to sleep. Almost big enough to be married, and blubbering, you rascal.
Come, go along, grandson, go along...."
The presence of the porter reassured Alyoshka. He went, not very
resolutely, towards the sledge and lay down. And while he was falling
asleep he heard a half-whisper.
"I beat and cover," said his grandfather.
"I beat and cover," repeated the porter.
The bell rang in the yard, the door creaked and seemed also saying: "I
beat and cover." When Alyoshka dreamed of the gentleman and, frightened
by his eyes, jumped up and burst out crying, it was morning, his
grandfather was snoring, and the coach-house no longer seemed terrible.
PANIC FEARS
DURING all the years I have been living in this world I have only three
times been terrified.
The first real terror, which made my hair stand on end and made shivers
run all over me, was caused by a trivial but strange phenomenon. It
happened that, having nothing to do one July evening, I drove to the
station for the newspapers. It was a still, warm, almost sultry evening,
like all those monotonous evenings in July which, when once they have
set in, go on for a week, a fortnight, or sometimes longer, in regular
unbroken succession, and are suddenly cut short by a violent
thunderstorm and a lavish downpour of rain that refreshes everything for
a long time.
The sun had set some time before, and an unbroken gray dusk lay all over
the land. The mawkishly sweet scents of the grass and flowers were heavy
in the motionless, stagnant air.
I was driving in a rough trolley. Behind my back the gardener's son
Pashka, a boy of eight years old, whom I had taken with me to look after
the horse in case of necessity, was gently snoring, with his head on a
sack of oats. Our way lay along a narrow by-road, straight as a ruler,
which lay hid like a great snake in the tall thick rye. There was a pale
light from the afterglow of sunset; a streak of light cut its way
through a narrow, uncouth-looking cloud, which seemed sometimes like a
boat and sometimes like a man wrapped in a quilt....
I had driven a mile and a half, or two miles, when against the pale
background of the evening glow there came into sight one after another
some graceful tall poplars; a river glimmered beyond them, and a
gorgeous picture suddenly, as though by magic, lay stretched before me.
I had to stop the horse, for our straight road broke off abruptly and
ran down a steep incline overgrown with bushes. We were standing on the
hillside and beneath us at the bottom lay a huge hole full of twilight,
of fantastic shapes, and of space. At the bottom of this hole, in a wide
plain guarded by the poplars and caressed by the gleaming river, nestled
a village. It was now sleeping.... Its huts, its church with the belfry,
its trees, stood out against the gray twilight and were reflected darkly
in the smooth surface of the river.
I waked Pashka for fear he should fall out and began cautiously going
down.
"Have we got to Lukovo?" asked Pashka, lifting his head lazily.
"Yes. Hold the reins!..."
I led the horse down the hill and looked at the village. At the first
glance one strange circumstance caught my attention: at the very top of
the belfry, in the tiny window between the cupola and the bells, a light
was twinkling. This light was like that of a smoldering lamp, at one
moment dying down, at another flickering up. What could it come from?
Its source was beyond my comprehension. It could not be burning at the
window, for there were neither ikons nor lamps in the top turret of the
belfry; there was nothing there, as I knew, but beams, dust, and
spiders' webs. It was hard to climb up into that turret, for the passage
to it from the belfry was closely blocked up.
It was more likely than anything else to be the reflection of some
outside light, but though I strained my eyes to the utmost, I could not
see one other speck of light in the vast expanse that lay before me.
There was no moon. The pale and, by now, quite dim streak of the
afterglow could not have been reflected, for the window looked not to
the west, but to the east. These and other similar considerations were
straying through my mind all the while that I was going down the slope
with the horse. At the bottom I sat down by the roadside and looked
again at the light. As before it was glimmering and flaring up.
"Strange," I thought, lost in conjecture. "Very strange."
And little by little I was overcome by an unpleasant feeling. At first I
thought that this was vexation at not being able to explain a simple
phenomenon; but afterwards, when I suddenly turned away from the light
in horror and caught hold of Pashka with one hand, it became clear that
I was overcome with terror....
I was seized with a feeling of loneliness, misery, and horror, as though
I had been flung down against my will into this great hole full of
shadows, where I was standing all alone with the belfry looking at me
with its red eye.
"Pashka!" I cried, closing my eyes in horror.
"Well?"
"Pashka, what's that gleaming on the belfry?"
Pashka looked over my shoulder at the belfry and gave a yawn.
"Who can tell?"
This brief conversation with the boy reassured me for a little, but not
for long. Pashka, seeing my uneasiness, fastened his big eyes upon the
light, looked at me again, then again at the light....
"I am frightened," he whispered.
At this point, beside myself with terror, I clutched the boy with one
hand, huddled up to him, and gave the horse a violent lash.
"It's stupid!" I said to myself. "That phenomenon is only terrible
because I don't understand it; everything we don't understand is
mysterious."
I tried to persuade myself, but at the same time I did not leave off
lashing the horse. When we reached the posting station I purposely
stayed for a full hour chatting with the overseer, and read through two
or three newspapers, but the feeling of uneasiness did not leave me. On
the way back the light was not to be seen, but on the other hand the
silhouettes of the huts, of the poplars, and of the hill up which I had
to drive, seemed to me as though animated. And why the light was there I
don't know to this day.
The second terror I experienced was excited by a circumstance no less
trivial.... I was returning from a romantic interview. It was one
o'clock at night, the time when nature is buried in the soundest,
sweetest sleep before the dawn. That time nature was not sleeping, and
one could not call the night a still one. Corncrakes, quails,
nightingales, and woodcocks were calling, crickets and grasshoppers were
chirruping. There was a light mist over the grass, and clouds were
scurrying straight ahead across the sky near the moon. Nature was awake,
as though afraid of missing the best moments of her life.
I walked along a narrow path at the very edge of a railway embankment.
The moonlight glided over the lines which were already covered with dew.
Great shadows from the clouds kept flitting over the embankment. Far
ahead, a dim green light was glimmering peacefully.
"So everything is well," I thought, looking at them.
I had a quiet, peaceful, comfortable feeling in my heart. I was
returning from a tryst, I had no need to hurry; I was not sleepy, and I
was conscious of youth and health in every sigh, every step I took,
rousing a dull echo in the monotonous hum of the night. I don't know
what I was feeling then, but I remember I was happy, very happy.
I had gone not more than three-quarters of a mile when I suddenly heard
behind me a monotonous sound, a rumbling, rather like the roar of a
great stream. It grew louder and louder every second, and sounded nearer
and nearer. I looked round; a hundred paces from me was the dark copse
from which I had only just come; there the embankment turned to the
right in a graceful curve and vanished among the trees. I stood still in
perplexity and waited. A huge black body appeared at once at the turn,
noisily darted towards me, and with the swiftness of a bird flew past me
along the rails. Less than half a minute passed and the blur had
vanished, the rumble melted away into the noise of the night.
It was an ordinary goods truck. There was nothing peculiar about it in
itself, but its appearance without an engine and in the night puzzled
me. Where could it have come from and what force sent it flying so
rapidly along the rails? Where did it come from and where was it flying
to?
If I had been superstitious I should have made up my mind it was a party
of demons and witches journeying to a devils' sabbath, and should have
gone on my way; but as it was, the phenomenon was absolutely
inexplicable to me. I did not believe my eyes, and was entangled in
conjectures like a fly in a spider's web....
I suddenly realized that I was utterly alone on the whole vast plain;
that the night, which by now seemed inhospitable, was peeping into my
face and dogging my footsteps; all the sounds, the cries of the birds,
the whisperings of the trees, seemed sinister, and existing simply to
alarm my imagination. I dashed on like a madman, and without realizing
what I was doing I ran, trying to run faster and faster. And at once I
heard something to which I had paid no attention before: that is, the
plaintive whining of the telegraph wires.
"This is beyond everything," I said, trying to shame myself. "It's
cowardice! it's silly!"
But cowardice was stronger than common sense. I only slackened my pace
when I reached the green light, where I saw a dark signal-box, and near
it on the embankment the figure of a man, probably the signalman.
"Did you see it?" I asked breathlessly.
"See whom? What?"
"Why, a truck ran by."
"I saw it,..." the peasant said reluctantly. "It broke away from the
goods train. There is an incline at the ninetieth mile...; the train is
dragged uphill. The coupling on the last truck gave way, so it broke off
and ran back.... There is no catching it now!..."
The strange phenomenon was explained and its fantastic character
vanished. My panic was over and I was able to go on my way.
My third fright came upon me as I was going home from stand shooting in
early spring. It was in the dusk of evening. The forest road was covered
with pools from a recent shower of rain, and the earth squelched under
one's feet. The crimson glow of sunset flooded the whole forest,
coloring the white stems of the birches and the young leaves. I was
exhausted and could hardly move.
Four or five miles from home, walking along the forest road, I suddenly
met a big black dog of the water spaniel breed. As he ran by, the dog
looked intently at me, straight in my face, and ran on.
"A nice dog!" I thought. "Whose is it?"
I looked round. The dog was standing ten paces off with his eyes fixed
on me. For a minute we scanned each other in silence, then the dog,
probably flattered by my attention, came slowly up to me and wagged his
tail.
I walked on, the dog following me.
"Whose dog can it be?" I kept asking myself. "Where does he come from?"
I knew all the country gentry for twenty or thirty miles round, and knew
all their dogs. Not one of them had a spaniel like that. How did he come
to be in the depths of the forest, on a track used for nothing but
carting timber? He could hardly have dropped behind someone passing
through, for there was nowhere for the gentry to drive to along that
road.
I sat down on a stump to rest, and began scrutinizing my companion. He,
too, sat down, raised his head, and fastened upon me an intent stare. He
gazed at me without blinking. I don't know whether it was the influence
of the stillness, the shadows and sounds of the forest, or perhaps a
result of exhaustion, but I suddenly felt uneasy under the steady gaze
of his ordinary doggy eyes. I thought of Faust and his bulldog, and of
the fact that nervous people sometimes when exhausted have
hallucinations. That was enough to make me get up hurriedly and
hurriedly walk on. The dog followed me.
"Go away!" I shouted.
The dog probably liked my voice, for he gave a gleeful jump and ran
about in front of me.
"Go away!" I shouted again.
The dog looked round, stared at me intently, and wagged his tail good-
humoredly. Evidently my threatening tone amused him. I ought to have
patted him, but I could not get Faust's dog out of my head, and the
feeling of panic grew more and more acute... Darkness was coming on,
which completed my confusion, and every time the dog ran up to me and
hit me with his tail, like a coward I shut my eyes. The same thing
happened as with the light in the belfry and the truck on the railway: I
could not stand it and rushed away.
At home I found a visitor, an old friend, who, after greeting me, began
to complain that as he was driving to me he had lost his way in the
forest, and a splendid valuable dog of his had dropped behind.
THE BET
IT WAS a dark autumn night. The old banker was walking up and down his
study and remembering how, fifteen years before, he had given a party
one autumn evening. There had been many clever men there, and there had
been interesting conversations. Among other things they had talked of
capital punishment. The majority of the guests, among whom were many
journalists and intellectual men, disapproved of the death penalty. They
considered that form of punishment out of date, immoral, and unsuitable
for Christian States. In the opinion of some of them the death penalty
ought to be replaced everywhere by imprisonment for life.
"I don't agree with you," said their host the banker. "I have not tried
either the death penalty or imprisonment for life, but if one may judge
a priori, the death penalty is more moral and more humane than
imprisonment for life. Capital punishment kills a man at once, but
lifelong imprisonment kills him slowly. Which executioner is the more
humane, he who kills you in a few minutes or he who drags the life out
of you in the course of many years?"
"Both are equally immoral," observed one of the guests, "for they both
have the same object--to take away life. The State is not God. It has not
the right to take away what it cannot restore when it wants to."
Among the guests was a young lawyer, a young man of five-and-twenty.
When he was asked his opinion, he said:
"The death sentence and the life sentence are equally immoral, but if I
had to choose between the death penalty and imprisonment for life, I
would certainly choose the second. To live anyhow is better than not at
all."
A lively discussion arose. The banker, who was younger and more nervous
in those days, was suddenly carried away by excitement; he struck the
table with his fist and shouted at the young man:
"It's not true! I'll bet you two millions you wouldn't stay in solitary
confinement for five years."
"If you mean that in earnest," said the young man, "I'll take the bet,
but I would stay not five but fifteen years."
"Fifteen? Done!" cried the banker. "Gentlemen, I stake two millions!"
"Agreed! You stake your millions and I stake my freedom!" said the young
man.
And this wild, senseless bet was carried out! The banker, spoilt and
frivolous, with millions beyond his reckoning, was delighted at the bet.
At supper he made fun of the young man, and said:
"Think better of it, young man, while there is still time. To me two
millions are a trifle, but you are losing three or four of the best
years of your life. I say three or four, because you won't stay longer.
Don't forget either, you unhappy man, that voluntary confinement is a
great deal harder to bear than compulsory. The thought that you have the
right to step out in liberty at any moment will poison your whole
existence in prison. I am sorry for you."
And now the banker, walking to and fro, remembered all this, and asked
himself: "What was the object of that bet? What is the good of that
man's losing fifteen years of his life and my throwing away two
millions? Can it prove that the death penalty is better or worse than
imprisonment for life? No, no. It was all nonsensical and meaningless.
On my part it was the caprice of a pampered man, and on his part simple
greed for money...."
Then he remembered what followed that evening. It was decided that the
young man should spend the years of his captivity under the strictest
supervision in one of the lodges in the banker's garden. It was agreed
that for fifteen years he should not be free to cross the threshold of
the lodge, to see human beings, to hear the human voice, or to receive
letters and newspapers. He was allowed to have a musical instrument and
books, and was allowed to write letters, to drink wine, and to smoke. By
the terms of the agreement, the only relations he could have with the
outer world were by a little window made purposely for that object. He
might have anything he wanted--books, music, wine, and so on--in any
quantity he desired by writing an order, but could only receive them
through the window. The agreement provided for every detail and every
trifle that would make his imprisonment strictly solitary, and bound the
young man to stay there exactly fifteen years, beginning from twelve
o'clock of November 14, 1870, and ending at twelve o'clock of November
14, 1885. The slightest attempt on his part to break the conditions, if
only two minutes before the end, released the banker from the obligation
to pay him two millions.
For the first year of his confinement, as far as one could judge from
his brief notes, the prisoner suffered severely from loneliness and
depression. The sounds of the piano could be heard continually day and
night from his lodge. He refused wine and tobacco. Wine, he wrote,
excites the desires, and desires are the worst foes of the prisoner; and
besides, nothing could be more dreary than drinking good wine and seeing
no one. And tobacco spoilt the air of his room. In the first year the
books he sent for were principally of a light character; novels with a
complicated love plot, sensational and fantastic stories, and so on.
In the second year the piano was silent in the lodge, and the prisoner
asked only for the classics. In the fifth year music was audible again,
and the prisoner asked for wine. Those who watched him through the
window said that all that year he spent doing nothing but eating and
drinking and lying on his bed, frequently yawning and angrily talking to
himself. He did not read books. Sometimes at night he would sit down to
write; he would spend hours writing, and in the morning tear up all that
he had written. More than once he could be heard crying.
In the second half of the sixth year the prisoner began zealously
studying languages, philosophy, and history. He threw himself eagerly
into these studies--so much so that the banker had enough to do to get
him the books he ordered. In the course of four years some six hundred
volumes were procured at his request. It was during this period that the
banker received the following letter from his prisoner:
"My dear Jailer, I write you these lines in six languages. Show them to
people who know the languages. Let them read them. If they find not one
mistake I implore you to fire a shot in the garden. That shot will show
me that my efforts have not been thrown away. The geniuses of all ages
and of all lands speak different languages, but the same flame burns in
them all. Oh, if you only knew what unearthly happiness my soul feels
now from being able to understand them!" The prisoner's desire was
fulfilled. The banker ordered two shots to be fired in the garden.
Then after the tenth year, the prisoner sat immovably at the table and
read nothing but the Gospel. It seemed strange to the banker that a man
who in four years had mastered six hundred learned volumes should waste
nearly a year over one thin book easy of comprehension. Theology and
histories of religion followed the Gospels.
In the last two years of his confinement the prisoner read an immense
quantity of books quite indiscriminately. At one time he was busy with
the natural sciences, then he would ask for Byron or Shakespeare. There
were notes in which he demanded at the same time books on chemistry, and
a manual of medicine, and a novel, and some treatise on philosophy or
theology. His reading suggested a man swimming in the sea among the
wreckage of his ship, and trying to save his life by greedily clutching
first at one spar and then at another.
II
The old banker remembered all this, and thought:
"To-morrow at twelve o'clock he will regain his freedom. By our
agreement I ought to pay him two millions. If I do pay him, it is all
over with me: I shall be utterly ruined."
Fifteen years before, his millions had been beyond his reckoning; now he
was afraid to ask himself which were greater, his debts or his assets.
Desperate gambling on the Stock Exchange, wild speculation and the
excitability which he could not get over even in advancing years, had by
degrees led to the decline of his fortune and the proud, fearless, self-
confident millionaire had become a banker of middling rank, trembling at
every rise and fall in his investments. "Cursed bet!" muttered the old
man, clutching his head in despair. "Why didn't the man die? He is only
forty now. He will take my last penny from me, he will marry, will enjoy
life, will gamble on the Exchange; while I shall look at him with envy
like a beggar, and hear from him every day the same sentence: 'I am
indebted to you for the happiness of my life, let me help you!' No, it
is too much! The one means of being saved from bankruptcy and disgrace
is the death of that man!"
It struck three o'clock, the banker listened; everyone was asleep in the
house and nothing could be heard outside but the rustling of the chilled
trees. Trying to make no noise, he took from a fireproof safe the key of
the door which had not been opened for fifteen years, put on his
overcoat, and went out of the house.
It was dark and cold in the garden. Rain was falling. A damp cutting
wind was racing about the garden, howling and giving the trees no rest.
The banker strained his eyes, but could see neither the earth nor the
white statues, nor the lodge, nor the trees. Going to the spot where the
lodge stood, he twice called the watchman. No answer followed. Evidently
the watchman had sought shelter from the weather, and was now asleep
somewhere either in the kitchen or in the greenhouse.
"If I had the pluck to carry out my intention," thought the old man,
"suspicion would fall first upon the watchman."
He felt in the darkness for the steps and the door, and went into the
entry of the lodge. Then he groped his way into a little passage and
lighted a match. There was not a soul there. There was a bedstead with
no bedding on it, and in the corner there was a dark cast-iron stove.
The seals on the door leading to the prisoner's rooms were intact.
When the match went out the old man, trembling with emotion, peeped
through the little window. A candle was burning dimly in the prisoner's
room. He was sitting at the table. Nothing could be seen but his back,
the hair on his head, and his hands. Open books were lying on the table,
on the two easy-chairs, and on the carpet near the table.
Five minutes passed and the prisoner did not once stir. Fifteen years'
imprisonment had taught him to sit still. The banker tapped at the
window with his finger, and the prisoner made no movement whatever in
response. Then the banker cautiously broke the seals off the door and
put the key in the keyhole. The rusty lock gave a grating sound and the
door creaked. The banker expected to hear at once footsteps and a cry of
astonishment, but three minutes passed and it was as quiet as ever in
the room. He made up his mind to go in.
At the table a man unlike ordinary people was sitting motionless. He was
a skeleton with the skin drawn tight over his bones, with long curls
like a woman's and a shaggy beard. His face was yellow with an earthy
tint in it, his cheeks were hollow, his back long and narrow, and the
hand on which his shaggy head was propped was so thin and delicate that
it was dreadful to look at it. His hair was already streaked with
silver, and seeing his emaciated, aged-looking face, no one would have
believed that he was only forty. He was asleep.... In front of his bowed
head there lay on the table a sheet of paper on which there was
something written in fine handwriting.