Part 10

“Of course you don’t understand, because you are still a child. Therefore let me tell you briefly that you may some day remember the words of the philosopher Tiburtsi. If you ever find yourself sitting in judgment upon that boy there, remember that even in the days when you were both silly little lads playing together, you were travelling upon the road where men walk well-clothed and well-fed, while he was running along, a ragged sans-culotte with an empty belly. And besides, until that happens, remember one thing well,” he added, sharply changing his tone. “If you whisper one word of what you have seen here to that Judge of yours, or even to a bird, as sure as my name is Tiburtsi Drab I’ll hang you up by the heels in that fireplace and make roast ham of you. You understand that, I hope?”

“I won’t tell any one--I--may I come again?”

“You may, I give you my permission--_sum conditionem_--but you’re stupid yet and don’t understand Latin. I have already told you about that ham--now remember!”

He let me go, and stretched himself wearily on a bench by the wall.

“Bring me that there,” he said to Valek, pointing to a large bag which he had left on the threshold as he came in. “And light the fire. We’re going to cook dinner to-day.”

He was now no longer the same man who had frightened me a short while ago by rolling his eyes, or the mountebank who was wont to amuse the public for pennies. He had taken his place as a host at the head of his family, and, like a man who has returned from his daily toil, he issued commands to his household.

He seemed very tired. His clothes were drenched with rain, his hair was clinging to his brow, and his whole expression was one of utter weariness. It was the first time I had seen that look on the face of the jolly orator of the cafés, and this glimpse behind the scenes of an actor resting after playing a difficult and exhausting rôle on the stage of life, filled my heart with a feeling of pain and dread. It was another of those revelations with which the old chapel had been so rife for me.

Valek and I went quickly to work. Valek lit a little torch, and together we entered a dark passage adjoining the crypt. There, in a corner, lay some logs of half-decayed wood, bits of crosses, and old boards. We chose several pieces out of this store and, heaping them up in the fireplace, kindled a little fire. Then I had to stand aside while Valek with knowing hands went to work alone on the cooking.

Half an hour later some kind of a brew was already stewing in a pot over the fire, and while we were waiting for it to cook, Valek placed upon a rough three-legged table a frying pan in which some pieces of meat were steaming.

Tiburtsi rose.

“Is it ready?” he asked. “Well, that’s splendid. Sit down with us, boy, you have earned your dinner. Domine!”--he next shouted to the Professor. “Put down your needle and come to the table.”

“In a minute,” answered the Professor in a low voice. Such a sensible remark from him surprised me.

But the spark of consciousness that Tiburtsi’s voice had awakened in him did not reappear. The old man thrust his needle into his rags and indifferently, with a dull look, took his seat on one of the logs that served as chairs in the crypt.

Tiburtsi held Marusia on his lap. She and Valek ate with an appetite that showed what a rare luxury meat was for them; Marusia even licked her greasy little fingers. Tiburtsi ate with frequent pauses, and, evidently obeying an irresistible impulse to talk, turned his conversation to the Professor. The poor man of letters grew surprisingly attentive whenever he did this, and bowed his head to listen, with a great air of intelligence as if he understood every word. Sometimes he even signified his assent by nodding and making soft little moans.

“You see, Domine, how little a man needs,” Tiburtsi said. “Am I not right? There! now our hunger is appeased, and all that now remains for us to do is to thank God--and the Roman Catholic Priest.”

“Aha, aha!” agreed the Professor.

“You agree with me, Domine, but you don’t know what the Priest has to do with it. I know you well. Nevertheless, if it weren’t for the Priest we shouldn’t be eating fried meat and other things now.”

“Did he give it to you?” I asked.

“This youngster has an inquiring mind, Domine,” Tiburtsi continued. “Of course his Reverence gave us this, although we did not ask him for it, and although not only his left hand knew not what his right hand was doing, but neither hand had the slightest knowledge of the transaction. Eat, Domine!”

All I could understand from this strange, confused discourse was, that the method of obtaining our dinner had not been quite regular, and I could not refrain from asking another question.

“Did you--take this yourself?”

“The boy is not devoid of shrewdness,” Tiburtsi continued. “It is only a pity that he hasn’t seen the Priest. The Priest has a belly like a forty-gallon cask, and it’s no doubt very dangerous for him to indulge in greed. On the other hand all of us here suffer rather from an excess of leanness than from corpulence, therefore a certain amount of food does not come amiss. Am I right, Domine?”

“Aha, aha!” pensively moaned the Professor again.

“There, you see! You have expressed your meaning extremely successfully this time. I was beginning to think that this youngster here had more brains than some men of learning. However, to return to the Priest, I always think that a good lesson is worth the price, and in this case we can say that we bought these provisions from him. If he makes the doors of his store-house a little stronger in future we shall be quits. However,” he cried, suddenly turning to me, “you are stupid still and there is much you don’t understand. But she, there, will understand. Tell me, my Marusia, did I do right to bring you some meat?”

“Yes!” answered the child, her sapphire eyes shining softly, “Manya was hungry.”

At twilight that evening I turned homeward with a reeling brain. Tiburtsi’s strange sayings had not for a moment stilled the conviction in my breast that it was “wicked to steal.” On the contrary, the painful sensation that I had felt before had grown stronger than ever. They were beggars, thieves, they had no home! From every one around me I had long ago heard that contempt was always attached to such people. I felt all the poignancy of contempt rising from the bottom of my soul, but I instinctively shielded my affection from this bitter alloy, and did not allow the two feelings to mingle. As a result of these dark workings of my soul, my pity for Valek and Marusia grew greater and more acute, but my affection did not diminish. The formula that “it was wicked to steal” remained inviolate in my mind, but when I saw in imagination my small friend licking her greasy little fingers I rejoiced in her joy and in Valek’s.

Next evening, in one of our dark garden paths, I unexpectedly met my father. He was pacing up and down as usual, staring before him with his accustomed strange, vacant look. When I appeared beside him he put his hand on my shoulder.

“Where have you been?”

“I--I have been out walking.”

He looked at me sharply and seemed to want to say something, but his eyes soon grew abstracted again, and, with a motion of his hand, he walked away down the path. Even in those days I seemed to understand the meaning of that gesture. It said:

“Ah, what does it matter? _She_ is not here!”

I had lied almost for the first time in my life.

I had always been afraid of my father, and I now feared him more than ever. I was harbouring in my breast a whole world of vague questions and sensations. Could he understand me? Could I confess anything to him without betraying my friends? I trembled at the thought that in due time he would hear of my acquaintance with that “bad company,” but, betray Valek and Marusia--no, that I could never do! There was a reason for my resolve: if I broke my word and betrayed them, I should never be able to raise my eyes to their faces again for shame.

VIII

AUTUMN

Autumn was drawing near. In the fields the harvest was being reaped; the leaves were turning yellow in the woods. With the approach of autumn Marusia’s health began to fail.

It was not that she complained of any pain, but she grew thinner every day; her face grew paler, her eyes grew larger and darker, and it was with difficulty that she could raise her drooping eyelids.

I could climb the hill now without caring whether the “bad company” was there or not. I had grown thoroughly accustomed to them, and felt absolutely at home in their abode.

“You’re a fine youngster, and you’ll be a great man some day,” Tiburtsi predicted.

The younger “suspicious persons” made me a bow and arrow out of elm wood; the tall, red-nosed Grenadier twirled me in the air like a leaf as he gave me gymnastic lessons. Only the Professor and Lavrovski always seemed to remain unconscious of my presence. The Professor was forever in the midst of some deep dream, while Lavrovski, when he was sober, by nature avoided all human intercourse, and preferred to crouch in a corner by himself.

All these people lived apart from Tiburtsi who, with his “family,” occupied the crypt I have already spoken of. They inhabited a crypt which was similar to ours but larger, and which was divided from it by two narrow halls. Here was less light and more dampness and gloom. In places along the walls stood wooden benches and the blocks which served as chairs. The benches were littered with heaps of rags, which had converted them into beds. In the middle of the crypt, under a ray of light, stood a joiner’s bench at which Tiburtsi and the others sometimes worked. The “bad company” included a cobbler and a basket maker, but all, with the exception of Tiburtsi, were either starvelings or triflers; men, I noticed, whose hands trembled too much for them to do any work successfully. The floor of this crypt was always strewn with chips and shavings and dirt, and disorder reigned supreme, even though Tiburtsi scolded the inmates furiously at times, and made one of them sweep the floor and put the gloomy abode in order if ever so little. I did not often visit them because I could not accustom myself to the foul air, and because, too, the sombre Lavrovski dwelt there when he was sober. He was generally either sitting on a bench with his head in his hands, his long hair streaming, or pacing up and down from corner to corner with swift strides. His whole person breathed an atmosphere of such depression and gloom that my nerves could not endure it. His fellow-unfortunates, however, had long since grown accustomed to his eccentric ways. “General Turkevich” would sometimes set him to work making fair copies of petitions and of quips and quirks which he himself had written for the townsfolk, or else he would make him write out the lampoons which he afterwards nailed to the lamp posts of the city. Lavrovski would then quietly take his seat at a table in Tiburtsi’s room, and for hours at a time would sit forming, one after another, the beautiful, even letters of his exquisite handwriting. Twice I chanced to see him carried down stupefied with drink from above ground into the crypt. The unhappy man’s head was dangling and banging from side to side, his legs were trundling helplessly after him and bumping down the stone steps, his face wore a look of misery, and tears were trickling down his cheeks. Marusia and I, clinging tightly to one another, watched these scenes from a distant corner, but Valek mixed quite nonchalantly with the men, supporting now a hand, now a foot, now the head of the helpless Lavrovski.

Everything about these people that had amused and interested me like a Punch and Judy show when I saw it in the streets was revealed to me here, behind the scenes, in all its ugly nakedness, and the sight of it weighed heavily upon my childish spirits.

Here Tiburtsi held undisputed sway. It was he who had discovered the crypts, he who had taken possession of them, and all his band obeyed him implicitly. That is probably the reason why I do not remember one single occasion on which any one of those creatures, who had certainly lost all the semblance of human beings, ever came to me with an evil suggestion.

Having gained in knowledge from a prosaic experience of life, I know now that there must have been a certain amount of depravity, petty vice, and rottenness among them, but to-day, when those people and scenes rise in my memory wrapped in the mists of the past, I see before me only tragedy, poverty, and the profoundest sadness.

Oh, Childhood and Youth, what great fountainheads of idealism you are!

And now Autumn began to come into its own. The sky was more frequently overcast, the surrounding country sank into a misty crepuscule, torrents of rain swept noisily across the earth, and their thunder resounded monotonously and mournfully in the crypt.

I found it very hard to steal away from home in this weather, for my one desire was to get away unnoticed. When I came back drenched to the skin, I would hang up my clothes before the fire myself, and slip quietly into bed, there to endure philosophically the torrents of scolding that would invariably flow from the lips of the servants and my nurse.

Every time I visited my friends I noticed that Marusia’s health was failing more and more. She never went out into the fresh air now, and the grey stone--that unseen, silent monster of the crypt--did its dreadful work without interruption, sucking the life out of her little body. The child spent most of her time in bed, and Valek and I exhausted every means in our power to amuse and interest her and to awaken the soft peals of her frail laughter.

Now that I had really become one of the “bad company” the child’s sad smile had grown almost as dear to me as my sister’s, but with Marusia I was not constantly reminded of my wickedness; here was no scolding nurse; on the contrary, I knew that each time I came my arrival would call the colour into Marusia’s cheeks. Valek embraced me like a brother, and even Tiburtsi would sometimes watch us three with a strange expression on his face and something very like tears glistening in his eyes.

Then one day the sky grew clear again. The last clouds blew away, and the sun shone out upon the earth for the last time before winter’s coming. We carried Marusia up into the sunlight, and there she seemed to revive. She gazed about her with wide eyes, and the colour came into her cheeks. It seemed as if the wind that was blowing over her with its cool, fresh breath were returning to her part of the life-blood stolen by the grey stones of the crypt. But alas! this did not last long.

And in the meanwhile clouds were beginning to gather over my head as well.

One morning as I was running down the garden path as usual I caught sight of my father and old Yanush of the castle. The old man was cringing and bowing and saying something to my father, and the latter was standing before him, gloomy and stern, with a frown of impatient anger between his eyes. At last my father stretched out his hand as if to push Yanush aside, and said:

“Go away! You are nothing but an old gossip!”

The old man blinked and, holding his hat in his hand, ran forward again and stood in my father’s path. My father’s eyes flashed with anger. Yanush was speaking in a low voice, and I could not hear what he was saying, but my father’s broken sentences fell upon my ears with the utmost distinctness, like the blows of a whip.

“I don’t believe a word of it--What do you want to persecute those people for?--I won’t listen to verbal accusations, and a written one you would be obliged to prove--Silence! that is my business--I won’t listen to you, I tell you.”

He finally pushed Yanush away so firmly that the latter did not dare to intrude upon him any longer. My father turned aside into another path, and I ran out through the gate.

I very much disliked this old owl of the castle, and I trembled now with a premonition of evil. I realised that the conversation I had overheard related to my friends and perhaps, also, to me.

When I told Tiburtsi what had happened he made a dreadful face.

“Whew, young one, what bad news that is! Oh, that accursed old fox!”

“My father drove him away,” I answered to console him.

“Your father, young man, is the best judge there has been since the days of Solomon, but do you know what _curriculum vitæ_ means? Of course you don’t. But you know what the Record of Service is, don’t you? Well, _curriculum vitæ_ is the Record of Service of a man who is not employed in the County Court, and if that old screech-owl has been able to ferret out anything and can show your father my record why--well, I swear to the Queen of Heaven I wouldn’t care to fall into the Judge’s clutches!”

“He’s not a cruel man, is he?” I asked, remembering what Valek had told me.

“No, no, my boy, God forbid that you should think that of your father! Your father has a good heart. Perhaps he already knows everything that Yanush has been able to tell him, and still holds his tongue. He doesn’t think it is necessary to pursue a toothless old lion into his last lair. But how can I explain it to you, my boy? Your father works for a gentleman whose name is Law. He has eyes and a heart only as long as Law is nicely tucked up in bed, but when that gentleman gets up and comes to your father and says: ‘Come on, Judge, sha’n’t we get on the trail of Tiburtsi Drab or whatever his name is?’ from that moment the Judge must lock up his heart, and his claws will become so sharp that the earth will turn upside down before Tiburtsi will escape out of his clutches. Do you understand, my boy? And that’s why I, why we all, respect your father as we do, because he is a faithful servant of his master, and such men are rare. If all Law’s servants were like him, Law could sleep quietly in his bed and never wake up at all. My whole trouble is that I had a quarrel with Law a long time ago--ah yes, my boy, a very violent quarrel!”

As he said this Tiburtsi got up, took Marusia’s hand, and, leading her into a distant corner, began kissing her and pressing his rough head to her tiny breast. I stood motionless where I was under the spell of the impression created by the strange words of this strange man. In spite of the fantastic and unintelligible twists and turns of his speech I understood perfectly the substance of what Tiburtsi had said, and my father’s image loomed more imposing than ever in my imagination, invested with a halo of stern but lovable strength amounting almost to grandeur. But at the same time another and a bitterer feeling which I bore in my breast had increased in intensity. “That’s what he’s like!” I thought. “And he doesn’t love me!”

IX

THE DOLL

The bright days soon passed, and Marusia began to grow worse again. She now gazed indifferently with her large, fixed, darkening eyes at all our cunning devices for her amusement, and it was long since we had heard her laughter. I began to bring my playthings to the crypt, but they only diverted her for a short time. I then decided to turn for help to my sister Sonia.

Sonia had a large doll with magnificent long hair and cheeks painted a brilliant red, a present from our mother. I had the greatest faith in the powers of this doll, and therefore, calling my sister into a distant part of the garden one day, I asked her to lend it to me. I begged so earnestly and described the little suffering girl who had no toys of her own so vividly that Sonia, who at first had only clasped the doll more tightly to her breast, handed it to me and promised to play with her other toys for two or three days and to forget the doll entirely.

The effect produced on Marusia by this gaily dressed young lady with the china face exceeded all my wildest hopes. The child, who had been fading like a flower in Autumn, suddenly seemed to revive again. How tightly she hugged me! How merrily she laughed as she chattered to her new acquaintance! The doll almost worked a miracle. Marusia, who had not left her bed for many days, began to toddle about, pulling her fair-haired daughter after her, and even ran a few steps, dragging her weak little feet across the floor as she had done in former days.

At the same time the doll gave me many an anxious moment. In the first place, on my way to the hill with my prize under my coat, I had met Yanush on the road, and the old man had followed me for a long time with his eyes, and shaken his head. Then, two days later, our old nurse had noticed the disappearance of the doll, and had begun poking her nose into every corner in search of it. Sonia tried to appease her, but the child’s artless assurances that she didn’t want the doll, that the doll had gone out for a walk and would soon come back, only served to create doubts in the minds of the servants, and to awaken their suspicions that this might not simply be a question of loss. My father knew nothing as yet, and though Yanush, who came to him again one day, was sent away even more angrily than before, my father stopped me that morning on the way to the garden gate and ordered me not to leave home. The same thing happened on the following day, and only on the fourth did I get up early and slip away over the fence while my father was still asleep.

Things were still going badly on the hill. Marusia was in bed again and was worse. Her face was strangely flushed, her fair curls were lying disheveled on her pillow, and she recognised no one. Beside her lay the disastrous doll with its pink cheeks and its stupid, staring eyes.

I told Valek of the danger I was running, and we both decided that undoubtedly I ought to take the doll home, especially as Marusia would not notice its absence. But we were mistaken! No sooner did I take the doll out of the arms of the unconscious child than she opened her eyes, stared vaguely about as if she did not see me and did not know what was happening to her, and then suddenly began to cry very, very softly, but oh, so piteously, while an expression of such deep sorrow swept across her features under the veil of her delirium that, panic-stricken, I immediately laid the doll back in its former place. The child smiled, drew the doll to her breast, and grew calm again. I realised that I had tried to deprive my little friend of the first and last pleasure of her short life.

Valek looked shyly at me.

“What shall we do now?” he asked sadly.

Tiburtsi, who was sitting on a bench with his head sunk dejectedly on his breast, also looked at me, with a question in his eyes. I therefore tried to look as careless as possible, and said:

“Never mind; nurse has probably forgotten all about it by now.”

But the old woman had not forgotten. When I reached home that day I again found Yanush at the garden gate. Sonia’s eyes were red with weeping and our nurse threw me an angry, icy glance and muttered something between her toothless gums.

My father asked me where I had been, and having listened attentively to my usual answer, confined himself to telling me not to leave the house without his permission under any circumstances whatsoever. This command was categorical and absolutely peremptory. I dared not disobey it, and at the same time I could not make up my mind to ask my father for leave to go to my friends.

Four weary days passed. I spent my time roaming dejectedly about the garden, gazing longingly in the direction of the hill, and waiting, too, for the storm which I felt was gathering over my head. I had no idea what the future might bring, but my heart was as heavy as lead. No one had ever punished me in my life; my father had never so much as laid a finger on me, and I had never heard a harsh word from his lips, but I was suffering now from an oppressive sense of coming misfortune.