»My God! My God! What a brute you are.«

»Silence, you slut! You're drunk. You've gone mad! Do you think I need

your filthy body? Do you think it's for such as you that I've kept

myself? Sluts like you ought to be flogged!« And he lifted his hand as

though to box her ears, but did not touch her.

»My God! My God!«

»And they even pity you! You ought to be extirpated, all this

abomination and vice! Those who go with you, too--all that rabble! And

you dare to think me anything of that sort!«

He roughly took her by the hand and flung her on the chair.

»Oh, you fine man! Fine? Fine, are you?« She laughed in a transport of

delight.

»Fine? Yes. All my life! Honourable! Pure! But you? What are you, you

harlot, you miserable beast?«

»A fine man!« The delight of it was intoxicating her.

»Yes, fine. After tomorrow I shall be going to my death, for mankind,

for you ... and you? You'll be sleeping with my executioners. Call your

officers in here! I'll fling you at their feet and tell them, 'Take

your carrion!' Call them in!«

Liuba slowly rose to her feet, and when, in a tempest of emotion, with

proud distended nostrils, he looked at her, he was met by a look as

proud and even more disdainful. Even pity shone in the arrogant eyes of

the prostitute; she had mounted miraculously a step of the invisible

throne and thence, with a cold and stern attention, gazed down on

something at her feet--something petty, clamorous, pitiable. She no

longer smiled; there was no trace of excitement; her eyes involuntarily

seemed to look for the little step on which she was standing, so

conscious was she of the new height from which she looked down on all

things beneath her.

»What are you?« he repeated, without moving away, as vehement as ever,

but already subdued by that calm, haughty gaze.

Then, with an ominous air of conviction, behind which lay a vista of

millions of crushed lives and oceans of bitter tears and the unchecked

fiery course of rebellion's cry for justice, she asked sternly:

»What right have you to be fine when I am so common?«

»What?« he did not understand at once, but instantly felt a dread of

the gulf that yawned in all its blackness at his very feet.

»I have been waiting for you for a long time.«

»You--waiting for me?«

»Yes, I have been waiting for a fine man. For five years I have

been waiting--perhaps longer. All those who came admitted they were

brutes--and brutes they were. My author first said he was fine, but

then admitted he was a brute, too. I don't want that sort.«

»What, then--what do you want?«

»I want you, my darling,--you. Yes, just such as you.« She scrutinized

him carefully and quietly from head to foot and affirmatively nodded

her head. »Yes--thank you for coming.«

Then he who feared nothing, trembled.

»What do you want with me?« he asked, stepping back.

»It had to be a fine man, my dear, a really fine man. Those other

drivellers--its no good striking them--you only dirty your hands. But

now that I have struck you--why, I can kiss my own hand! Little hand,

you have hit a fine man!« She smiled, and did in fact three times

stroke and kiss her right hand.

He looked at her wildly, and his usually deliberate thoughts coursed

with the speed of desperation. There was approaching, like a black

cloud, a Thing, terrible and irreparable as death.

»What--what did you say?«

»I said it's shameful to be fine. Didn't you know that?«

»I never--« he muttered, and sat down, deeply confused and no longer

fully conscious of her.

»Then learn it now.«

She spoke calmly, and only the swelling of her half-bared bosom

betrayed how profound the emotion was that lay suppressed behind that

myriad cry.

»Do you realise it now?«

»What?« He was recovering himself.

»Do you realise it, I say?«

»Have patience!«

»I am patient, my dear. I have waited five years. Why shouldn't I be

patient for another five minutes?«

She sat back comfortably on the chair, as though in anticipation of a

rare pleasure, and crossed her naked arms and closed her eyes.

»You say it's shameful to be fine?«

»Yes, my pet, shameful.«

»But--what you say is....« He stopped short in terror.

» ... is so! Are you afraid? Never mind, never mind--it's only at first

that it's frightening.«

»But afterwards?«

»You are going to stay with me and learn what comes afterwards.«

He did not understand.

»How can I stay?«

The girl, in her turn, was startled.

»Can you go anywhere now, after this? Look, dear, don't be deceitful.

You're not a scoundrel like the others. You are really fine, and you

will stay. It wasn't for nothing I waited for you.«

»You've gone mad!« he exclaimed sharply.

She looked up at him sternly, and even threatened him with her finger.

»That's not fine. Don't speak like that. When a truth comes to you, bow

down humbly before it and do not say: 'You have gone mad.' That's what

my author says, 'you've gone mad!' But you be honourable!«

»And what if I don't stay?« he asked with a wan smile, his lips

distorted and pale.

»You will,« she said with conviction. »Where can you go now? You have

nowhere to go. You are honourable. I saw it the moment you kissed my

hand. A fool, I thought, but honourable. You are not offended that I

mistook you for a fool? It was your own fault. Well--why did you offer

me your innocence? You thought: I will give her my innocence and she

will renounce it. Oh, you fool! You fool! At first I was even offended.

Why, I thought, he doesn't even consider me a human being! And then

I saw that this, too, came from this fineness of yours. And this was

your calculation: I pay her my innocence, and in return I shall be even

purer than before and receive it back like a new shilling that hasn't

been in circulation. I give it to the beggar and it will come back to

me.... No, my dear, that game is not coming off!«

»N--not coming off?«

»N--no, dear,« she drawled, »for I am not a fool. I've seen enough of

these tradespeople. They pile up millions and then give a pound to a

church and imagine they have righted themselves. No, dear, you must

build me an entire church. You must give me the most precious thing you

have, your innocence. Perhaps you are only giving up your innocence

because it has become useless to you, because it has tarnished. Are

you getting married?«

»No.«

»Supposing you had a bride awaiting you tomorrow with flowers and

embraces and love, then would you give away your innocence, or not?«

»I don't know,« he said reflectively.

»This is what I mean. I should have said: Take my life, but leave me my

honour. You would give away the cheaper of the two. But, no--you must

give me the dearest thing of all, the thing without which you cannot

live--that and nothing else!«

»But why should I give it away? Why?«

»Why? Only that it may not be shameful to you.«

»But, Liuba!« he exclaimed in bewilderment. »Listen! You yourself

are....«

»Fine, you were going to say? I've heard that too from my author, more

than once. But, my dear, that is not the truth. I'm just an ordinary

girl, and you will stay and then you will know it.«

»I will not stay,« he cried aloud, between his teeth.

»Don't shriek, my dear. Shrieks avail nothing against the truth--I know

that for myself.« And then in a whisper, looking straight in his eyes,

she added: »For God, too, is fine!«

»Well, and then?«

»There's no more to be said. Think it out for yourself, and I'll stop

talking. It's only five years since I went to church. That's the truth.«

Truth? What truth? What was this unexplored terror, that he had never

met before either in the face of death or in life itself? Truth?

Square-cheeked, hard-headed, conscious only of the conflict in his

soul, he sat there resting his head on his hands and slowly turning

his eyes as though from one extreme of life to the other. And life

was collapsing--as a badly glued chest, rained upon in the autumn,

falls into unrecognisable fragments of what had been so beautiful.

He remembered the good fellows with whom he had lived his life and

worked in a marvellous union of joy and sorrow--and they seemed strange

to him and their life incomprehensible and their work senseless. It

was as though someone with mighty fingers had taken hold of his soul

and snapped it in two, as one snaps a stick across one's knee, and

flung the fragments far apart. It was only a few hours since he left

_there_--and all his life seemed to have been spent _here_, in front of

this half-naked woman, listening to the distant music and the jingling

of spurs; and that it would always be so. And he did not know which

side to turn, up or down, but only that he was opposed, tormentingly

opposed, to all that had that day become part of his very life and

soul. Shameful to be fine....

He recalled the books which had taught him how to live, and he smiled

bitterly. Books! There before him was one book, sitting with bare

shoulders, closed eyes, an expression of beatitude on a pale distracted

face, waiting patiently to be read to the end. Shameful to be fine....

And, all at once, with unbearable pain, grief-stricken, affrighted, he

realized once and for all that that life was done with, that it had

already become impossible for him to be fine!

He had only lived in that he was fine, it had been his only joy, and

his only weapon in the battle of life and death.

All this was gone. Nothing was left. The Dark! Whether he stayed there

or returned to his own people ... now, for him, his comrades were no

more.

Why had he come to this accursed house! Better had he remained on the

street, surrendered to the police, gone to prison where it was possible

and even not disgraceful to be fine. And now it was too late even for

prison.

»Are you crying?« the girl asked, perturbed.

»No,« he answered curtly. »I never cry.«

»And no need, dearie; we women can weep; you needn't. If you wept, too,

who would there be to give an answer to God?«

She was his? This woman was his?

»Liuba,« he cried in anguish, »what can I do? What can I do?«

»Stay with me. You can stay with me, for now you are mine.«

»And They?«

The girl frowned.

»What sort of people are They?«

»Men! Men!« he exclaimed in a frenzy. »Men with whom I used to work. It

was _not_ for myself--no, _not_ for self-satisfaction that I bore all this,

that I was getting ready to carry out this assassination!«

»Don't talk to me about those people,« she said sternly, though her

lips trembled. »Don't mention them to me or I shall quarrel with you

again. You hear me?«

»But what are you?« he asked amazed.

»I?--perhaps a cur! And all of us curs! But dearie, be careful! You've

been able to take shelter behind us, and so be it. But do not try to

hide from Truth; you will never elude her. If you must love mankind,

then pity our sorry brotherhood.«

She was sitting with her hands clasped behind her head, in an attitude

of blissful repose, foolishly happy, almost beside herself. She moved

her head from side to side, her eyes half closed in a daydream, spoke

slowly, almost chanting her words.

»My own! My love! We will drink together! We will weep together. Oh,

how delightful it will be to weep with you, dear one. I would so weep

all my life. He has stayed with me. He has not gone away. When I saw

him today, in the glass, it burst upon me at once: This is he!--my

betrothed!--my darling! And I do not know who you are, brother or

bridegroom of mine. But oh, so closely kin, so much desired....«

He, too, remembered that black dumb pair in the gilded mirror,--and

the passing thought: as at a funeral. And all at once the whole thing

became so intolerably painful, seemed so wild a nightmare, that he

ground his teeth in his grief. His thoughts travelled farther back;

he remembered his treasured revolver in his pocket, the two days of

constant flight, the plain door that had no handle, and how he looked

for a bell, and how a fat lackey who had not yet got his coat on

straight had come out in a dirty printed linen shirt, and how he had

entered with the proprietress into that white hall and seen those three

strange girls.

And with it all a feeling of growing freedom came over him and at

last he grasped that he was, as he had ever been, free--absolutely

free--that he could go wherever he liked.

Sternly now he surveyed that strange room, severely, with the

conviction of a man aroused for an instant from a debauch, seeing

himself in foreign surroundings and condemning what he sees.

»What is all this? How idiotic! What a senseless nightmare!«

But--the music was still playing on. But--the woman was still sitting

with her hands clasped behind her head, smiling, unable to speak,

almost fainting under the load of a happiness beyond sense and

experience. But--this was not a dream!

»What is all this? Is this--Truth?«

»Truth, my darling! You and I inseparable!«

This was Truth? Truth--those crumpled petticoats hanging on the wall in

their bare disorder? Truth--that carpet on which thousands of drunken

men had scuffled in spasms of hideous passion? Truth--this stale, moist

fragrance, loathesomely cleaving to the face? Truth--that music and the

jingling spurs? Truth--that woman with her pale and harassed face and

smile of pitiful bliss?

Again he rested his heavy head on his hands, looking askance with the

eyes of a wolf at bay; and his thoughts ran on without connection.

So she was Truth!... That meant that tomorrow and the day after he

would not go, and everyone would know why he had not gone, that he

had stayed with a girl, drinking; and they would call him traitor and

coward and rascal. Some would intercede for him--would guess ... no,

better not count on that, better see it all as it was! All over then?

Was this the end? Into the dark--thus--into the dark? And what lay

beyond? He did not know. In the dark? Probably some new horror. But

then as yet he did not understand their ways. How strange that one

had to learn to be common! And from whom? From her? No, she was no

use. She didn't know anything. He would find out for himself. One had

to become really common oneself in order to.... Yes, he would wreck

something that was great! And then? And then, some day he would come

back to her, or where they were drinking, or into a prison, and he

would say: »Now I am not ashamed, now I am not guilty in any respect in

your eyes. Now I am one like you, besmirched, fallen, unhappy!« Or he

would go into the open street and say: »Look at me, what I am! I had

everything--intellect, honour, dignity--stranger still, immortality.

And all this I flung at the feet of a whore. I renounced it all

because she was common!« What would they say? They would gape, and be

astounded, and say, »What a fool!« Yes--yes, a fool! Was he guilty

because he was fine? Let her--let everyone--try to be fine! »Sell all

thou hast and give to the poor.« But that was just what he had done,

all that he had. But this was Christ--in whom he did not believe....

Or perhaps.... »He who loses his soul«--not his life, but his soul....

That was what he was contemplating. Perhaps ... did Christ himself sin

with the sinners, commit adultery, get drunk? No, he only forgave those

who did, and even loved them. Well, so did he love and forgive and pity

her. Then, why sacrifice himself? For she was not of the faith. Nor he.

Nor was this Christ; but something else, something more dreadful.

»Oh, this is dreadful, Liuba!«

»Dreadful, darling? Yes, it is dreadful to see Truth.«

Truth--again she named it! But what made it dreadful? Why should he

dread what he so desired? No--no--there was nothing to fear. There,

in the open, in front of all those gaping mouths, would he not be the

highest of them all? Though naked and dirty and ragged--and his face

would be horrible then--he who had lost abandoned himself, would he not

be the terrible proclaimer of justice eternal, to which God himself

must submit--otherwise he were not God?

»There is nothing dreadful about it, Liuba.«

»Yes, darling, there is. You are not afraid, and that is well. But do

not provoke it. There is no need to do that.«

»So that is it--that is my end! It is not what I expected--not what I

expected for the end of my young and beautiful life. My God, but this

is senseless! I must have gone mad! Still it is not too late ... not

too late ... I can still escape.«

»My darling,« the woman was murmuring, her hands still clasped behind

her head.

He glanced at her and frowned. Her eyes were blissfully closed; a

happy, unthinking smile upon her lips expressed an unquenchable thirst,

an insatiable hunger, as though she had just tasted something and was

preparing for more.

He looked down on her and frowned--on her thin soft arms, on the dark

hollows of her armpits; and he got up without any haste. With a last

effort to save something precious--life or reason, or the good old

Truth--without any flurry, but solemnly, he began dressing himself. He

could not find his collar.

»Tell me, have you seen my collar?«

»Where are you going?« The woman looked round. Her hands fell away from

her head, and the whole of her strained forward towards him.

»I am going away.«

»You are going away?« she repeated, dragging the words. »You are going?

Where?«

He smiled derisively.

»As if I had nowhere to go! I am going to my comrades.«

»To the fine folk? Have you cheated me?«

»Yes. To the fine folk.« Again the same smile. He had finished

dressing, he was feeling his pockets.

»Give me my pocket-book.«

She handed it to him.

»And my watch.«

She gave it to him. They had been lying together on the little table.

»Goodbye.«

»Are you frightened?«

The question was quiet and simple. He looked up. There stood a woman,

tall and shapely, with thin, almost child-like arms, a pale smile, and

blanched lips, asking: »Are you frightened?«

How strangely she could change! Sometimes forceful and even terrible,

she was now pathetic and more like a girl than a woman. But all this

was of no account. He stepped toward the door.

»But I thought you were going to stay....«

»What?«

»The key's in your pocket--for my sake.«

The lock was already creaking.

»Very well, then! Go ... go to your comrades and....«

It was then, at the last moment, when he had nothing to do but to open

the door and go out and seek his comrades and end a noble life with

a heroic death--it was then he committed the wild, incomprehensible

act that ruined his life. It may have been a frenzy that sometimes

unaccountably seizes hold of the strongest and calmest minds; or it

may have been actually that, through the drunken scraping of a fiddle

somewhere in that bawdy house, through the sorcery of the downcast eyes

of a prostitute, he discovered a last new terrible truth of life, a

truth of his own, which none other could see and understand. Whichever

it were--insanity or revelation, lies or truth, this new understanding

of his--he accepted it manfully and unconditionally, with that

inflexible spirit which had drawn his previous life along one straight,

fiery line, directing its flight like the feathers on an arrow.

He passed his hand slowly, very slowly, over his hard, bristly skull,

and, without even shutting the door, simply returned and sat in his

former place on the bed. His broad cheekbones, his paleness, made him

look more than ever a foreigner.

»What's the matter? Have you forgotten something?«

The girl was astonished. She no longer expected anything.

»No.«

»What is it? Why don't you go?«

Quietly, with the expression of a stone on which life has engraved one

last commandment, grim and new, he answered:

»I do not wish to be fine.«

She still waited, not daring to believe, suddenly shrinking from what

she had so much sought and yearned for. She knelt down. He smiled

gently, and in the same new and impressive manner stood over her and

placed his hand on her head and repeated:

»I do not want to be fine.«

The woman busied herself swiftly in her joy. She undressed him like a

child, unlaced his boots, fumbling at the knots, stroked his head, his

knees, and never so much as smiled--so full was her heart. Then she

looked up into his face and was afraid.

»How pale you are! Drink something now--at once! Are you feeling ill,

Peter?«

»My name is Alexis.«

»Never mind that. Here, let me give you some in a glass. Well, take

care then; don't choke yourself! If you're not used to it, it's not so

easy as out of a glass.«

She opened her mouth, seeing him drink with slow, sceptical gulps. He

coughed.

»Never mind! You'll be a good drinker, I can see that! Oh, how happy I

am!«

With an animal cry she leapt on him, and began smothering him with

short, vigorous kisses, to which he had no time to respond. It was

funny--she was a stranger, yet kissed so hard! He held her firmly

for a moment, held her immovable, and was silent awhile, himself

motionless--held her as though he too felt the strength of quiescence,

the strength of a woman, as his own strength. And the woman, joyously,

obediently, became limp in his arms.

»So be it!« he said, with an imperceptible sigh.

The woman bestirred herself anew, burning in the savagery of her joy as

in a fire. Her movements filled the room, as if she were not one but a

score of half-witted women who spoke, stirred, went to and fro, kissed

him. She plied him with cognac, and drank more herself. Then a sudden

recollection seized her; she clasped her hands.

»But the revolver--we forgot that! Give it to me--quick, quick! I must

take it to the office.«

»Why?«

»Oh, I'm scared of the thing! Would it go off at once?«

He smiled, and repeated:

»Would it go off at once? Yes, it would. At once!«

He took out his revolver, and, deliberately weighing in his hand that

silent and obedient weapon, gave it to the girl. He also handed her the

cartridge clips.

»Take them!«

When he was left alone and without the revolver he had carried so many

years, the half open door letting in the sound of strange voices and

the clink of spurs, he felt the whole weight of the great burden he

had taken on his shoulders. He walked silently across the room in the

direction where They were to be found, and said one word:

»Well?«

A chill came over him as he crossed his arms, facing Them; and that

one little word held many meanings--a last farewell--some obscure

challenge, some irrevocable evil resolution to fight everyone, even his

own comrades--a little, a very little, sense of reproach.

He was still standing there when Liuba ran in, excitedly calling to him

from the door.

»Dearie, dearie, now don't be angry. I've asked my friends here, some

of them. You don't mind? You see, I want so much to show them my

sweetheart, my darling; you don't mind? They're dears! Nobody has taken

them this evening and they're all alone. The officers have gone to bed

now. One of them noticed your revolver and liked it. A very fine one,

he said. You don't mind? You don't mind, dear?« And the girl smothered

him with short, sharp kisses.

The women were already coming in, chattering and simpering--five or six

of the ugliest or oldest of the establishment--painted, with drooping

eyes, their hair combed up over their brows. Some of them affected

attitudes of shame, and giggled; others quietly eyed the cognac, and

looking at him earnestly shook hands. Apparently they had already been

to bed; they were all in scanty wrappers; one very fat woman, indolent

and indifferent, had come in nothing but a petticoat, her bare arms and

corpulent bosom incredibly fat. This fat woman, and another one with

an evil bird-like aged face, on which the white paint lay like dirty

stucco on a wall, were quite drunk; the others were merry. All this

mob of women, half naked, giggling, surrounded him; and an intolerable

stench of bodies and stale beer rose and mingled with the clammy, soapy

air of the room. A sweating lackey hurried in with cognac, dressed in

a tight frocks coat much too small for him, and the girls greeted him

with a chorus of:

»Màrkusha! Oh, Màrkusha! Dear Màrkusha!«

Apparently it was a custom of the house to greet him with such

exclamations, for even the fat drunken woman murmured lazily,

»Màrkusha!«

They drank and clinked glasses, all talking at once about affairs of

their own. The evil-looking woman with the bird-like face was irritably

and noisily telling of a guest who took her for a time ... and then

something had happened. There was much interchange of gutterswords

and phrases, pronounced not with the indifference of men, but with a

peculiar asperity, even acidity; and every object was called by its

proper name.