looking at his son, "about something very important. Excuse me, perhaps
I am hindering you. Haven't you ten roubles, my dear, you could let me
have till Tuesday? You see, I ought to have paid for my lodging
yesterday, and money, you see! . . . None! Not to save my life!"
Young Musatov went out without a word, and began whispering the other
side of the door with the landlady of the summer villa and his
colleagues who had taken the villa with him. Three minutes later he came
back, and without a word gave his father a ten-rouble note. The latter
thrust it carelessly into his pocket without looking at it, and said:
"Merci. Well, how are you getting on? It's a long time since we met."
"Yes, a long time, not since Easter."
"Half a dozen times I have been meaning to come to you, but I've never
had time. First one thing, then another. . . . It's simply awful! I am
talking nonsense though. . . . All that's nonsense. Don't you believe
me, Borenka. I said I would pay you back the ten roubles on Tuesday,
don't believe that either. Don't believe a word I say. I have nothing to
do at all, it's simply laziness, drunkenness, and I am ashamed to be
seen in such clothes in the street. You must excuse me, Borenka. Here I
have sent the girl to you three times for money and written you piteous
letters. Thanks for the money, but don't believe the letters; I was
telling fibs. I am ashamed to rob you, my angel; I know that you can
scarcely make both ends meet yourself, and feed on locusts, but my
impudence is too much for me. I am such a specimen of impudence-fit for
a show! . . . You must excuse me, Borenka. I tell you the truth, because
I can't see your angel face without emotion."
A minute passed in silence. The old man heaved a deep sigh and said:
"You might treat me to a glass of beer perhaps."
His son went out without a word, and again there was a sound of
whispering the other side of the door. When a little later the beer was
brought in, the old man seemed to revive at the sight of the bottles and
abruptly changed his tone.
"I was at the races the other day, my boy," he began telling him,
assuming a scared expression. "We were a party of three, and we pooled
three roubles on Frisky. And, thanks to that Frisky, we got thirty-two
roubles each for our rouble. I can't get on without the races, my boy.
It's a gentlemanly diversion. My virago always gives me a dressing over
the races, but I go. I love it, and that's all about it."
Boris, a fair-haired young man with a melancholy immobile face, was
walking slowly up and down, listening in silence. When the old man
stopped to clear his throat, he went up to him and said:
"I bought myself a pair of boots the other day, father, which turn out
to be too tight for me. Won't you take them? I'll let you have them
cheap."
"If you like," said the old man with a grimace, "only for the price you
gave for them, without any cheapening."
"Very well, I'll let you have them on credit."
The son groped under the bed and produced the new boots. The father took
off his clumsy, rusty, evidently second-hand boots and began trying on
the new ones.
"A perfect fit," he said. "Right, let me keep them. And on Tuesday, when
I get my pension, I'll send you the money for them. That's not true,
though," he went on, suddenly falling into the same tearful tone again.
"And it was a lie about the races, too, and a lie about the pension. And
you are deceiving me, Borenka. . . . I feel your generous tactfulness. I
see through you! Your boots were too small, because your heart is too
big. Ah, Borenka, Borenka! I understand it all and feel it!"
"Have you moved into new lodgings?" his son interrupted, to change the
conversation.
"Yes, my boy. I move every month. My virago can't stay long in the same
place with her temper."
"I went to your lodgings, I meant to ask you to stay here with me. In
your state of health it would do you good to be in the fresh air."
"No," said the old man, with a wave of his hand, "the woman wouldn't let
me, and I shouldn't care to myself. A hundred times you have tried to
drag me out of the pit, and I have tried myself, but nothing came of it.
Give it up. I must stick in my filthy hole. This minute, here I am
sitting, looking at your angel face, yet something is drawing me home to
my hole. Such is my fate. You can't draw a dung-beetle to a rose. But
it's time I was going, my boy. It's getting dark."
"Wait a minute then, I'll come with you. I have to go to town to-day
myself."
Both put on their overcoats and went out. When a little while afterwards
they were driving in a cab, it was already dark, and lights began to
gleam in the windows.
"I've robbed you, Borenka!" the father muttered. "Poor children, poor
children! It must be a dreadful trouble to have such a father! Borenka,
my angel, I cannot lie when I see your face. You must excuse me. . . .
What my depravity has come to, my God. Here I have just been robbing
you, and put you to shame with my drunken state; I am robbing your
brothers, too, and put them to shame, and you should have seen me
yesterday! I won't conceal it, Borenka. Some neighbours, a wretched
crew, came to see my virago; I got drunk, too, with them, and I
blackguarded you poor children for all I was worth. I abused you, and
complained that you had abandoned me. I wanted, you see, to touch the
drunken hussies' hearts, and pose as an unhappy father. It's my way, you
know, when I want to screen my vices I throw all the blame on my
innocent children. I can't tell lies and hide things from you, Borenka.
I came to see you as proud as a peacock, but when I saw your gentleness
and kind heart, my tongue clave to the roof of my mouth, and it upset my
conscience completely."
"Hush, father, let's talk of something else."
"Mother of God, what children I have," the old man went on, not heeding
his son. "What wealth God has bestowed on me. Such children ought not to
have had a black sheep like me for a father, but a real man with soul
and feeling! I am not worthy of you!"
The old man took off his cap with a button at the top and crossed
himself several times.
"Thanks be to Thee, O Lord!" he said with a sigh, looking from side to
side as though seeking for an ikon. "Remarkable, exceptional children! I
have three sons, and they are all like one. Sober, steady, hard-working,
and what brains! Cabman, what brains! Grigory alone has brains enough
for ten. He speaks French, he speaks German, and talks better than any
of your lawyers-one is never tired of listening. My children, my
children, I can't believe that you are mine! I can't believe it! You are
a martyr, my Borenka, I am ruining you, and I shall go on ruining you. .
. . You give to me endlessly, though you know your money is thrown away.
The other day I sent you a pitiful letter, I described how ill I was,
but you know I was lying, I wanted the money for rum. And you give to me
because you are afraid to wound me by refusing. I know all that, and
feel it. Grisha's a martyr, too. On Thursday I went to his office,
drunk, filthy, ragged, reeking of vodka like a cellar . . . I went
straight up, such a figure, I pestered him with nasty talk, while his
colleagues and superiors and petitioners were standing round. I have
disgraced him for life. And he wasn't the least confused, only turned a
bit pale, but smiled and came up to me as though there were nothing the
matter, even introduced me to his colleagues. Then he took me all the
way home, and not a word of reproach. I rob him worse than you. Take
your brother Sasha now, he's a martyr too! He married, as you know, a
colonel's daughter of an aristocratic circle, and got a dowry with her.
. . . You would think he would have nothing to do with me. No, brother,
after his wedding he came with his young wife and paid me the first
visit . . . in my hole. . . . Upon my soul!"
The old man gave a sob and then began laughing.
"And at that moment, as luck would have it, we were eating grated radish
with kvass and frying fish, and there was a stink enough in the flat to
make the devil sick. I was lying down-I'd had a drop-my virago bounced
out at the young people with her face crimson. . . . It was a disgrace
in fact. But Sasha rose superior to it all."
"Yes, our Sasha is a good fellow," said Boris.
"The most splendid fellow! You are all pure gold, you and Grisha and
Sasha and Sonya. I worry you, torment you, disgrace you, rob you, and
all my life I have not heard one word of reproach from you, you have
never given me one cross look. It would be all very well if I had been a
decent father to you-but as it is! You have had nothing from me but
harm. I am a bad, dissipated man. . . . Now, thank God, I am quieter and
I have no strength of will, but in old days when you were little I had
determination, will. Whatever I said or did I always thought it was
right. Sometimes I'd come home from the club at night, drunk and ill-
humoured, and scold at your poor mother for spending money. The whole
night I would be railing at her, and think it the right thing too; you
would get up in the morning and go to school, while I'd still be venting
my temper upon her. Heavens! I did torture her, poor martyr! When you
came back from school and I was asleep you didn't dare to have dinner
till I got up. At dinner again there would be a flare up. I daresay you
remember. I wish no one such a father; God sent me to you for a trial.
Yes, for a trial! Hold out, children, to the end! Honour thy father and
thy days shall be long. Perhaps for your noble conduct God will grant
you long life. Cabman, stop!"
The old man jumped out of the cab and ran into a tavern. Half an hour
later he came back, cleared his throat in a drunken way, and sat down
beside his son.
"Where's Sonya now?" he asked. "Still at boarding-school?"
"No, she left in May, and is living now with Sasha's mother-in-law."
"There!" said the old man in surprise. "She is a jolly good girl! So she
is following her brother's example. . . . Ah, Borenka, she has no
mother, no one to rejoice over her! I say, Borenka, does she . . . does
she know how I am living? Eh?"
Boris made no answer. Five minutes passed in profound silence. The old
man gave a sob, wiped his face with a rag and said:
"I love her, Borenka! She is my only daughter, you know, and in one's
old age there is no comfort like a daughter. Could I see her, Borenka?"
"Of course, when you like."
"Really? And she won't mind?"
"Of course not, she has been trying to find you so as to see you."
"Upon my soul! What children! Cabman, eh? Arrange it, Borenka darling!
She is a young lady now, delicatesse, consommé, and all the rest of it
in a refined way, and I don't want to show myself to her in such an
abject state. I'll tell you how we'll contrive to work it. For three
days I will keep away from spirits, to get my filthy, drunken phiz into
better order. Then I'll come to you, and you shall lend me for the time
some suit of yours; I'll shave and have my hair cut, then you go and
bring her to your flat. Will you?"
"Very well."
"Cabman, stop!"
The old man sprang out of the cab again and ran into a tavern. While
Boris was driving with him to his lodging he jumped out twice again,
while his son sat silent and waited patiently for him. When, after
dismissing the cab, they made their way across a long, filthy yard to
the "virago's" lodging, the old man put on an utterly shamefaced and
guilty air, and began timidly clearing his throat and clicking with his
lips.
"Borenka," he said in an ingratiating voice, "if my virago begins saying
anything, don't take any notice . . . and behave to her, you know,
affably. She is ignorant and impudent, but she's a good baggage. There
is a good, warm heart beating in her bosom!"
The long yard ended, and Boris found himself in a dark entry. The swing
door creaked, there was a smell of cooking and a smoking samovar. There
was a sound of harsh voices. Passing through the passage into the
kitchen Boris could see nothing but thick smoke, a line with washing on
it, and the chimney of the samovar through a crack of which golden
sparks were dropping.
"And here is my cell," said the old man, stooping down and going into a
little room with a low-pitched ceiling, and an atmosphere unbearably
stifling from the proximity of the kitchen.
Here three women were sitting at the table regaling themselves. Seeing
the visitors, they exchanged glances and left off eating.
"Well, did you get it?" one of them, apparently the "virago" herself,
asked abruptly.
"Yes, yes," muttered the old man. "Well, Boris, pray sit down.
Everything is plain here, young man . . . we live in a simple way."
He bustled about in an aimless way. He felt ashamed before his son, and
at the same time apparently he wanted to keep up before the women his
dignity as cock of the walk, and as a forsaken, unhappy father.
"Yes, young man, we live simply with no nonsense," he went on muttering.
"We are simple people, young man. . . . We are not like you, we don't
want to keep up a show before people. No! . . . Shall we have a drink of
vodka?"
One of the women (she was ashamed to drink before a stranger) heaved a
sigh and said:
"Well, I'll have another drink on account of the mushrooms. . . . They
are such mushrooms, they make you drink even if you don't want to. Ivan
Gerasimitch, offer the young gentleman, perhaps he will have a drink!"
The last word she pronounced in a mincing drawl.
"Have a drink, young man!" said the father, not looking at his son. "We
have no wine or liqueurs, my boy, we live in a plain way."
"He doesn't like our ways," sighed the "virago." "Never mind, never
mind, he'll have a drink."
Not to offend his father by refusing, Boris took a wineglass and drank
in silence. When they brought in the samovar, to satisfy the old man, he
drank two cups of disgusting tea in silence, with a melancholy face.
Without a word he listened to the virago dropping hints about there
being in this world cruel, heartless children who abandon their parents.
"I know what you are thinking now!" said the old man, after drinking
more and passing into his habitual state of drunken excitement. "You
think I have let myself sink into the mire, that I am to be pitied, but
to my thinking, this simple life is much more normal than your life, . .
. I don't need anybody, and . . . and I don't intend to eat humble pie.
. . . I can't endure a wretched boy's looking at me with compassion."
After tea he cleaned a herring and sprinkled it with onion, with such
feeling, that tears of emotion stood in his eyes. He began talking again
about the races and his winnings, about some Panama hat for which he had
paid sixteen roubles the day before. He told lies with the same relish
with which he ate herring and drank. His son sat on in silence for an
hour, and began to say good-bye.
"I don't venture to keep you," the old man said, haughtily. "You must
excuse me, young man, for not living as you would like!"
He ruffled up his feathers, snorted with dignity, and winked at the
women.
"Good-bye, young man," he said, seeing his son into the entry.
"Attendez."
In the entry, where it was dark, he suddenly pressed his face against
the young man's sleeve and gave a sob.
"I should like to have a look at Sonitchka," he whispered. "Arrange it,
Borenka, my angel. I'll shave, I'll put on your suit . . . I'll put on a
straight face . . . I'll hold my tongue while she is there. Yes, yes, I
will hold my tongue!"
He looked round timidly towards the door, through which the women's
voices were heard, checked his sobs, and said aloud:
"Good-bye, young man! Attendez." ON THE ROAD
"Upon the breast of a gigantic crag, A golden cloudlet rested for one
night." LERMONTOV.
IN the room which the tavern keeper, the Cossack Semyon Tchistopluy,
called the "travellers' room," that is kept exclusively for travellers,
a tall, broad-shouldered man of forty was sitting at the big unpainted
table. He was asleep with his elbows on the table and his head leaning
on his fist. An end of tallow candle, stuck into an old pomatum pot,
lighted up his light brown beard, his thick, broad nose, his sunburnt
cheeks, and the thick, black eyebrows overhanging his closed eyes. . . .
The nose and the cheeks and the eyebrows, all the features, each taken
separately, were coarse and heavy, like the furniture and the stove in
the "travellers' room," but taken all together they gave the effect of
something harmonious and even beautiful. Such is the lucky star, as it
is called, of the Russian face: the coarser and harsher its features the
softer and more good-natured it looks. The man was dressed in a
gentleman's reefer jacket, shabby, but bound with wide new braid, a
plush waistcoat, and full black trousers thrust into big high boots.
On one of the benches, which stood in a continuous row along the wall, a
girl of eight, in a brown dress and long black stockings, lay asleep on
a coat lined with fox. Her face was pale, her hair was flaxen, her
shoulders were narrow, her whole body was thin and frail, but her nose
stood out as thick and ugly a lump as the man's. She was sound asleep,
and unconscious that her semi-circular comb had fallen off her head and
was cutting her cheek.
The "travellers' room" had a festive appearance. The air was full of the
smell of freshly scrubbed floors, there were no rags hanging as usual on
the line that ran diagonally across the room, and a little lamp was
burning in the corner over the table, casting a patch of red light on
the ikon of St. George the Victorious. From the ikon stretched on each
side of the corner a row of cheap oleographs, which maintained a strict
and careful gradation in the transition from the sacred to the profane.
In the dim light of the candle end and the red ikon lamp the pictures
looked like one continuous stripe, covered with blurs of black. When the
tiled stove, trying to sing in unison with the weather, drew in the air
with a howl, while the logs, as though waking up, burst into bright
flame and hissed angrily, red patches began dancing on the log walls,
and over the head of the sleeping man could be seen first the Elder
Seraphim, then the Shah Nasir-ed-Din, then a fat, brown baby with goggle
eyes, whispering in the ear of a young girl with an extraordinarily
blank, and indifferent face. . . .
Outside a storm was raging. Something frantic and wrathful, but
profoundly unhappy, seemed to be flinging itself about the tavern with
the ferocity of a wild beast and trying to break in. Banging at the
doors, knocking at the windows and on the roof, scratching at the walls,
it alternately threatened and besought, then subsided for a brief
interval, and then with a gleeful, treacherous howl burst into the
chimney, but the wood flared up, and the fire, like a chained dog, flew
wrathfully to meet its foe, a battle began, and after it-sobs, shrieks,
howls of wrath. In all of this there was the sound of angry misery and
unsatisfied hate, and the mortified impatience of something accustomed
to triumph.
Bewitched by this wild, inhuman music the "travellers' room" seemed
spellbound for ever, but all at once the door creaked and the potboy, in
a new print shirt, came in. Limping on one leg, and blinking his sleepy
eyes, he snuffed the candle with his fingers, put some more wood on the
fire and went out. At once from the church, which was three hundred
paces from the tavern, the clock struck midnight. The wind played with
the chimes as with the snowflakes; chasing the sounds of the clock it
whirled them round and round over a vast space, so that some strokes
were cut short or drawn out in long, vibrating notes, while others were
completely lost in the general uproar. One stroke sounded as distinctly
in the room as though it had chimed just under the window. The child,
sleeping on the fox-skin, started and raised her head. For a minute she
stared blankly at the dark window, at Nasir-ed-Din over whom a crimson
glow from the fire flickered at that moment, then she turned her eyes
upon the sleeping man.
"Daddy," she said.
But the man did not move. The little girl knitted her brow angrily, lay
down, and curled up her legs. Someone in the tavern gave a loud,
prolonged yawn. Soon afterwards there was the squeak of the swing door
and the sound of indistinct voices. Someone came in, shaking the snow
off, and stamping in felt boots which made a muffled thud.
"What is it?" a woman's voice asked languidly.
"Mademoiselle Ilovaisky has come, . . ." answered a bass voice.
Again there was the squeak of the swing door. Then came the roar of the
wind rushing in. Someone, probably the lame boy, ran to the door leading
to the "travellers' room," coughed deferentially, and lifted the latch.
"This way, lady, please," said a woman's voice in dulcet tones. "It's
clean in here, my beauty. . . ."
The door was opened wide and a peasant with a beard appeared in the
doorway, in the long coat of a coachman, plastered all over with snow
from head to foot, and carrying a big trunk on his shoulder. He was
followed into the room by a feminine figure, scarcely half his height,
with no face and no arms, muffled and wrapped up like a bundle and also
covered with snow. A damp chill, as from a cellar, seemed to come to the
child from the coachman and the bundle, and the fire and the candles
flickered.
"What nonsense!" said the bundle angrily, "We could go perfectly well.
We have only nine more miles to go, mostly by the forest, and we should
not get lost. . . ."
"As for getting lost, we shouldn't, but the horses can't go on, lady!"
answered the coachman. "And it is Thy Will, O Lord! As though I had done
it on purpose!"
"God knows where you have brought me. . . . Well, be quiet. . . . There
are people asleep here, it seems. You can go. . . ."
The coachman put the portmanteau on the floor, and as he did so, a great
lump of snow fell off his shoulders. He gave a sniff and went out.
Then the little girl saw two little hands come out from the middle of
the bundle, stretch upwards and begin angrily disentangling the network
of shawls, kerchiefs, and scarves. First a big shawl fell on the ground,
then a hood, then a white knitted kerchief. After freeing her head, the
traveller took off her pelisse and at once shrank to half the size. Now
she was in a long, grey coat with big buttons and bulging pockets. From
one pocket she pulled out a paper parcel, from the other a bunch of big,
heavy keys, which she put down so carelessly that the sleeping man
started and opened his eyes. For some time he looked blankly round him
as though he didn't know where he was, then he shook his head, went to
the corner and sat down. . . . The newcomer took off her great coat,
which made her shrink to half her size again, she took off her big felt
boots, and sat down, too.
By now she no longer resembled a bundle: she was a thin little brunette
of twenty, as slim as a snake, with a long white face and curly hair.
Her nose was long and sharp, her chin, too, was long and sharp, her
eyelashes were long, the corners of her mouth were sharp, and, thanks to
this general sharpness, the expression of her face was biting. Swathed
in a closely fitting black dress with a mass of lace at her neck and
sleeves, with sharp elbows and long pink fingers, she recalled the
portraits of mediæval English ladies. The grave concentration of her
face increased this likeness.
The lady looked round at the room, glanced sideways at the man and the
little girl, shrugged her shoulders, and moved to the window. The dark
windows were shaking from the damp west wind. Big flakes of snow
glistening in their whiteness, lay on the window frame, but at once
disappeared, borne away by the wind. The savage music grew louder and
louder. . . .
After a long silence the little girl suddenly turned over, and said
angrily, emphasizing each word:
"Oh, goodness, goodness, how unhappy I am! Unhappier than anyone!"
The man got up and moved with little steps to the child with a guilty
air, which was utterly out of keeping with his huge figure and big
beard.
"You are not asleep, dearie?" he said, in an apologetic voice. "What do
you want?"
"I don't want anything, my shoulder aches! You are a wicked man, Daddy,
and God will punish you! You'll see He will punish you."
"My darling, I know your shoulder aches, but what can I do, dearie?"
said the man, in the tone in which men who have been drinking excuse
themselves to their stern spouses. "It's the journey has made your
shoulder ache, Sasha. To-morrow we shall get there and rest, and the
pain will go away. . . ."
"To-morrow, to-morrow. . . . Every day you say to-morrow. We shall be
going on another twenty days."