put it out?"
"Can I perform miracles? Would the fire have gone out if I had spat on
it?"
Olga's eyes were swollen with tears and she was black with smoke and
soot. I laughed when I saw her.
"You worked hard?" I asked.
Her eyes filled with tears. Titoff said gloomily:
"I don't know what will happen now."
"You must begin the building anew," I said.
Such wrath took possession of my soul then that I could have dragged
the logs myself and have begun building unaided, until the house should
be ready again. If it was not possible to go against the will of God,
it was at least possible to find out whether God was for me or against
me.
And again the roguery began. What ruses and wiles I thought out!
Formerly I spent the nights in praying, but now I lay without sleep and
worried how I could put one more ruble into my pocket. I threw myself
entirely into these thoughts, although I knew how many tears flowed on
account of me; how many times I stole the bread from the mouths of
hungry ones; and how, perhaps, little children were starving to death
on account of my avarice. Now, at the memory of it, I feel abhorrence
and disgust and I laugh bitterly at my foolishness.
The faces of the saints no longer looked down at me with pity and
goodness, as before. But instead they spied on me, as Olga's father
did. Once I even stole a half ruble from the office of the village
elder. So far had it gone with me.
Once something special happened to me. Olga went up to me, put her
delicate arms on my shoulders, and said:
"Matvei, as surely as God's alive, I love you more than anything in the
world."
She spoke these holy words wonderfully simply, as a child would say,
"Mother." Like the hero in the fairy tale, I felt myself grow strong,
and from that hour she became indescribably dear to me. It was the
first time she had said she loved me, and it was the first time that
I had embraced her and kissed her, so that I lost myself in her and
forgot myself--as when I used to pray with all my heart.
Toward October our house was finished. It looked like a plaid where the
logs showed blackened by the fire. Soon we celebrated the wedding, and
my father-in-law became duly drunk and laughed with a full throat, like
Satan at some success. My mother-in-law was silent and smiled at us
through her tears.
"Stop crying!" Titoff roared at her. "What a son-in-law we have! Such a
righteous one!"
Then he swore at her thoroughly.
We had important guests--the priest was there, of course, and the land
commissioner, and two district elders, and various other pike among the
carp. The village people had assembled under our windows, and among
them Savelko made himself popular, for he was gay up to his last days.
I sat at the window and heard the jingling of his balalaika and his
thin voice pierced my ear. For though he was afraid to make his jokes
too loud, still I heard him sing distinctly:
"Hurry and drink till you burst,
Eat yourself full till you split."
His jokes amused me, though I had something else to think about then.
Olga nestled up to me and whispered:
"If only all this eating and drinking were over!"
The gluttony went against her, and to me, too, the sight of it was
disgusting.
When we were alone we burst into tears, sitting and embracing each
other on the bed; we wept and laughed together at our great unforeseen
happiness in our marriage. All night we did not sleep, but kissed each
other and planned how we would live with each other. We lit the candle
in order to see each other better.
"We will live so that all will love us. It is good to be with you,
Matvei."
We were drunk with our unutterable happiness, and I said to Olga:
"May the Lord strike me dead, Olga, if on account of me you should weep
other tears."
But she said to me:
"I will bear everything from you. I will be your mother and your
sister, my lonely one."