ORLÓFF AND HIS WIFE

Almost every Saturday, just before the All-Night Vigil Service,[1]

from two windows in the cellar of merchant Petúnnikoff's old and

filthy house, opening on the narrow court-yard encumbered with various

utensils, and built up with wooden servants'-quarters ricketty with

age, broke forth the vehement shrieks of a woman:

[1] The evening service, composed of Vespers and Matins, which is

used on Saturdays, and on the Eves of most other Feast-days. Sunday

begins with sunset on Saturday, in the Holy Catholic Orthodox Church of

the East, and the appointed evening service is obligatory before the

Liturgy can be celebrated on Sunday morning.--Translator.

"Stop! Stop, you drunken devil!" the woman cried in a low contralto

voice.

"Let go!" replied a man's tenor voice.

"I won't, I won't. I'll give it to you, you monster!"

"You li-ie! You will let me go!"

"You may kill me--but I won't!"

"You? You li-ie, you heretic!"

"Heavens! He has murdered me ... he-eavens!"

"Will you let go?!"

"Beat away, you wild beast, beat me to death!"

"You can wait.... I won't do it all at once!"

At the first words of this dialogue, Sénka Tchízhik, the apprentice of

house-painter Sutchkóff, who ground paint whole days together in one of

the small sheds in the court-yard, flew headlong thence, his little

eyes, black as those of a mouse, sparkling, yelling at the top of his

voice:

"Shoemaker Orlóff and his wife are fighting! My eye! what a lively time

they're having!"

Tchízhik, who was passionately fond of all possible sorts of events,

rushed to the windows of the Orlóffs' lodgings, flung himself on the

ground on his stomach, and hanging down his shaggy, saucy head, with

its bold, thin face streaked with ochre and reddish-brown paint, he

gazed down with eager eyes into the dark, damp hole, which reeked of

mould, shoemakers' wax and musty leather. There, at the bottom of it,

two figures were jerking about in a fury, screaming hoarsely, groaning

and cursing.

"You'll kill me...." warned the woman, with a sigh.

"N-ne-ever m-mind!"--her husband soothed her confidently, and with

concentrated venom.

Dull, heavy blows on some soft object resounded, sighs, piercing

screams, the strained groaning of a man who is moving about a heavy

weight.

"Oh my! I-is-n't he just giving it to her with the last!" said Tchízhik

with a lisp, illustrating the course of events in the cellar, while

the audience which had gathered around him--tailors, messenger of the

courts Levtchénko, Kislyakóff the accordeon-player, and others who were

fond of gratuitous entertainments--kept asking Sénka, pulling, in their

impatience, at his legs and little breeches all impregnated with greasy

paints:

"Well? What's going on now? What's he doing to her?"

"He's sitting astride of her, and banging her snout against the floor,"

reported Sénka, curling up voluptuously with the impressions which he

was experiencing.

The spectators bent over also, to the Orlóffs' windows, being seized

with a burning desire to see all the details of the fight for

themselves; and although they had long known the ways which Grísha[2]

Orlóff employed in his war with his wife, still they expressed surprise:

[2] Grísha and Gríshka are the diminutives of Grigóry.--Translator.

"Akh, the devil! Has he smashed her up?"

"Her nose is all bloody ... and he keeps on banking her!" reported

Sénka, choking with delight.

"Akh, Lord my God!" cried the women.--"Akh, the tormenting-monster!"

The men judged more objectively.

"Without fail, he'll beat her to death!" said they. And the

accordeon-player announced in the tone of a seer:

"Remember my words--he'll disembowel her with a knife! One of these

days he'll get tired of cutting up in this fashion, and he'll put an

end to the music at one blow!"

"He's done!" reported Sénka, springing up from the ground, and bounding

away like a ball from the windows, to one side, to a nook where he took

up another post of observation, being aware that Grísha Orlóff would

immediately emerge into the court-yard.

The spectators rapidly dispersed, as they did not care to fall under

the eye of the savage shoemaker; now that the battle was over, he had

lost all interest in their eyes, and he was decidedly dangerous, to

boot.

And generally, there was not a living soul in the courtyard except

Sénka, when Orlóff made his appearance from his cellar. Breathing

heavily, in a torn shirt, with his hair rumpled all over his head,

with scratches on his perspiring and excited face, he scrutinized the

court-yard with a sidelong glance, with eyes suffused with blood,

and clasping his hands behind his back, he walked slowly to an old

carrier's sledge, which lay with runners upward, against the wall of

the wood-shed. Sometimes he whistled valiantly as he did so, and stared

about in all directions exactly as though he had the intention of

challenging the entire population of the Petúnnikoff house to a fight.

Then he seated himself on the runners of the sledge, wiped the blood

and sweat from his face with his shirt-sleeve, and fell into a fatigued

attitude, gazing dully at the wall of the house, which was dirty with

peeling stucco and decorated with motley-hued stripes of paint,--as

Sutchkóf's painters, on their return from work, had a habit of cleaning

their brushes against that part of the wall.

Orlóff was about thirty years of age. His bronzed, nervous face, with

delicate features, was adorned with a small, dark mustache, which

sharply shaded his full, red lips. His eyebrows almost met above his

large, cartilaginous nose; from beneath them gazed black eyes which

always blazed uneasily. His curly hair, tangled in front, fell behind

over a sinewy, light-brown neck. Of medium stature, and somewhat

round-shouldered from his work, muscular and ardent, he sat for a long

time on the sledge, in a sort of benumbed condition, and surveyed the

paint-bedaubed wall, breathing deeply with his healthy, swarthy breast.

The sun had already set, but it was stifling in the courtyard; it

smelled of oil-paints, tar, sour cabbage, and something rotten. From

all the windows in both stories of the house which opened on the

court-yard, poured songs and scolding; from time to time someone's

intoxicated countenance inspected Orlóff for a minute, being thrust

forth from behind a window-jamb and withdrawn with a laugh.

The painters made their appearance from their work; as they passed

Orlóff they cast furtive glances at him, exchanging winks among

themselves, and filling the courtyard with the lively dialect of

Kostromá, they made ready to go out, some to the bath, some to the

pot-house. From above, from the second story, tailors crept out into

the court--a half-clad, consumptive and bow-legged lot of men--and

began to make fun of the Kostromá painters for their mode of speech,

which rattled about like peas. The whole court was filled with noise,

with daring, lively laughter, with jests.... Orlóff sat in his corner

and maintained silence, not even casting a glance at anyone. No one

approached him, and no one could make up his mind to ridicule him, for

everyone knew that now he was--a raging wild beast.

He sat there, the prey to a dull and heavy wrath, which oppressed his

breast, made breathing difficult, and his nostrils quivered rapaciously

from time to time while his lips curled in a snarl, laying bare two

rows of large, strong, yellow teeth. Within him something dark and

formless was springing up, red, turbid spots swam before his eyes,

grief and a thirst for vódka sucked at his entrails. He knew that he

would feel better when he had had a drink, but it was still daylight,

and it mortified him to go to the dram-shop in such a tattered and

disreputable condition through the street where everybody knew him,

Grigóry Orlóff.

He knew his own value, and did not wish to go out as a general

laughing-stock, but neither could he go home to wash and dress himself.

There, on the floor, lay his wife whom he had unmercifully beaten, and

now she was repulsive to him in every way.

She was groaning there, and he felt that she was a martyr, and that

she was right, so far as he was concerned--he knew that. He knew,

also, that she was really in the right, and he was to blame, but this

still further augmented his hatred toward her, because, along with this

consciousness a dark, evil feeling was seething in his soul, and it was

more powerful than the consciousness. Everything within him was heavy

and confused, and, without any exertion of his will, he gave himself

over to the weight of his inward sensations, unable to disentangle

them, and knowing that nothing but half a bottle of vódka would afford

him relief.

Now Kislyakóff the accordeon-player comes along. He is clad in a

sleeveless cotton-velvet jacket, over a red silk shirt, with voluminous

trousers tucked into dandified boots. Under his arm is his accordeon

in a green bag, the ends of his small black mustache are twisted into

arrows, his cap is set dashingly on one side, and his whole countenance

is beaming with audacity and jollity. Orlóff loves him for his

audacity, for his playing, and for his merry character, and envies him

his easy, care-free life.

"Congratulations, Grísha,[3] on your vi-ic-to-ory,

And on your well-scra-a-atched cheek!"

[3] See footnote, p. 5.

Orlóff did not fly into a rage with him for this joke, although he had

already heard it fifty times, and besides, the accordeon-player did not

say it out of malice, but simply because he was fond of joking.

"What now, brother! Had another Plevna?"--asked Kislyakóff, halting for

a minute in front of the shoemaker.

"Ekh, Grísha, you're a ripe melon! You ought to go where the road for

all of us lies.... You and I might have a bite together....'

"I'm coming soon...." said Orlóff, without raising his head.

"I'll wait and suffer for you...."

And before long, Orlóff went off after him.

Then, from the cellar emerged a small, plump woman, clinging to the

wall as she went. Her head wad closely enveloped in a kerchief, and

from the aperture over the face, only one eye, and a bit of the cheek

and forehead peeped out. She walked, staggering, across the court, and

seated herself on the same spot where her husband had been sitting not

long before. Her appearance surprised no one--they had got used to it,

and everybody knew that there she would sit until Grísha, intoxicated

and in a repentant mood, should make his appearance from the dram-shop.

She came out into the court, because it was suffocating in the cellar,

and for the purpose of leading drunken Grísha down the stairs. The

staircase was half-decayed, and steep; Grísha had tumbled down it

one day, and had sprained his wrist, so that he had not worked for a

fortnight, and, during that time, they had pawned nearly all their

chattels to feed themselves.

From that time forth, Matréna had kept watch for him.

Now and then someone from the court would sit down beside her. Most

frequently of all, the person who did so was Levtchénko, a mustached

non-commissioned officer on the retired list, an argumentative and

sedate Little Russian, with close-cut hair and a blue nose. He would

seat himself, and inquire, with a yawn:

"Been banging each other round again?"

"What's that to you?" said Matréna, in a hostile and irritable manner.

"Oh, nothing!" explained the Little Russian, and after that, neither of

them spoke again for a long time.

Matryóna breathed heavily, and there was a rattling in her chest.

"Why are you always fighting? What scores have you to settle?"--the

Little Russian would begin to argue.

"That's our affair...." said Matréna Orlóff curtly.

"That's so, it is your affair...." assented Levtchénko, and he even

nodded his head in confirmation of what had been said.

"Then what are you poking your nose into my business for?" argued Mrs.

Orlóff[4] logically.

[4] "Mrs. Orlóff" is rather a stiff rendering of the feminine form

"Orlóya," minus all prefix, which is not at all disrespectful in

Russian, but is somewhat confusing in English.--Translator.

"Phew ... what a touchy woman you are! One can't say a word to you! As

I look at it--you and Grísha are a well-matched pair! He ought to give

you a good drubbing with a club every day--morning and night--that's

what he ought! Then neither of you would be such hedge-hogs...."

And off he went, in a towering rage, which thoroughly pleased her:--for

a long time past, a rumor had been going the rounds of the court-yard,

to the effect that the Little Russian was not making up to her for

nothing, and she was angry with him, with him and with all people who

intruded themselves on other folks' affairs. But the Little Russian

walked off to the corner of the court with his upright, soldierly gait,

alert and strong despite his forty years.

Then Tchízhik bobbed up under his feet from somewhere or other.

"She's a bitter radish too, that Aunty Orlíkha!" he confided to

Levtchénko, in an undertone, with a sly wink in the direction where

Matréna was sitting.

"Well, I'll prescribe that sort of a radish for you, when you need

one!" threatened the Little Russian, laughing behind his mustache. He

was fond of impudent Tchízhik, and listened attentively to him, being

aware that all the secrets of the court-yard were known to Tchízhik.

"You can't do any fishing round her,"--explained Tchízhik, paying no

attention to the threat.--"Maxím the painter tried it, and bang! she

let fly such a slap in the face at him! I heard it myself ... a healthy

whack! Straight in his ugly face ... just as though it had been a drum!"

Half-child, half-man, in spite of his fifteen years, lively and

impressionable, he eagerly absorbed, like a sponge, the dirt of the

life around him, and on his brow there was a thin wrinkle, which showed

that Sénka Tchízhik was given to thinking.

... It was dark in the court-yard. Above it shone a quadrangular bit

of blue sky, all glittering with stars, and surrounded by lofty roofs,

so that the court seemed to be a deep pit, when one looked up out of

it. In one corner of this pit sat a tiny female form, resting after her

beating, and awaiting her drunken husband....

*

The Orlóffs had been married three years. They had had a child, but

after living for about a year and a half, it died; neither of them

mourned it long, being consoled with the hope that they would have

another. The cellar, in which they had taken up their abode, was a

large, long, dark room with a vaulted ceiling. Directly at the door

stood a huge Russian stove, facing the windows; between it and the

wall a narrow passage led into a square space, lighted by two windows,

which opened on the court-yard. The light fell through them into the

cellar in slanting, turbid streaks, and the atmosphere in the room was

damp, dull, dead life pulsated somewhere, tar away, up above, but

only faint, ill-defined sounds of it were wafted hither, and fell,

together with the dust, into the Orlóffs' hole, in a sort of formless,

colorless flakes. Opposite the stove, against the wall, stood a wooden

double-bed, with print curtains of a cinnamon-brown dotted with pink

flowers; opposite the bed, against the other wall, was a table, on

which they drank tea and dined; and between the bed and the wall, the

husband and wife worked, in the two streaks of light.

Cockroaches travelled indolently over the walls, feeding on the

bread-crumbs with which various little pictures from old newspapers

were stuck to the plaster; melancholy flies flitted about everywhere,

buzzing tiresomely, and the little pictures, which they had covered

with specks, stood out like dark spots against the dirty-gray

background of the walls.

The Orlóffs' day began after this fashion: at six o'clock in the

morning, Matréna awoke, washed herself, and prepared the samovár,

which had more than once been crippled in the heat of battle, and was

covered all over with patches of lead. While the samovár was coming to

a boil, she put the room in order, went to the shop,[5] then roused her

husband; he rose, washed himself, and the samovár was already standing

on the table, hissing and purring. They sat down to drink tea, with

white bread, of which, together, they ate a pound.

[5] In Russian towns, people go or send, every morning, to the shops

for bread, cream, butter.--Translator.

Grigóry worked well, and he always had work; after tea he portioned it

out. He did the fine work, which required the hand of a master, his

wife prepared the waxed ends, pasted in the linings, put on the outside

layer on the heels, and did other trifling jobs of that sort. After

tea, they discussed their dinner. In winter, when it was necessary to

eat more, this was a tolerably interesting question; in summer, from

economy, they heated the oven only on feast-days, and not always then,

feeding themselves chiefly on a cold dish made of kvas,[6] with the

addition of onions, salt-fish, sometimes of meat, boiled in the oven of

someone in the court-yard. When they had finished their tea, they sat

down to work: Grigóry on a small kneading-trough, covered with leather,

and with a crack in the side, his wife by his side, on a low bench.

[6] A tart, non-intoxicating, liquor--thin beer--made by fermenting

sour rye bread, or rye meal. Sometimes raisins, straw or watermelon

juice are used to flavor it.--Translator.

At first they worked in silence,--what had they to talk about? They

exchanged a couple of words about their work, and maintained silence

for half an hour, or more, at a stretch. The hammer tapped, the

waxed-ends hissed, as they were drawn through the leather. Grigóry

yawned from time to time, and invariably concluded his yawn with a

prolonged roar or howl. Matréna sighed and held her peace. Sometimes

Orlóff started a song. He had a sharp voice, with a metallic ring,

but he knew how to sing. The words of the song were arranged in a

swift, plaintive recitative, and now burst impetuously from Grigóry's

breast, as though afraid to finish what they wished to say, now, all

of a sudden, lengthened out into mournful sighs, or--with a wail of

"ekh!"--flew in loud, melancholy strains, through the windows into the

court. Matréna sang an accompaniment to her husband, with her soft

contralto. The faces of both grew pensive, and sad, Grísha's dark eyes

became dimmed with moisture. His wife, absorbed in the sounds, seemed

to grow stupid, and sat as though half-dozing, swaying from side to

side, and sometimes the song seemed to choke her, and she broke off in

the middle of a note, and then went on with it, in harmony with her

husband. Neither of them was conscious of the presence of the other

while they were singing, and striving to pour forth in the words of

others the emptiness and dulness of their gloomy life; perhaps they

wished to give expression, in these words, to the half-conscious

thoughts and sensations, which sprang into life in their souls.

At times Gríshka improvised:

"E-okh, thou life,... ekh, yea, thou, my thrice-accursed life....

And thou, oh grief! Ekh, and thou, my cursed grief,

Maledictions on thee, gri-i-ief!..."

Matréna did not like these improvisations, and, on such occasions, she

generally asked him:

"Why are you howling, like a dog before a corpse?"

For some reason, he instantly flew into a rage with her:

"You blunt-snouted pig! What can you understand? You marsh-spectre!"

"He howled, and howled, and now he has taken to barking...."

"Your business is to hold your tongue! Who am I--your foreman, I'd like

to know, that you meddle and read me lectures, hey?.... Just so!"

Matréna, perceiving that the sinews of his neck were becoming tense,

and that his eyes were blazing with wrath, held her peace, held it for

a long time, demonstratively evading a reply to the questions of her

husband, whose wrath died out as rapidly as it had flared up.

She turned away from his glances, which sought reconciliation with

her, awaited her smiles, and was completely filled with a palpitating

feeling of fear, lest he should fly into a passion with her again for

this play of hers with him. But, at the same time, she was incensed at

him, and was greatly pleased to observe his efforts to make peace with

her,--for this signified living, thinking, experiencing agitation.

They were both of them young and healthy, they loved each other, and

were proud of each other.... Gríshka was so strong, ardent, handsome,

and Matréna was white, plump, with a spark of fire in her gray

eyes,--"a buxom woman," as they called her in the court-yard. They

loved each other, but their life was so tiresome, they had hardly any

interests and impressions which could, occasionally, afford them the

possibility of getting a rest from each other, and might have satisfied

the natural demand of the human soul--to feel excitement, to think,

to glow--in short, to live. For under such conditions of lack of

external impressions and interests which lend a zest to life, husband

and wife--even when they are persons of highly cultivated minds--are

bound, inevitably, to become repulsive to each other. This law is as

inevitable as it is just. If the Orlóffs had had an aim in life, even

so limited an aim as the amassing of money, penny by penny, they would,

undoubtedly, in that case, have got along better together.

But they had not even that.

Being constantly under each other's eye, they had grown used to each

other, knew each other's every word and gesture. Day after day passed

by, and brought into their life nothing which might have diverted

their attention. Sometimes, on holidays, they went to visit others

as poor in spirit as themselves, and sometimes visitors came to see

them, ate, drank and, frequently--fought. And then again the colorless

days dragged by, like the links of an invisible chain of toil which

burdened the lives of these people, of tediousness, and senseless

irritation against each other.

Sometimes Gríshka said:

"What a life--a witch is its grandmother! And why was it ever given

to me? Work and tediousness, tediousness and work...." And after a

pause, with eyes cast upward toward the ceiling, and a wavering smile,

he resumed:--"My mother bore me, by the will of God ... there's

no gainsaying that! I learned my trade ... and why? Weren't there

shoemakers enough without me? Well, all right, I'm a shoemaker, and

what then? What satisfaction is there for me in that?... I sit in a pit

and sew.... Then I shall die. Now, there's the cholera coming, they

say.... Well, what of that? Grigóry Orlóff lived, made shoes--and died

of the cholera. What virtue is there in that? And why was it necessary

that I should live, make shoes and die, hey?"

Matréna made no reply, conscious that there was something terrible

about her husband's words; but, now and then, she begged him not to

utter such words, because they were contrary to God, Who must know

how to arrange a man's life. And sometimes, when she was not in good

spirits, she sceptically announced to her husband: "You'd better stop

drinking liquor--then you'd find life more cheerful, and such thoughts

wouldn't creep into your head. Other folks live,--they don't complain,

and they hoard up a little pile of money, and with it set up their own

work-shops, and then they live after their own hearts, like lords!"

"And you come out with those nonsensical words of yours, you devil's

doll! Use your brains--can I help drinking, if that is my only joy?

Others! How many such successful folks do you know? And was I like

that before my marriage? If you speak according to your conscience,

it's you who are sucking me, and harassing my life.... Ugh, you toad!"

Matréna was angered, but felt that her husband was right. In a state of

intoxication he was jolly and amiable,--the other people were the fruit

of her imagination,--and he had not been like that before his marriage.

He had been a jolly fellow then, engaging and kind. And now he had

become a regular wild beast.

"Why is it so? Am I really a burden to him?" she thought.

Her heart contracted at that bitter reflection, she felt sorry

for herself, and for him; she went up to him, and caressingly,

affectionately gazing into his eyes, pressed close to his breast.

"Well, now you're going to lick yourself, you cow ...." said Gríshka

surlily, and pretended that he wished to thrust her from him; but she

knew that he would not do it, and pressed closer and harder against

him. Then his eyes flashed, he flung his work on the floor, and setting

his wife on his knees, he kissed her much and long, sighing from a

full heart, and saying, in a low voice, as though afraid that someone

would overhear him: "E-ekh, Mótrya![7] Aï, aï, how ill you and I live

together ... we snarl at each other like wild beasts ... and why? Such

is my star ... a man is born beneath a star, and the star is his fate!"

[7] Mótrya is the diminutive for Matréna.--Translator.

But this explanation did not satisfy him, and straining his wife to his

breast, he sank into thought.

They sat thus for a long time, in the murky light and close air of

their cellar. She held her peace and sighed, but sometimes in such fair

moments as these, she recalled the undeserved insults and beatings

administered by him, and with quiet tears she complained to him of

them.

Then he, abashed by her fond reproaches, caressed her yet more

ardently, and she poured forth her heart in more and more complaints.

At last, this irritated him.

"Stop your jawing! How do you know but that it hurts me a thousand

times more than it does you when I thrash you. Do you understand? Well,

then, stop your noise! Give you and the dike of you free sway, and

they'd fly at one's throat. Drop the subject. What can you say to a man

if life has made a devil of him?"

At other times he softened under the flood of her quiet tears, and

passionate remonstrances, and explained, sadly and thoughtfully:

"What am I, with my character, to do? I insult you ... that's true. I

know that you and I are one soul--but sometimes I forget that. Do you

understand, Mótrya, that there are times when I can't bear the sight of

you?! Just as though I had had a surfeit of you. And, at such times,

such a vicious feeling comes up under my heart--I could tear you to

bits, and myself along with you. And the more in the right you are, as

against me, the more I want to thrash you...."

She hardly understood him, but the repentant, affectionate tone soothed

her.

"God grant, that we may get straight somehow, that we may get used to

each other"--she said, not recognizing the fact that they had long ago

got used to each other, and had drained each other.

"Now, if we only had had some children born to us--we should get along

better," she sometimes added, with a sigh.--"We should have had an

amusement, and an anxiety."

"Well, what ails you? Bear some...."

"Yes ... you see, I can't bear any, with these thrashings of yours. Yon

beat me awfully hard on the body and ribs.... If only you wouldn't use

your feet on me...."

"Come now,--" Grigóry gruffly and in confusion defended himself,--"can

a man stop to consider at such a time, where and with what he ought to

thrash? And I'm not the hangman, either,... and I don't beat you for my

amusement, but from grief...."

"And how was this grief bred in you?"--asked Matréna mournfully.

"Such is my fate, Mótrya!--" philosophized Gríshka.

"My fate, and the character of my soul.... Look, am I any worse than

the rest, than that Little Russian, for example? Only, the Little

Russian lives on and does not feel melancholy. He's alone, he has no

wife, nothing I should perish without you.... But he doesn't mind

it!... He smokes his pipe and smiles; he's contented, the devil, just

because he's smoking his pipe. But I can't do like that.... I was born,

evidently, with uneasiness in my heart. That's the sort of character

I have.... The Little Russian's is--like a stick, but mine is like--a

spring; when you press it, it shakes.... I go out, for instance, into

the street, I see this thing, that thing, a third thing, but I have

nothing myself. This angers me. The Little Russian--he wants nothing,

but I get mad, also, because he, that mustached devil, doesn't want

anything, while I.... I don't even know what I want ... everything!

So there now! Here I sit in a hole, and work all the time, and have

nothing. And there, again, it's your fault.... You're my wife, and what

is there about you that's interesting? One womans just like another

woman, with the whole lot of females.... I know everything in you; how

you will sneeze to-morrow--and I know it, because you have sneezed

before me a thousand times, probably..... And so what sort of life,

and what interest can I have? There's no interest. Well, and so I go

and sit in the dram-shop, because it's cheerful there."

"But why did you marry?"--asked Matréna.

"Why?"--Gríshka laughed.--"The devil knows why I did.... I oughtn't to

have done it, to tell the truth. It would have been better to start out

as a tramp.... Then, if you are hungry, you're free--go where you like!

March all over the world!"

"Then go, and set me at liberty," blurted out Matréna, on the verge of

bursting into tears.

"Where are you going?"--inquired Gríshka insinuatingly.

"That's my business."

"Whe-ere?" and his eyes lighted up with an evil glare. "Say!"

"Don't yell--I'm not afraid of you...."

"Have you got your eye on somebody else? Say?"

"Let me go!"

"Let you go where?"--bellowed Gríshka.

He had already grasped her by the hair, pushing the kerchief off her

head. Beatings exasperated her, but anger afforded her immense delight,

stirring up her whole soul, and, instead of extinguishing his jealousy

by a couple of words, she proceeded still further to enrage him,

smiling up into his face with strange, extremely significant smiles. He

flew into a fury, and beat her, beat her mercilessly.

But at night when, all broken, and crushed, she lay groaning beside

him in bed, he stared askance at her, and sighed heavily. He felt ill

at ease, his conscience tortured him, he understood that there was no

foundation for his jealousy, and that he had beaten her without cause.

"Come, that will do,..." he said abashed.--"Am I to blame, if I have

that sort of character? And you're nice, too.... Instead of persuading

me--you spur me on. Why did you find it necessary to do it?"

She held her peace, but she knew why, knew that now, all beaten and

wronged as she was, she might expect his caresses, the passionate and

tender caresses of reconciliation. For this she was ready to pay every

day with pain in her bruised sides.--And she was already weeping, with

the mere joy of anticipation, even before her husband succeeded in

touching her.

"Come, enough of that, Mótrya! Come, my darling, won't you? Have done,

forgive me, do!"--He smoothed her hair, kissed her, and gnashed his

teeth with the bitterness which filled his whole being.

Their windows were open, but the main wall of the neighboring house hid

the sky, and in their room, as always, it was dark, and stifling and

close.

"Ekh, life! Thou art a magnificent hard-labor prison!"--whispered

Gríshka, unable to express what he so painfully felt.--"It comes from

this hole, Mótrya. What are we? Something as though we were buried in

the earth before our death...."

"Let's move into another lodging,"--suggested Matréna, through sweet

tears, understanding his words literally.

"E-ekh! No you don't, aunty! If you betake yourself to a garret, you'll

still be in a hole,... it isn't the lodging that's the hole ... but

life--that's the hole!"

Matréna reflected, and began again:

"God willing, we may reform ourselves ... we shall get used to one

another."

"Yes, we'll reform.... You often say that.... But it doesn't

look like reform with us.... The rows get more frequent all the

time,--understand?"

That was unqualifiedly true. The intervals between their fights kept

growing shorter and shorter, and here, at last, every Saturday, Gríshka

began from early in the morning to screw himself up into a hostile mood

against his wife.

"This evening I'm going to cut work, and go to meet Lýsy in the

dram-shop.... I shall get drunk...." he announced.

Matréna, puckering up her eyes strangely, made no reply.

"You won't speak? Well then, just go on holding your tongue--it'll be

better for your health,--" he said warningly.

In the course of the day, with irritation which increased in proportion

as the evening drew near,--he reminded her several times of his

intention to get drunk, was conscious that it pained her to hear this,

and perceiving that she maintained a persistent silence, with a firm

gleam in her eyes, preparing for the struggle, he strode about the room

and raged all the more furiously.

In the evening, the herald of their unhappiness, Sénka Tchízhik,

proclaimed the "brattle."[8]

[8] Sénka twists his words, in a way which cannot always be reproduced.

This is a fair specimen.--Translator.

When he had finished beating his wife, Gríshka vanished, sometimes

for the whole night, sometimes he did not even put in an appearance

on Sunday. She, covered with bruises, greeted him morosely, with

taciturnity, but was filled with concealed compassion for him, all

tattered, and often battered also, in filth, with his eyes suffused

with blood.

She knew that he must get over his fit of intoxication, and she had

already supplied herself with half a bottle of vódka. He, also, knew

this.

"Give me a little glass...." he entreated hoarsely, drank off two or

three glasses, and sat down to his work.

The day passed with him in gnawings of conscience; often he could not

endure their sting, flung aside his work, and swore terrible oaths, as

he rushed about the room, or threw himself on the bed. Mótrya gave him

time to simmer down, and then they made peace.

Formerly, this reconciliation had had much that was subtle and sweet

about it, but, in the course of time, all this evaporated, and they

made peace almost for the sole reason that it was not convenient to

remain silent for the five whole days before Sunday.

"You feel sleepy," said Matréna, with a sigh.

"I do,"--assented Gríshka, and spat aside, with the air of a man to

whom it is a matter of utter indifference whether he feels sleepy or

not.--"And you're going to scamper off and leave me...." he completed

the picture of the future, looking searchingly into her eyes. For

some time past, she had taken to dropping them, which she had never

been in the habit of doing previously, and Gríshka, taking note of

this, frowned portentously, and softly gritted his teeth. But, privily

from her husband, she was still frequenting the fortune-tellers and

sorceresses, bringing back from them spells, in the form of roots and

embers. And when all this was of no avail, she had a prayer-service

celebrated to the holy great-martyr Vonifánty, who aids drunkards, and

as she knelt throughout the prayer-service, she wept burning tears,

noiselessly moving her quivering lips.

And more and more frequently did she feel toward her husband a savage,

cold hatred, which aroused black thoughts within her, and she had

ever less and less of pity for this man who, three years before,

had so enriched her life with his merry laughter, his caresses, his

affectionate speeches.

Thus these people, in reality, not at all a bad sort of people, lived

on, day after day--lived on, fatally anticipating something which

should finally smash to atoms their torturingly-foolish life.

*

One Monday morning, when the Orlóff pair had just begun to drink their

tea, the impressive form of a policeman made its appearance on the

threshold of the door which led into their cheerless abode. Orlóff

sprang from his seat and, with a glance of reproachful alarm at his

wife, as he endeavored to reconstruct in his fuddled head the events of

the last few days, he stared silently and fixedly at the visitor, with

troubled eyes, filled with the most horrible expectation.

"Here, this is the place,--" the policeman invited someone in.

"It's as dark as the pool under the mill-wheel, devil take merchant

Petúnnikoff,--" rang out a young, cheerful voice. Then the policeman

stood aside, and into the Orlóffs' room there stepped briskly a

student, in a white duck coat, cap in hand, with close-cut hair,

a large, sun-burned forehead, and merry brown eyes, which sparkled

laughingly from beneath his spectacles.

"Good morning!--" he exclaimed in a bass voice which had not yet grown

hoarse.--"I have the honor to introduce myself--the sanitary officer!

I have come to investigate how you live ... and to smell your air ...

your air is thoroughly foul!"

Orlóff breathed freely and cordially, and smiled cheerily. He took an

instantaneous liking to this noisy student: the fellow's face was so

healthy, rosy, kindly, covered on cheeks and chin with golden-brown

down. It smiled incessantly, with a peculiar, fresh and clear smile,

which seemed to render the Orlóffs' cellar brighter and more cheerful.

"Well then, Mr. and Mrs. Occupant!"--said the student without a

pause,--"you must empty your slop-bucket more frequently, that unsavory

smell comes from it. I would advise you, aunty, to wash it out very

often, and also to sprinkle unslaked lime in the corners, to purify the

air ... and lime is also good as a remedy for dampness. And why have

you so bored an aspect, uncle?"--he addressed himself to Orlóff, and

immediately seizing him by the hand, he began to feel his pulse.

The student's audacity stunned the Orlóffs. Matréna smiled

abstractedly, surveying him in silence. Grigóry also smiled, as he

admired his vivacious face, with its golden-brown down.

"How are your little bellies feeling?--" inquired the student. "Tell

me, without ceremony ... it's a matter of health, and if there's

anything out of order, we'll furnish you with some acid medicines,

which will remove all trouble at once."

"We're all right ... we're in good health," Grigóry finally imparted

the information, with a laugh.--"But if I don't look just as I should

... it's only on the outside ... for, to tell the truth, I haven't

quite got over my drunk."

"Exactly so, I discern with my nose that you, my good man, almost got

drunk yesterday--just a mere trifle, you know...."

He said this so humorously, and made such a grimace, to accompany it,

that Orlóff fairly split with loud and confidential laughter. Matréna

laughed also, covering her mouth with her apron. The student himself

laughed the most loudly and merrily of all, and he also stopped sooner

than the rest. And when the folds of skin around his chubby mouth,

evoked by the laughter, had smoothed themselves out,--his simple, frank

face became still more simple, somehow.

"It's the proper thing for a working man to drink, if he does it

moderately, but just at present, it would be better to refrain from

liquor altogether. Have you heard how some sickness or other is going

about among the people?"

And now, with a serious aspect, he began to explain in intelligible

language to the Orlóffs, about the cholera, and about the means of

fighting it. As he talked, he walked about the room, now feeling of

the wall with his hand, now casting a glance behind the door, into the

corner, where hung the wash-basin, and where stood a wash-trough[9]

filled with slops, and he even bent down and smelled under the stove,

to see what the odor was like. His voice broke, every now and then,

from bass notes into tenor notes, and the simple words of his remarks

seemed to fix themselves firmly, one after another, in the minds of his

hearers, without any effort on their part. His bright eyes sparkled,

and he seemed thoroughly permeated with the ardor of his youthful

passion for his work, which he executed so simply and so vigorously.

[9] The peasant wash-basin consists of a dosed vessel which is

suspended from the wall, and contains water. The water trickles through

a spout or faucet, on the hands--"running" water being regarded as the

only clean water. The tub in which clothes are washed is a long trough,

rounded at the bottom, and mounted on supports.--Translator.

Grigóry watched his operations with a smile of curiosity. Matréna

sniffed from time to time; the policeman had disappeared.

"So you are to attend to the lime to-day, Mr. and Mrs. Occupant.

There's a building going up alongside you, so the masons will give

you all you need for about five kopéks. And as for you, good man,

if you can't be moderate in your drinking, you must let it alone

altogether.... We-ell, good-by for the time being.... I'll look in on

you again."

And he vanished as swiftly as he had appeared, leaving as mementos of

his laughing eyes abashed and satisfied smiles on the countenances of

the Orlóff couple.

They remained silent for a minute, staring at each other, and as yet

unable to formulate the impression left by this unexpected invasion of

conscious energy into their dark, automatic life.

"A-aï!--" drawled Grigóry, shaking his head.--"So there's ... a

chemist! It is said that they are poisoning folks! But would a man

with a face like that occupy himself with that sort of thing? And then

again, his voice! And all the rest.... No, his manner was perfectly

frank, and immediately--'here now,--here I am!'--Lime ... is that

injurious? Citric acid ... what's that? Simply acid, and nothing more!

But the chief point is--cleanliness everywhere, in the air, and on the

floor, and in the slop-bucket.... Is it possible to poison a man by

such means? Akh, the devils! Poisoners, say they.... That hard-working

young fellow, hey? Fie! A workingman ought always to drink in

moderation, he says ... do you hear, Mótrya? So come now, pour me out a

little glass ... there's liquor on hand, isn't there?"

She very willingly poured him out half a cup of vódka from the bottle,

which she produced from some place known only to herself.

"That was really a nice fellow ... he had such a way of making one like

him,--" she said, smiling at the remembrance of the student.--"But

other fellows, the rest of them--who knows anything about them?

Perhaps, they actually are engaged...."

"But engaged for what, and again, by whom?--" exclaimed Grigóry.

"To exterminate the people.... They say there are so many poor

folks, that an order has been issued--to poison the superfluous

ones,"--Matréna communicated her information.

"Who says that?"

"Everybody says so.... The painters' cook said so, and a great many

other folks...."

"Well, they're fools! Would that be profitable? Just consider: they

are curing them! How is a body to understand that? They bury them!

And isn't that a loss? For a coffin is needed, and a grave, and other

things of that sort.... Everything is charged to the government

treasury.... Stuff and nonsense! If they wanted to make a clearing-out

and to reduce the number of people, they would have taken and sent

them off to Siberia--there's plenty of room for them all there! Or

to some uninhabited islands.... And after they had exiled them, they

would have ordered them to work there. Work and pay your taxes ...

understand? There's a clearing-out for you, and a very profitable

one, to boot.... Because an uninhabited island will yield no revenue,

if it isn't settled with people. And revenue is the first thing to the

public treasury, so it's not to its interest to destroy folks, and to

bury them at its expense.... Understand? And then, again, that student

... he's an impudent creature, that's a fact, but he had more to say

about the riot; but kill people off,... no-o, you couldn't hire him

to do that for any amount of pennies! Couldn't you see at a glance,

that he wouldn't be capable of such a thing? His phiz wasn't of that

calibre...."

All day long they talked about the student, and about everything he had

told them. They recalled the sound of his laugh, his face, discovered

that one button was missing from his white coat, and came near

quarrelling over the question: 'on which side of the breast?' Matréna

obstinately maintained that it was on the right side, her husband

said--on the left, and twice cursed her stoutly, but remembering in

season, that his wife had not turned the bottle bottom upward when

she poured the vódka into the cup, he yielded the point to her. Then

they decided that on the morrow, they would set to work to introduce

cleanliness into their quarters, and again inspired by a breath of

something fresh, they resumed their discussion of the student.

"Yes, what a go-ahead fellow he was, really now!"--said Grigóry

rapturously.--"He came in, just exactly as though he'd known us for

ten years.... He sniffed about everywhere, explained everything ...

and that was all! He didn't shout or make a row, although he's one

of the authorities, also, of course.... Akh, deuce take him! Do you

understand, Matréna, they're looking after us there, my dear. That's

evident at once.... They want to keep us sound, and nothing more,

nor less .... That's all nonsense about killing us off ... old wives'

tales.... 'How does your belly act?' says he.... And if they wanted to

kill us off, what the devil should he have wanted to know about the

action of my belly for? And how cleverly he explained all about those

... what's their name? those devils that crawl about in the bowels, you

know?"

"Something after the fashion of cock and bull stories," laughed

Matréna,--"I believe he only said that for the sake of frightening us,

and making folks more particular to keep clean...."

"Well, who knows, perhaps there's some truth in that for worms breed

from dampness.... Akh, you devil! What did he call those little bugs?

It isn't a cock and bull story at all, but ... why, I remember what

it is!... I've got the word on the tip of my tongue, but I don't

understand...."

And when they lay down to sleep, they were still talking about the

event of the day, with the same ingenuous enthusiasm with which

children communicate to one another their first experiences and the

impressions which have surprised them. Then they fell asleep, in the

midst of their discussion.

Early in the morning they were awakened. By their bedside stood the fat

cook of the painters, and her face, which was always red, now, contrary

to her wont, was gray and drawn.

"Why are you pampering yourselves?" she said hastily, making a rather

peculiar noise with her thick, red lips.--"We've got the cholera in

the court-yard.... The Lord has visited us!"--and she suddenly burst

out crying.

"Akh, you're ... lying, aren't you?" cried Grigóry.

"And I never carried out the slop-bucket last night," said Matréna

guiltily.

"My dear folks, I'm going to get my wages. I'm going away.... I'll go,

and go ... to the country," said the cook.

"Who's got it?" inquired Grigóry, getting out of bed.

"The accordeon-player! He's got it.... He drank water out of the

fountain last evening, do you hear, and he was seized in the night....

And it took him right in the belly, my good people, as though he'd

swallowed rat-poison...."

"The accordeon-player...." muttered Grigóry. He could not believe that

any disease could overcome the accordeon-player. Such a jolly, dashing

young fellow, and he had walked through the court like a peacock, as

usual, only last night.--"I'll go and take a look,"--Orlóff decided,

with an incredulous laugh.

Both women shrieked in affright:

"Grísha, why, it's catching!"

"What are you thinking of, my good man, where axe you going?"

Grigóry uttered a violent oath, thrust his legs into his trousers, and

dishevelled as he was, with shirt-collar unbuttoned, went toward the

door. His wife clutched him by the shoulder, from behind, he felt her

hands tremble, and suddenly flew into a rage, for some reason or other.

"I'll hit you in the snout! Get away!"--he roared, and went out, after

striking his wife in the breast.

The court-yard was dark and deserted, and Grigóry, as he proceeded

toward the accordeon-player's door, was simultaneously conscious of

a chill of terror, and of a keen satisfaction at the fact that he,

alone, out of all the denizens of the house, was going to the sick

accordeon-player. This satisfaction was still further augmented when

he perceived that the tailors were watching him from the second-story

windows. He even began to whistle, wagging his head about with a

dashing air. But a little disenchantment awaited him at the door of the

accordeon-player's little den, in the shape of Sénka Tchízhik.

Having opened the door half way, he had thrust his sharp nose into the

crack thus formed, and as was his wont, was taking his observations,

captivated to such a degree that he did not turn round until Orlóff

pulled his ear.

"Just see how it has racked him, Uncle Grigóry," he said in a whisper,

raising toward Orlóff his dirty little face, rendered still more peaked

than usual by the impressions he had undergone.--"And it's just as

though he had shrunk up and got disjointed with dryness--like a bad

cask ... by heaven!"

Orlóff, enveloped by the foul air, stood and listened in silence to

Tchízhik, endeavoring to peer, with, one eye, through the crack of the

door as it hung ajar.

"How would it do to give him some water to drink, Uncle Grigóry?"

suggested Tchízhik.

Orlóff glanced at the boy's face, which was excited almost to the

point of a nervous tremor, and felt something resembling a burst of

excitement within himself.

"Go along, fetch the water!" he ordered Tchízhik, and boldly flinging

the door wide open, he halted on the threshold, shrinking back a little.

Athwart the mist in his eyes, Grigóry beheld Kislyakóff:--the

accordeon-player, dressed in his best, lay with his breast on the

table, which he was clutching tightly with his hands, and his feet, in

their lacquered boots, moved feebly over the wet floor.

"Who is it?" he asked hoarsely and apathetically, as though his voice

had faded, and lost all its color.

Grigóry recovered himself, and stepping cautiously over the floor, he

advanced to him, trying to speak bravely and even jestingly.

"I, brother, Mítry Pávloff.... But what are you up to ... did you

overwork last night, pray?"--he surveyed Kislyakóff attentively and

curiously, and did not recognize him.

The accordeon-player's face had grown peaked all over, his cheek-bones

projected in two acute angles, his eyes, deeply sunken in his head, and

surrounded by greenish spots, were frightfully immovable and turbid.

The skin on his cheeks was of the hue which is seen on corpses in hot

summer weather. It was a completely dead, horrible face, and only the

slow movement of the jaws showed that it was still alive. Kislyakóff's

motionless eyes stared long at Grigóry's face, and their dead gaze

put the latter in a fright. Feeling his ribs with his hands, for some

reason or other, Orlóff stood three paces distant from the sick man,

and felt exactly as though someone were clutching him by the throat

with a damp, cold hand,--were clutching him and slowly strangling

him. And he wanted to get away, as speedily as possible, from this

room, hitherto so bright and comfortable, but now impregnated with a

suffocating odor of putrefaction, and with a strange chill.

"Well...." he was about to begin, preparatory to beating a retreat..

But the accordeon-player's gray face began to move in a strange way,

his lips, covered with a black efflorescence, parted, and he said with

his toneless voice:

"I ... am ... dying...."

The profound indifference, the inexplicable apathy of his three words

echoed in Orlóff's head and breast, like three dull blows. With a

senseless grimace on his countenance, he turned toward the door, but

Tchízhik came flying to meet him, all flushed and perspiring, with a

pail in his hand.

"Here it is ... from Spiridónoff's well ... they wouldn't let me have

it, the devils...."

He set the pail on the floor, rushed into a corner, reappeared, and

handing a glass to Orlóff, continued to prattle:

"They say you've got the cholera.... I say, well, what of that? You'll

have it too,... now it'll run the rounds, as it did in the suburbs...?

Whack! he gave me such a bang on the head that I yelled!"

Orlóff took the glass, dipped up water from the pail, and swallowed it

at one gulp. In his ears the dead words were ringing:

"I ... am ... dying...."

But Tchízhik hovered round him with swift darts, feeling himself

thoroughly in his proper sphere.

"Give me a drink...." said the accordeon-player, moving himself and the

table about on the floor.

Tchízhik hopped up to him, and held a glass of water to his black lips.

Grigóry, as he leaned against the wall by the door, listened, as in

a dream, to the sick man noisily drawing in the water; then he heard

Tchízhik propose that they should undress Kislyakóff, and put him to

bed, then the voice of the painters' cook rang out. Her broad face,

with an expression of terror and compassion, was gazing in from the

court-yard through a window, and she said in a snivelling tone:

"You ought to give him lamp-black and rum: a tea-glass full--two

spoonfuls of lamp-black, and fill it with rum to the brim."

But some invisible person suggested olive-oil with the brine from

cucumbers, and _aqua regia._

Orlóff suddenly became conscious that the heavy, oppressive gloom

within him was illuminated by some memory. He rubbed his brow hard, as

though endeavoring to increase the brilliancy of the light, and all at

once, he went swiftly thence, ran across the court-yard and disappeared

down the street.

"Heavens! And the shoemaker has got it too! He's run off to the

hospital,"--the cook commented upon his flight in a plaintively-shrill

voice.

Matréna, who was standing beside her, gazed with widely opened eyes,

and turning pale, she shook all over.

"You're mistaken," she said hoarsely, barely moving her white

lips,--"Grigóry won't fall ill of that accursed sickness.... He won't

yield to it...."

But the cook, howling wofully, had already disappeared somewhere, and

five minutes later a cluster of neighbors and passers-by was muttering

dully around the Petúnnikoff house. Over all faces the same, identical

sentiments flitted in turn: excitement, which was succeeded by hopeless

dejection, and something evil, which now and then made way for active

audacity. Tchízhik kept flying back and forth between the court and the

crowd, his bare feet twinkling, and reporting the course of events in

the accordeon-player's room.

The public, collected together in a dense knot, filled the dusty,

malodorous air of the street with the dull hum of their talk, and from

time to time a violent oath, launched at someone, broke forth from

their midst,--an oath as malicious as it was lacking in sense.

"Look ... that's Orlóff!"

Orlóff drove up to the gate on the box of a wagon with a white canvas

cover which was driven by a surly man all clad in white, also. This man

roared, in a dull bass voice:

"Get out of the way!"

And he drove straight at the people, who sprang aside in all directions

at his shout.

The aspect of this wagon, and the shout of its driver, rather subdued

the high-strung mood of the spectators,--all seemed to grow dark at

once, and many went swiftly away.

In the track of the wagon, the student who had visited the Orlóffs made

his appearance from somewhere or other. His cap had fallen back on the

nape of his neck, the perspiration streamed down his forehead in large

drops, he wore a long mantle, of dazzling whiteness, and the lower part

of its front was decorated with a large round hole, with reddish edges,

evidently just burned in some way.

"Well, Orlóff, where's the sick man?"--he asked loudly, casting a

sidelong glance at the public, which had assembled in a little niche by

the gate, and had greeted his appearance with great ill-will, although

they watched him not without curiosity.

Someone said, in a loud tone:

"Look at yourself ... you're just like a cook!".

Another voice, which was quieter and had a tinge of malice in it, made

promises:

"Just wait ... he'll give you a treat!"

There was a joker in the crowd, as there always is.

"He'll give you such soup that your belly will burst on the spot!"

A laugh rang out, though it was not merry, but obscured by a timorous

suspicion, it was not lively, though faces cleared somewhat.

"See, they ain't afraid of catching it themselves ... what's the

meaning of that?"--very significantly inquired a man with a strained

face and a glance filled with concentrated wrath.

And under the influence of this question, the countenances of the

public darkened again, and their murmurs became still duller....

"They're bringing him!"

"That Orlóff! Akh, the dog!"

"Isn't he afraid?"

"What's it to him? He's a drunkard..

"Carefully, carefully, Orlóff! Lift his feet higher ... so! Ready!

Drive off, Piótr!" ordered the student. "Tell the doctor I shall be

there soon. Well, sir, Mr. Orlóff, I request that you will help me to

exterminate the infection here.... By the way, you will learn how to do

it, in case of need.... Do you agree? Can you come?"

"I can," said Orlóff, casting a glance around him, and feeling a flood

of pride rising within him.

"And so can I," announced Tchízhik.

He had escorted the mournful wagon through the gate, and returned just

in the nick of time to offer his services. The student stared at him

through his glasses.

"Who are you, hey?"

"Apprentice ... to the house-painters...." explained Tchízhik.

"And are you afraid of the cholera?"

"I?" asked Sénka in surprise.--"The idea! I'm ... not afraid of

anything!"

"Re-eally? That's clever! Now, see here, my friends."--The student

seated himself on a cask which was lying on the ground, and rolling

himself to and fro on it, he began to say that it was indispensably

necessary that Orlóff and Tchízhik should give themselves a good

washing.

They formed a group, which was soon joined by Matréna, smiling timidly.

After her came the cook, wiping her wet eyes on her dirty apron. In a

short time, several persons from among the spectators approached this

group, as cautiously as cats approach sparrows. A small, dense ring of

men, about ten in number, formed around the student, and this inspired

him. Standing in the centre of these people, and briskly gesticulating,

he began something in the nature of a lecture, which now awoke smiles

on their faces, now aroused their concentrated attention, now keen

distrust and sceptical grins.

"The principal point in all diseases is--cleanliness of the body, and

of the air which you breathe, gentlemen,"--he assured his hearers.

"Oh Lord!" sighed the painted cook loudly.--"One must pray to Saint

Varvára the martyr to be delivered from sudden death...."

"Gentlemen live in the body and in the air, but still, they die

too,"--remarked one of the audience.

Orlóff stood beside his wife, and gazed at the face of the student,

pondering something deeply the while. Someone gave his shirt a tug,

from one side.

"Uncle Grigóry!"--whispered Sénka Tchízhik, raising himself on tiptoe,

his eyes sparkling, blazing like coals,--"now that Mítry Pávlovitch is

going to die, and he hasn't any relatives ... who'll get his accordeon?"

"Let me alone, you imp!" Orlóff warded him off.

Sénka stepped aside, and stared through the window of the

accordeon-player's little room, searching for something in it with an

eager glance.

"Lime, tar,"--the student enumerated loudly.

On the evening of that restless day, when the Orlóffs sat down to drink

tea, Matréna asked her husband, with curiosity:

"Where did you go with the student a little while ago?"

Grigóry looked into her face with eyes obscured by something, and

different from usual, and, without replying, began to pour his tea from

his glass into his saucer.

About mid-day, after he had finished scrubbing the accordeon-player's

rooms, Grigóry had gone off somewhere with the sanitary officer, had

returned at three o'clock thoughtful and taciturn, had thrown himself

down on the bed, and there he had lain, face upward, until tea-time,

never uttering a single word all that time, although his wife had made

many efforts to draw him into conversation. He even failed to swear at

her for nagging him, and this, in itself, was strange, she was not used

to it, and it provoked her.

With the instinct of a woman whose whole life is bound up in her

husband, she began to suspect that her husband had become interested in

something new, she was afraid of something, and therefore, was the more

passionately desirous of knowing what that thing was.

"Perhaps you don't feel well, Grísha?"

Grigóry poured the last gulp of tea from his saucer into his mouth,

wiped his mustache with his hand, pushed his empty glass over to his

wife without haste, and knitting his brows, he said:

"I went with the student to the barracks ... yes...."

"To the cholera barracks?" exclaimed Matréna, and tremblingly, with

lowered voice, she asked: "are there many of them there?"

"Fifty-three persons, counting in our man...."

"Well?"

"They're recovering by the score.... They can walk.... Yellow, thin...."

"Are they cholera-patients too? They're not, I suppose? ... They've put

some others in there, to justify themselves: as much as to say--"look,

we can cure!'"

"You're a fool!" said Grigóry with decision, and his eyes

flashed angrily.--"You're all stupid folks! Lack of education

and stupidity--that's all! You're enough to kill a man with your

ignorance.... You can't understand anything,"--he sharply moved toward

him his glass freshly filled with tea, and fell silent.

"Where did _you_ get so much education?"--inquired Matréna viciously, and

sighed.

Her husband, paying not the slightest heed to her words, remained

silent, thoughtful and morose. The samovár, which had burned out,

drawled a squeaking melody, full of irritating tediousness, an odor of

oil-paints, carbolic acid, and stirred-up cesspools floated through the

windows from the court-yard. The semi-twilight, the screeching of the

samovár, and the smells--everything in the room became densely merged

with one another, forming around the Orlóffs a setting which resembled

a nightmare, while the dark maw of the oven stared at the husband and

wife exactly as though it felt itself called upon to swallow them when

a convenient opportunity should present itself. The silence lasted for

a long time. Husband and wife nibbled away at their sugar, rattled

their crockery, swallowed their tea.[10] Matréna sighed, Grigóry tapped

the table with his finger.

[10] By way of economizing, the peasants do not put sugar into their

tea, but nibble at it, and thus sweeten their mouths, an inelegant and

inconvenient, but highly satisfactory method of operation.--Translator.

"You never saw such cleanliness as they have there!"--he suddenly

began, irritably.--"All the attendants, down to the very last one--wear

white. The sick people keep getting into the bath all the time.... They

give them wine ... six bottles and a half! As for the food--the very

smell of it would make you feel full-fed.... Care, anxiety.... They

treat them in a motherly way..? and all the rest of it.... So they do.

Please to understand: you live along upon the earth, and not even one

devil would take the trouble to spit on you, much less call in now and

then to inquire--what and how and, in general,... what your life is

like, that is to say, whether it suits you, or whether it is the right

sort for a man? Has he any means of breathing or not? But when you

begin to die--they not only do not permit it, but even put themselves

to expense. The barracks ... wine ... six bottles and a half! Haven't

people any sense? For the barracks and the wine cost a lot of money.

Couldn't that same money be used for improving life ... a little every

year?"

His wife made no attempt to understand his remarks, it was enough for

her to feel that they were new, and thence to deduce, with absolute

accuracy, that something new concerning her was also in progress in

Grigóry's mind. Convinced of this, she wished to learn, as promptly

as possible, how all this concerned her. Fear was mingled with this

desire, and hope, and a sort of hostility toward her husband.

"I suppose the people yonder know even more than you do,"--said she,

when he had finished, and pursed up her lips in a sceptical way.

Grigóry shrugged his shoulders, cast a furtive glance at her, and then,

after a pause, he began in a still more lofty tone:

"Whether they know or not, that's their business. But if I have to

die, without having seen any sort of life, I can reason about that.

Now see here, I'll tell you this: I don't want any more of this sort

of thing--that is to say, I won't consent to sit and wait for the

cholera to come and seize hold of me. I won't do it! Piótr Ivánovitch

says: 'go ahead, and meet it half way! Fate is against you--but you

can oppose it,--who'll get the upper hand? It's war! That's all there

is to say about it....' So, what now? I'm going to enter the barracks

as an orderly--and that's the end of it! Understand? I'm going to walk

straight into its maw.--You may swallow me, but I'll make a play with

my feet!... I shall not earn any the less there ... twenty rubles a

month for wages, and they may add a gratuity besides.... I may die?...

that's so, but I should die sooner here. And again, it's a change in my

life...." and the excited Orlóff banged the table so vehemently with

his fist, that all the crockery bounced up and down with a clatter.

Matréna, at the beginning of her husband's speech, had stared at him

with an expression of uneasiness, but by the time he had finished, she

had screwed up her eyes in a hostile manner.

"Did the student advise you to do that?" she asked staidly.

"I have wits of my own ... I can judge,"--for some reason, Grigóry

evaded a direct reply.

"Well, and did he advise you to separate from me?"--went on Matréna.

"From you?"--Grigóry was somewhat disconcerted--he had not yet

succeeded in thinking out that matter. Of course, one can leave a

woman in lodgings, as is generally done, but there are different sorts

of women. Matréna, was one of the dangerous sort. One must keep her

directly under his eyes. Settling down on this thought, Orlóff went on

with a scowl:--"The student ... what ails you? You will live here ...

and I shall be earning wages ... ye-es...."

"Just so,"--said the woman briefly and calmly, and laughed with that

very significant and purely feminine smile, which is capable of evoking

in a man thoughts of jealousy which pierce his heart.

Orlóff, who was nervous and quick of apprehension, felt this, but,

being loath to betray himself, out of self-love, he flung at his wife

the curt remark:

"Quack and grunt--make up all your speeches...." and he pricked up his

ears, in anticipation of what she would say.

But she smiled again, with that exasperating smile, and preserved

silence.

"Well, how is it to be?" inquired Grigóry, in a lofty tone.

"How is what to be?" said Matréna, indifferently wiping the cups.

"Viper! None of your shiftiness--I'll damage you!" Orlóff boiled

up.--"Perhaps I'm going to my death."

"I'm not sending you ... don't go...." interrupted Matréna.

"You'd be glad to send me off, I know!" exclaimed Orlóff ironically.

She made no reply. Her silence enraged him, but he restrained himself

from his customary expression of the feelings which such scenes called

forth in him. He restrained himself under the influence of a very

venomous thought, as it appeared to him, which flashed through his

brain. He even gave vent to a malicious smile. "I know you'd like to

have me tumble down even to the very depths of hell. Well, we shall

see which of us comes off best ... yes! I, also, can take such a

course--akh, I've no patience with you!"

He sprang up from the table, snatched up his cap from the window-sill,

and went off, leaving his wife dissatisfied with her policy,

disconcerted by his threats, and with a growing feeling within her of

alarm for the future. As she gazed out of the window, she whispered to

herself:

"Oh Lord! Queen of Heaven! All-Holy Birth-Giver of God!"

Besieged by a throng of disquieting problems, she remained sitting,

for a long time, at the table, endeavoring to foresee what Grigóry

would do. Before her stood the cleanly-washed table appurtenances; and

on the principal wall of the neighboring house opposite her windows,

the setting sun cast a reddish spot; reflected from the white wall,

it penetrated into the room, and the edge of the glass sugar-bowl

which stood in front of Matréna glittered. She stared at this faint

reflection, with contracted brow, until her eyes ached. Then, rising

from her chair, she cleared away the dishes and lay down on the bed.

She felt disgusted.

Grigóry arrived when it was already entirely dark. From his very

footsteps on the stairs she decided that he was in good spirits. He

swore at the darkness in the room, called to his wife, approached the

bed, and sat down on it. His wife raised herself, and sat beside him.

"Do you know I have something to tell you?"--asked Orlóff, laughing.

"Well, what is it?"

"You are going to take a position also!"

"Where?" she asked, with trembling voice.

"In the same barracks with me!" announced Orlóff triumphantly.

She threw her arms round his neck, and clasping him tightly, kissed him

straight on the lips. He had not expected this, and thrust her away.

She was pretending ... she didn't want to be with him at all, rogue

that she was! The viper was pretending, she regarded her husband as a

fool....

"What are you delighted about?"--he asked roughly and suspiciously,

conscious of a desire to hurl her to the floor.

"Because I am!" she replied, boldly.

"Pretence! I know you!"

"You're my Eruslán the Brave!"[11]

[11] The hero of a seventeenth century Russian fairy-tale, after the

Persian tale of "Rustem."--Translator.

"Stop that, I tell you ... or look out for yourself!"

"You're my darling little Grísha!"

"Well, what's the matter with you, anyhow?"

When her caresses had tamed him a little, he asked her anxiously:

"But you're not afraid?"

"Why, we shall be together," she replied simply.

It pleased him to hear this. He said to her:

"You brave little creature!"

And, at the same time, he pinched her side so hard that she shrieked.

*

The first day of the Orlóffs' service in the hospital coincided with

a very great influx of patients, and the two novices, accustomed,

as they were, to their slowly-moving existence, felt worried and

hampered in the midst of this seething activity which had seized them

in its grasp. Awkward, unable to comprehend orders, overwhelmed by

impressions, they immediately lost their heads, and although they

incessantly ran hither and thither, in the effort to work, they

hindered others rather than accomplished anything themselves. Several

times, Grigóry felt, with all his being, that he merited a stem shout

or a scolding for his incompetence, but, to his great amazement, no one

shouted at him.

When one of the doctors, a tall, black-mustached man, with a hooked

nose, and a huge wart over his right eyebrow, ordered Grigóry to assist

one of the patients to sit down in the bath-tub, Grigóry gripped the

sick man under the arms with so much zeal that the man groaned and

frowned.

"Don't break him to pieces, my dear fellow, he'll fit into the bath-tub

whole,...." said the doctor seriously.

Orlóff was abashed; but the sick man, a long, gaunt fellow, laughed

with all his might, and said hoarsely: "He's new to it.... He doesn't

know how."

Another doctor, an old man, with a pointed gray beard, and large,

brilliant eyes, gave the Orlóffs instructions, when they reached the

barracks, how to treat the patients, what to do in this case and that,

how to handle the sick people in transferring them. In conclusion, he

asked them whether they had been to the bath the day before, and gave

them white aprons. This doctor's voice was soft, he spoke rapidly; he

took a great liking to the married pair, but half an hour later they

had forgotten all his instructions, overwhelmed with the stormy life

of the barracks. All about them flitted people in white, orders were

issued, caught on the fly by the orderlies, the sick people rattled

in their throats, moaned and groaned, water flowed and splashed; and

all these sounds floated on the air, which was so thickly saturated

with penetrating odors that tickled the nostrils disagreeably, that it

seemed as though every word of the doctors, every sigh of the patients,

stunk also, and irritated the nose....

At first, it seemed to Orlóff that utterly restless chaos reigned

there, wherein he could not possibly find his place, and that he would

choke, grow deaf, fall ill.... But a few hours passed, and Grigóry,

invaded by the breath of energy everywhere disseminated, pricked up

his ears, and became permeated with a mighty desire to adjust himself

to his business as speedily as possible, conscious that he would feel

calmer and easier if he could turn in company with the rest.

"Corrosive sublimate!" shouted one doctor.

"More hot water in this bath-tub!" commanded a scraggy little medical

student, with red, inflamed eyelids.

"Here you ... what's your name? Orlóff ... yes! rub his feet....

There, that's the way ... you understand.... So-o, so-o.... More

lightly--you'll take the skin off.... Oï, how tired I am...."