"Kapitólina? She's a young girl--quite a child. She was the daughter
of a merchant in Vyátka.... Well, and she went astray. The longer it
lasted, the worse it got, and she went into one of those houses ... you
know? I came--and saw that she was still a mere child! Good Lord, I
said to myself, is it possible? Well, so I made acquaintance with her.
She began to cry. Says I: 'Never mind, have patience! I'll get you out
of this--only wait!' And I had everything ready, that is to say, the
money and all ... And, all of a sudden, I went on a spree, and found
myself in Astrakhan. A certain man told her where I was, and she wrote
me that letter, to Astrakhan...."
"Well, and what are you going to do about it,"--I asked him, "do you
intend to marry her?"
"Marry her,--how can I? If I have one of my drinking bouts, what sort
of a bridegroom would I be? No, this is what I mean to do. I'll get her
released--and then, she may go wherever she likes. She'll find a place
for herself ... perhaps she'll turn out a decent woman."
"She says she wants to live with you...."
"Oh, she's only fooling. They're all like that--all the women.... I
know them very well indeed. I've had a lot of different sorts. One,
even, was a merchant's wife, and rich! I was a groom in a circus, and
she cast her eyes on me. 'Come,' says she,--'and be my coachman.' About
that time I had got sick of the circus, so I consented, and went. Well,
and so.... She began to make up to me. They had a house, horses,
servants--they lived like the nobility. Her husband was a short, fat
man, after the style of our boss, but she was as thin and flexible
as a cat, and fiery. When she used to embrace me, and kiss me on the
lips--hot coals seemed to be sprinkled on my heart. And I'd get all
of a tremble, and even feel frightened. She used to kiss me, and cry
all the time; even her shoulders heaved. I would ask her: 'What ails
you, Vyérunka?' And she would say: 'You're a child, Sásha; you don't
understand anything.' She was stunning.... And she spoke the truth when
she said I didn't understand anything--I was pretty much of a fool, I
know. What I do--I don't understand. How I live--I don't think!"
He ceased speaking, and gazed at me with widely-opened eyes; in them
shone something which was not exactly fright, nor yet exactly a
query,--something troubled and meditative, which rendered his handsome
face still more melancholy and more beautiful ...
"Well, and how did you end matters with the merchant's wife?" I asked.
"Well, you see, sadness descends upon me. Such sadness, I must tell
you, brother, that at those times I simply can't live. It's as though
I were the only man on all the earth, and there were no living thing
anywhere except myself. And at such times, everything is repugnant
to me--every earthly thing; and I become a burden to myself, and
all people are a burden to me; if all of them were to fall dead, I
wouldn't give a sigh! It must be an ailment, with me. It made me take
to drinking ... before that, I did not drink. Well, so this sadness
came upon me, and I said to her, to that merchant's wife: 'Véra
Mikháilovna! Let me go, I can't stand it any longer!'-'What,' says
she, 'are you tired of me?'--And she laughed, you know, in such an
ugly way.--'No,' says I, 'I'm not tired of you, but I'm no match
for myself.' At first she didn't understand me, and she even began to
scream, and to rail.... Afterwards, she did understand. She dropped
her head, and said:'Well, then, go!...' and burst out crying. Her eyes
were black, and she was all swarthy. Her hair was black, also, and
curly. She was not of the merchant-class by birth, but the daughter
of a state official.... Ye-es ... I was sorry for her, but I was
repulsive even to myself at that time. Why did I knuckle under to a
woman?--anybody knows why.... Of course, she found life tiresome with
such a husband. He was exactly like a sack of flour.... She cried for
a long time--she had got used to me.... I used to pet her a lot: I
used to take her in my arms, and rock her. She would fall asleep, and
I would sit and gaze at her. People are very handsome in their sleep,
they are so simple; they breathe and smile, and that's all. And then
again--when we lived at the villa in the country, she and I used to
go driving together--she loved that with all her heart. We would come
to some little nook in the forest, tie the horses, and cool ourselves
off on the grass. She would order me to lie down, then she would put
my head on her knees, and read me some little book or other. I would
listen, and listen, until I fell asleep. She read nice stories, very
nice stories. One of them I shall never forget--about dumb Gerásim,[5]
and his beloved dog. He, that dumb fellow, was a persecuted man, and no
one loved him, except his dog. People laughed at him, and all that sort
of thing, and he went straight to his dog.... It was a very pitiful
story ... yes! But the affair took place in the days of serfdom....
And his lady-mistress says to him: 'Dumb man, go drown your dog, for
he howls.'--Well, so the dumb man went.... He took a boat, and put
the dog aboard it, and set out.... At this point, I used to feel the
cold shivers run over me. Oh Lord! The sole joy on earth of a dumb
man was being killed! What sort of behavior is that? Akh--they were
wonderful tales! And really--there was this good thing about it!
There are people for whom all the world consists of one thing--a dog,
for example. And why a dog? Because there is no one else to love such
a man, but the dog loves him. It is impossible for a man to live
without some sort of love;--that's why he is given a soul, that he
may love.... She read me a great many stories. She was a splendid
woman, and I'm sorry for her this minute.... If it hadn't been for my
planet,--I wouldn't have left her until she wished it herself, or until
her husband had found out about my performances with her. She was so
caressing--first of all; that is to say, not exactly caressing, in the
way of giving presents, but, so ... caressing after the fashion of the
heart. She would kiss me and she was just the same as any other woman
... and then, such a sort of fit would come over her ... so that it
was downright astonishing what a good person she was. She would look
straight into your soul, and talk to you like a nurse or a mother.
At such times, I was just like a five-year-old boy with her. But
nevertheless, I went away from her--because of that sadness! I pined
for some other place.... 'Good-bye,' says I, 'Véra Mikháilovna, forgive
me.'--'Good-bye, Sásha,' says she. And the queer woman--she bared my
arm to the elbow, and set her teeth into it, as though it had been
meat! I came near yelling! So she almost bit out a whole piece ... my
arm ached for three weeks afterwards. And here, you see, the mark is
there yet...."
[5] Iván S. Turgéneff's famous tale: "Mumu."--Translator.
Baring his arm, as muscular as that of a hero of epic song, white and
red, he showed it to me, with an amiably melancholy smile. On the
skin of the arm, near the elbow bend, a scar was plainly visible--two
semicircles, which almost met at the tips. Konováloff looked at them,
and shook his head, with a smile.
"The queer woman!" he repeated; "she bit me by way of a keepsake."
I had heard stories in this spirit before. Every member of the
"barefoot brigade" has, in his past, a "merchants wife," or "a young
lady of the nobility," and in the case of nearly all tramps, this
merchant's wife and this well-born young lady turn out to be thoroughly
fantastic figure, through countless repetitions, almost always
combining the most contradictory physical and psychical features. If
to-day she is blue-eyed, malicious and merry, you may expect to hear
of her a week later as black-eyed, amiable and tearful. And the tramp
generally talks about her in a sceptical tone, with a mass of details
which are degrading to her. But the story narrated by Konováloff did
not arouse in me the distrust created by tales I had heard in the past.
It rang true, it contained details with which I was unfamiliar--those
readings from books, that epithet of 'boy,' as applied to the mighty
form of Konováloff.
I pictured to myself the willowy woman, sleeping in his arms, with
her head clinging close to his broad breast--it was a fine picture,
and still further convinced me as to the truth of his story. And, in
conclusion, his sad soft tone as he recalled the "merchant's wife"--was
a unique tone. The genuine tramp never speaks in that tone either about
women or about anything else--he likes to show that there is nothing on
earth which he dares not revile.
"Why don't you say something? Do you think I am lying?"--inquired
Konováloff, and, for some reason, alarm rang out in his voice. He
stretched himself out on the sacks of flour, holding a glass of tea in
one hand, and with the other stroking his beard. His blue eyes gazed
at me searchingly and inquiringly, and the wrinkles lay sharply across
his brow.... "No, you'd better believe me.... What object have I in
lying? Even supposing that the like of us tramps are great hands at
telling yarns.... It can't be done my friend:--if a man has never
had anything good in life, surely he harms no one by making up with
himself some tale or other, and telling it as a fact. He keeps on
telling it, and comes to believe it himself, as though it had actually
happened--he believes it, and--well, it is agreeable to him. Many
folks live by that. You can't prevent it.... But I have told you the
truth, as it happened, so I have told it to you.... Is there anything
peculiar about that? A woman lives along, and gets bored, and the women
are all good-for-nothing creatures.... Supposing I am a coachman, that
makes no difference to a woman, because coachmen and gentlemen and
officers are all men.... And all are pigs in her sight, all seek one
and the same thing, and each one tries to take as much as he can, and
to pay as little as possible. And the simple man is even better, more
conscientious than the rest. And I'm very simple ... the women all
understand that very well about me,... they see that I will not offend
them--that is to say, I won't ... do ... I won't jeer at them. When a
woman sins, there's nothing she fears so much as a sneer, ridicule.
They are more shame-faced than we are. We take our own, and, as like as
not, go to the bazaar and tell about it, and begin to brag--'see here,
look how we have cheated one fool!' ... But a woman has nowhere to go,
no one will reckon her sin as a dashing deed. My good fellow, even the
most abandoned of them have more shame than we have."
I listened to him and thought: Was it possible that this man was true
to himself in making all these speeches which did not fit in with him
at all?
But he, thoughtfully riveting upon me his eyes, clear as those of a
child, went on talking, and astounded me more and more by his remarks.
It seemed to me that I was enveloped by something in the nature of a
fog, a warm fog, which cleansed my heart, already, even at that time,
greatly soiled with the mire of life.
The wood in the oven had burned down, and the bright pile of coals cast
a rosy glow on the wall of the bakery ... it quivered ...
Through the window peeped a tiny speck of the blue sky with two stars
in it. One of them--the large one--gleamed like an emerald, the other,
not far from it, was barely visible.
A week passed, and Konováloff and I had become friends. "You, also, are
a simple lad! That's good!"--he said to me, with a broad smile, as he
slapped me on the shoulder with his huge hand.
He worked artistically. It was a sight worth seeing--how he exercised
over a lump of dough weighing two hundred and fifty pounds, rolling it
about in the mould, or how, bent over the bin, he kneaded, his mighty
arms plunged to the elbows in the springy mass, which squeaked under
his fingers of steel.
At first, when I saw how swiftly he hurled into the oven the raw
loaves, which I could hardly toss fast enough from the moulds to his
shovel,--I was afraid that he would pile them one on top of the other;
but when he had baked three ovenfuls, and not one of the one hundred
and twenty loaves--superb, rosy, tall--showed any sign of a "crush," I
understood that I had to deal with an artist in his own line. He loved
to work, became absorbed in his business, grew depressed when the oven
baked badly, or when the dough rose slowly, waxed angry and reviled
the proprietor if the latter bought damp flour, and was as merry and
contented as a child if the loaves came out of the oven properly
rounded, tall, well-risen, with a moderately rosy hue, and thin, crisp
crust. He was accustomed to take the most successful loaf from the
shovel into his hand, and tossing it from palm to palm, scorching
himself in the operation, laugh gaily, as he said to me:
"Eh, what a beauty you and I have made...."
And I found it pleasant to watch this gigantic child, who put his whole
soul into his work, as every man, in every sort of work should do.
One day I asked him:
"Sásha, I am told that you sing well?"
He frowned and dropped his head.
"I do sing.... Only, I do it by fits and starts in streaks.... When
I begin to get sad, I shall begin to sing ... And if I begin to sing
... I shall begin to grieve. You'd better hold your tongue about that,
don't tease me. Don't you sing yourself? Akh, you ... what a piece you
are! You'd ... better wait for me ... and whistle, in the meanwhile.
Then we will both sing together. Is it a bargain?"
Of course, I assented, and whistled, when I wanted to sing. But
sometimes I broke off, and began to hum beneath my breath, as I kneaded
the dough, and rolled out the loaves. Konováloff listened to me, moved
his lips, and after a while, reminded me of my promise. And sometimes
he shouted roughly at me:
"Drop that! Don't groan!"
One day I took a small book out of my trunk, and, propping myself in
the window, I began to read.
Konováloff was dozing, stretched out on the bin with the doughy but
the rustle of the leaves, as I turned them over above his ear made him
open his eyes.
"What's that little book about?"