I
He drank hard, lost his work and his acquaintances, and took up his
abode in a cellar in the company of thieves and unfortunates, living on
the last things he had.
His was a sickly, anaemic body, worn out with work, eaten up by
sufferings and vodka. Death was already on the watch for him, like a
grey bird-of-prey blind in the sunshine, sharp-eyed in the black night.
By day death hid itself in the dark corners, but at night it took its
seat noiselessly by his bedside, and sat long, till the very dawn, and
was quiet, patient, and persistent. When at the first streak of light
he put out his pale head from under the blankets, his eyes gleaming
like those of a hunted wild animal, the room was already empty. But he
did not trust this deceptive emptiness, which others believe in. He
suspiciously looked round into all the corners; with crafty suddenness
he cast a glance behind his back, and then leaning upon his elbows he
gazed intently before him into the melting darkness of the departing
night. And then he saw something, such as ordinary people do not see:
the rocking of a monster grey body, shapeless, terrible. It was
transparent, embraced all things, and objects were seen in it as behind
a glass wall. But now he feared it not; and it departed until the next
night, leaving behind it a cold impression.
For a short time he was wrapped in oblivion, and terrible,
extraordinary dreams came to him. He saw a white room, with white floor
and walls, illumined by a bright, white light, and a black serpent
which was creeping away under the door with a gentle rustling-like
laughter. Pressing its sharp flat head to the floor, it wriggled and
quickly glided away, and was lost somewhere or other, and then again
its black flattened nose appeared through a crevice under the door, and
its body drew itself out in a black ribbon—and so again and again. Once
in his sleep he dreamed of something pleasant, and laughed, but the
sound seemed strange, and more like a suppressed sob—it was terrible to
hear it—his soul somewhere in the unknown depths laughing, or perhaps
weeping, while the body lay motionless as the dead.
By degrees the sounds of nascent day began to invade his consciousness:
the indistinct talk of passers-by, the distant squeaking of a door, the
swish of the _dvornik”s_ broom as he brushed away the snow from the
window-sill—all the undefined bustle of a great city awakening. And
then there came upon him the most horrible, mercilessly clear
consciousness that a new day had arrived, and that he would soon have
to get up, in order to struggle for life without any hope of victory.
One must live.
He turned his back to the light, threw the blanket over his head, so
that not the minutest ray might penetrate to his eyes, squeezed himself
together into a small ball, drawing his legs up to his very chin, and
so lay motionless, dreading to stir and to stretch out his legs. A
whole mountain of clothes lay upon him as a protection against the cold
of the basement, but he did not feel their weight, and his body
remained cold. And at every sound speaking of life he seemed to himself
to be monstrous and unveiled, and he hugged himself together all the
tighter, and silently groaned—neither with voice nor in thought—since
he feared now his own voice and his own thoughts. He prayed to some one
that the day might not come, so that he might always lie under the heap
of rags, without movement or thought, and he concentrated his whole
will to keep back the coming day, and to persuade himself that it was
still night. And more than anything in the world he wished that some
one from behind would put a revolver to the back of his head, just at
the place where there is a cavity, and blow his brains out.
But daylight unfolded, broad, irresistible, calling forcibly to life,
and all the world began to move, to talk, to work, to think. The first
in the basement to wake was the landlady, old Matryona. She got up from
the side of her twenty-five-year-old lover, and began to stamp about
the kitchen, clatter with the buckets, and busy herself about something
close to Khinyakov”s very door. He felt her approach, and lay quiet,
determined not to answer if she called him. But she kept silence, and
went away somewhere. In the course of an hour or two the two other
lodgers woke up, an unfortunate named Dunyasha, and the old woman’s
lover Abram Petrovich. He was so called in spite of his youth out of
respect, because he was a daring and skilful thief, and something else
besides, which was guessed at, but not spoken about.
The waking up of these terrified Khinyakov more than anything, since
they had a hold on him, and the right to come in and sit on his bed, to
touch him, and recall him to thought and speech. He had become intimate
with Dunyasha one day when he was drunk, and had promised her marriage,
and although she had laughed and slapped him on the back, she sincerely
considered him as her lover, and patronized him, although she was
herself a stupid, dirty, unwashed slut, who had spent many a night at
the police-station. With Abram Petrovich he had only the day before
yesterday been drinking, and they had kissed one another and sworn
eternal friendship.
When the fresh loud voice of Abram Petrovich and his quick steps
resounded near the door, Khinyakov”s heart’s blood curdled with fear
and suspense, and he could not help groaning aloud, and then was all
the more frightened. In one distinct picture that drinking-bout passed
before him: how they had sat in some dark tavern or other, illumined by
a single lamp, amid dark people who kept whispering together about
something, while they themselves also whispered together. Abram
Petrovich was pale and excited, and complained of the hardships of a
thief”s life; for some reason or other he had bared his arms and
allowed him to feel the badly-mended bones of his once broken arm, and
Khinyakov had kissed him and said:
“I love thieves, they are so bold,” and proposed to him that they
should drink to “brotherhood,” although they had for long been on quite
intimate terms.
“And I love you, because you are educated, and understand us so well,”
replied Abram Petrovich.
“Look again at my arm; here it is, eh?”
And again the white arm had passed before his eyes, seeming to be sorry
for its own whiteness, and suddenly realizing something (which he did
not now remember or understand), he had kissed that arm, and Abram
Petrovich had proudly cried:
“Indeed, brother, death before surrender!”
And then something dirty whirling round and round, howls, whistles, and
jumping lights. Then he had felt cheerful, but now when death was
hiding in the corners, and when day was rushing in upon him from every
direction with the inexorable necessity to live and do something, to
struggle after something and ask for something—he felt tortured and
inexpressibly frightened.
“Are you asleep, sir?” Abram Petrovich inquired sarcastically through
the door, and receiving no answer, added:
“Well, then, sleep away; devil take you!”
Many acquaintances visited Abram Petrovich, and throughout the day the
door squeaked on its hinges, and bass voices were to be heard. And it
seemed to Khinyakov at every sound that they were coming for him, and
he buried himself the deeper in his bedclothes, and listened long to
catch to whom the voice belonged. He waited and waited in agony,
trembling all over his body, although there was no one in the whole
world who would come to fetch him.
He had once had a wife—long ago—but she was dead. Still further back in
the past he had had brothers and sisters, and still earlier—something
indistinct and beautiful, which he called Mother. All these were dead,
or possibly some one of them might be still alive, only so lost in the
wide, wide world, that he was as though dead. And he himself would soon
be dead too—he knew it. When he should get up to-day his legs would
tremble and give way under him, and his hands would make uncertain
strange motions—and this was death. But meanwhile he must need live,
and that is such a serious task for a man who has neither money,
health, nor will, that Khinyakov was seized with despair. He threw off
his blanket, clasped his hands, and breathed out into the void such
prolonged groans, that they seemed to proceed from a thousand suffering
breasts, therefore was it that they were so full, brimming over with
insupportable torture.
“Open, you devil!” cried Dunyasha from the other side of the door,
pounding it with her fists. “Or I’ll break the door down!”
Trembling with tottering steps, Khinyakov reached the door, opened it,
and quickly lay down again, nay almost fell, on his bed. Dunyasha,
already befrizzled and bepowdered, sat down at his side, shoving him
against the wall, and, crossing her legs, said with an air of
importance:
“I have brought you news. Katya expired yesterday?”
“What Katya?” asked Khinyakov, using his tongue clumsily and
uncertainly, as though it did not belong to him.
“Come, now, you can’t have forgotten!” laughed Dunyasha. “The Katya who
used to live here. How can you have forgotten her, when she has been
gone only a week?”
“Died?”
“Why, of course died, as all die.” Dunyasha moistened the tip of her
little finger and wiped the powder from her thin eye-lashes.
“What of?”
“What all die of. Who knows what? They told me yesterday at the cafe,
Katya was dead.”
“Did you love her?”
“Certainly I loved her! What are you talking about!”
Dunyasha’s stupid eyes looked at Khinyakov in dull indifference as she
swung her fat leg. She did not know what more to say, and tried to look
at him, as he lay there, in such a manner as to show to him her love,
and with that intent she gently winked her eye, and dropped the corners
of her full lips.
The day had begun.