Whenever a thought was clear to the mother, she would find confirmation
of the idea by drawing upon some of her rude, coarse experiences. She
now felt as on that day when her father said to her roughly:
"What are you making a wry face about? A fool has been found who wants
to marry you. Marry him! All girls must get husbands; all women must
bear children, and all children become a burden to their parents!"
After these words she saw before her an unavoidable path running for
some inexplicable reason through a dark, dreary waste. Thus it was at
the present moment. In anticipation of a new approaching misfortune, she
uttered speechless words, addressing some imaginary person.
This lightened her mute pain, which reverberated in her heart like a
tight chord.
The next day, early in the morning, very soon after Pavel and Andrey had
left, Korsunova knocked at the door alarmingly, and called out hastily:
"Isay is killed! Come, quick!"
The mother trembled; the name of the assassin flashed through her mind.
"Who did it?" she asked curtly, throwing a shawl over her shoulders.
"The man's not sitting out there mourning over Isay. He knocked him down
and fled!"
On the street Marya said:
"Now they'll begin to rummage about again and look for the murderer.
It's a good thing your folks were at home last night. I can bear witness
to that. I walked past here after midnight and glanced into the window,
and saw all of you sitting around the table."
"What are you talking about, Marya? Why, who could dream of such a thing
about them?" the mother ejaculated in fright.
"Well, who killed him? Some one from among your people, of course!" said
Korsunova, regarding the idea as a matter to be taken for granted.
"Everybody knows he spied on them."
The mother stopped to fetch breath, and put her hand to her bosom.
"What are you going on that way for? Don't be afraid! Whoever it is will
reap the harvest of his own rashness. Let's go quick, or else they'll
take him away!"
The mother walked on without asking herself why she went, and shaken by
the thought of Vyesovshchikov.
"There--he's done it!" Her mind was held fast by the one idea.
Not far from the factory walls, on the grounds of a building recently
burned down, a crowd was gathered, tramping down the coal and stirring
up ash dust. It hummed and buzzed like a swarm of bees. There were many
women in the crowd, even more children, and storekeepers, tavern
waiters, policemen, and the gendarme Petlin, a tall old man with a
woolly, silvery beard, and decorations on his breast.
Isay half reclined on the ground, his back resting against a burned
joist, his bare head hanging over his right shoulder, his right hand in
his trousers' pocket, and the fingers of his left hand clutching the
soil.
The mother looked at Isay's face. One eye, wide open, had its dim glance
fixed upon his hat lying between his lazily outstretched legs. His mouth
was half open in astonishment, his little shriveled body, with its
pointed head and bony face, seemed to be resting. The mother crossed
herself and heaved a sigh. He had been repulsive to her when alive, but
now she felt a mild pity for him.
"No blood!" some one remarked in an undertone. "He was evidently knocked
down with a fist blow."
A stout woman, tugging at the gendarme's hand, asked:
"Maybe he is still alive?"
"Go away!" the gendarme shouted not very loudly, withdrawing his hand.
"The doctor was here and said it was all over," somebody said to the
woman.
A sarcastic, malicious voice cried aloud:
"They've choked up a denouncer's mouth. Serves him right!"
The gendarme pushed aside the women, who were crowded close about him,
and asked in a threatening tone:
"Who was that? Who made that remark?"
The people scattered before him as he thrust them aside. A number took
quickly to their heels, and some one in the crowd broke into a mocking
laugh.
The mother went home.
"No one is sorry," she thought. The broad figure of Nikolay stood before
her like a shadow, his narrow eyes had a cold, cruel look, and he wrung
his right hand as if it had been hurt.
When Pavel and Andrey came to dinner, her first question was:
"Well? Did they arrest anybody for Isay's murder?"
"We haven't heard anything about it," answered the Little Russian.
She saw that they were both downhearted and sullen.
"Nothing is said about Nikolay?" the mother questioned again in a low
voice.
Pavel fixed his stern eyes on the mother, and said distinctly:
"No, there is no talk of him. He is not even thought of in connection
with this affair. He is away. He went off on the river yesterday, and
hasn't returned yet. I inquired for him."
"Thank God!" said the mother with a sigh of relief. "Thank God!"
The Little Russian looked at her, and drooped his head.
"He lies there," the mother recounted pensively, "and looks as though he
were surprised; that's the way his face looks. And no one pities him; no
one bestows a good word on him. He is such a tiny bit of a fellow, such
a wretched-looking thing, like a bit of broken china. It seems as if he
had slipped on something and fallen, and there he lies!"
At dinner Pavel suddenly dropped his spoon and exclaimed:
"That's what I don't understand!"
"What?" asked the Little Russian, who had been sitting at the table
dismal and silent.
"To kill anything living because one wants to eat, that's ugly enough.
To kill a beast--a beast of prey--that I can understand. I think I
myself could kill a man who had turned into a beast preying upon
mankind. But to kill such a disgusting, pitiful creature--I don't
understand how anyone could lift his hand for an act like that!"
The Little Russian raised his shoulders and dropped them again; then
said:
"He was no less noxious than a beast."
"I know."
"We kill a mosquito for sucking just a tiny bit of our blood," the
Little Russian added in a low voice.
"Well, yes, I am not saying anything about that. I only mean to say it's
so disgusting."
"What can you do?" returned Andrey with another shrug of his shoulders.
After a long pause Pavel asked:
"Could you kill a fellow like that?"
The Little Russian regarded him with his round eyes, threw a glance at
the mother, and said sadly, but firmly:
"For myself, I wouldn't touch a living thing. But for comrades, for the
cause, I am capable of everything. I'd even kill. I'd kill my own son."
"Oh, Andriusha!" the mother exclaimed under her breath.
He smiled and said:
"It can't be helped! Such is our life!"
"Ye-es," Pavel drawled. "Such is our life."
With sudden excitation, as if obeying some impulse from within, Andrey
arose, waved his hands, and said:
"How can a man help it? It so happens that we sometimes must abhor a
certain person in order to hasten the time when it will be possible only
to take delight in one another. You must destroy those who hinder the
progress of life, who sell human beings for money in order to buy quiet
or esteem for themselves. If a Judas stands in the way of honest people,
lying in wait to betray them, I should be a Judas myself if I did not
destroy him. It's sinful, you say? And do they, these masters of life,
do they have the right to keep soldiers and executioners, public houses
and prisons, places of penal servitude, and all that vile abomination by
which they hold themselves in quiet security and in comfort? If it
happens sometimes that I am compelled to take their stick into my own
hands, what am I to do then? Why, I am going to take it, of course. I
will not decline. They kill us out by the tens and hundreds. That gives
me the right to raise my hand and level it against one of the enemy,
against that one of their number who comes closest to me, and makes
himself more directly noxious to the work of my life than the others.
This is logic; but I go against logic for once. I do not need your logic
now. I know that their blood can bring no results, I know that their
blood is barren, fruitless! Truth grows well only on the soil irrigated
with the copious rain of our own blood, and their putrid blood goes to
waste, without a trace left. I know it! But I take the sin upon myself.
I'll kill, if I see a need for it! I speak only for myself, mind you. My
crime dies with me. It will not remain a blot upon the future. It will
sully no one but myself--no one but myself."
He walked to and fro in the room, waving his hands in front of him, as
if he were cutting something in the air out of his way. The mother
looked at him with an expression of melancholy and alarm. She felt as
though something had hit him, and that he was pained. The dangerous
thoughts about murder left her. If Vyesovshchikov had not killed Isay,
none of Pavel's comrades could have done the deed. Pavel listened to the
Little Russian with drooping head, and Andrey stubbornly continued in a
forceful tone:
"In your forward march it sometimes chances that you must go against
your very own self. You must be able to give up everything--your heart
and all. To give your life, to die for the cause--that's simple. Give
more! Give that which is dearer to you than your life! Then you will see
that grow with a vigorous growth which is dearest to you--your truth!"
He stopped in the middle of the room, his face grown pale and his eyes
half closed. Raising his hand and shaking it, he began slowly in a
solemn tone of assurance with faith and with strength:
"There will come a time, I know, when people will take delight in one
another, when each will be like a star to the other, and when each will
listen to his fellow as to music. The free men will walk upon the earth,
men great in their freedom. They will walk with open hearts, and the
heart of each will be pure of envy and greed, and therefore all mankind
will be without malice, and there will be nothing to divorce the heart
from reason. Then life will be one great service to man! His figure will
be raised to lofty heights--for to free men all heights are attainable.
Then we shall live in truth and freedom and in beauty, and those will be
accounted the best who will the more widely embrace the world with their
hearts, and whose love of it will be the profoundest; those will be the
best who will be the freest; for in them is the greatest beauty. Then
will life be great, and the people will be great who live that life."
He ceased and straightened himself. Then swinging to and fro like the
tongue of a bell, he added in a resonant voice that seemed to issue from
the depths of his breast:
"So for the sake of this life I am prepared for everything! I will tear
my heart out, if necessary, and will trample it with my own feet!"
His face quivered and stiffened with excitement, and great, heavy tears
rolled down one after the other.
Pavel raised his head and looked at him with a pale face and wide-open
eyes. The mother raised herself a little over the table with a feeling
that something great was growing and impending.
"What is the matter with you, Andrey?" Pavel asked softly.
The Little Russian shook his head, stretched himself like a violin
string, and said, looking at the mother:
"I struck Isay."
She rose, and quickly walked up to him, all in a tremble, and seized his
hands. He tried to free his right hand, but she held it firmly in her
grasp and whispered hotly:
"My dear, my own, hush! It's nothing--it's nothing--nothing, Pasha!
Andriushenka--oh, what a calamity! You sufferer! My darling heart!"
"Wait, mother," the Little Russian muttered hoarsely. "I'll tell you how
it happened."
"Don't!" she whispered, looking at him with tears in her eyes. "Don't,
Andriusha! It isn't our business. It's God's affair!"
Pavel came up to him slowly, looking at his comrade with moist eyes. He
was pale, and his lips trembled. With a strange smile he said softly and
slowly:
"Come, give me your hand, Andrey. I want to shake hands with you. Upon
my word, I understand how hard it is for you!"
"Wait!" said the Little Russian without looking at them, shaking his
head, and tearing himself away from their grasp. When he succeeded in
freeing his right hand from the mother's, Pavel caught it, pressing it
vigorously and wringing it.
"And you mean to tell me you killed that man?" said the mother. "No,
_you_ didn't do it! If I saw it with my own eyes I wouldn't believe it."
"Stop, Andrey! Mother is right. This thing is beyond our judgment."
With one hand pressing Andrey's, Pavel laid the other on his shoulder,
as if wishing to stop the tremor in his tall body. The Little Russian
bent his head down toward him, and said in a broken, mournful voice:
"I didn't want to do it, you know, Pavel. It happened when you walked
ahead, and I remained behind with Ivan Gusev. Isay came from around a
corner and stopped to look at us, and smiled at us. Ivan walked off
home, and I went on toward the factory--Isay at my side!" Andrey
stopped, heaved a deep sigh, and continued: "No one ever insulted me in
such an ugly way as that dog!"
The mother pulled the Little Russian by the hand toward the table, gave
him a shove, and finally succeeded in seating him on a chair. She sat
down at his side close to him, shoulder to shoulder. Pavel stood in
front of them, holding Andrey's hand in his and pressing it.
"I understand how hard it is for you," he said.
"He told me that they know us all, that we are all on the gendarme's
record, and that we are going to be dragged in before the first of May.
I didn't answer, I laughed, but my blood boiled. He began to tell me
that I was a clever fellow, and that I oughtn't to go on the way I was
going, but that I should rather----"
The Little Russian stopped, wiped his face with his right hand, shook
his head, and a dry gleam flashed in his eyes.
"I understand!" said Pavel.
"Yes," he said, "I should rather enter the service of the law." The
Little Russian waved his hand, and swung his clenched fist. "The
law!--curse his soul!" he hissed between his teeth. "It would have been
better if he had struck me in the face. It would have been easier for
me, and better for him, perhaps, too! But when he spit his dirty thought
into my heart that way, I could not bear it."
Andrey pulled his hand convulsively from Pavel's, and said more hoarsely
with disgust in his face:
"I dealt him a back-hand blow like that, downward and aslant, and walked
away. I didn't even stop to look at him; I heard him fall. He dropped
and was silent. I didn't dream of anything serious. I walked on
peacefully, just as if I had done no more than kick a frog with my foot.
And then--what's all this? I started to work, and I heard them shouting:
'Isay is killed!' I didn't even believe it, but my hand grew numb--and I
felt awkward in working with it. It didn't hurt me, but it seemed to
have grown shorter."
He looked at his hand obliquely and said:
"All my life, I suppose, I won't be able to wash off that dirty stain
from it."
"If only your heart is pure, my dear boy!" the mother said softly,
bursting into tears.
"I don't regard myself as guilty; no, I don't!" said the Little Russian
firmly. "But it's disgust. It disgusts me to carry such dirt inside of
me. I had no need of it. It wasn't called for."
"What do you think of doing?" asked Pavel, giving him a suspicious look.
"What am I going to do?" the Little Russian repeated thoughtfully,
drooping his head. Then raising it again he said with a smile: "I am not
afraid, of course, to say that it was I who struck him. But I am ashamed
to say it. I am ashamed to go to prison, and even to hard labor, maybe,
for such a--nothing. If some one else is accused, then I'll go and
confess. But otherwise, go all of my own accord--I cannot!"
He waved his hands, rose, and repeated:
"I cannot! I am ashamed!"
The whistle blew. The Little Russian, bending his head to one side,
listened to the powerful roar, and shaking himself, said:
"I am not going to work."
"Nor I," said Pavel.
"I'll go to the bath house," said the Little Russian, smiling. He got
ready in silence and walked off, sullen and low-spirited.
The mother followed him with a compassionate look.
"Say what you please, Pasha, I cannot believe him! And even if I did
believe him, I wouldn't lay any blame on him. No, I would not. I know
it's sinful to kill a man; I believe in God and in the Lord Jesus
Christ, but still I don't think Andrey guilty. I'm sorry for Isay. He's
such a tiny bit of a manikin. He lies there in astonishment. When I
looked at him I remembered how he threatened to have you hanged. And yet
I neither felt hatred toward him nor joy because he was dead. I simply
felt sorry. But now that I know by whose hand he fell I am not even
sorry for him."
She suddenly became silent, reflected a while, and with a smile of
surprise, exclaimed:
"Lord Jesus Christ! Do you hear what I am saying, Pasha?"
Pavel apparently had not heard her. Slowly pacing up and down the room
with drooping head, he said pensively and with exasperation:
"Andrey won't forgive himself soon, if he'll forgive himself at all!
There is life for you, mother. You see the position in which people are
placed toward one another. You don't want to, but you must strike! And
strike whom? Such a helpless being. He is more wretched even than you
because he is stupid. The police, the gendarmes, the soldiers, the
spies--they are all our enemies, and yet they are all such people as we
are. Their blood is sucked out of them just as ours is, and they are no
more regarded as human beings than we are. That's the way it is. But
they have set one part of the people against the other, blinded them
with fear, bound them all hand and foot, squeezed them, and drained
their blood, and used some as clubs against the others. They've turned
men into weapons, into sticks and stones, and called it civilization,
government."
He walked up to his mother and said to her firmly:
"That's crime, mother! The heinous crime of killing millions of people,
the murder of millions of souls! You understand--they kill the soul! You
see the difference between them and us. He killed a man unwittingly. He
feels disgusted, ashamed, sick--the main thing is he feels disgusted!
But they kill off thousands calmly, without a qualm, without pity,
without a shudder of the heart. They kill with pleasure and with
delight. And why? They stifle everybody and everything to death merely
to keep the timber of their houses secure, their furniture, their
silver, their gold, their worthless papers--all that cheap trash which
gives them control over the people. Think, it's not for their own
selves, for their persons, that they protect themselves thus, using
murder and the mutilation of souls as a means--it's not for themselves
they do it, but for the sake of their possessions. They do not guard
themselves from within, but from without."
He bent over to her, took her hands, and shaking them said:
"If you felt the abomination of it all, the disgrace and rottenness, you
would understand our truth; you would then perceive how great it is, how
glorious!"
The mother arose agitated, full of a desire to sink her heart into the
heart of her son, and to join them in one burning, flaming torch.
"Wait, Pasha, wait!" she muttered, panting for breath. "I am a human
being. I feel. Wait."
There was a loud noise of some one entering the porch. Both of them
started and looked at each other.
"If it's the police coming for Andrey--" Pavel whispered.
"I know nothing--nothing!" the mother whispered back. "Oh, God!"