kerosene had quite run dry was smoking violently and threatening to go
out. The stray cockroach was still running about the table and had found
no resting-place.
"One can always send in a secret report, but how is one to make it up? I
should want to make all sorts of innuendoes and insinuations, like
Proshkin, and I can't do it. If I made up anything I should be the first
to get into trouble for it. I'm an ass, damn my soul!"
And Nevyrazimov, racking his brain for a means of escape from his
hopeless position, stared at the rough copy he had written. The letter
was written to a man whom he feared and hated with his whole soul, and
from whom he had for the last ten years been trying to wring a post
worth eighteen roubles a month, instead of the one he had at sixteen
roubles.
"Ah, I'll teach you to run here, you devil!" He viciously slapped the
palm of his hand on the cockroach, who had the misfortune to catch his
eye. "Nasty thing!"
The cockroach fell on its back and wriggled its legs in despair.
Nevyrazimov took it by one leg and threw it into the lamp. The lamp
flared up and spluttered.
And Nevyrazimov felt better.
THE REQUIEM
IN the village church of Verhny Zaprudy mass was just over. The people
had begun moving and were trooping out of church. The only one who did
not move was Andrey Andreyitch, a shopkeeper and old inhabitant of
Verhny Zaprudy. He stood waiting, with his elbows on the railing of the
right choir. His fat and shaven face, covered with indentations left by
pimples, expressed on this occasion two contradictory feelings:
resignation in the face of inevitable destiny, and stupid, unbounded
disdain for the smocks and striped kerchiefs passing by him. As it was
Sunday, he was dressed like a dandy. He wore a long cloth overcoat with
yellow bone buttons, blue trousers not thrust into his boots, and sturdy
goloshes--the huge clumsy goloshes only seen on the feet of practical and
prudent persons of firm religious convictions.
His torpid eyes, sunk in fat, were fixed upon the ikon stand. He saw the
long familiar figures of the saints, the verger Matvey puffing out his
cheeks and blowing out the candles, the darkened candle stands, the
threadbare carpet, the sacristan Lopuhov running impulsively from the
altar and carrying the holy bread to the churchwarden.... All these
things he had seen for years, and seen over and over again like the five
fingers of his hand.... There was only one thing, however, that was
somewhat strange and unusual. Father Grigory, still in his vestments,
was standing at the north door, twitching his thick eyebrows angrily.
"Who is it he is winking at? God bless him!" thought the shopkeeper.
"And he is beckoning with his finger! And he stamped his foot! What
next! What's the matter, Holy Queen and Mother! Whom does he mean it
for?"
Andrey Andreyitch looked round and saw the church completely deserted.
There were some ten people standing at the door, but they had their
backs to the altar.
"Do come when you are called! Why do you stand like a graven image?" he
heard Father Grigory's angry voice. "I am calling you."
The shopkeeper looked at Father Grigory's red and wrathful face, and
only then realized that the twitching eyebrows and beckoning finger
might refer to him. He started, left the railing, and hesitatingly
walked towards the altar, tramping with his heavy goloshes.
"Andrey Andreyitch, was it you asked for prayers for the rest of
Mariya's soul?" asked the priest, his eyes angrily transfixing the
shopkeeper's fat, perspiring face.
"Yes, Father."
"Then it was you wrote this? You?" And Father Grigory angrily thrust
before his eyes the little note.
And on this little note, handed in by Andrey Andreyitch before mass, was
written in big, as it were staggering, letters:
"For the rest of the soul of the servant of God, the harlot Mariya."
"Yes, certainly I wrote it,..." answered the shopkeeper.
"How dared you write it?" whispered the priest, and in his husky whisper
there was a note of wrath and alarm.
The shopkeeper looked at him in blank amazement; he was perplexed, and
he, too, was alarmed. Father Grigory had never in his life spoken in
such a tone to a leading resident of Verhny Zaprudy. Both were silent
for a minute, staring into each other's face. The shopkeeper's amazement
was so great that his fat face spread in all directions like spilt
dough.
"How dared you?" repeated the priest.
"Wha... what?" asked Andrey Andreyitch in bewilderment.
"You don't understand?" whispered Father Grigory, stepping back in
astonishment and clasping his hands. "What have you got on your
shoulders, a head or some other object? You send a note up to the altar,
and write a word in it which it would be unseemly even to utter in the
street! Why are you rolling your eyes? Surely you know the meaning of
the word?"
"Are you referring to the word harlot?" muttered the shopkeeper,
flushing crimson and blinking. "But you know, the Lord in His mercy...
forgave this very thing,... forgave a harlot.... He has prepared a place
for her, and indeed from the life of the holy saint, Mariya of Egypt,
one may see in what sense the word is used--excuse me..."
The shopkeeper wanted to bring forward some other argument in his
justification, but took fright and wiped his lips with his sleeve.
"So that's what you make of it!" cried Father Grigory, clasping his
hands. "But you see God has forgiven her--do you understand? He has
forgiven, but you judge her, you slander her, call her by an unseemly
name, and whom! Your own deceased daughter! Not only in Holy Scripture,
but even in worldly literature you won't read of such a sin! I tell you
again, Andrey, you mustn't be over-subtle! No, no, you mustn't be over-
subtle, brother! If God has given you an inquiring mind, and if you
cannot direct it, better not go into things.... Don't go into things,
and hold your peace!"
"But you know, she,... excuse my mentioning it, was an actress!"
articulated Andrey Andreyitch, overwhelmed.
"An actress! But whatever she was, you ought to forget it all now she is
dead, instead of writing it on the note."
"Just so,..." the shopkeeper assented.
"You ought to do penance," boomed the deacon from the depths of the
altar, looking contemptuously at Andrey Andreyitch's embarrassed face,
"that would teach you to leave off being so clever! Your daughter was a
well-known actress. There were even notices of her death in the
newspapers.... Philosopher!"
"To be sure,... certainly," muttered the shopkeeper, "the word is not a
seemly one; but I did not say it to judge her, Father Grigory, I only
meant to speak spiritually,... that it might be clearer to you for whom
you were praying. They write in the memorial notes the various callings,
such as the infant John, the drowned woman Pelagea, the warrior Yegor,
the murdered Pavel, and so on.... I meant to do the same."
"It was foolish, Andrey! God will forgive you, but beware another time.
Above all, don't be subtle, but think like other people. Make ten bows
and go your way."
"I obey," said the shopkeeper, relieved that the lecture was over, and
allowing his face to resume its expression of importance and dignity.
"Ten bows? Very good, I understand. But now, Father, allow me to ask you
a favor.... Seeing that I am, anyway, her father,... you know yourself,
whatever she was, she was still my daughter, so I was,... excuse me,
meaning to ask you to sing the requiem today. And allow me to ask you,
Father Deacon!"
"Well, that's good," said Father Grigory, taking off his vestments.
"That I commend. I can approve of that! Well, go your way. We will come
out immediately."
Andrey Andreyitch walked with dignity from the altar, and with a solemn,
requiem-like expression on his red face took his stand in the middle of
the church. The verger Matvey set before him a little table with the
memorial food upon it, and a little later the requiem service began.
There was perfect stillness in the church. Nothing could be heard but
the metallic click of the censer and slow singing.... Near Andrey
Andreyitch stood the verger Matvey, the midwife Makaryevna, and her one-
armed son Mitka. There was no one else. The sacristan sang badly in an
unpleasant, hollow bass, but the tune and the words were so mournful
that the shopkeeper little by little lost the expression of dignity and
was plunged in sadness. He thought of his Mashutka,... he remembered she
had been born when he was still a lackey in the service of the owner of
Verhny Zaprudy. In his busy life as a lackey he had not noticed how his
girl had grown up. That long period during which she was being shaped
into a graceful creature, with a little flaxen head and dreamy eyes as
big as kopeck-pieces passed unnoticed by him. She had been brought up
like all the children of favorite lackeys, in ease and comfort in the
company of the young ladies. The gentry, to fill up their idle time, had
taught her to read, to write, to dance; he had had no hand in her
bringing up. Only from time to time casually meeting her at the gate or
on the landing of the stairs, he would remember that she was his
daughter, and would, so far as he had leisure for it, begin teaching her
the prayers and the scripture. Oh, even then he had the reputation of an
authority on the church rules and the holy scriptures! Forbidding and
stolid as her father's face was, yet the girl listened readily. She
repeated the prayers after him yawning, but on the other hand, when he,
hesitating and trying to express himself elaborately, began telling her
stories, she was all attention. Esau's pottage, the punishment of Sodom,
and the troubles of the boy Joseph made her turn pale and open her blue
eyes wide.
Afterwards when he gave up being a lackey, and with the money he had
saved opened a shop in the village, Mashutka had gone away to Moscow
with his master's family....
Three years before her death she had come to see her father. He had
scarcely recognized her. She was a graceful young woman with the manners
of a young lady, and dressed like one. She talked cleverly, as though
from a book, smoked, and slept till midday. When Andrey Andreyitch asked
her what she was doing, she had announced, looking him boldly straight
in the face: "I am an actress." Such frankness struck the former flunkey
as the acme of cynicism. Mashutka had begun boasting of her successes
and her stage life; but seeing that her father only turned crimson and
threw up his hands, she ceased. And they spent a fortnight together
without speaking or looking at one another till the day she went away.
Before she went away she asked her father to come for a walk on the bank
of the river. Painful as it was for him to walk in the light of day, in
the sight of all honest people, with a daughter who was an actress, he
yielded to her request.
"What a lovely place you live in!" she said enthusiastically. "What
ravines and marshes! Good heavens, how lovely my native place is!"
And she had burst into tears.
"The place is simply taking up room,..." Andrey Andreyvitch had thought,
looking blankly at the ravines, not understanding his daughter's
enthusiasm. "There is no more profit from them than milk from a billy-
goat."
And she had cried and cried, drawing her breath greedily with her whole
chest, as though she felt she had not a long time left to breathe.
Andrey Andreyitch shook his head like a horse that has been bitten, and
to stifle painful memories began rapidly crossing himself....
"Be mindful, O Lord," he muttered, "of Thy departed servant, the harlot
Mariya, and forgive her sins, voluntary or involuntary...."
The unseemly word dropped from his lips again, but he did not notice it:
what is firmly imbedded in the consciousness cannot be driven out by
Father Grigory's exhortations or even knocked out by a nail. Makaryevna
sighed and whispered something, drawing in a deep breath, while one-
armed Mitka was brooding over something....
"Where there is no sickness, nor grief, nor sighing," droned the
sacristan, covering his right cheek with his hand.
Bluish smoke coiled up from the censer and bathed in the broad, slanting
patch of sunshine which cut across the gloomy, lifeless emptiness of the
church. And it seemed as though the soul of the dead woman were soaring
into the sunlight together with the smoke. The coils of smoke like a
child's curls eddied round and round, floating upwards to the window
and, as it were, holding aloof from the woes and tribulations of which
that poor soul was full.
IN THE COACH-HOUSE
IT was between nine and ten o'clock in the evening. Stepan the coachman,
Mihailo the house-porter, Alyoshka the coachman's grandson, who had come
up from the village to stay with his grandfather, and Nikandr, an old
man of seventy, who used to come into the yard every evening to sell
salt herrings, were sitting round a lantern in the big coach-house,
playing "kings." Through the wide-open door could be seen the whole
yard, the big house, where the master's family lived, the gates, the
cellars, and the porter's lodge. It was all shrouded in the darkness of
night, and only the four windows of one of the lodges which was let were
brightly lit up. The shadows of the coaches and sledges with their
shafts tipped upwards stretched from the walls to the doors, quivering
and cutting across the shadows cast by the lantern and the players....
On the other side of the thin partition that divided the coach-house
from the stable were the horses. There was a scent of hay, and a
disagreeable smell of salt herrings coming from old Nikandr.
The porter won and was king; he assumed an attitude such as was in his
opinion befitting a king, and blew his nose loudly on a red-checked
handkerchief.
"Now if I like I can chop off anybody's head," he said. Alyoshka, a boy
of eight with a head of flaxen hair, left long uncut, who had only
missed being king by two tricks, looked angrily and with envy at the
porter. He pouted and frowned.
"I shall give you the trick, grandfather," he said, pondering over his
cards; "I know you have got the queen of diamonds."
"Well, well, little silly, you have thought enough!"
Alyoshka timidly played the knave of diamonds. At that moment a ring was
heard from the yard.
"Oh, hang you!" muttered the porter, getting up. "Go and open the gate,
O king!"
When he came back a little later, Alyoshka was already a prince, the
fish-hawker a soldier, and the coachman a peasant.
"It's a nasty business," said the porter, sitting down to the cards
again. "I have just let the doctors out. They have not extracted it."
"How could they? Just think, they would have to pick open the brains. If
there is a bullet in the head, of what use are doctors?"
"He is lying unconscious," the porter went on. "He is bound to die.
Alyoshka, don't look at the cards, you little puppy, or I will pull your
ears! Yes, I let the doctors out, and the father and mother in... They
have only just arrived. Such crying and wailing, Lord preserve us! They
say he is the only son.... It's a grief!"
All except Alyoshka, who was absorbed in the game, looked round at the
brightly lighted windows of the lodge.
"I have orders to go to the police station tomorrow," said the porter.
"There will be an inquiry... But what do I know about it? I saw nothing
of it. He called me this morning, gave me a letter, and said: 'Put it in
the letter-box for me.' And his eyes were red with crying. His wife and
children were not at home. They had gone out for a walk. So when I had
gone with the letter, he put a bullet into his forehead from a revolver.
When I came back his cook was wailing for the whole yard to hear."
"It's a great sin," said the fish-hawker in a husky voice, and he shook
his head, "a great sin!"
"From too much learning," said the porter, taking a trick; "his wits
outstripped his wisdom. Sometimes he would sit writing papers all
night.... Play, peasant!... But he was a nice gentleman. And so white
skinned, black-haired and tall!... He was a good lodger."
"It seems the fair sex is at the bottom of it," said the coachman,
slapping the nine of trumps on the king of diamonds. "It seems he was
fond of another man's wife and disliked his own; it does happen."
"The king rebels," said the porter.
At that moment there was again a ring from the yard. The rebellious king
spat with vexation and went out. Shadows like dancing couples flitted
across the windows of the lodge. There was the sound of voices and
hurried footsteps in the yard.
"I suppose the doctors have come again," said the coachman. "Our Mihailo
is run off his legs...."
A strange wailing voice rang out for a moment in the air. Alyoshka
looked in alarm at his grandfather, the coachman; then at the windows,
and said:
"He stroked me on the head at the gate yesterday, and said, 'What
district do you come from, boy?' Grandfather, who was that howled just
now?"
His grandfather trimmed the light in the lantern and made no answer.
"The man is lost," he said a little later, with a yawn. "He is lost, and
his children are ruined, too. It's a disgrace for his children for the
rest of their lives now."
The porter came back and sat down by the lantern.
"He is dead," he said. "They have sent to the almshouse for the old
women to lay him out."
"The kingdom of heaven and eternal peace to him!" whispered the
coachman, and he crossed himself.
Looking at him, Alyoshka crossed himself too.
"You can't pray for such as him," said the fish-hawker.
"Why not?"
"It's a sin."
"That's true," the porter assented. "Now his soul has gone straight to
hell, to the devil...."
"It's a sin," repeated the fish-hawker; "such as he have no funeral, no
requiem, but are buried like carrion with no respect."
The old man put on his cap and got up.
"It was the same thing at our lady's," he said, pulling his cap on
further. "We were serfs in those days; the younger son of our mistress,
the General's lady, shot himself through the mouth with a pistol, from
too much learning, too. It seems that by law such have to be buried
outside the cemetery, without priests, without a requiem service; but to
save disgrace our lady, you know, bribed the police and the doctors, and
they gave her a paper to say her son had done it when delirious, not
knowing what he was doing. You can do anything with money. So he had a
funeral with priests and every honor, the music played, and he was
buried in the church; for the deceased General had built that church
with his own money, and all his family were buried there. Only this is
what happened, friends. One month passed, and then another, and it was
all right. In the third month they informed the General's lady that the
watchmen had come from that same church. What did they want? They were
brought to her, they fell at her feet. 'We can't go on serving, your
excellency,' they said. 'Look out for other watchmen and graciously
dismiss us.' 'What for?' 'No,' they said, 'we can't possibly; your son
howls under the church all night.'"
Alyoshka shuddered, and pressed his face to the coachman's back so as
not to see the windows.
"At first the General's lady would not listen," continued the old man.
"'All this is your fancy, you simple folk have such notions,' she said.
'A dead man cannot howl.' Some time afterwards the watchmen came to her
again, and with them the sacristan. So the sacristan, too, had heard him
howling. The General's lady saw that it was a bad job; she locked
herself in her bedroom with the watchmen. 'Here, my friends, here are
twenty-five roubles for you, and for that go by night in secret, so that
no one should hear or see you, dig up my unhappy son, and bury him,' she
said, 'outside the cemetery.' And I suppose she stood them a glass...
And the watchmen did so. The stone with the inscription on it is there
to this day, but he himself, the General's son, is outside the
cemetery.... O Lord, forgive us our transgressions!" sighed the fish-
hawker. "There is only one day in the year when one may pray for such
people: the Saturday before Trinity.... You mustn't give alms to beggars
for their sake, it is a sin, but you may feed the birds for the rest of
their souls. The General's lady used to go out to the crossroads every
three days to feed the birds. Once at the cross-roads a black dog
suddenly appeared; it ran up to the bread, and was such a... we all know
what that dog was. The General's lady was like a half-crazy creature for
five days afterwards, she neither ate nor drank.... All at once she fell
on her knees in the garden, and prayed and prayed.... Well, good-by,
friends, the blessing of God and the Heavenly Mother be with you. Let us
go, Mihailo, you'll open the gate for me."
The fish-hawker and the porter went out. The coachman and Alyoshka went
out too, so as not to be left in the coach-house.
"The man was living and is dead!" said the coachman, looking towards the
windows where shadows were still flitting to and fro. "Only this morning
he was walking about the yard, and now he is lying dead."
"The time will come and we shall die too," said the porter, walking away
with the fish-hawker, and at once they both vanished from sight in the
darkness.
The coachman, and Alyoshka after him, somewhat timidly went up to the
lighted windows. A very pale lady with large tear stained eyes, and a
fine-looking gray headed man were moving two card-tables into the middle
of the room, probably with the intention of laying the dead man upon
them, and on the green cloth of the table numbers could still be seen
written in chalk. The cook who had run about the yard wailing in the
morning was now standing on a chair, stretching up to try and cover the
looking glass with a towel.
"Grandfather what are they doing?" asked Alyoshka in a whisper.
"They are just going to lay him on the tables," answered his
grandfather. "Let us go, child, it is bedtime."
The coachman and Alyoshka went back to the coach-house. They said their
prayers, and took off their boots. Stepan lay down in a corner on the
floor, Alyoshka in a sledge. The doors of the coach house were shut,
there was a horrible stench from the extinguished lantern. A little
later Alyoshka sat up and looked about him; through the crack of the
door he could still see a light from those lighted windows.
"Grandfather, I am frightened!" he said.
"Come, go to sleep, go to sleep!..."
"I tell you I am frightened!"
"What are you frightened of? What a baby!"
They were silent.
Alyoshka suddenly jumped out of the sledge and, loudly weeping, ran to
his grandfather.
"What is it? What's the matter?" cried the coachman in a fright, getting
up also.
"He's howling!"
"Who is howling?"
"I am frightened, grandfather, do you hear?"
The coachman listened.
"It's their crying," he said. "Come! there, little silly! They are sad,
so they are crying."
"I want to go home,..." his grandson went on sobbing and trembling all
over. "Grandfather, let us go back to the village, to mammy; come,
grandfather dear, God will give you the heavenly kingdom for it...."
"What a silly, ah! Come, be quiet, be quiet! Be quiet, I will light the
lantern,... silly!"
The coachman fumbled for the matches and lighted the lantern. But the
light did not comfort Alyoshka.
"Grandfather Stepan, let's go to the village!" he besought him, weeping.
"I am frightened here; oh, oh, how frightened I am! And why did you
bring me from the village, accursed man?"
"Who's an accursed man? You mustn't use such disrespectable words to
your lawful grandfather. I shall whip you."
"Do whip me, grandfather, do; beat me like Sidor's goat, but only take
me to mammy, for God's mercy!..."
"Come, come, grandson, come!" the coachman said kindly. "It's all right,
don't be frightened....I am frightened myself.... Say your prayers!"
The door creaked and the porter's head appeared. "Aren't you asleep,
Stepan?" he asked. "I shan't get any sleep all night," he said, coming
in. "I shall be opening and shutting the gates all night.... What are
you crying for, Alyoshka?"
"He is frightened," the coachman answered for his grandson.
Again there was the sound of a wailing voice in the air. The porter
said:
"They are crying. The mother can't believe her eyes.... It's dreadful
how upset she is."
"And is the father there?"
"Yes.... The father is all right. He sits in the corner and says
nothing. They have taken the children to relations.... Well, Stepan,
shall we have a game of trumps?"