Part 3

His voice betrayed his terror and sorrow.

V

Andrey Ivanovich stared into the darkness and suddenly he caught hold of my hand, exclaiming:

“Stop! We shouldn’t have come.”

“What’s the matter?”

“I told the truth. Don’t chase on after them! Wait for me.... I’ll run and see....”

He quickly disappeared in the darkness. I stayed with Ivan Ivanovich in the road. When the steps of the bootmaker died away, we heard merely the quiet noises of the night. The grass rustled gently; at times a rail whistled as it ran nervously from place to place. In the vague distance the frogs were croaking dreamily and playing in the swamp. Hardly visible clouds were rising.

“That’s just like him.... My comrade loves to walk at night,” complained Ivan Ivanovich. “What’s the use of it? Why not by day?”

“Was he in a monastery too?”

“Yes,” answered Ivan Ivanovich. Then, with a sigh, “He’s from a good family. His father was a deacon in the city of N. You may have heard of him.... His brother is a secretary in a police office. He was betrothed....”

“Why didn’t he marry?”

“Don’t you see, he’d already gone wrong.... He ran away ... but he wasn’t a wanderer yet. He had the outfit but he didn’t wander.... He passed as a suitor. He was accepted. The girl loved him, and her father didn’t object.... Oh!... Oh!... Of course, it was sinful, ... he deceived them. Sometimes, when he tells about it, you’ll cry, and then again it’s really funny.”

Ivan Ivanovich acted strangely. He laughed and then began to choke and put his hand over his mouth. At first you could hardly tell he was laughing. But he really was,—an hysterical, bashful, rather explosive laugh, which ended like a cough. When he quieted down, Ivan Ivanovich said, half-pityingly:

“Only he tells it different every time.... You can’t tell whether it’s the truth or not.”

“He wouldn’t lie?”

“Not exactly, ... but he’s not always accurate. You see, the truth——”

“Just what does he say?”

“You know, the clerk, he says, was clever. He saw the young man wasting his time, really doing nothing. He pretended to go to a bazaar,—so he went to the city, left the old woman in the house, and gave her strict orders to keep an eye on him. Avtonomov, you see, didn’t live with them, but in the village with the woman who baked the bread for the church.... He kept visiting them.... Every day.... They’d sit by the river bank.... And the old woman was there, too. And, of course, she watched them.... One time, my dear little Avtonomov saw two men coming from the city in a cart—and both drunk. They came up and turned out to be the clerk and his older brother, the secretary. He hadn’t even looked around—when they landed on him and licked him. The reason why: his brother, because he ran away from the seminary; the clerk, for deceiving and disgracing him....”

Ivan Ivanovich sighed.

“He hardly got off alive, he says.... They were both angry and drunk.... He ran to the house where he was living, grabbed his wallet, and off into the woods.... Since then, he says, he’s been wandering.... But, another time, he really ... tells something else.”

He came nearer to me and wanted to tell me something very confidentially. But suddenly out of the darkness near us came the figure of Andrey Ivanovich. He walked rapidly with a deliberately menacing scowl.

“Come here, if you please.” He took me aside and whispered:

“You and I are in a nice mess!”

“How?”

“This Avtonomov, the monk, seems to have gone off to steal.... We’ll get into trouble over him yet....”

“That’s enough, Andrey Ivanovich.”

“Yes, for you. Did you hear what he asked in the village? Of the soldier’s wife? About a certain clerk? Is the clerk actually at home or not?”

“Yes, I remember.”

“Do you remember where that clerk lived?”

“Yes, by a cemetery.”

“There it is!” said Andrey Ivanovich maliciously, pointing ahead in the darkness.

“What of it?”

“Just this.... The old woman, you heard, is alone.... And he went right there.... He walked around the yard and looked. You’ll see for yourself.... That’s the sort of a fellow you wanted to drop an old companion for.... If he’d crossed the bridge without a board creaking, we’d have gone straight along the road.... I turned aside.... Let’s go ahead quietly.”

Behind us some one coughed plaintively. Andrey Ivanovich looked around and said:

“Come with us, novice.... What can we do with you? You love your comrade.”

We crossed the bridge, followed the road and came to the cemetery. On the hill a little light shone through the trees. I saw the whitish walls of a small house, perched on the edge of a hill, and behind it was the dark outline of a bell-tower. Below on the right it was easier to imagine than to see the little stream.

“There he is,” said Andrey Ivanovich. “Do you see him?”

Not far from us, between the wall and the slope, near an arbor covered with foliage, was a figure. A man seemed to be crowded against and fastened to the fence and looking through the bushes. By the light of the window, I saw the pointed cap, the long neck, and the familiar profile of Avtonomov. The light streamed out through the trees and lilac blossoms. When I went nearer, I saw in the window the head of an old woman in a cap and with horn spectacles. Her head nodded like that of a man who is working when he is terribly sleepy, and the needles moved rapidly in her hands. The old woman was evidently waiting for her husband to return.

Suddenly she listened.... An irresolute call came out of the darkness:

“Olimpiada Nikolayevna!”

The old woman looked out of the window but saw no one.

A moment of silence, and then the same call was repeated:

“Olimpiada Nikolayevna!”

I did not recognize Avtonomov’s voice. It seemed soft and timid.

“Who’s there?” The old woman suddenly started. “Who called me?”

“It’s I.... Don’t you remember Avtonomov?... We used to know each other....”

“Avtonomov, mercy.... We never knew any one of that name.... I don’t know you.... Wait a moment and I’ll call some one. Fedosya, oh, Fedosya!... Come here quick....”

“Don’t call, mother.... I won’t disturb you.... Have you really forgotten Avtonomov?... I used to be called Genasha....”

The old woman got up, took the candle and held it out of the window. There was no breeze. The flame burned steadily and illuminated the bushes, the walls of the house, and the wrinkled face of the old woman with her glasses pressed up on her forehead.

“That voice sounded familiar.... Where are you?... If you’re a good man——”

She held the candle above her head and the light fell on Avtonomov. The old woman staggered, but just then another woman entered the room. The old woman grew bolder and again threw the light on Avtonomov.

“Fine,” she said coldly. “The suitor, of course.... What are you walking around under the window for?...”

“I happened to be passing, Olimpiada Nikolayevna——”

“Passing, and would pass.... See here, when the master returns, he’ll set the dogs on you.”

She closed the window and lowered the curtain. The bushes disappeared, and the figure of Avtonomov was lost in the darkness.

We could then think of leaving, and we quickly descended the hillock.... In a few minutes we heard the bells in the tower. Some one apparently wanted to show that there were people in the cemetery....

Andrey Ivanovich walked slowly and thoughtfully. Ivan Ivanovich ran panting at a dog trot and constantly stifling his cough.... When we had reached a proper distance he stopped and said again with indescribable sorrow:

“We’ve lost Avtonomov....”

His voice was so despairing that Andrey Ivanovich and I involuntarily felt sorry for him. We stopped and began to peer into the darkness.

“He’s coming,” said Andrey Ivanovich, straining his lynx-like eyes.

In very truth we soon saw behind us a strange shape like a moving tree. Avtonomov had large bunches of lilacs in his belt, on his shoulders, and in his hands, and even his cap was decorated with flowers. When he caught up with us he had perfect control of himself and seemed neither glad nor astonished. He walked on along the road and the branches waved about him in a very peculiar manner.

“It’s great to walk at night, signor,” he began grandiloquently, like an actor. “The fields are clothed in darkness.... There’s a grove on one side.... See how peaceful it is! The nightingale pours forth its melody....”

He almost declaimed this but yet his voice showed that he was a little exasperated.

“Wouldn’t you like a spray from my garden, signor?”

With a theatrical gesture, he offered me a branch of lilacs.

Near the road a nightingale sang timidly and irresolutely. In the distance, in answer to the bells from the cemetery, came another, and we could hear the noise of a rattle. Somewhere on the dark plain dogs were barking.... The night grew darker and it began to feel like rain....

“I’m sorry,” Avtonomov suddenly began at random, “I got separated from you by the cemetery. I have an old friend who lives there, a real old friend. If he’d been home, we’d all have gotten lodging and something to eat.... The old woman asked me to stop, ... but without her husband——”

Ivan Ivanovich cleared his throat. The bootmaker snorted ironically.

Avtonomov must have guessed that we had seen more than he thought, for he turned to me and said:

“Judge not, signor, that ye be not judged.... Another’s soul, signor, is dark.... Some time,” he added resolutely, “believe me, I’ll come here, ... and I’ll be entertained.... And then....”

“And then?”

“Oh!... we’ll be entertained.... Drink till you can’t see.... And I’ll crow over it....”

“Why?”

“Why! This place should be like any other. But yet, signor, it appeals to me.... The past....”

He walked on more rapidly.

We passed by a little village and reached the last hut. Its small windows looked out sightlessly into the dark field.... All were sleeping within.

Avtonomov suddenly walked up to the window and tapped sharply on the pane. An indistinct face appeared behind it.

“Who’s there?” asked a dull voice, and a frightened face was pressed against the glass. “Who’s coming around this time of night?”

“The d-devil,” drawled Avtonomov in a piercing, evil tone, and he stuck his head with its floral decorations against the pane.... The face within disappeared in terror.... Dogs began to bark in the village; the guard struck his rattle; the dark plain went on guard.... Again somewhere in the distance the sleeping churches droned forth their prolonged notes, as if to defend the peaceful region from some unknown evil. As if they felt that above them was hanging the menace of certain dark and hopelessly ruined lives.

VI

We walked for more than an hour through the dark fields. Weariness claimed its own and we neither wished to speak nor listen. At first I kept on thinking and tried in the darkness to imagine the appearance of my companions. This worked with Andrey Ivanovich, whom I knew well, and also with the little wanderer, but I had forgotten the features of Avtonomov, and as I looked at his dark form I could not recall his face.... Avtonomov at the clerk’s house and yesterday’s preacher seemed two distinct people.

My thoughts became still more confused; several days of tramping,—the dull night, the silence, the heavy, muddy road or the absence of one,—this was all that I could learn from my great weariness, and I began to lose myself as I walked along. It was a sort of semi-consciousness which permitted fantastic dreams strangely intertwined with reality. But reality for me was merely the dark road and three misty shapes, now behind me, now driving me onward.... I went with them almost unconsciously.

When I partially awoke, they were standing in the road and arguing.

“Open your eyes,” said the bootmaker, angrily but lazily.

“Thanks for your explanation,—I wouldn’t have guessed it,” answered the wanderer. “Don’t you know, signor, how to get to the road?”

I looked out lazily into the darkness. With its arms disappearing among the clouds, a huge black windmill towered above us; behind and beside it were others. I thought the whole field was dotted with windmills, silent but menacing....

“I’ve been spitting all night to beat this devil,” said Andrey Ivanovich venomously.

“Well, just keep still a little while, lanky signor,” said Avtonomov. “Listen!...”

“Grinding?” said Andrey Ivanovich questioningly....

“Right,” answered Avtonomov cheerfully. “The wheels are working. What a jolly little river!”

“Is it far?”

“Yes, by the road. We’ll take a short cut.”

“You’ll land us in the swamp, you devil....”

My feet carried me through the darkness after the three dark figures. I stumbled over the stubble or the hummocks, and they threw me forward or to the side.... If I had met a ravine or a river,—I would probably have waked up at the bottom.... At times strange phantoms leaped and flew from my head into the unshapen fog.

Finally I ceased to stumble over hummocks. I felt a level road beneath my feet and I heard an even, kindly hum. Water was pouring, roaring, running, splashing and foaming, telling of something interesting, but too confused.... The noise stopped, but suddenly it became louder, as if the water were pouring through a dam.... I woke up completely and looked around in surprise.... Andrey Ivanovich caught me from behind. He took my arm and pushed me ahead....

“Wake up ... you’ll sleep when you’re walking.... We’re tied up with the devil and may God forgive us!... If the peasants come out, they’ll break our necks.... Quick, quick.... See Ivan Ivanovich go with his cassock held up....”

Indeed, the little wanderer was running with a speed that surprised me.

“Here ... here....”

Without understanding what had happened, I found myself hidden in the thick willows on the bank of a little stream. Ivan Ivanovich was panting.... Avtonomov was not with us. Near by the mill was roaring. The water raged and poured through the open sluices. One wheel was turning heavily as before,—another seemed locked,—it trembled and groaned beneath the assaults of the water. A dog was pulling at his chain and howling with anger.

A window in the mill lighted up as if the building had waked and opened one eye. A door creaked and the old miller in a white shirt and trousers came out on the platform with a lantern. Behind him came another man, yawning and stretching.

“Did the dam go out?” he asked.

“It certainly did,—hear it roar in the sluice-ways; it almost broke the bars.... Just look.... Oh, ye saints....”

“Just look; they’re open.”

“What the devil! Who opened them?”

The peasants went to the sluices. The roar soon died away; they pushed both bolts and the mill stopped. The light of the lantern slowly crawled back along the dam and again disappeared. Then a rattle sounded shrilly. One peasant was evidently still on guard....

The unusual commotion at the mill, sounding across the fields, again roused the sleeping villages. It was surprising how many of them were hidden in the darkness. From all sides, in front, behind, almost beneath, they answered the alarm with the beating of boards and rattles. The slow peal of a bell floated up from a distant village or a cemetery. Near by some night bird called.

“Let’s go,” said Andrey Ivanovich, when the mill had become quiet.... “One rascal can so disturb people.”

“What’s the matter?” I asked.

“Ask him,” said the bootmaker spitefully, and he pointed to Ivan Ivanovich.

“Y-yes,” answered the wanderer sadly. “Of course, it’s outrageous.... I don’t approve of it....”

“What’s the matter? Where’s Avtonomov?”

“There he is—calling like a bird and making signs to us.... Come here, my dear companions.... How the rascal managed to open the sluices, I didn’t happen to notice. You, too!... You’ll follow him and sleep. If you’d kept on ... and the peasants had appeared before,—there’d have been a picnic. You bet! I’ll catch that devil and don’t you interfere. I’ll turn him inside out and run his feet out through his throat!...”

He started ahead with his mind made up.

VII

Andrey Ivanovich did not carry out his savage intentions and in a half hour we were again walking silently along the road.... It was not yet sunrise, but the white, milky streaks kept breaking through the clouds, and beneath our feet we could see the whitish fog which covered the whole plain. Suddenly the fog opened and showed us a horse’s head and a cart loaded with sacks and a peasant sleeping on them and another empty cart behind it.

“Uncle, hey, uncle,” said Andrey Ivanovich to the second peasant, “won’t you take us along?”

The peasant rubbed his sleepy eyes and looked with amazement at the crowd which had surrounded him.

“Where did God bring you from?”

“A pilgrimage.”

“So, so! Sit down, but I can’t take you far; we’re from around here.”

“You’re not from the mill?”

“They were at the mill, but I’m empty. Sit down; that’s right.”

We got into the cart and sat down, letting our feet hang.

“Let me ask you a question,” said our guide, clucking to his horse; “have you been walking all night?”

“Yes.”

“You didn’t hear anything, did you?”

“Some dogs barking in the distance. Why?”

“Why? Some one opened the sluices in the mill and almost smashed the wheels.”

“Who was it?”

“I don’t know! Some one got fooling around at night. In our little village near by, they say, the fellow asked to be taken in. A peasant looked out, but he said: ‘I’m the devil, let me in.’”

“He was,” said Avtonomov, who had discarded his decorations some time before.

“He wasn’t.... I’ll never believe it.... And I won’t let you either.” Andrey Ivanovich spoke ardently and decidedly to the peasant. “Some rascals have been deceiving you country people.... Your simplicity....”

“There are people who do not believe in God and the Saints,” said Avtonomov, with the greatest humility and composure.

Andrey Ivanovich gritted his teeth and showed Avtonomov his fist, when the peasant was not looking.

VIII

About noon we reached my home in the same kind of a cart. This we had happened to meet at the edge of the city. The cart stopped at the gate. Our picturesque company attracted the attention of several passers-by, a thing that clearly annoyed Andrey Ivanovich.... I asked my companion to come in and rest and have some tea.

“Thanks, I haven’t far to go,” answered the bootmaker coldly. He threw his wallet on his back and, then, without ceremony, he pointed at Avtonomov.

“Are you inviting him in?”

“Yes, I’m inviting Gennady Sergeyevich,” I answered.

Andrey Ivanovich turned sharply and, without saying good-bye, he started down the street.

Ivan Ivanovich looked desperately frightened, as if my invitation had caught him in a trap. He looked appealingly at Avtonomov, and shame at being present tortured his whole figure. Avtonomov asked simply:

“Where are we going?”

While the samovar was being heated, I asked the servants to gather up some superfluous clothes and linen and offered my companions a change of attire. Avtonomov at once consented, tied them all in one bundle and said:

“We’ve got to have a bath....”

Of course, I did not object. Both wanderers came back from the bath transformed. Ivan Ivanovich, in a coat which was too broad and trousers which were too long and with his thin hair, looked astonishingly like a woman in man’s clothes. As far as Avtonomov was concerned, he was not satisfied with the conventional amount of clothing, but he had put on everything which had been given him to choose from. He was wearing, consequently, a blue shirt, a blouse, two vests, and a coat. The shirt stuck up above the collar of the blouse and reached below it,—it was so much longer. The edge of the blouse was visible and the coat seemed to form a third layer.... At the tea table Ivan Ivanovich was so miserable that we let him take his cup into the kitchen, where he sat down in one corner and immediately won the sympathy of our cook.

Avtonomov acted recklessly, called my mother signora and jumped up every minute in order to serve something.

After tea he looked himself over from head to foot and said, with an air of satisfaction:

“In this costume my brother-in-law won’t be ashamed of me.... I’ll go see my sister.... She lives near here. May I leave my wallet in your hall, signora?”

When he went to the gate, Ivan Ivanovich ran after him in terror. After a short conversation Avtonomov permitted the poor fellow to follow him at some distance.

Ivan Ivanovich soon returned alone. His bird-like face beamed with surprise and delight.

“They received him,” he said, clearing his throat joyfully. “That’s the solemn truth. He really has a sister. And a brother-in-law.... Please go past, accidentally.... You’ll see it, too.... As God is true, they’re sitting in a garden entertaining him ... like a brother. His sister’s weeping from joy....”

From the breast of the little wanderer came strange sounds like hysterical laughing and weeping.

In an hour Avtonomov appeared, transfigured and triumphant. He came up to me, fervently grasped my hand, and pressed it till it hurt.

“Through you I’ve found my relatives.... Yes.... That’s it! Till death....”

He pressed my hand still harder, then convulsively released it and turned away. Apparently the brother-in-law, who was not without influence in the consistory, believed in Avtonomov’s reformation and decided to help him. It was also necessary to get certain papers from Uglich and....

“Back here again! My wanderings are ended, signor.... I won’t forsake you, Vanya.... I’ll give you a corner and food.... Live.... I’ll be responsible.... You’ll get quarters ... also....”

As I listened to this conversation, involuntary doubts crept into my mind, the more so as Avtonomov had resumed his grandiloquent manner and kept using more and more frequently the word signor....

Towards evening the two set out “for Uglich to get the papers.” Avtonomov gave me a solemn promise to return in a week “to begin his new life.”

“Is this all that was necessary for this ‘miracle?’” I thought doubtfully....

IX

The weather suddenly changed.... A wonderful early spring seemed to be replaced by late, cold autumn.... It rained hard for days and the wind howled amid the rain and the fog.

One cold morning of this kind I awoke late and was trying to guess the time when I heard a light noise and a strange whistle in the hall by the door. I opened and saw some living creature in a dark corner. Yes! it was Ivan Ivanovich. He trembled all over, was blue, and looked at me with his appealing, timid eyes. It was the look of a frightened animal near its end.

“Your weakness again?” I asked kindly.

“Yes,” he answered humbly and briefly, and he started to straighten his clothing. He was again wearing an impossible cassock, he had no hat, and on his bare feet were rough shoes.

Avtonomov soon made his appearance. He was drunk and unpleasantly bold. He spoke in affectedly grandiloquent phrases, acted like an old friend, and from time to time in his reminiscences of our wanderings he made spicy allusions to a certain soldier’s wife.... In his eyes gleamed an evil passion and in him I recognized again the preacher in the monastery courtyard,—and readiness for any evil deed. He never said a word about his visit to his sister....

“Listen ... Dearie, ...” he turned to the maid.... “The other time I left a cassock with you.... It’s still fit to be worn.... Your present was unlucky,” he added, looking impudently at me.... “We were robbed near Uglich ... and they took absolutely everything we had. A merchant cheated you on those felt shoes, that’s easy to see.... Cheap goods, cheap.... They fell all to pieces....”

He condescendingly patted my shoulder.

Ivan Ivanovich looked at his protector reproachfully. We parted quite coldly, but everyone in my house felt sincere sympathy and pity for Ivan Ivanovich.