I.

Vyézhaya (Entrance) Street consists of two rows of aged, one-story

hovels, squeezed closely one against the other, with leaning walls and

windows all awry; the hole-ridden roofs of these human habitations,

thus crippled by time, are mottled with patches of the inner bark of

the linden-tree, and overgrown with moss; above them, here and there,

project tall poles surmounted by starling-houses, and they are shaded

by the dusty verdure of elderberry bushes and crooked willows, the

scanty flora of the town suburbs inhabited by poverty.

The window-panes of the tiny houses, of a turbid-green hue through age,

stare at each other with the glances of cowardly sharpers. Up-hill,

through the middle of the street, crawls a winding cart-track, which

tacks back and forth among deep gullies, washed out by the rains. Here

and there lie heaps of broken bricks and other rubbish, overgrown

with high grass--representing the remnants or the beginnings of the

constructions, unsuccessfully undertaken by the inhabitants in their

fight with the floods of rain-water, which flow like torrents from

the town. Up above, on the crest of the hill, handsome stone houses

conceal themselves amid the luxuriant verdure of thick gardens, and

the belfries of churches rise proudly into the blue sky, their golden

crosses glitter dazzlingly in the sun.

During rains, the town sends its dirt down upon Vyézhaya Street; in

dry weather, it sprinkles it with dust,--and all these deformed little

houses look as though they, also, had been flung out of it, swept

forth, like rubbish, by some mighty hand.

Flattened down against the earth, they were sprinkled all over the

hill, half-decayed, infirm, decorated by sun, dust, and rain with that

dirty grayish hue which defies description that wood acquires with age.

At the extremity of this wretched street, flung out of the town to the

bottom of the hill, stood a long, two-story deserted house, which had

escheated to the town, and had been purchased from the town by merchant

Petúnnikoff. It was the last in the line, standing at the very foot

of the hill, and beyond it extended a wide plain, intersected, half a

verst from the house, by a steep declivity descending to the river.

This large and very aged house possessed the most gloomy aspect of all

among its neighbors. It was all askew, in its two rows of windows there

was not a single one which had preserved its regular shape, and the

splinters of glass in the shattered frames had the turbidly-greenish

hue of swamp water.

The walls between the windows were streaked with cracks and dark spots

of peeling stucco--as though time had written its biography on the

walls of the house in these hieroglyphs. The roof, which sloped toward

the street, still further increased its rueful aspect--it seemed as

though the house had bent down to the ground, and was submissively

awaiting from Fate the final blow which should convert it into dust,

into a shapeless heap of half-rotten fragments.

The gate stood open--one half of it, torn from its hinges, lay on the

ground, and through the crevices between its planks had sprouted the

grass, which thickly covered the desert courtyard of the house. At

the far end of this courtyard stood a low, smoke-begrimed building

with an iron roof, of one slant. The house itself was, of course,

uninhabitable, but in this building, which had formerly been the

blacksmith's shop, there was now installed a "night lodging-house,"

kept by Aristíd Fómitch Kuválda,[1] retired captain of cavalry.

[1] _Kuválda_ means a _mallet_; or, figuratively, _a

clown_.--Translator.

The interior of the night lodging-house presented a long, gloomy

burrow, four fathoms by ten; it was lighted on one side by four small,

square windows, and a broad door. Its unplastered brick walls were

black with soot, the ceiling, of barge-bottom wood,[2] was also smoked

until it was black; in the middle of the place stood a huge stove, for

which the forge served as foundation, and around the stove, and along

the walls, ran wide sleeping-shelves with heaps of all sorts of stuff,

which served the lodgers as beds. The wall reeked with smoke, the

earthen floor reeked with dampness, from the sleeping-shelves proceeded

an odor of sweaty and decaying rags.

[2] The barges for transporting wood, and so forth, on Russian rivers,

are put together with huge wooden pegs. After being unloaded, at their

destination, they are broken up, and the hole-riddled planks are sold

at a very low price.--Translator.

The quarters of the lodging-house's proprietor were on the stove; the

sleeping-shelves around the stove were the places of honor, and upon

them the night-lodgers who enjoyed the favor and friendship of the

proprietor disposed themselves.

The cavalry captain always spent the day at the door of the night

lodging-house, seated in something after the likeness of an arm-chair,

which he had put together, with his own hands, out of bricks; or

in the eating-house of Egór Vavíloff, which was situated slantwise

opposite the Petúnnikoff house; there the captain dined and drank vódka.

Before he hired these quarters, Aristíd Kuválda had had an employment

office for servants in the town; if we were to penetrate further back

in his past, we should discover that he had had a printing-office, and

before the printing-office he had--to use his own language--"simply

lived. And I lived magnificently, devil take it! I may say, that I

lived like a man who knows how!"

He was a broad-shouldered, tall man, fifty years of age, with a

pock-marked face which was bloated with intoxication, framed in a

broad, dirty-yellow beard. His eyes were gray, huge, audaciously

jolly; he spoke in a bass voice, with a rumbling in his throat,

and from his lips a German porcelain pipe, with a curved stem,

almost always projected. When he was angry, the nostrils of his

huge, hooked, bright-red nose became widely inflated, and his lips

quivered, revealing two rows of yellow teeth, as large as those of a

wolf. Long-armed, knock-kneed, always clad in a dirty and tattered

officer's cloak, a greasy cap with a red band but without a visor,

and in wretched felt boots, which reached to his knees--he was always

in a depressed state of drunken headache in the morning, while in the

evening he was jolly drunk. Drink as he would, he could not get dead

drunk, and he never lost his merry mood.

In the evenings, as he sat in his brick arm-chair, with his pipe in his

teeth, he received lodgers.

"Who are you?"--he inquired of the man who approached him, a tattered,

downtrodden individual who had been ejected from the town for

drunkenness, or who, for some other, no less solid reason, had gone

down hill.

The man replied.

"Present the legal document, in confirmation of your lies."

The document was presented, if there was one.[3] The captain thrust it

into his breast, rarely interesting himself in its contents, and said:

"Everything is in order. Two kopéks a night, ten kopéks a week, by

the month--thirty kopéks. Go and occupy a place, but look out that it

doesn't belong to somebody else, or you'll get thrashed. The people who

live in my house are stern...."

[3] "Document" or (literally) "paper," here, as often, means the

passport.--Translator.

Novices asked him:

"And you don't deal in bread, tea or anything eatable?"

"I deal only in a wall and a roof, and for that I pay my rascally

landlord, Judas[4] Petúnnikoff, merchant of the second Guild, five

rubles a month,"--explained Kuválda, in a business-like tone; "the

people who come to me are not used to luxury ... and if you are

accustomed to gobble every day,--there's the eating-house opposite. But

it would be better if you, you wreck, would break yourself of that bad

habit. You're not a nobleman, you know,--so why should you eat? Eat

yourself!"

[4] As the reader will perceive, later on, Petúnnikoff's name was not

_Iuda_ (Judas). This is Kuválda's sarcasm.--Translator.

For these and similar speeches, uttered in a tone of mock severity,

and always with laughing eyes, and for his courteous behavior to his

lodgers, the captain enjoyed wide popularity among the poor people

of the town. It often happened that a former patron of the captain

presented himself to him in the courtyard, no longer tattered and

oppressed, but in a more or less decent guise, and with a brisk

countenance.

"Good-day, your Well-Born! How's your health?"

"I'm well. I'm alive. Speak further."

"Don't you recognise me?"

"No."

"But you remember, I lived about a month with you in the winter ...

when that police round-up took place, and they gathered in three men!"

"We-ell now, brother, the police are constantly visiting my hospitable

roof!"

"Akh, oh Lord! It was the time when you made that insulting gesture at

the police-captain!"

"Wait, spit on all memories, and say simply, what do you want?"

"Won't you accept a little treat from me? When I lived with you that

time, you treated me, so...."

"Gratitude ought to be encouraged, my friend, for it is rarely met

with among men. You must be a fine young fellow, and although I don't

remember you in the least, I'll accompany you to the dram-shop with

pleasure, and drink to your success in life with delight."

"And you're just the same as ever ... always joking?"

"But what else could I do, living among you unfortunates?"

They went. Sometimes the captain's former patron returned to the

lodging-house completely unscrewed and shaken lose by the treat; on

the following day, they both treated each other again, and one fine

morning, the former patron awoke with the consciousness that he had

once more drunk up his last penny.

"Your Well-Born! A misfortune has befallen me! I've got into your squad

again. What am I to do now?"

"A situation on which you are not to be congratulated, but, since you

are in it, it's not proper to be stingy,"--argued the captain.--"You

must bear yourself with indifference toward everything, not spoiling

your life with philosophy, and not putting questions. It is always

stupid to philosophize, and to philosophize when one has a drunken

headache--is inexpressibly stupid. A drunken headache demands vódka,

and not gnawings of conscience and gnashing of teeth.?. spare your

teeth, or there won't be anything to beat you on. Here now, are twenty

kopéks for you,--go and bring a measure of vódka, five kopék's worth of

hot tripe or lights, a pound of bread, and two cucumbers. When we get

rid of our headache, we'll consider the situation of affairs."

The situation of affairs was defined with entire clearness, a couple

of days later, when the captain had not a kopék left out of the

three-ruble or five-ruble bank-note which he had had in his pocket on

the day when his grateful patron had made his appearance.

"We've arrived! Enough!"--said the cavalry captain. "Now that you and

I, you fool, have ruined ourselves with drink, let us try to enter

again upon the path of sobriety and virtue. How just is the saying: If

you don't sin, you don't repent, and if you don't repent, you won't be

saved. We have performed the first, but repentance is useless, so let's

save ourselves at once. Take yourself off to the river and work. If you

can't trust yourself, tell the contractor to retain your money, or give

it to me. When we have amassed a capital, I'll buy you some trousers

and the other things that are necessary to enable you to appear again

as a respectable and quiet toiler, persecuted by fate. In new trousers

you can go a long way! March!"

The patron took himself off to act as porter at the riverside, laughing

at the captain's long and wise speeches. He only dimly understood

their poignant wit, but he beheld before him the merry eyes, felt the

courageous spirit, and knew, that in the eloquent cavalry-captain he

had a hand which could uphold him in case of need.

And, as a matter of fact, after a month or two of hard labor the

patron, thanks to stem supervision of his conduct on the part of the

captain, was in possession of the material possibility of rising again

a step higher than the place to which he had descended through the

benevolent sympathy of that same captain.

"We-ell, my friend," said Kuválda, as he took a critical survey of his

restored patron,--"you have trousers and a pea-jacket. These articles

are of vast importance--trust my experience. As long as I had decent

trousers, I lived in the town, in the character of a respectable man,

but, devil take it, as soon as my trousers dropped off, I fell in

people's estimation, and was obliged to drop down here myself, from the

town. People, my very fine blockhead, judge of everything by its form,

but the essence of things is inaccessible to them, because of men's

inborn stupidity. Carve that on your nose, and when you have paid me

even one half of your debt, go in peace, and seek, and thou shalt find!"

"How much do I owe you, Aristíd Fómitch?" inquired the patron in

confusion.

"One ruble and seventy kopéks ... Now give me a ruble or seventy

kopéks, and I'll wait for the rest until you have stolen or earned more

than you have now."

"Thank you most sincerely for your kindness!" said the patron, much

affected. "What a good sort of fellow you are, really! Ekh, life did

wrong in treating you hardly.... I think you must have been a regular

eagle in your own place?!"

The captain could not exist without speeches of declamatory eloquence.

"What signifies 'in my own place?' No one knows his own place in life,

and everyone of us gets his head into someone else's harness. The place

for merchant Judas Petúnnikoff is among the hard-labor exiles, but he

walks about in broad day through the streets, and even wants to build

some sort of a factory. The place for our teacher is by the side of a

good wife, and in the midst of half a dozen children, but he is lying

around at Vavíloff's, in the dram-shop. And here are you--you're going

off to seek a place as a footman or a corridor-waiter,[5] but I see

that your place is among the soldiers, for you are stupid, you have

endurance, and you understand discipline. You see what sort of affair

it is? Life shuffles us like cards, and only accidentally--and that not

for long--do we fall into our own places!"

[5] This "corridor-waiter" in Russian hotels, prepares the samovár, or

makes coffee, in a small, up-stairs buffet, near the bedrooms of his

allotted section, and serres, with bread, butter and cream, or whatever

is ordered. It is also his duty to bring up all other meals which are

served in private rooms.--Translator.

Sometimes such conversations at parting served as prefaces to a

continuation of the acquaintance, which again began with a good

drinking-bout, and again reached the point where the patron had drunk

up his all, and was amazed; the captain gave him his revenge, and ...

both drank up their last penny.

Such repetitions of what had gone before, did not, in the least,

interfere with the kindly relations between the parties. The teacher

mentioned by the captain was precisely one of those patrons who had

reformed only to ruin himself again immediately. By his intellect, he

was a man who stood closer to the captain than all the rest, and,

possibly, it was precisely to this cause that he was indebted for the

fact that, after having descended to the night-lodging-house, he could

no longer raise himself.

With him alone could Aristíd Kuválda philosophize with the certainty

of being understood. He prized this, and when the reformed teacher

prepared to leave the lodging-house, after having earned a little

money, and with the intention of hiring a nook for himself in the

town,--Aristíd Kuválda escorted him with so much sorrow, spouted so

many melancholy tirades, that they both infallibly set out on a spree,

and drank up all they owned. In all probability, Kuválda deliberately

arranged the matter so that the teacher, despite all his desires,

could not get away from his lodging-house. Was it possible for Aristíd

Kuválda, a member of the gentry, with education, the remnants of which

even now glittered in his speech, from time to time, with a habit of

thinking developed by the vicissitudes of fate,--was it possible for

him not to desire and to try to behold always by his side a man of the

same sort as himself? We know how to have compassion on ourselves.

This teacher had once taught some branch in the Teachers' Institute of

some town on the Vólga, but, in consequence of several scrapes, had

been discharged from the institute. Then he had been a counting-house

clerk at a tanning factory, and had been obliged to quit that also.

He had been a librarian in some private library, he had tried a few

more professions, and, finally, after passing an examination as

attorney-at-law, he took to drinking like a fish, and hit upon the

cavalry captain. He was tall, round-shouldered, with a long, sharp

nose, and a perfectly bald head. In his bony, yellow face, with its

small, pointed beard, shone large, restlessly-melancholy eyes, deeply

sunk in their orbits, and the corners of his mouth drooped dolefully

downward. He earned his means of livelihood, or rather of drink, by

acting as reporter to the local newspapers. It did happen that he

earned as much as fifteen rubles a week. Then he gave the money to the

captain, and said:

"Enough! I'm going to return to the lap of culture. One week more of

work,--and I shall dress myself decently, and _addio, mio caro!_"

"Very laudable!... As I, from my soul, sympathize with your resolution,

Philip, I shall not give you a single glass during that entire

week,"--the captain gave him friendly warning.

"I shall be grateful!--You won't give even a single drop?"

The captain detected in his words something approaching a timid

entreaty for relaxation, and said, still more sternly:

"Even if you roar for it--I won't give it!"

"Well, that settles it"--sighed the teacher, and set off about his

reporting. A day later, or, at most, two days, defeated, weary and

thirsty he was staring at the captain from some nook, with mournful,

beseeching eyes, and waiting in trepidation, for the heart of his

friend to soften. The captain assumed a surly aspect, and uttered

speeches impregnated with deadly irony, on the theme of the disgrace of

having a weak character, about the beastly delight of drunkenness, and

on all other themes appropriate to the occasion. To do him justice--he

was sincerely carried away with his rôle as mentor and moralist; but

his steady customers at the night-lodging-house, being of a sceptical

cast of mind, said one to another, winking in the direction of the

captain, as they watched him and listened to his croaking speeches.

"The sly dog! He puts him off cleverly! 'I told you so,' says he, 'and

you wouldn't listen to me--now you may thank yourself!'"

But the teacher caught his friend somewhere in a dark corner, and

tightly clutching his dirty cloak, trembling all over, licking his dry

lips, he gazed in his face with a deeply-tragic glance inexpressible in

words.

"You can't?"--inquired the captain morosely.

The teacher nodded, in silent assent, and then dropped his head

dejectedly on his breast, trembling all over his long, gaunt body.

"Hold out one day more ... perhaps you'll reform?" suggested Kuválda.

The teacher sighed, and shook his head negatively, hopelessly. The

captain saw that his friend's gaunt body was all quivering with thirst

for the poison, and pulled the money out of his pocket.

"In the majority of cases, it is useless to contend with destiny,"--he

remarked as he did so, as though desirous of justifying himself to

someone.

But if the teacher did hold out the entire week, a touching scene of

the farewell of friends was enacted between him and the captain, and

its final act usually took place in Vavíloff's eating-house.

The teacher did not drink up the whole of his money: he spent at least

half of it on the children in Vyézhaya Street. Poor people are always

rich in children, and in this street, in its dust and holes, swarms

of dirty, tattered and half-starved little brats moved restlessly and

noisily about, all day long, from morning till night.

Children are the living flowers of earth, but in Vyézhaya Street they

had the appearance of flowers which had withered prematurely; it must

have been because they grew on soil which was poor in healthy juices.

So the teacher often collected them about him, and having purchased

rolls, eggs, apples and nuts, he walked with them into the fields, to

the river. There they disposed themselves on the ground, and, first

of all, hungrily devoured everything the teacher offered them, and

then began to play, filling the air for a whole verst[6] round about

with their careless noise and laughter. The long, gaunt figure of the

drunkard somehow shrunk together in the midst of these little folks,

who treated him with entire familiarity, as one of their own age. They

even addressed him simply as Philip, without adding to his name "uncle"

or "little uncle." As they flitted swiftly around him, they jostled

him, sprang upon his back, slapped him on his bald head, seized him

by the nose. All this must have delighted him, for he did not protest

against such liberties. On the whole, he talked very little with them,

and if he did speak, he did it as cautiously and even timidly as though

his words might spot them, or, in general, do them harm. He passed

several hours at a time, in the rôle of their plaything and comrade,

surveying their animated little faces with his mournfully-sad eyes, and

then, thoughtfully and slowly, he went away from them to Vavíloff's

tavern, and there, quickly and silently, he drank himself into a state

of unconsciousness.

[6] A verst is two-thirds of a mile.--Translator.

*

Almost every day, on his return from his reportorial work, the teacher

brought with him a newspaper, and a general assembly of all the men

with pasts formed around him. On catching sight of him, they moved

toward him from the various nooks of the courtyard, in an intoxicated

condition, or suffering from drunken headaches, diversely dishevelled,

but all equally wretched and dirty.

Alexéi Maxímovitch Símtzoff came: he was as fat as a cask, had been a

forester in the service of the Crown Estates, but was now a peddler

of matches, ink, blacking, and refuse lemons. He was an old man of

fifty, clad in a sail-cloth great-coat, and a broad-brimmed hat, which

sheltered his fat, red face, with its thick, white beard, from amid

which his tiny, crimson nose and his thick lips of the same color, and

his tearful, cynical little eyes peered forth upon God's world. They

called him "The Peg-top"; and this nickname accurately described his

round figure, and his speech, which resembled the humming of a top.

From somewhere in a corner, "The End" crawled forth,--a gloomy, taciturn

and desperate drunkard, formerly prison-superintendent Luká Antónovitch

Martyánoff, a man who subsisted by gambling at "Little Belt," at "Three

Little Leaves," at "Little Bank," and by other arts, equally witty, and

equally disliked by the police. He lowered his heavy body, which had

been more than once soundly beaten, heavily upon the grass, alongside

the teacher, flashed his black eyes, and stretching out his hand for

the bottle, inquired in a hoarse bass voice:

"May I?"

Mechanician Pável Sólntzeff made his appearance, a consumptive man,

thirty years of age. His left side had been smashed in a fight, and his

yellow, sharp face, like that of a fox, was constantly contorted by a

venomous smile. His thin lips disclosed two rows of yellow teeth, which

had been ruined by illness, and the rags on his narrow, bony shoulders

fluttered as though from a clothes-rack. His nickname was "The Gnawed

Bone." His business consisted in peddling linden-bast brushes, of his

own manufacture, and switches made of a certain sort of grass, which

were very convenient for cleaning clothes.

There came, also, a tall, bony man, of unknown extraction, with a

frightened expression in his large, round eyes, the left of which

squinted,--a taciturn, timid fellow, who had thrice been incarcerated

for theft, on the sentence of the judge of the peace, and the district

judge. His surname was Kisélnikoff, but he was called Tarás-and-a-Half,

because he was exactly one half taller than his inseparable friend,

Deacon Tarás, who had been unfrocked for drunkenness and depraved

conduct. The deacon was a short, thick man, with the chest of an epic

hero, and a round, shaggy head. He danced wonderfully well, and was

even more wonderful in his use of ribald language. He, in company

with Tarás-and-a-Half, had selected for his specialty wood-sawing on

the bank of the river, and in his leisure hours the deacon was wont

to narrate to his friend, and to anyone who cared to listen, tales

"of his own composition," as he announced. As they listened to these

tales, the heroes of which were always saints, kings, priests, and

generals, even the inhabitants of the night lodging-house spat with

squeamishness, and opened their eyes to their full extent in amazement

at the fantasies of the deacon, who narrated, with his eyes screwed

up, and with a dispassionate countenance, astonishingly shameless

things, and foully-fantastic adventures. The imagination of this man

was inexhaustible,--he could invent and talk all day long, from morning

till night, and never repeated himself, In his person a great poet may

have perished, possibly, or, at any rate, a remarkable story-teller,

who knew how to animate everything, and even invested the stones with a

soul by his vile but picturesque and powerful words.

There was also an awkward sort of youth, whom Kuválda called The

Meteor. One day he had made his appearance to spend the night, and from

that day forth he had remained among these men, to their astonishment.

At first they did not notice him,--by day, like the rest of them, he

went off to seek his livelihood, but in the evening he clung about this

amicable company, and at last the captain noticed him.

"Little boy! What are you doing in this land?"

The little boy answered boldly and briefly:

"I'm ... a tramp...."

The captain eyed him over critically. He was a longhaired young fellow,

with a rather foolish face, with high cheek-bones, adorned with a snub

nose. He wore a blue blouse without a belt, and on his head was stuck

the remains of a straw hat. His feet were bare.

"You're--a fool!" Aristíd Kuválda pronounced his decision.--"What axe

you knocking about here for? You're of no use to us.... Do you drink

vódka? No ... Well, and do you know how to steal? No, again. Go and

learn, and then come back when you have become a man...."

The young fellow laughed.

"No, I think I'll go on living with you."

"What for?"

"Oh, because...."

"Akh, you ... Meteor!" said the captain.

"Come, now, I'll knock his teeth out for him, in a minute," suggested

Martyánoff.

"And what for?" inquired the captain.

"Nothing...."

"And I'll take a stone and smash you over the head,"--announced the

young fellow deferentially.

Martyánoff would have given him a drubbing, had not Kuválda intervened.

"Let him alone.... He's a sort of relation to you, and to all of us, I

think. You want to knock his teeth out without sufficient foundation;

he, like yourself, wants to live with us, without sufficient

foundation. Well, and devil take him.... We all live without sufficient

foundation for it.... We live, but what for? Because! And he, also,

because ... let him alone."

"But you'd better go away from us, young man," advised the teacher,

surveying the young fellow with his mournful eyes.

The latter made no reply, and remained. Later on, they got used to

him, and ceased to notice him. But he lived among them, and observed

everything.

All the individuals enumerated above constituted the captain's General

Staff, and he, with good-humored irony, called them "the have-beens."

In addition to them, five or six men constantly inhabited the night,

lodging-house--ordinary tramps. They were men from the country, they

could not boast of any such pasts as "the have-beens," and although

they, no less than the rest, had experienced the vicissitudes of fate,

yet they were more unadulterated folks than those, not so horribly

shattered. It is possible that a respectable man of the cultured

class is higher than the same sort of man of the peasant class, but

the depraved man from a town is always immeasurably more foul and

disgusting than a depraved man from the country. This rule was made

sharply apparent by comparing the former educated men with the former

peasants who inhabited Kuválda's refuge.

An old rag-gatherer, Tyápa by name, was a conspicuous representative

of the former peasants. Long, and thin to deformity, he held his head

in such a manner that his chin rested on his chest, so that his shadow

reminded one, by its shape, of an oven-fork. From the front, his face

was not visible, in profile, nothing was to be seen except an aquiline

nose, a pendulous lower lip, and shaggy, gray eyebrows. He was the

captain's first lodger, in point of time, and they said of him that he

had a lot of money concealed somewhere. Precisely on account of this

money they had "scraped" his throat with a knife two years before, and

from that day forth he had hung his head in that strange manner. He

denied the existence of the money, he said that "they had scratched him

simply for nothing, out of impudence," and that since then he had found

it very convenient to gather rags and bones--his head was constantly

bent earthward. As he walked along, with a swaying, uncertain gait,

without a stick in his hand or a sack on his back--the insignia of his

profession--he looked like a man who was meditative to the point of

losing consciousness, but Kuválda was wont to say, at such moments,

pointing his finger at him:

"See there, it's the conscience of merchant Judas Petúnnikoff, which

has run away from him, and is seeking a refuge for itself! See how

frayed, and vile, and filthy that runaway conscience is!"

Tyápa spoke in a harsh voice, which hardly permitted one to understand

his remarks, and it must have been for that reason that he rarely

talked, and was very fond of solitude. But every time that some fresh

example of a man, who had been forced out of the country by poverty,

made his appearance in the night lodging-house, Tyápa, at the sight

of him, fell into melancholy ire and uneasiness. He persecuted the

unfortunate man with caustic jeers, which emerged from his throat in a

vicious rattle; he set some malicious tramp on him, and, in conclusion,

he threatened to thrash him with his own hands, and rob him by night,

and he almost always managed to make the frightened and disconcerted

peasant disappear from the lodging-house and never appear there again.

Then Tyápa calmed down, and tucked himself away in a corner, where

he mended his rags, or read a Bible, which was as old, dirty, and

tattered as himself. He crawled out of his nook again when the teacher

brought the newspaper and read it aloud. Generally, Tyápa listened to

all that was read in silence, and sighed deeply, asking no questions

about anything. But when the teacher folded up the paper, after he had

finished reading it, Tyápa extended his bony hand, and said:

"Give it to me...."

"What do you want with it?"

"Give it ... perhaps there's something about us in in...."

"About whom?"

"About the village...."

They laughed at him, and flung the paper at him. He took it, and read

that in such and such a village the grain had been beaten down by hail,

and in another thirty houses had been burned, and in a third a woman

had poisoned her family--everything which it is customary to write

about the country, and which depicts it as merely unfortunate, silly,

and evil. Tyápa read all this in a dull tone, and bellowed, expressing

by this sound, possibly compassion, possibly satisfaction.

He spent the greater part of Sunday, on which day he never went out to

gather rags, in reading his Bible. As he read, he bellowed and sighed.

He held the book supported on his chest, and was angry when anyone

touched it, or interfered with his reading.

"Hey, there, you necromancer,"--Kuválda said to him,--"what do you

understand? Drop it!"

"And what do you understand?"

"Just so, you sorcerer! Neither do I understand anything; but then, I

don't read books...."

"But I do read them...."

"Well, and you're stupid," ...--declared the captain.--"When insects

breed in the head, it's uncomfortable, but if thoughts crawl in it

also,--how will you live, you old toad?"

"Well, my time isn't very long,"--said Tyápa calmly.

One day the teacher tried to find out where he had learned to read and

write. Tyápa answered him curtly:

"In jail."

"Have you been there?"

"Yes...."

"What for?"

"Nothing.... I made a mistake.... And I brought this Bible from there.

A lady gave it to me.... The jail is a nice place, brother...."

"You don't say so? How's that?"

"It teaches you.... You see, I learned to read and write there.... I

got a book.... Everything ... is gratis...."

When the teacher made his appearance in the lodging-house, Tyápa

had already been living in it a long time. He stared long at the

teacher,--in order to look in a man's face Tyápa bent his whole body to

one side,--listened long to his remarks, and one day he sat down beside

him.

"Now, you're one of those ... you've been learned.... Have you read

the Bible?"

"Yes...."

"Exactly so.... Do you remember it?"

"Well ... yes...."

The old man bent his body on one side, and gazed at the teacher with

his gray, sullen, distrustful eyes.

"And do you remember whether there were Amalekites there?"

"Well?"

"Where are they now?"

"They have disappeared, Tyápa ... died out...."

The old man said nothing for a while, then asked another question:

"And the Philistines?"

"It's the same with them."

"Have they all died off?"

"Yes ... all...."

"Exactly.... And we shall all die off?"

"The time will come when we, also, shall die off,"--the teacher

predicted with indifference.

"And from which of the tribes of Israel do we come?"

The teacher looked at him, reflected, and then began to tell him about

the Cimmerians, the Scythians, the Huns, the Slavs.... The old man

curved himself still more on one side, and stared at him with terrified

eyes.

"You're inventing all that!"--he said hoarsely, when the teacher had

finished.

"Why am I inventing?"--asked the other, in surprise.

"What did you tell me the names of those people were? They're not in

the Bible."

He rose and went away, deeply offended, and muttering angrily.

"You've outlived your mind, Tyápa," the teacher called after him, with

conviction.

Then the old man turned again toward him, and stretching out his arm,

he menaced him with his hooked and dirty finger:

"Adam came from the Lord, and the Hebrews descended from Adam, which

signifies that all men are descended from the Hebrews.... And we,

also...."

"Well?"

"The Tatárs came from Ishmael ... and he came from a Hebrew...."

"Yes, but what do you want?"

"Nothing! Why did you lie?"

And he went away, leaving his interlocutor dumfounded. But a couple

of days later he again sat down beside him.

"You've had education ... well, and you ought to know--who are we?"

"Slavonians, Tyápa,"--replied the teacher, and began attentively to

await Tyápa's words, being desirous of understanding him.

"Speak according to the Bible--there are no such folks there. Who

are we--Babylonians? Or from Edom?" The teacher launched out upon

a criticism of the Bible. The old man listened to him long and

attentively, and interrupted:

"Hold on ... stop that! You mean to say, that among the people known

to God, there aren't any Russians? Are we people who aren't known to

God? Is that it? Those who are inscribed in the Bible--those the Lord

knew.... He annihilated them with fire and sword, he destroyed their

towns and villages, but he also sent the prophets to them, for their

instruction ... that is to say, he had pity on them. He dispersed the

Hebrews and the Tatárs, but he preserved them.... But how about us? Why

haven't we any prophets?

"I--I don't know!"--said the teacher slowly, trying to understand the

old man. But the latter laid his hand on the teacher's shoulder, began

to push him gently to and fro, and said hoarsely, as though he were

endeavoring to swallow something:

"Tell me, now!... You talk a great deal, as though you knew everything.

It disgusts me to listen to you ... you muddle my soul.... You'd better

have held your tongue!... Who are we? Exactly! Why haven't we any

prophets? Aha!--And where were we when Christ walked the earth? You

see! Ekh, you stupid! And you keep on lying ... could a whole nation

die out? The Russian people can't disappear--you're lying ... ifs

written down in the Bible, only it isn't known under what word.... You

know the nation, what ifs like? Ifs huge.... How many villages are

there on the earth? The whole nation lives there ... a genuine, great

nation.... And you say--it will die out.... A nation can't die out, a

man may ... but a nation is necessary to God, he is the creator of the

earth. The Amalekites didn't die--they're the Germans or the French

... but you ... ekh, you liar!... Come, now, tell me why God has passed

us over? Haven't we any treasure or prophets from the Lord? Who teaches

us?...."

Tyápa's speech was strangely forceful; ridicule, and reproach, and

profound faith resounded in it. He talked for a long time, and the

teacher, who was, as usual, the worse for liquor, and in a peaceable

mood, finally felt as uncomfortable in listening to him as though he

were being sawed in twain with a wooden saw. He listened to the old

man, watched his distorted countenance, felt this strange, crushing

power of words, and, all of a sudden, he felt sorry to the verge of

pain, for himself, and sad over something. He, also, felt a desire

to say something powerful, something confident, to the old man,

something which would interest Tyápa in his favor, would make him talk

not in that reproachfully-surly tone, but in a different,--a soft,

paternally-affectionate one. And the teacher felt something gurgling in

his breast, rising in his throat ... but he could find in himself no

powerful words.

"What sort of a man are you?... your soul is torn to rags ... and you

have said various words.... As though you knew.... You'd better have

held your tongue...."

"Ekh, Tyápa,"--exclaimed the teacher sadly,--"what you say is true....

And it's true ... about the nation!... It's huge ... but I am a

stranger to it ... and it's strange to me.... That's where the tragedy

of my life lies.... But--let me go! I shall suffer.... And there are no

prophets ... none!... I really do talk a great deal ... and that's of

no use to anybody.... But I will hold my tongue ... only, don't talk to

me like that.... Ekh, old man! you don't know ... you don't know ...

you can't understand...."

The teacher began to weep at last. He wept so easily and freely, with

such an abundance of tears, that he felt terribly pleased at the tears.

"You ought to go into a village ... you might ask for the place of

teacher or scribe there ... and you'd get enough to eat, and you'd get

aired. Why do you tarry?"--croaked Tyápa surlily.

But the teacher continued to weep, enjoying his tears.

From that time forth they became friends, and when the Men with Pasts

saw them together they said:

"The teacher's running after Tyápa ... he's steering his course to the

money."

"Kuválda put him up to that.... 'Find out,' says he, 'where the old

fellow's capital is....'"

It is possible that, when they talked thus, they thought otherwise.

There was one absurd characteristic about these men: they were fond

of displaying themselves, one to another, as worse than they were in

reality.

A man who has nothing good in him sometimes is not averse to strutting

in his bad qualities.

*

When all these men had assembled around the teacher with his newspaper,

the reading began.

"Well, sir," said the captain, "what does that nasty little newspaper

discuss to-day? Is there a feuilleton?"

"No," answered the teacher.

"Your publisher is getting grasping.... And is there a leading article?"

"Yes, there is one to-day ... Gulyáeff's, apparently."

"Aha! Let's have it; that rascal writes sensibly; he has an eye as

sharp as a nail."

"Assessment of real estate," reads the teacher.

"The appraisal of real estate,"--reads the teacher,--"which was made

more than fifteen years ago, and continues to serve at the present time

as the basis for the collection of an assessment, for the benefit of

the town...."

"That's ingenious,"--comments Captain Kuválda;--"'continues to serve'!

That's ridiculous. It's profitable for the merchant who runs the

town to have it continue to serve; well, and so it does continue to

serve...."

"The article is written on that theme,"--says the teacher.

"Yes? Strange! That's the theme for a feuilleton ... it must be written

about in a peppery way."

A small dispute blazes up. The audience listens attentively to him, for

only one bottle of vódka has been drunk thus far. After the leading

article, the city items and the court record are read. If a merchant

appears in these criminal sections either as an active or a suffering

personality--Aristíd Kuválda sincerely exults. If the merchant has

been plundered--very fine, only, it's a pity that he was robbed of so

little. If his horses have smashed him up,--it's delightful news, only

it's a great shame that he is still alive. If a merchant has lost his

suit in court,--magnificent, but it's sad that the court costs were not

imposed upon him in double measure.

"That would have been illegal,"--remarks the teacher.

"Illegal? But is the merchant himself legal?"--inquires Kuválda

bitterly.--"What's a merchant? Let us examine that coarse and awkward

phenomenon: first of all, every merchant is a peasant. He makes his

appearance from the village, and, after the lapse of a certain time,

he becomes a merchant. In order to become a merchant, he must have

money. Where can the peasant get money? It is well known that money is

not the reward of the labors of the upright. Hence, the peasant has

played the scoundrel, in one way or another. Hence, a merchant is a

scoundrelly-peasant!"

"That's clever!"--the audience expresses its approval of the orator's

deduction.

But Tyápa roars, as he rubs his chest. He roars in exactly the same way

when he drinks his first glass of vódka to cure his drunken headache.

The captain is radiant. The letters from correspondents are read. These

contain, for the captain, "an overflowing sea," to use his own words.

Everywhere he sees how evil a thing the merchant is making of life, and

how cleverly he crushes and spoils it. His speeches thunder out, and

annihilate the merchant. They listen to him with satisfaction in their

eyes, because he swears viciously.

"If only I wrote for the newspapers!"--he exclaims.--"Oh, I'd show up

the merchant in his true light ... I'll demonstrate that he's only an

animal, temporarily discharging the functions of a man. I understand

him! He? He's rough, he's stupid, he has no taste in life, he has

no idea of the fatherland, and knows nothing more elevated than a

five-kopék coin."

The Gnawed Bone, who knew the captain's weak side, and was fond of

exasperating people, put in venomously: "Yes, ever since the time

when noblemen began unanimously to die of starvation--real men are

disappearing from life...."

"You're right, you son of a spider and a toad; yes, ever since the

nobles fell, there are no people! There are only merchants ... and I

ha-a-ate them!"

"That's easily understood, because you, brother, also have been trodden

into dust by them...."

"I? I was ruined through my love of life ... you fool! I loved life.--.

but the merchant plunders it. I can't endure him, for precisely that

reason ... and not because I'm a nobleman. I'm not a nobleman, if you

want to know it, but simply a man who has seen better days. I don't

care a fig now for anything or anybody ... and all life is to me a

mistress who has abandoned me ... for which I despise her, and am

profoundly indifferent to her."

"You lie!"--says The Gnawed Bone.

"I lie?"--yells Aristíd Kuválda, red with wrath.

"Why shout?"--rings out Martyánoff's cold, gloomy bass.--"Why dispute?

What do we care for either merchant or nobleman?"

"Inasmuch as we are neither one thing nor the other," interpolates the

deacon.

"Stop it, Gnawed Bone,"--says the teacher pacifically.--"Why salt a

herring?"

He did not like quarrels, and, in general, did not like noise. When

passions flared up around him, his lips were contorted in a painful

grimace, and he calmly and persuasively endeavored to reconcile

everybody with everybody else, and if he did not succeed in this, he

left the company. Knowing this, the captain, if he was not particularly

drunk, would restrain himself, as he was not desirous of losing, in

the person of the teacher, the best listener to his speeches.

"I repeat,"--he continues, more quietly,--"I behold life in the hands

of enemies, enemies not only of the noblemen, but enemies of every

well-born man, greedy enemies, incapable of adorning life in any

way...."

"Nevertheless, brother,"--says the teacher,--"the merchants created

Genoa, Venice, Holland,--it was merchants, the merchants of England who

won India for their country, the Counts Stróganoff...."[7]

[7] Yermák Timoféevitch, the conqueror of Siberia, was in the service

of the Counts Stróganoff.--Translator.

"What have I to do with those merchants? I have in view Judas

Petúnnikoff, and along with him...."

"And what have you to do with them?" asks the teacher softly.

"Am not I alive? Aha! I am--hence I must feel indignant at the sight of

the way in which the savage people who fill it are spoiling it."

"And they laugh at the noble indignation of the cavalry captain, and

of the man on the retired list," teased The Gnawed Bone.

"Good! It's stupid, I agree.... As a man who has seen better days, I am

bound to obliterate in myself all the feelings and thoughts which were

formerly mine. That's true, I admit.... But wherewith shall I and all

of you--wherewith shall we arm ourselves, if we discard these feelings?"

"Now you're beginning to talk sensibly," the teacher encourages him.

"We require something else, different views of life, different feelings

... we require something new ... for we ourselves are a novelty in

life...."

"We undoubtedly do require that,"--says the teacher.

"Why?"--inquires The End.--"Isn't it all the same what we say or think?

We haven't long to live ... I'm forty years old, you're fifty ... not

one among us is under thirty. And even at twenty, you wouldn't live

long such a life."

"And how are we a novelty?"--grins The Gnawed Bone.--"The naked

brigade has always existed."

"And it founded Rome,"--says the teacher.

"Yes, of course,"--exults the captain.--"Romulus and Remus,--weren't

they members of the Golden Squad of robbers? And we, also, when our

hour comes, will found...."

"A breach of the public tranquillity and peace," interpolates The

Gnawed Bone. He laughs loudly, pleased with himself. His laugh is evil,

and soul-rending. Símtzoff, the deacon, and Tarás-and-a-Half join in.

The ingenuous eyes of the dirty little lad Meteor burn with clear

flame, and his cheeks flush. The End says, exactly as though he were

pounding on their heads with a hammer:

"All that's nonsense ... dreams ... rubbish!"

It was strange to see these people, driven out of life, tattered,

impregnated, with vódka and wrath, irony and dirt, thus engaged in

discussion.

To the captain such conversations were decidedly a feast for the heart.

He talked more than anybody else, and this afforded him the opportunity

of thinking himself better than all the rest. But, no matter how

low a man has fallen,--he will never deny himself the delight of

feeling himself stronger, more sensible, although even better fed

than his neighbor. Aristíd Kuválda abused this delight, but did not

get surfeited with it, to the dissatisfaction of The Gnawed Bone, The

Peg-top, and other "Have-beens," who took very little interest in such

questions.

But, on the other hand, politics was a universal favorite. A

conversation on the theme of the imperative necessity that India

should be conquered, or about the repression of England, might go on

interminably. With no less passion did they discuss the means for

radically exterminating the Hebrews from the face of the earth, but

in this question The Gnawed Bone always got the upper hand, and had

concocted wonderfully harsh projects, and the captain, who always

wished to be the leading personage, avoided this theme. They talked

readily, much, and evilly of women, but the teacher always came to

their rescue, and got angry if they smeared it on too thickly. They

yielded to him, for they all regarded him as an extraordinary man, and

they borrowed from him, on Saturdays, the money which he had earned

during the week.

Altogether, he enjoyed many privileges: for example, they did not beat

him on those rare occasions when the discussion wound up in a universal

thrashing match. He was permitted to bring women to the night

lodging-house; no one else enjoyed that right, for the captain warned

everyone:

"Don't you bring any women to my house.... Women, merchants, and

philosophy are the three causes of my had luck. I'll give any man a

sound drubbing whom I see making his appearance with a woman ... and

I'll thrash the woman too.... For indulging in philosophy, I'll tear

off the offender's head...."

He could tear off a head: in spite of his age, he possessed astonishing

strength. Moreover, every time that he fought, he was aided by

Martyánoff. Gloomy and taciturn as a grave-stone, when a general fight

was in progress the latter always placed himself back to back with

Kuválda, and then they formed an all-destroying and indestructible

machine.

One day, drunken Símtzoff, without rhyme or reason, wound his talons in

the teacher's hair and pulled out a lock of it. Kuválda, with one blow

of his fist, laid him out senseless for half an hour, and when he came

to himself he made him eat the teacher's hair. The man ate it, fearing

that he would be beaten to death.

In addition to reading the newspaper, discussions, and fighting,

card-playing formed one of their diversions. They played without

Martyánoff, because he could not play honestly, which he announced

himself, after he had been caught several times cheating.

"I can't help smuggling a card.... It's my habit...."

"That does happen,"--deacon Tarás confirmed his statement.--"I got into

the habit of beating my wife after the Liturgy on Sundays; so, you

know, when she died, such sadness overpowered me on Sundays as is even

incredible. I lived through one Sunday, and I saw that things were

bad! Another--I bore it. On the third--I hit my cook one blow.... She

took offence.... 'I'll hand you over to the justice of the peace,' says

she. Imagine my position! On the fourth Sunday I thrashed her as though

she were my wife! Then I paid her ten rubles, and went on beating her

after the plan I had established until I got married...."[8]

[8] The Parish (or White) Clergy, in the Holy Orthodox Church of the

East, beginning with the rank of Sub-Deacon, must be married--and must

be married before they are ordained. They cannot marry again. This rule

ceases with an Arch-Priest, which is the highest rank attainable by the

White Clergy. Bishops must be celibates.--Translator.

"Deacon,--you lie! How could you marry a second time?"--The Gnawed Bone

interrupted him.

"Hey? Why I did it so ... she looked after my household affairs...."

"Did you have any children?"--the teacher asked him.

"Five.... One was drowned.... The eldest, ... he was an amusing little

boy! Two died of diphtheria.... One daughter married some student or

other, and went with him to Siberia, and the other wanted to educate

herself, and died in Peter[9] ... of consumption, they say.... Ye-es

... there were five of them ... of course! We ecclesiastics are

fruitful...."

[9] The colloquial abbreviation for St. Petersburg.--Translator.

He began to explain precisely why this was so, arousing homeric

laughter by his narration. When they had laughed until they were tired,

Alexéi Maxímovitch Símtzoff remembered that he, also, had a daughter.

"Her name was Lídka.... She was such a fat girl...."

And it must have been that he could recall nothing further, for he

stared at them all, smiled apologetically ... and stopped talking.

These people talked little with one another about their pasts, referred

to them very rarely, and always in general terms, and in a more or less

sneering tone. Possibly, such an attitude toward the past was wise,

for, to the majority of people, the memory of the past relaxes energy

in the present, and undermines hope for the future.

*

But on rainy, overcast, cold days of autumn, these people with pasts

assembled in Vavíloff's tavern. There they were known, somewhat feared,

as thieves and bullies, rather despised as desperate drunkards, but, at

the same time, they were respected and listened to, being regarded as

very clever people. Vavíloff's tavern was the Club of Vyézhaya Street,

and the men with pasts were the intelligent portion of the Club.

On Saturday evenings, on Sundays from morning until night, the tavern

was full, and the people with a past were welcome guests there. They

brought with them, into the midst of the inhabitants of the street,

ground down with poverty and woe, their spirit, which contained some

element that lightened the lives of these people, exhausted and

distracted in their pursuit of a morsel of bread, drunkards of the same

stamp as the denizens of Kuválda's refuge, and outcasts from the town

equally with them. Skill in talking about everything and ridiculing

everything, fearlessness of opinion, harshness of speech, the absence

of fear in the presence of that which the entire street feared, the

challenging audacity of these men--could not fail to please the street.

Moreover, nearly all of them knew the laws, were able to give any bit

of advice, write a petition, help in cheating with impunity. For all

this they were paid with vódka, and flattering amazement at their

talents.

In their sympathies, the street was divided into two nearly equal

parties: one asserted that the "captain was a lot more of a man than

the teacher, a real warrior! His bravery and brains were huge!" The

other party was convinced that the teacher, in every respect, "tipped

the scales" over Kuválda. Kuválda's admirers were those petty burghers

who were known to the street as thoroughgoing drunkards, thieves,

and hair-brained fellows, to whom the path from the beggar's wallet

to the prison did not seem a dangerous road. The teacher was admired

by the more steady-going people, who cherished hopes of something,

who expected something, who were eternally busy about something, and

were rarely full-fed. The character of the relations of Kuválda and

the teacher toward the street is accurately defined by the following

example. One day, the subject under discussion in the tavern was an

ordinance of the city council, by which the inhabitants of Vyézhaya

Street were bound: to fill up the ruts and holes in their street, but

not to employ manure and the corpses of domestic animals for that

purpose, but to apply to that end only broken bricks and rubbish from

the place where some buildings were in process of erection.

"Where am I to get those same broken bricks, if, during the whole

course of my life I never have wanted to build anything but a

starling-house, and haven't yet got ready even for that?"--plaintively

remarked Mokéi Anísimoff, a man who peddled rusks, which his wife baked

for him.

The captain felt himself called upon to express his opinion upon the

matter in hand, and banged his fist down upon the table, thereby

attracting attention to himself.

"Where are you to get broken bricks and rubbish? Go, my lads, the

whole street-full of you, into town, and pull down the city hall. It's

so old that it's not fit for anything. Thus you will render double

service in beautifying the town--you will make Vyézhaya Street decent,

and you will force them to build a new city hall. Take the Mayor's

horses to cart the stuff, and seize his three daughters--they're

girls thoroughly suited to harness. Or tear down the house of Judas

Petúnnikoff, and pave the street with wood. By the way, Mokéi, I know

what your wife used to-day to bake your rolls:--the shutters from the

third window, and two steps from the porch of Judas' house."

When the audience had laughed their fill and had exercised their wits

on the captain's proposition, staid market-gardener Pavliúgin inquired:

"But what are we to do, anyway, Your Well-Born? ... Hey? What do you

think?..."

"I? Don't move hand or foot! If the street gets washed away--well, let

it!"

"Several houses are about to tumble down...."

"Don't hinder them, let them tumble down! If they do--squeeze a

contribution out of the town; if it won't give it,--go ahead and sue

it! Whence does the water flow? From the town? Well, then the town is

responsible for the destruction of the houses...."

"They say the water comes from the rains...."

"But the houses in the town don't tumble down on account of that? Hey?

It extorts taxes from you, and gives you no voice in discussing your

rights! It ruins your lives and your property, and then makes you do

the repairs! Thrash it from the front and the rear!"

And one half of the street, convinced by the radical Kuválda, decided

to wait until their wretched hovels should be washed away by rain-water

from the town.

The more sedate persons found in the teacher a man who drew up a

capital and convincing statement to the city council on their behalf.

In this statement the refusal of the street to comply with the city

council's ordinance was so solidly founded that the council granted

it. The street was permitted to use the rubbish which was left over

from repairs to the barracks, and five horses from the fire-wagon were

assigned to them to cart it.[8] More than this--it was recognized as

indispensable that, in due course, a drain-pipe should be laid through

the street. This, and many other things, created great popularity in

the street for the teacher. He wrote petitions, printed remarks in the

newspapers. Thus, for example, one day Vavíloff's patrons noticed that

the herrings and other victuals in Vavíloff's tavern were entirely

unsuited to their purpose. And so, two days later, as Vavíloff stood at

his lunch-counter, newspaper in hand, he publicly repented.

"It's just--that's the only thing I can say! It's a fact that I did buy

rusty herrings, herrings that weren't quite good. And the cabbage--had

rather forgotten itself ... that's so! Everybody knows that every man

wants to chase as many five-kopék pieces into his pocket as possible.

Well, and what of that? It has turned out exactly the other way; I made

the attempt, and a clever man has held me up to public scorn for my

greed.... Quits!"

This repentance produced a very good impression on the public, and

furnished Vavíloff with the opportunity of feeding the public with the

herrings and the cabbage, and all this the public devoured unheeding to

the sauce of their own impressions. A very significant fact, for it not

only augmented the prestige of the teacher, but it made the residents

acquainted with the power of the printed word. It happened that the

teacher was reading a lecture on practical morals in the tavern. "I

saw you,"--said he, addressing the painter Yáshka Tiúrin,--"I saw you,

Yákoff, beating your wife...."

Yáshka had already "touched himself up" with two glasses of vódka, and

was in an audaciously free-and-easy mood. The public looked at him, in

the expectation that he would immediately surprise them with some wild

trick, and silence reigned in the tavern.

"You saw me, did you? And were you pleased?"--inquired Yáshka.

The audience laughed discreetly.

"No, I wasn't,"--replied the teacher. His tone was so impressively

serious that the audience kept quiet.

"It struck me that I was doing my best,"--Yáshka braved it out,

foreseeing that the teacher would "floor" him.--"My wife was satisfied

... she can't get up to-day...."

The teacher thoughtfully traced some figures on the table with his

finger, and as he inspected them he said:

"You see, Yákoff, the reason I'm not pleased is this.... Let's make a

thorough examination into what you are doing, and what you may expect

from it. Your wife is with child: you beat her, yesterday, on her body

and on her sides--which means, that you beat not only her, but the

baby also. You might have killed him, and your wife would have died

in childbed, or from this, or have fallen into very bad health. It's

unpleasant and troublesome to worry over a sick wife, and it will cost

you dear, for illness requires medicines, and medicines require money.

But if you haven't yet killed the child, you certainly have crippled

it, and perhaps it will be born deformed; lopsided, or hunchbacked.

That means, that it will not be fit to work, but it is important for

you that he should be a worker. Even if he is born merely ailing,--and

that's bad--he will tie his mother down, and require doctoring. Do you

see what you have prepared for yourself? People who live by the toil of

their hands ought to be born healthy, and ought to bring forth healthy

children.... Am I speaking the truth?"

"Yes,"--the audience hacked him up.

"Well, I don't think ... that will happen,"--said Yáshka, somewhat

abashed at the prospect as depicted by the teacher.--"She's healthy

... you can't get through her to the child, can you now? For she, the

devil, is an awful witch!"--he exclaimed bitterly. "As soon as I do

anything ... she starts in to nag at me, as rust gnaws iron!"

"I understand, Yákoff, that you can't help beating your wife,"--the

teacher's calm, thoughtful voice made itself heard again;--"you have

many causes for that.... It's not your wife's character that is to

blame for your beating her so incautiously ... but your whole sad and

gloomy life...."

"There, now, that's so,"--ejaculated Yákoff,--"we really do live in

darkness like that in the bosom of a chimneysweep."

"You're enraged at life in general, but your wife suffers ... your

wife, the person who is nearest to you--and suffers without being to

blame toward you, simply because you are stronger than she is; she is

always at your elbow, she has no place to go to get away from you. You

see how ... foolish ... it is!"

"So it is ... devil take her! And what am I to do? Ain't I a man?"

"Exactly so, you are a man!... Well, this is what I want to say to you:

beat her, if you must, if you can't get along without it, but beat her

cautiously: remember, that you may injure her health, or the health of

the child. In general, it is never right to beat women who are with

child ... on the body, the breast, or the sides ... beat her on the

neck, or take a rope, and ... strike on the soft places...."

The orator finished his speech, and his deeply-sunken, dark eyes gazed

at his audience, and seemed to be apologizing to them or guiltily

asking them about something.

And the audience rustled with animation. This morality of a man who

had seen better days, the morality of the dram-shop and of misery, was

comprehensible to it.

"Well, brother Yáshka, do you understand?"

"That's what the truth is like!"

Yákoff understood: to beat his wife incautiously was--injurious to

himself.

He said nothing, replying to his comrades' jeers with an abashed smile.

"And then again--what is a wife?"--philosophized rusk-peddler Mokéi

Anísimoff:--"A wife's a friend, if you get rightly at the root of the

matter. She's in the nature of a chain, that has been riveted on you

for life ... and both you and she are, after a fashion, hard-labor

convicts. So try to walk evenly, in step with her ... and if you can't,

you will feel the chain...."

"Hold on,"--said Yákoff,--"you beat your wife, too, don't you?"

"And did I say that I didn't? I do.... One can't get along

otherwise.... Whom have I to thump my fists against--the wall?--when I

can't endure things any longer?"

"Well, there then, it's the same way with me...." said Yákoff.

"Well, what a cramped and doleful life is ours, my brethren! We haven't

space anywhere for a regular good swing of our arms!"

"And you must even beat your wife with care!"--moaned someone

humorously. And thus they went on talking until late at night, or until

they fell into a fight, which arose on the basis of intoxication, or of

the moods which these discussions inspired.

The rain dashed against the windows of the tavern, and the cold wind

howled wildly. Inside the tavern the air was close, impregnated with

smoke, but warm; outside all was damp, cold, and dark. The wind beat

upon the windows, as though it were impudently summoning all these men

forth from the tavern, and threatening to disperse them over the earth,

like dust. Sometimes, amid its roar, a repressed, hopeless groan became

audible, and then a cold, cruel laugh rang out. This music prompted to

melancholy thoughts about the close approach of winter, the accursed

short days without sunshine, the long nights, and the indispensable

necessity of having warm clothing and plenty to eat. One sleeps so

badly on an empty stomach during the endless winter nights. Winter was

coming, coming.... How were they to live?

These sorrowful meditations evoked in the inhabitants of Vyézhaya

Street an augmented thirst, and in the speeches of the men with pasts

the quantity of sighs increased and the number of wrinkles on their

foreheads, their voices became duller, their relations to one another

more blunt. And all of a sudden, savage wrath blazed up among them,

the exasperation of outcasts, tortured by their harsh fate, awoke. Or

they were conscious of the approach of that implacable enemy, which

converted their whole life into one cruel piece of stupidity. But this

enemy was intangible, for it was invisible.

And so they thrashed one another; they thrashed mercilessly, they

thrashed savagely, and again, having made peace, they began to drink,

drinking up everything that Vavíloff, who was not very exacting, would

accept as a pledge.

Thus, in dull wrath, in sadness which clutched at their hearts, in

ignorance as to the outcome of their wretched existence, they passed

the autumnal days, in anticipation of the still more inclement days of

winter.

At such times, Kuválda came to their aid with philosophy.

"Don't get down in the mouth, my boys! There's an end to

everything--that's the merit of life.--The winter will pass, and summer

will come again ... a splendid season, when, they say, the sparrows

have beer."--But his harangues had no effect--a starving man cannot be

fed to satiety with a swallow of water.

Deacon Tarás also tried to divert the public, by singing songs and

narrating his stories. He was more successful. Sometimes his efforts

led to the result that desperate, audacious mirth bubbled up in the

tavern; they sang, danced, roared with laughter, and, for the space of

several hours, resembled madmen. Only....

And then again they fell back into dull, indifferent despair, and sat

around the tavern tables, in the soot of the lamps and tobacco-smoke,

morose, tattered, languidly chatting together, listening to the

triumphant howl of the gale, and meditating as to how they might get

a drink of vódka, and drink until they lost their senses.

And all of them were profoundly opposed to each, and each concealed

within himself unreasonable wrath against all.