"Eh, do stop!"
One day it chanced that he went away in the evening, and did not return
at night to work, nor the following day. In his place, the proprietor
made his appearance with a troubled face, and announced:
"Our Leksákha has gone off on a carouse. He's sitting in 'The Little
Wall.' We must hunt up a new baker...."
"But perhaps he will recover himself?!"
"Well, of course, just wait ... I know him...."
I went to "The Little Wall"--a dram-shop cleverly constructed in a
stone wall. It was distinguished by the peculiarity that it had no
windows, and that the light fell into it through a hole in the ceiling.
As a matter of fact, it was a square pit, excavated in the ground, and
covered overhead with boards. An earthy odor forever reigned within
it, along with cheap, domestic tobacco, and wódka grown bitter with
age--a symphony of odors which made one's head ache horribly after
half an hour's sojourn among them. But the steady patrons of this
den were accustomed to it--they were shady people, with no definite
occupations--as they became accustomed to a mass of things which are
intolerable to a man. And there they stuck, for whole days at a time,
waiting for some artisan on a spree, that they might ply him with drink
until he was stark naked.
Konováloff was sitting at a large table in the centre of the dram-shop,
surrounded by a circle of six gentlemen, in fantastically-tattered
costumes, with faces like those of the heroes of Hoffmann's "Tales,"
who were listening to him with respectful and flattering attention.
They were drinking beer and vódka together, and eating something which
resembled dry lumps of clay.
"Drink, my lads, drink, each one as much as he can. I have money and
clothing.... They'll last three days in all. I'll drink up everything
and ... enough! I don't want to work any more, and I don't want to live
here."
"It's the nastiest sort of a town," remarked someone, who looked like
Sir John Falstaff.
"Work?" inquired another, with a surprised and interrogative stare at
the ceiling.--"And was man born into this world for that?"
Then all of them began to yell at once, demonstrating to Konováloff his
right to drink up everything, and even elevating that right to the rank
of an express obligation--to drink away his all precisely with them.
"Ah, Maxím," jested Konováloff, on catching sight of me.--"Come on,
now, you book-reader and pharisee, take your whack! I've jumped the
track for good, my lad. Don't say a word! I mean to drink until I
haven't a stitch of clothes to my back.... When nothing is left on my
body but the hair, I'll stop. Pitch in, too, won't you?"
He was not drunk, as yet, but his blue eyes flashed with desperate
excitement and sorrow, and his luxuriant beard, which fell over his
chest in a silky fan, kept moving to and fro, because his lower lip was
twitching with a nervous quiver. His shirt-collar was unbuttoned, tiny
drops of perspiration gleamed on his forehead, and the hand which he
stretched out to me with a glass of liquor shook.
"Drop it, Sásha, let's leave this place together," I said, laying my
hand on his shoulder.
"Drop it?...." he burst out laughing.--"If you had come to me ten
years ago and said that ... perhaps I would have dropped it. But now
it's better for me not to drop it.... What else is there for me to do?
What? You see, I feel, I feel every movement of life ... but I can't
understand anything, and I don't know my way ... I feel ... and I
drink, because there's nothing else I can do.... Have a drink!"
His companions stared at me with open disapproval, and all twelve of
their eyes surveyed my figure with anything but a conciliatory air.
The poor fellows were afraid that I would carry off Konováloff,--and
the treat, which they had been awaiting, perhaps, for a whole week.
"Brethren! This is my chum ... a learned fellow, devil take him!
Maxím, can you read to us here about Sténka?... Akh, comrades, what
books there are in the world! About Pilá?... Hey, Maxím!... Comrades,
it isn't a book, but blood and tears. But, you know, Pilá ... that's
myself? Maxím!... And Sysóika, I ... By God! How it's plain to me!"
He stared at me with widely-opened eyes, in which lay terror, and his
lower lip quivered strangely. The company, not very willingly, made
room for me at the table. I sat down beside Konováloff, just at the
moment when he seized a glass of beer and vódka, half and half.
Evidently, he wished to stun himself as speedily as possible with this
mixture. After taking a drink, he picked up from his plate a piece of
the stuff which looked like clay, but was really boiled meat, inspected
it, and flung it over his shoulder against the wall of the dram-shop.
The company grumbled in an undertone, like a pack of hungry dogs over a
bone.
"I'm a lost man.... Why did my mother and father bring me into the
world? Nothing is known ... Darkness! Stifling closeness! That's
all.... Goodbye, Maxím, if you won't drink with me. I won't go to the
bakery. I have some money owing me from the boss--get it, and give it
to me, I'll spend it for liquor.... No! Take it yourself, for books....
Will you take it? You don't want to? Then don't.... But won't you take
it? You're a pig, if that's the case.... Get away from me! G-go a-way!"
He was getting intoxicated, and his eyes gleamed fiercely. The company
was quite ready to fling me out from among them by the scruff of the
neck, and I, not caring to wait for that, took myself off.
Three hours later I was again in "The Little Wall." Konováloff's party
had been augmented by two men. They were all drunk, he--the least of
all. He was drinking with his elbows resting on the table, and staring
at the sky through the opening in the ceiling. The drunken men were
listening to him, in various attitudes, and several of them were
hiccoughing.
*
Konováloff was singing in a baritone voice, which passed into a
falsetto on the high notes, as is the case with all artisan singers.
Supporting his cheek on his hand, he was feelingly producing mournful
roulades, and his face was pale with emotion, his eyes were half
closed, his throat was curved forward. Eight drunken, senseless,
crimson faces were gazing at him, and only from time to time did the
muttering and hiccoughing make themselves heard. Konováloff's voice
vibrated and wept, and moaned, and it was a sight pitiful to the verge
of tears, to behold this magnificent fellow singing his melancholy lay.
The heavy smell, the sweaty, drunken, ugly faces, two smoking kerosene
lamps and the planks which formed the walls of the dram-shop, black
with dirt and soot, its earthen floor and the twilight which filled
that pit--all these things were gloomy and painfully fantastic. It
seemed as though men who had been buried alive were banqueting in a
sepulchre, and one of them was singing, for the last time, before his
death, and bidding farewell to the sky. Hopeless sadness, calm despair,
everlasting anguish resounded in my comrade's song.
"Is Maxím here? Do you want to come with me as my assistant officer of
bandits? Go, my friend!----" he said, breaking off his elegy, as he
offered me his hand.... "I'm all ready, my lad!... I've collected a
gang for myself ... here it is ... there'll be more men later on....
We'll find them! This is n-nothing! We'll call ourselves Pilá and
Sysóika.... And we'll feed them every day on buckwheat groats and roast
beef ... isn't that good? Will you go? Take your books with you ... you
shall read about Sténka and about other people.... Friend! Akh, I'm
disgusted, I'm disgusted ... dis-gus-ted!..."
He banged his fist down on the table, with all his might. The glasses
and bottle rattled, and the company, recovering its senses, immediately
filled the dram-shop with an uproar which was frightful in its
indecency.
"Drink, my lads!" shouted Konováloff. "Drink! Ease your hearts ... do
your uttermost!"
I retreated from them, stood in the door which opened on the street,
listened to Konováloff orating with a twisting tongue, and when he
began to sing again, I went off to the bakery, and his uncouth,
drunken song moaned and wept after me for a long time in the nocturnal
stillness.
Two days later, Konováloff vanished from the town.