The dusk of twilight filled the streets and lights appeared in the
windows opposite.
"It's time to shut up," said Gavrik quietly.
Ilya looked at the lighted windows. Below they were decked with flowers
and above with white curtains. Between the flowers, golden frames could
be seen on the walls within. When the windows were opened, sounds of
song and guitar and loud laughter poured into the street. There was
singing and music and laughter in this house almost every evening.
Lunev knew that a man, Gromov, lived there, of the district court of
justice, a fat, red-cheeked man, with a big, black moustache. His wife
was stout, too, fair-haired, with little friendly blue eyes; she went
proudly along the street like the queen in a fairy tale, but if she was
talking to any one, she smiled all the time. Gromov had an unmarried
sister, a tall, brown-skinned and black-haired girl, a crowd of young
officials courted her; they all assembled at Gromov's almost every
evening and laughed and sang.
Gromov's cook bought thread of Ilya, complained of her employers, and
said that they fed their servants badly and were always behindhand with
their wages, and Lunev thought:
"There--there are people who live well."
"Really it is time to shut up," persisted Gavrik.
"Shut up then."
The boy closed the door and the shop grew dark; there was a noise as
the key turned in the lock.
"Like a prison," thought Ilya.
The insulting words of his friend about his well fed condition stabbed
his heart like splinters. As he sat by the samovar he thought angrily
of Pavel, but did not believe he could murder Vyera.
"It was no good trying to help them, hang them; they don't know how to
live, they spoil one another," he thought crossly.
Gavrik drank noisily out of his saucer and shuffled his feet under the
table.
"Has he killed her or not?" he asked his master, suddenly.
Lunev looked at him moodily and said:
"Drink your tea, and go to bed."
The samovar boiled and bubbled as though it would jump off the table.
From the courtyard of a neighbouring house an angry cry resounded.
"Nifont! Ni--if--ont."
Suddenly a dark figure appeared at the window, and a trembling, timid
voice asked:
"Does Ilya Jakovlevitch live here?"
"Yes, he does," cried Gavrik, sprang up and flew to the door of the
courtyard so quickly that Ilya had no time to say anything.
"It's sure to be she," he said in a loud whisper, holding the latch of
the door.
"Who?" asked Ilya, involuntarily lowering his voice.
"Why--she--he wanted to kill."
He pushed open the door and the thin small figure of a woman appeared,
wearing a cotton dress and a small kerchief on her head. She supported
herself by the doorpost with one hand and with the other pulled at the
ends of her kerchief. She stood sideways, as though ready to go away
again at once.
"Come in," said Lunev roughly; he looked at her and did not recognise
her. She started at the sound of his voice, then lifted her head with a
smile on the pale small face.
"Masha!" cried Ilya, and sprang up. She laughed softly, shut the door
fast behind her and came towards him.
"You didn't know me--you didn't know me a bit," she said and stood in
the middle of the room.
"God! Yes. I can recognise you now. But--how--you've changed!"
Ilya took her hand with exaggerated politeness, and led her to the
table, bowed, looked at her face and did not know how to say in what
way she had changed. She was incredibly thin and walked as though her
feet gave under her.
"Where have you come from? Are you tired? Ah--you--how you look!"--he
murmured, settled her carefully in a chair and looked steadily at her.
"See how he treats me," she said, and looked at Ilya with a smile. His
heart contracted painfully. Now that the lamplight fell on her, he saw
her face plainly. She leant back in the chair, with her thin hands in
her lap, bent her head sideways, and her flat chest heaved in shallow
rapid breathing. She looked as though made of skin and bone; through
the cotton stuff of her dress showed the bony shoulders, elbows and
knees, and her face was terrible in its thinness. Over the temples,
and the cheek-bones and chin, the bluish skin was tight drawn, the
mouth was half open, the thin lips did not cover the teeth, and the
expression of pain and fear stared from the long narrow face. The eyes
looked dull and dead.
"Have you been ill?" asked Ilya.
"N--no," she answered slowly. "I'm quite well--he has made me like
this."
"Your husband?"
"Yes--my husband."
Her slow, drawling speech came like groans, the uncovered teeth gave
her a fish-like, dead look--it seemed as though the dead might smile as
she smiled now and then.
Gavrik stood beside her and looked at her with lips compressed and fear
in his eyes.
"Go to bed!" said Lunev to him.
The lad went into the shop, moved about a little there--then his head
appeared again in the doorway. Masha sat motionless, only her eyes
moved and wandered from one thing to another. Lunev poured her out some
tea, looked at her, but asked her no questions.
"Ye--es--he torments me so," she said. Her lips trembled and her eyes
closed for a moment; when she opened them again two big, heavy tears
rolled down from under the lashes.
"Don't cry," said Ilya, turning away.
"Drink your tea--and tell me all about it--then it will be easier."
"I'm afraid--he'll come," she said, and shook her head.
"We'll turn him out."
"He's strong," Masha warned him.
"Have you run away?"
"Yes--it's the fourth time--when I can't bear it any more, I run
away--before I meant to drown myself--but he caught me--and beat me and
hurt me so." Her eyes grew unnaturally big from the fear her memories
roused, and her lower jaw trembled. She hung her head and said in a
whisper:
"He always hurts my feet."
"Ah," cried Ilya. "What's the matter with you? Haven't you a tongue?
Tell the police--say--he tortures me! He can be punished for that; put
in prison."
"But--he's one of the judges," said Masha, hopelessly.
"Ehrenov?--a judge? What do you mean?"
"I know. A little while ago, he was on the bench for two
weeks--judging. He came back angry and hungry. He pinched my breast
with the tongs and twisted it and turned it like a rag--look!"
She unbuttoned her dress with trembling fingers and showed the small
withered breast, all covered with dark patches, as though it had been
gnawed.
"Don't!" said Ilya gloomily. It made him sick to see the tortured,
lacerated body--he could not believe that it was Masha, the friend of
his childhood, once so gay, who sat before him. She bared her shoulder
and said in a toneless voice:
"See how my shoulder is knocked about! Everything he can, all my body
is pinched and hair torn out."
"But why?"
"He's a beast. He says, 'You don't love me,' and he pinches me."
"Perhaps--before he married you, there was some one else?"
"How could there be? I saw only you and Jakov--no one ever touched me.
Yes, and now I hate all that. It hurts me. I hate it. I'm always sick."
"Don't--don't--Masha," said Ilya gently. She was silent, sat once more
as though turned to stone, her breast still bare. Ilya looked from
behind the samovar again at her thin bruised body and said: "Do up your
dress!"
"I don't mind you," she answered mechanically, and began to button her
blouse with shaking fingers. All was still. Then the sound of loud
sobbing came from the shop. Ilya got up and went to the door and closed
it, saying crossly:
"Be quiet--Gavrushka--go to sleep!"
"Is that the boy?" asked Masha.
"Yes."
"Crying?"
"Yes."
"Is he frightened?"
"No. I think--he's sorry."
"For what?"
"For you."
"Ah--the boy!" said Masha, indifferently; but her lifeless face did not
move. Then she began to drink her tea, but her hands shook so that the
saucer rattled against her teeth. Ilya looked on and wondered--was he
sorry for Masha--or not? But his heart was heavy, and he thought of her
husband with hatred.
"What will you do?" he asked after a long pause.
"I don't know," she answered with a sigh. "What can I do? I'll
rest--till they catch me again."
"You ought to complain to the police," said Lunev, firmly. "Why should
he torment you? Who has any right to torment any one like that?"
"He did the same to his first wife," said Masha. "He tied her to the
bed by her hair--and pinched her--just the same--and once I was asleep
and suddenly I felt a pain and woke and screamed--he'd burnt me with a
lighted match."
Lunev sprang up and said fiercely and loudly that the very next morning
she should go to the police and show her bruises and demand to have her
husband condemned. She listened to him, shifting unceasingly to and
fro, looked at him in terror, and said:
"Don't shout--don't shout, please! They'll hear you."
His words only distressed her. He soon perceived this little girl, once
so cheerful and gay, had been beaten and crushed till all human spirit
was tortured out of her.
"Very well," he said, and sat down again. "I'll see to it. I'll find a
way. You'll stay here, Mashutka--d'you hear?"
"Yes. I hear," she answered softly, and looked round the room.
"You can have my bed, and I'll go into the shop--but to-morrow."
"I'll lie down at once, I think. I'm tired." He folded back the
coverlet from the bed. She fell on it and tried to cover herself with
the bedclothes, but could not manage it, and said with a dull smile:
"How silly I am. I might be drunk."
Ilya drew the coverlet over her, arranged the pillows, and was going
away, when she said anxiously:
"Don't go. Stay a little. I'm so frightened alone--there's something
haunts me." He sat down by the bed, looked once at her pale face,
framed in its curls, and turned away. All at once he was full of
shame that she should lie there, hardly alive. He remembered Jakov's
entreaties, and Matiza's account of Masha's life, and he hung his head.
"And his father beats Jasha, they say. Matiza says, 'What a life!'" she
said.
"Such fathers," said Lunev between his teeth, interrupting her soft,
lifeless speech. "Such fathers--ought to go to penal servitude--your
father and Petrusha Filimonov."
"No, my father is weak--he isn't wicked."
"If you can't look after your children you've no business to have any."
From the house opposite came the music of two voices singing together,
and the words of the song drifted through the open window into Ilya's
room. A strong, deep bass sang fiercely:
"My heart is disenchanted."
"There. I shall go to sleep," murmured Masha. "How nice it is--so
peaceful--and the singing--they sing well."
"Oh, yes--they sing,", said Lunev smiling, grimly. "Though the skin is
torn off one, the others can shout."
"It will not trust again," sang the tenor voice, the clear, round tones
ringing through the quiet night lightly and freely up into the sky.
Lunev got up and shut the window crossly; the song was unendurable,
it tormented him. The noise of the window-frame made Masha start. She
opened her eyes, raised her head in terror and asked: "Who's there?"
"I. I was shutting the window."
"For Heaven's sake--are you going?"
"No, no--don't be afraid."
She turned on her pillow and went to sleep again. Ilya's least
movement, or the noise of footsteps in the street, disturbed her. She
opened her eyes at once and cried in her sleep.
"Coming--oh--I'm coming."
Or she stretched out her hand to Ilya and asked: "Is that a knock at
the door?" While he tried to sit still, and looked out of the window
which he had opened again, Ilya pondered how he could help Masha, and
determined grimly not to let her go till the matter was in the hands of
the police.
"I must work it through Kirik."
"Please, please--go on!" through the windows came the sound of lively
appeals and applause from Gromov's house. Masha groaned in her sleep,
but the music began again.
"A pair of bay horses, and early away."
Lunev shook his head despairingly. The singing and outcry and laughter
disturbed him. He propped his elbows on the window-ledge and stared at
the lighted windows opposite, with wrath and fierce resentment, and
thought how good it would be to cross the street and hurl a paving
stone through into the room; or to have a gun and send a charge of
shot among these cheerful people. The shot would come whizzing in--he
imagined the terrified bleeding faces, the confusion and outcry, and
smiled with an evil joy in his heart. But the words of the song crept
involuntarily into his ears, he repeated them to himself, and suddenly
grasped with amazement, that these happy people were singing of the
burial of a mistress. This surprised him; he began to listen more
attentively and thought:
"Why do they sing that? What sort of pleasure can there be in such
a song? See, what a thing to think of--the fools! A funeral--such a
funeral! And here--ten steps away lies a living, suffering human being."
"Bravo! Bravo!" came from over the street.
Lunev smiled, looked first at Masha, and then at the street; it seemed
to him ridiculous that men should find amusement in singing of the
burial of a light-o'-love.
"Vassily--Vassilitch," murmured Masha. "I won't. O God!"
She threw herself about in bed as if she were burning, threw the
coverlet on the floor, stretched her arms out, and stared in front
of her. Her mouth was half open, she rattled in her throat. Lunev
bent quickly over her, he was afraid she was dying. Then, relieved
by hearing her breathe, he covered her up again, crawled back to the
window, leaned his face against the bars and looked over at Gromov's
house. There they were still singing, now one voice, now two, now
several in chorus. Music was followed by laughter. Past the windows
flitted ladies dressed in white or pink or blue. He listened to the
music and marvelled how these men could sing long-drawn, melancholy
songs of the Volga and of funerals and of desert lands, and laugh
at the end of every song as though it were all nothing, as if they
had sung of indifferent things. Is it possible that they find sorrow
amusing? But every time that Masha attracted his attention, he looked
at her stupidly and wondered what was to become of her. Suppose Tatiana
came in and saw her--what was he to do with Masha? He felt as though
caught in a mist; his heart was weighed down with the songs and Masha's
groans, and his own heavy, disconnected thoughts. When he felt sleepy
he crawled from under the window-ledge, lay down on the floor by the
bed and put his overcoat under his head. He dreamed that Masha was dead
and lying on the ground in a big shed, and round about were standing
ladies, dressed in white and pink and blue, and singing songs over her;
and when they sang mournful songs they all laughed, and when the songs
were cheerful they wept bitterly, and nodded their heads sadly and
wiped away their tears with white pocket-handkerchiefs. In the shed it
was dark and damp, and in the corner stood Savel the smith, hammering
at an iron railing and striking noisy blows on the red-hot bars. On
the roof of the shed someone went round about and cried, "Ilya. Il--ya."
But he lay in the shed, bound somehow fast, he could hardly turn, he
could not speak.