Chapter 2

I must own I had the gravest doubts as to his having gone to the Caucasus. But it turned out that he really had gone there, had, by favour, got into the T---- regiment as a cadet, and had been serving in it for those two years. A perfect series of legends had sprung up there about him. An officer of his regiment related them to me.

IV

I learned a great deal which I should never have expected of him.--I was, of course, hardly surprised that as a military man, as an officer, he was not a success, that he was in fact worse than useless; but what I had not anticipated was that he was by no means conspicuous for much bravery; that in battle he had a downcast, woebegone air, seemed half-depressed, half-bewildered. Discipline of every sort worried him, and made him miserable; he was daring to the point of insanity when only his _own personal_ safety was in question; no bet was too mad for him to accept; but do harm to others, kill, fight, he could not, possibly because his heart was too good--or possibly because his ‘cottonwool’ education (so he expressed it), had made him too soft. Himself he was quite ready to murder in any way at any moment.... But others--no. ‘There’s no making him out,’ his comrades said of him; ‘he’s a flabby creature, a poor stick--and yet such a desperate fellow--a perfect madman!’ I chanced in later days to ask Misha what evil spirit drove him, forced him, to drink to excess, risk his life, and so on. He always had one answer--‘wretchedness.’

‘But why are you wretched?’

‘Why! how can you ask? If one comes, anyway, to one’s self, begins to feel, to think of the poverty, of the injustice, of Russia.... Well, it’s all over with me! ... one’s so wretched at once--one wants to put a bullet through one’s head! One’s forced to start drinking.’

‘Why ever do you drag Russia in?’

‘How can I help it? Can’t be helped! That’s why I’m afraid to think.’

‘It all comes, and your wretchedness too, from having nothing to do.’

‘But I don’t know how to do anything, uncle! dear fellow! Take one’s life, and stake it on a card--that I can do! Come, you tell me what I ought to do, what to risk my life for? This instant ... I’ll ...’

‘But you must simply live.... Why risk your life?’

‘I can’t! You say I act thoughtlessly.... But what else can I do? ... If one starts thinking--good God, all that comes into one’s head! It’s only Germans who can think! ...’

What use was it talking to him? He was a desperate man, and that’s all one can say.

Of the Caucasus legends I have spoken about, I will tell you two or three. One day, in a party of officers, Misha began boasting of a sabre he had got by exchange--‘a genuine Persian blade!’ The officers expressed doubts as to its genuineness. Misha began disputing. ‘Here then,’ he cried at last; ‘they say the man that knows most about sabres is Abdulka the one-eyed. I’ll go to him, and ask.’ The officers wondered. ‘What Abdulka? Do you mean that lives in the mountains? The rebel never subdued? Abdul-khan?’ ‘Yes, that’s him.’ ‘Why, but he’ll take you for a spy, will put you in a hole full of bugs, or else cut your head off with your own sabre. And, besides, how are you going to get to him? They’ll catch you directly.’ ‘I’ll go to him, though, all the same.’ ‘Bet you won’t!’ ‘Taken!’ And Misha promptly saddled his horse and rode off to Abdulka. He disappeared for three days. All felt certain that the crazy fellow had come by his end. But, behold! he came back--drunk, and with a sabre, not the one he had taken, but another. They began questioning him. ‘It was all right,’ said he; ‘Abdulka’s a nice fellow. At first, it’s true, he ordered them to put irons on my legs, and was even on the point of having me impaled. Only, I explained why I had come, and showed him the sabre. “And you’d better not keep me,” said I; “don’t expect a ransom for me; I’ve not a farthing to bless myself with--and I’ve no relations.” Abdulka was surprised; he looked at me with his solitary eye. “Well,” said he, “you are a bold one, you Russian; am I to believe you?” “You may believe me,” said I; “I never tell a lie.” (And this was true; Misha never lied.) Abdulka looked at me again. “And do you know how to drink wine?” “I do,” said I; “give me as much as you will, I’ll drink it.” Abdulka was surprised again; he called on Allah. And he told his--daughter, I suppose--such a pretty creature, only with an eye like a jackal’s--to bring a wine-skin. And I began to get to work on it. “But your sabre,” said he, “isn’t genuine; here, take the real thing. And now we are pledged friends.” But you’ve lost your bet, gentlemen; pay up.’

The second legend of Misha is of this nature. He was passionately fond of cards; but as he had no money, and could never pay his debts at cards (though he was never a card-sharper), no one at last would sit down to a game with him. So one day he began urgently begging one of his comrades among the officers to play with him! ‘But if you lose, you don’t pay.’ ‘The money certainly I can’t pay, but I’ll put a shot through my left hand, see, with this pistol here!’ ‘But whatever use will that be to me?’ ‘No use, but still it will be curious.’ This conversation took place after a drinking bout in the presence of witnesses. Whether it was that Misha’s proposition struck the officer as really curious--anyway he agreed. Cards were brought, the game began. Misha was in luck; he won a hundred roubles. And thereupon his opponent struck his forehead with vexation. ‘What an ass I am!’ he cried, ‘to be taken in like this! As if you’d have shot your hand if you had lost!--a likely story! hold out your purse!’ ‘That’s a lie,’ retorted Misha: ‘I’ve won--but I’ll shoot my hand.’ He snatched up his pistol--and bang, fired at his own hand. The bullet passed right through it ... and in a week the wound had completely healed.

Another time, Misha was riding with his comrades along a road at night ... and they saw close to the roadside a narrow ravine like a deep cleft, dark--so dark you couldn’t see the bottom. ‘Look,’ said one of the officers, ‘Misha may be a desperate fellow, but he wouldn’t leap into that ravine.’ ‘Yes, I’d leap in!’ ‘No, you wouldn’t, for I dare say it’s seventy feet deep, and you might break your neck.’ His friend knew his weak point--vanity.... There was a great deal of it in Misha. ‘But I’ll leap in anyway! Would you like to bet on it? Ten roubles.’ ‘Good!’ And the officer had hardly uttered the word, when Misha and his horse were off--into the ravine--and crashing down over the stones. All were simply petrified.... A full minute passed, and they heard Misha’s voice, dimly, as it were rising up out of the bowels of the earth: ‘All right! fell on the sand ... but it was a long flight! Ten roubles you’ve lost!’

‘Climb out!’ shouted his comrades. ‘Climb out, I dare say!’ echoed Misha. ‘A likely story! I should like to see you climb out. You’ll have to go for torches and ropes now. And, meanwhile, to keep up my spirits while I wait, fling down a flask....’

And so Misha had to stay five hours at the bottom of the ravine; and when they dragged him out, it turned out that his shoulder was dislocated. But that in no way troubled him. The next day a bone-setter, one of the black-smiths, set his shoulder, and he used it as though nothing had been the matter.

His health in general was marvellous, incredible. I have already mentioned that up to the time of his death he kept his almost childishly fresh complexion. Illness was a thing unknown to him, in spite of his excesses; the strength of his constitution never once showed signs of giving way. When any other man would infallibly have been seriously ill, or even have died, he merely shook himself, like a duck in the water, and was more blooming than ever. Once, also in the Caucasus ... _this_ legend is really incredible, but one may judge from it what Misha was thought to be capable of.... Well, once, in the Caucasus, in a state of drunkenness, he fell down with the lower half of his body in a stream of water; his head and arms were on the bank, out of water. It was winter-time, there was a hard frost, and when he was found next morning, his legs and body were pulled out from under a thick layer of ice, which had formed over them in the night--and he didn’t even catch cold! Another time--this was in Russia (near Orel, and also in a time of severe frost)--he was in a tavern outside the town in company with seven young seminarists (or theological students), and these seminarists were celebrating their final examination, but had invited Misha, as a delightful person, a man of ‘inspiration,’ as the phrase was then. A very great deal was drunk, and when at last the festive party got ready to depart, Misha, dead drunk, was in an unconscious condition. All the seven seminarists together had but one three-horse sledge with a high back; where were they to stow the unresisting body? Then one of the young men, inspired by classical reminiscences, proposed tying Misha by his feet to the back of the sledge, as Hector was tied to the chariot of Achilles! The proposal met with approval ... and jolting up and down over the holes, sliding sideways down the slopes, with his legs torn and flayed, and his head rolling in the snow, poor Misha travelled on his back for the mile and a half from the tavern to the town, and hadn’t as much as a cough afterwards, hadn’t turned a hair! Such heroic health had nature bestowed upon him!

V

From the Caucasus he came again to Moscow, in a Circassian dress, a dagger in his sash, a high-peaked cap on his head. This costume he retained to the end, though he was no longer in the army, from which he had been discharged for outstaying his leave. He stayed with me, borrowed a little money ... and forthwith began his ‘plunges,’ his wanderings, or, as he expressed it, ‘his peregrinations from pillar to post,’ then came the sudden disappearances and returns, and the showers of beautifully written letters addressed to people of every possible description, from an archbishop down to stable-boys and mid-wives! Then came calls upon persons known and unknown! And this is worth noticing: when he made these calls, he was never abject and cringing, he never worried people by begging, but on the contrary behaved with propriety, and had positively a cheerful and pleasant air, though the inveterate smell of spirits accompanied him everywhere, and his Oriental costume gradually changed into rags. ‘Give, and God will reward you, though I don’t deserve it,’ he would say, with a bright smile and a candid blush; ‘if you don’t give, you’ll be perfectly right, and I shan’t blame you for it. I shall find food to eat, God will provide! And there are people poorer than I, and much more deserving of help--plenty, plenty!’ Misha was particularly successful with women: he knew how to appeal to their sympathy. But don’t suppose that he was or fancied himself a Lovelace....Oh, no! in that way he was very modest. Whether it was that he had inherited a cool temperament from his parents, or whether indeed this too is to be set down to his dislike for doing any one harm--as, according to his notions, relations with a woman meant inevitably doing a woman harm--I won’t undertake to decide; only in all his behaviour with the fair sex he was extremely delicate. Women felt this, and were the more ready to sympathise with him and help him, until at last he revolted them by his drunkenness and debauchery, by the desperateness of which I have spoken already.... I can think of no other word for it.

But in other relations he had by that time lost every sort of delicacy, and was gradually sinking to the lowest depths of degradation. He once, in the public assembly at T----, got as far as setting on the table a jug with a notice: ‘Any one, to whom it may seem agreeable to give the high-born nobleman Poltyev (authentic documents in proof of his pedigree are herewith exposed) a flip on the nose, may satisfy this inclination on putting a rouble into this jug.’ And I am told there were persons found willing to pay for the privilege of flipping a nobleman’s nose! It is true that one such person, who put in only one rouble and gave him _two_ flips, he first almost strangled, and then forced to apologise; it is true, too, that part of the money gained in this fashion he promptly distributed among other poor devils ... but still, think what a disgrace!

In the course of his ‘peregrinations from pillar to post,’ he made his way, too, to his ancestral home, which he had sold for next to nothing to a speculator and money-lender well known in those days. The money-lender was at home, and hearing of the presence in the neighbourhood of the former owner, now reduced to vagrancy, he gave orders not to admit him into the house, and even, in case of necessity, to drive him away. Misha announced that he would not for his part consent to enter the house, polluted by the presence of so repulsive a person; that he would permit no one to drive him away, but was going to the churchyard to pay his devotions at the grave of his parents. So in fact he did.

In the churchyard he was joined by an old house-serf, who had once been his nurse. The money-lender had deprived this old man of his monthly allowance, and driven him off the estate; since then his refuge had been a corner in a peasant’s hut. Misha had been too short a time in possession of his estate to have left behind him a particularly favourable memory; still the old servant could not resist running to the churchyard as soon as he heard of his young master’s being there. He found Misha sitting on the ground between the tombstones, asked for his hand to kiss, as in old times, and even shed tears on seeing the rags which clothed the limbs of his once pampered young charge.

Misha gazed long and silently at the old man. ‘Timofay!’ he said at last; Timofay started.

‘What do you desire?’

‘Have you a spade?’

‘I can get one.... But what do you want with a spade, Mihailo Andreitch, sir?’

‘I want to dig myself a grave, Timofay, and to lie here for time everlasting between my father and mother. There’s only this spot left me in the world. Get a spade!’

‘Yes, sir,’ said Timofay; he went and got it. And Misha began at once digging in the ground, while Timofay stood by, his chin propped in his hand, repeating: ‘It’s all that’s left for you and me, master!’

Misha dug and dug, from time to time observing: ‘Life’s not worth living, is it, Timofay?’

‘It’s not indeed, master.’

The hole was already of a good depth. People saw what Misha was about, and ran to tell the new owner about it. The money-lender was at first very angry, wanted to send for the police: ‘This is sacrilege,’ said he. But afterwards, probably reflecting that it was inconvenient anyway to have to do with such a madman, and that it might lead to a scandal,--he went in his own person to the churchyard, and approaching Misha, still toiling, made him a polite bow. He went on with his digging as though he had not noticed his successor. ‘Mihail Andreitch,’ began the money-lender, ‘allow me to ask what you are doing here?’

‘You can see--I am digging myself a grave.’

‘Why are you doing so?’

‘Because I don’t want to live any longer.’

The money-lender fairly threw up his hands in amazement. ‘You don’t want to live?’

Misha glanced menacingly at the money-lender. ‘That surprises you? Aren’t you the cause of it all? ... You? ... You? ... Wasn’t it you, Judas, who robbed me, taking advantage of my childishness? Aren’t you flaying the peasants’ skins off their backs? Haven’t you taken from this poor old man his crust of dry bread? Wasn’t it you? ... O God! everywhere nothing but injustice, and oppression, and evil-doing.... Everything must go to ruin then, and me too! I don’t care for life, I don’t care for life in Russia!’ And the spade moved faster than ever in Misha’s hands.

‘Here’s a devil of a business!’ thought the money-lender; ‘he’s positively burying himself alive.’ ‘Mihail Andreevitch,’ he began again: ‘listen. I’ve been behaving badly to you, indeed; they told me falsely of you.’

Misha went on digging.

‘But why be desperate?’

Misha still went on digging, and kept throwing the earth at the money-lender’s feet, as though to say, ‘Here you are, land-grabber.’

‘Really, you ‘re wrong in this. Won’t you be pleased to come in to have some lunch, and rest a bit?’

Misha raised his head. ‘So that’s it now! And anything to drink?’

The money-lender was delighted. ‘Why, of course ... I should think so.’

‘You invite Timofay too?’

‘Well, ... yes, him too.’

Misha pondered. ‘Only, mind ... you made me a beggar, you know.... Don’t think you can get off with one bottle!’

‘Set your mind at rest ... there shall be all you can want.’

Misha got up and flung down the spade.... ‘Well, Timosha,’ said he to his old nurse; ‘let’s do honour to our host.... Come along.’

‘Yes, sir,’ answered the old man.

And all three started off to the house together. The money-lender knew the man he had to deal with. At the first start Misha, it is true, exacted a promise from him to ‘grant all sorts of immunities’ to the peasants; but an hour later, this same Misha, together with Timofay, both drunk, were dancing a galop in the big apartments, which still seemed pervaded by the God-fearing shade of Andrei Nikolaevitch; and an hour later still, Misha in a dead sleep (he had a very weak head for spirits), laid in a cart with his high cap and dagger, was being driven off to the town, more than twenty miles away, and there was flung under a hedge.... As for Timofay, who could still keep on his legs, and only hiccupped--him, of course, they kicked out of the house; since they couldn’t get at the master, they had to be content with the old servant.

VI

Some time passed again, and I heard nothing of Misha.... God knows what he was doing. But one day, as I sat over the samovar at a posting-station on the T---- highroad, waiting for horses, I suddenly heard under the open window of the station room a hoarse voice, uttering in French the words: ‘Monsieur ... monsieur ... prenez pitié d’un pauvre gentil-homme ruiné.’ ... I lifted my head, glanced.... The mangy-looking fur cap, the broken ornaments on the ragged Circassian dress, the dagger in the cracked sheath, the swollen, but still rosy face, the dishevelled, but still thick crop of hair.... Mercy on us! Misha! He had come then to begging alms on the high-roads. I could not help crying out. He recognised me, started, turned away, and was about to move away from the window. I stopped him ... but what could I say to him? Give him a lecture? ... In silence I held out a five-rouble note; he, also in silence, took it in his still white and plump, though shaking and dirty hand, and vanished round the corner of the house.

It was a good while before they gave me horses, and I had time to give myself up to gloomy reflections on my unexpected meeting with Misha; I felt ashamed of having let him go so unsympathetically.

At last I set off on my way, and half a mile from the station I observed ahead of me, in the road, a crowd of people moving along with a curious, as it seemed rhythmic, step. I overtook this crowd--and what did I see?

Some dozen or so beggars, with sacks over their shoulders, were walking two by two, singing and leaping about, while in front of them danced Misha, stamping time with his feet, and shouting, ‘Natchiki-tchikaldy, tchuk, tchuk, tchuk! ... Natchiki-tchikaldy, tchuk, tchuk, tchuk!’ Directly my carriage caught them up, and he saw me, he began at once shouting, ‘Hurrah! Stand in position! right about face, guard of the roadside!’

The beggars took up his shout, and halted; while he, with his peculiar laugh, jumped on to the carriage step, and again yelled: Hurrah!

‘What’s the meaning of this?’ I asked with involuntary astonishment.

‘This? This is my company, my army--all beggars, God’s people, friends of my heart. Every one of them, thanks to you, has had a glass; and now we are all rejoicing and making merry! ... Uncle! Do you know it’s only with beggars, God’s people, that one can live in the world ... by God, it is!’

I made him no answer ... but at that moment he struck me as such a kind good creature, his face expressed such childlike simple-heartedness.... A light seemed suddenly as it were to dawn upon me, and I felt a pang in my heart.... ‘Get into the carriage,’ I said to him. He was taken aback....

‘What? Into the carriage?’

‘Yes, get in, get in,’ I repeated; ‘I want to make you a suggestion. Sit down.... Come along with me.’

‘Well, as you will.’ He sat down. ‘Well, and you, my honoured friends, my dear comrades,’ he added, addressing the beggars, ‘fare-well, till we meet again.’ Misha took off his high cap, and bowed low. The beggars all seemed overawed.... I told the coachman to whip up the horses, and the carriage rolled off.

The suggestion I wanted to make Misha was this: the idea suddenly occurred to me to take him with me to my home in the country, about five-and-twenty miles from that station, to rescue him, or at least to make an effort to rescue him. ‘Listen, Misha,’ I said; ‘will you come along and live with me? ... You shall have everything provided you; you shall have clothes and linen made you; you shall be properly fitted out, and you shall have money to spend on tobacco, and so on, only on one condition, that you give up drink.... Do you agree?’

Misha was positively aghast with delight; he opened his eyes wide, flushed crimson, and suddenly falling on my shoulder, began kissing me, and repeating in a broken voice, ‘Uncle ... benefactor ... God reward you.’ ... He burst into tears at last, and taking off his cap fell to wiping his eyes, his nose, his lips with it.

‘Mind,’ I observed; ‘remember the condition, not to touch strong drink.’

‘Damnation to it!’ he cried, with a wave of both arms, and with this impetuous movement, I was more than ever conscious of the strong smell of spirits with which he seemed always saturated.... ‘Uncle, if you knew what my life has been.... If it hadn’t been for sorrow, a cruel fate.... But now I swear, I swear, I will mend my ways, I will show you.... Uncle, I’ve never told a lie--you can ask whom you like.... I’m honest, but I’m an unlucky fellow, uncle; I’ve known no kindness from any one....’

Here he broke down finally into sobs. I tried to soothe him, and succeeded so far that when we reached home Misha had long been lost in a heavy sleep, with his head on my knees.

VII

He was at once assigned a room for himself, and at once, first thing, taken to the bath, which was absolutely essential. All his clothes, and his dagger and cap and torn boots, were carefully put away in a loft; he was dressed in clean linen, slippers, and some clothes of mine, which, as is always the way with poor relations, at once seemed to adapt themselves to his size and figure. When he came to table, washed, clean, and fresh, he seemed so touched and happy, he beamed all over with such joyful gratitude, that I too felt moved and joyful.... His face was completely transformed.... Boys of twelve have faces like that on Easter Sundays, after the communion, when, thickly pomaded, in new jacket and starched collars, they come to exchange Easter greetings with their parents. Misha was continually--with a sort of cautious incredulity--feeling himself and repeating: ‘What does it mean? ... Am I in heaven?’ The next day he announced that he had not slept all night, he had been in such ecstasy.