One day on a holiday, Ilya Lunev returned home, pale, with clenched
teeth, and threw himself fully dressed on his bed. Wrath lay on his
heart like a cold immovable lump, an aching pain in his neck kept him
from moving his head, and he felt as though his whole body suffered
from the bitter wrong he had undergone.
That morning a policeman had permitted him, at the price of a piece of
soap and a dozen hooks, to take his stand in front of the circus, where
a performance was to be given, and Ilya had placed himself conveniently
close to the entrance. Then the assistant district superintendent came
by, struck him on the neck, overthrew the stand that supported his box,
and scattered his wares over the ground. Some things were lost, others
fell in the dirt and were spoiled. Ilya picked up what he could and
said: "That is not fair, sir."
"Wha--at?" said the other, stroking his red moustache.
"You've no right to strike me."
"Oh! is that it? Migunov, take him off to the station," said the
assistant quietly.
And the same policeman who had given Ilya leave to stand there, took
him to the station, where he was detained till the evening.
Before this Ilya had had slight conflicts with the police, but this
was the first time he had been detained, and his soul was filled with
shame and hate. He lay on his bed with his arms locked, and hugged the
torturing sensation of pain that weighed on his heart. Behind the wall
that separated his room from the bar came a confused noise of bustle
and the talking of many voices, like the sound of swift turbid brooks,
dashing down from the mountains in autumn.
He heard the rattle of the tin plates, the clink of glasses, the loud
calling of the customers for brandy or tea or beer, the waiters'
answers. "One minute! coming! coming!" and, piercing the noise like
a steel string vibrating, a high, throaty voice sang dismally, "I
never thought that I should lose thee." Another voice, a deep bass,
that blended with the chaos, sang softly and harmoniously, "Oh, youth
that passes quickly by." Then both voices united in a clear stream of
melancholy notes that mastered the tumult for a second or two:
"No riches were ever my portion.
And lonely my pathway through life."
Some one cried aloud, with a voice that sounded as though it came from
a larynx of dry cracked wood:
"Do not lie! for it is written, 'Be patient and abide, and I will
strengthen thee in the hour of trial.'"
"Liar yourself," struck in another voice sharply and briskly, "for it
is also written, 'Since thou art neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee
out of my mouth.' D'you see? what have you proved?"
Loud laughter followed and then a squeaking voice: "So I gave her one
in her silly face, and one on the ear, and one on the teeth, smack!
smack! smack!"
"Ha! ha! ha! the devil! and what then?"
The squeaking voice went on, shrilly and rapidly. "She toppled over on
to the ground and I hit her again on her pretty mouth--there's one for
you, I kissed you once, and now I'll beat you."
"Hullo, you Bible reader!" cried a voice mockingly.
"No. I can't contain myself, I'm so hot-tempered. How can a fellow help
it!"
"I love, I accuse, and I punish--have you forgotten? And then again,
'Judge not that ye be not judged,' and the words of King David--have
you forgotten?"
Ilya listened to the quarrelling, the song and the laughter for a long
time, but all fell alike on his soul and roused no familiar images.
Before him in the darkness swam the lean face of the police officer
who had so hurt him, with a big hooked nose, greenish, evil, twinkling
eyes, and a quivering red moustache. He stared at the face and clenched
his teeth harder. But behind the wall the song rose louder as the
singers were carried away and let their voices ring out louder and more
freely. The warm, melancholy notes found a way to Ilya's heart, and
melted the icy lump of rage and bitterness that lay there.
"I wandered on so bravely," sang the high voice, "From mountain land to
sea," went on the second, and then joined again:
"Siberia I have traversed
To seek the pathway home."
Ilya sighed and began to attend to the sad words of the song. They
stood out against the tumult of the tap room like little stars in a
cloudy sky. The clouds hurry on and the stars alternately shine out and
vanish.
"My tongue was tortured with hunger,
My limbs were stiffened with frost."
"Sing away, nightingales!" a voice shouted encouragingly.
"They're singing so beautifully," thought Ilya, "that it catches hold
of one's heart, and presently they'll get drunk and fight most likely;
man never holds on to the good very long."
"Ah! cruel, cruel fate," lamented the tenor, and the bass, deep and
powerful, intoned:
"Thou load of iron weight."
Suddenly, before Ilya's mind flashed the vision of old Jeremy. The old
man shook his head and spoke while the tears flowed down his cheeks:
"I have seen--I have seen, but have never perceived the truth."
Ilya thought that Jeremy, who loved God from his heart, had saved money
in secret; and Terenti feared God, and had stolen it. And all men alike
are thus divided in their souls, in their breasts is a balance and the
heart inclines like the indicator of the scales, now to one side, now
to the other and weighs the good and the bad.
"Aha--a!" some one roared in the bar room, and at once something fell
to the ground with a crash that shook Ilya's bed beneath him.
"Stop! for God's sake."
"Hold him! Ah!"
"Help! Police!"
Every moment the noise grew stronger and more vehement, a confused
medley of new sounds was added to it, and roared in a wild whirling
howl through the air like a pack of evil, hungry, close-chained hounds.
Individual voices were lost in the chaos of uproar. Ilya listened
with a certain pleasure; it pleased him to find that occur that he
had foreseen. It was an exact confirmation of his opinion of mankind.
He rolled over on his bed, put his hands under his head and abandoned
himself again to his thoughts:
"My grandfather Antipa must have sinned greatly, if he repented in
silence for eight whole years, and every one forgave him, spoke of him
with respect, and called him righteous; but they drove his children to
ruin. One son they sent to Siberia, the other they hunted out of the
village.
"Here one must reckon in a special way." The words of the merchant
Strogany returned to Ilya's mind. "If there is one honest man to nine
rogues, no one is any the better, and the one goes to the wall--it is
the majority that is right."
Ilya laughed involuntarily. Through his heart glided a cold, evil
feeling of anger against men, like an adder. Well-known pictures rose
before him--big, fat Matiza turned in the mud in the midst of the court
and groaned:
"A--ah! my dearest mother--my darling mother--if only you would forgive
me."
Perfishka, quite drunk, was standing by, swaying to and fro, and said
reproachfully:
"How drunk she is! the pig!"
And Petrusha, healthy and red-cheeked, stood on the steps and laughed
contemptuously.
Ilya thought of all these things, and his heart contracted, and became
even more sober, more hardened.
The disturbance was over in the bar room. Three voices, those of two
women and a man, were attempting to sing a song, but without great
success. Some one had brought a harmonica; he played a little, very
badly, then stopped. By the wall against Ilya's bed, two people
conversed half aloud with frequent heavy sighs. Ilya listened with a
strange sense of enmity:
"One lives, and works, and toils all one's life; there isn't any sense
in it, and all the others live, and our sort goes hungry; we can't
stand fast, brother, for all we straddle our legs."
"It's a fact."
"And one can't see how it's ever going to get better. Honest work's no
good; builds no stone houses. How long can a man stand such a jolly
life? His bit of strength's gone before he knows, then, that means the
end."
"Ah! yes--yes--but what's a man to do?"
"And one isn't strong enough or quick enough, for dishonest work. The
frog would like to taste the nut, but he's no teeth."
"O God, our Father."
Ilya sighed involuntarily. Suddenly he recognised Perfishka's voice,
ringing clearly through the bustle and noise. The cobbler shouted in
his quick, sing-song way:
"Fill your cup! fill it up to the brim. 'Tis your master pays, leave it
to him. Let us drink, let us love! Through the world let us rove. And
who ever says no, to the devil may go."
Cheerful laughter and applause followed. Then again the low voice near
the wall:
"I've worked since I was a youngster. I'm near forty. Never once I've
earned enough to eat. Sweat comes every day, but not soup, and at
home it's all misery and crying. The children whimper, and the wife
grumbles; a fellow can't stand it--you just lose your patience and go
out and get properly drunk, and when you're sober, all you see is that
the trouble's got worse."
"Yes--yes, it's true."
"One prays, 'Father in Heaven, have mercy. Why dost Thou send this
misery?' but it looks as if He didn't hear."
"No, He doesn't seem to hear."
Ilya was weary of this mournful lamentation, and the monotonous
assenting voice, which sounded even more melancholy than the other that
complained. He turned on his bed, and knocked against the wall loudly.
The two voices were silent.
He could no longer endure his couch; a torturing restlessness drove him
to get up. He stood up, went out into the courtyard and stood on the
steps full of a longing to fly somewhere away--where--he did not know.
It was late; Masha was asleep. It was no use to talk to an odd fellow
like Jakov, and besides, he, too, was inside the house, in bed. Ilya
never cared to go to Jakov's room, for every time Petrusha saw him
there he seemed angered and his brows contracted. A cold autumn wind
was blowing; a dense, almost black, darkness filled the court and the
sky was invisible. All the sheds and outbuildings looked like great
masses of darkness solidified by the wind. Strange sounds came through
the damp air--a hurrying, a rustling, a low murmuring, like the lament
of men over the misery of life. The wind whipped his breast, smote
his face, blew a damp, cold breath down his back, a cold shudder ran
through him, but he did not move. "I can't go on so," he thought. "I
can't. Get out of all this dirt, and restlessness and confusion, live
alone somewhere, clean and quiet."
"Who's there?" said a muffled voice suddenly.
"I--Ilya. Who's speaking?"
"I--Matiza."
"Where are you?"
"Here, on the wood pile."
"Why?"
"Only because----"
Both were silent.
"To-day's the day my mother died," after a moment, said Matiza's voice
out of the darkness.
"Is it long ago?" asked Ilya, just to say something.
"Oh! ever so long--fifteen years--more. And your mother, is she alive?"
"No. She's dead too. How old are you then?"
"Close on thirty," said Matiza, after a pause. "I'm old already, my
foot hurts so, it's swollen as big as a melon and it hurts. I've rubbed
it and rubbed it with all sorts of things, but it's no better."
"Why don't you go to the hospital?"
"Too far. I can't go so far."
"Take a cab."
"No money."
Some one opened the bar room door; a torrent of loud sounds poured into
the court. The wind caught them up and strewed them hither and thither
in the darkness.
"And you, why are you here?" asked Matiza.
"Oh! I was dull."
"Same as I. Up in my room it's like a coffin."