Part 2

»Well, will you know me again?« she exclaimed, and surprised herself by adding a coarse reproof. He raised his brows in surprise and spoke to her calmly, but without averting his eyes, dully, remotely, as from a great distance.

»Listen, Liuba, certainly you can betray me, not only you, but anyone in this house, or in the street. One shout--Halt! arrest him!--and men will come in their tens and hundreds and try to get me--or kill me. And for what reason? Merely because I have done no harm, merely because I have devoted all my life to these very people. Do you understand what it means, to sacrifice one's life?«

»No, I do not,« the girl retorted harshly, but listening attentively.

»Some do it out of stupidity, some for spite. Because, Liuba, a common man cannot endure a fine man, and the wicked do not love the good....«

»What should they love them for?«

»Don't think, Liuba, that I am simply praising myself. But just look what my life has been, what it is! From the age of fourteen I have been rubbing along in prisons, expelled from school, expelled from home. My parents drove me out. Once I was nearly shot dead, saved only by a miracle. Try to picture it--all one's life passed in this way, all for the sake of others, and for oneself, nothing--yes, nothing!«

»And what induced you to be so ... fine?« she asked jeeringly. But he replied seriously:

»I don't know. I must have been born so.«

»And I was born such a common sort of thing! And yet I came into the world the same way you did, didn't I?«

But he was not listening. All his mind was held by the vision of his own past, so unexpectedly, so simply heroic, called up by his own words.

»Yes ... think of it ... I'm 26 years old and there are already grey hairs on my head, and yet until today ...« he hesitated a moment and went on firmly, proudly. »Up to now I have never known a woman.... Never ... do you understand? You are the first I even see ... like that. And to tell the truth, I am just a little ashamed to be looking at your bare arms.«

The music rose again wildly, and the floor vibrated with the rhythm of dancing feet, broken by a drunken man's wild whoop, as though he were heading off a herd of stampeding horses. But in the room it was still, and the tobacco smoke rose serenely and melted into a ruddy mist.

»That is what my life has been, Liuba!«

He looked down, thoughtfully and sternly, overcome by the thought of a life so pure, so painfully beautiful. And she made no reply.

Then she got up and threw a wrap around her bare shoulders. But at the sight of his look of astonishment, almost gratitude, she smiled and brusquely threw the wrap off, and so arranged her chemise that one breast, rosy and soft, was left bared. He turned away and slightly shrugged his shoulders.

»Take a drink!« she said.

»No, I never drink anything.«

»What, never drink! But you see, I do!«

»If you've got some cigarettes, I'll have one.«

»They're very common ones.«

»I don't care.«

And when he took the cigarette he noticed with pleasure that Liuba had put her chemise straight, and the hope that everything might yet go smoothly rose again. He was a poor smoker; he did not inhale, and womanlike held the cigarette between two straight fingers.

»You don't even know how to smoke!« the girl exclaimed angrily, and roughly tried to snatch the cigarette from him. »Throw it away!«

»Now, there you are,--angry with me again!«

»Yes, I am!«

»But why, Liuba? Just think! For two nights I haven't had any sleep, running about the town from pillar to post. And now, you're going to give me up and they'll have me in jail! That's a fine finish, isn't it? But, Liuba, I'll never give in alive....«

He stopped short.

»Will you shoot?«

»Yes, I shall shoot.«

The music had ceased for a time, but the wild drunken man was still halloing although apparently someone, as a joke or in earnest, had a hand on his mouth, the sounds coming through the compressed fingers even more desperately and savagely. The room reeked no longer with cheap fragrant soap, but with a thick, moist and repulsive odour; on one wall, uncovered, there hung messily and flat some petticoats and blouses. It was all so repugnant, so strange, to think that this also was life,--that people were living such a life day in, day out,--that he felt dazed and shrugged his shoulders and again looked round slowly.

»What a place this is!« he said, bemused and resting his eyes on Liuba.

»What of it?« she asked curtly.

He looked at her as she stood there, and suddenly understood that she was to be pitied; and as soon as he had grasped this he did pity her--ardently.

»You are poor, Liuba?«

»Well?«

»Give me your hand.«

And, as though to assert in some way his relation to the girl as a human being, he took her hand and respectfully raised it to his lips.

»You mean that ... for me?«

»Yes, Liuba, for you.«

Then quite quietly, as though thanking him, she said:

»Off you go! Get out of here, you block-head!«

He did not understand at once.

»What?«

»Off with you. Get out of here! Get out!«

Silently, with a steady step, she crossed the room, picked up the white collar in the corner, and threw it to him with an expression of disgust, as though it had been the dirtiest, filthiest rag. And he, likewise silent, but with an expression of high resolve, without sparing even one glance at the girl, began quietly and slowly buttoning on the collar; but all in a moment, with a savage whine, Liuba struck him on his shaven cheek, with all her strength. The collar fell on the floor; he was shaken from his balance, but steadied himself. Pale, almost blue, but still silent, with the same look of lofty composure and proud incomprehension, he faced her with a stolid, unswerving stare. She was drawing rapid breaths, and staring at him in terror.

»Well?« she gasped.

He looked at her, still silent.

Then, maddened beyond endurance by his haughty unresponsiveness, terror-stricken by the stone wall against which she seemed to have flung herself, the girl lost all control of herself and seizing him by the shoulders forcibly thrust him down upon the bed. She bent over him, her face near his, and eye to eye.

»Well? Why don't you answer? What are you trying to do with me? You scoundrel--that's what you are! Kiss my hand, will you? Come here to boast of yourself, will you? To show off your beauty! What are you trying to do with me? Do you think I'm so happy?«

She shook him by the shoulders, and her thin fingers, unconsciously curling and uncurling like a cat's claws, scratched his body through his shirt.

»And he's never known a woman, hasn't he? You brute, you dare come here and brag about this to me--to me for whom any man is simply.... Where's your decency? What do you think you're doing with me? »I'll never give in alive.« That's the tune is it? But I--of course, I'm already dead. You understand, you rascal? I'm dead! But I spit in your face ... ph!... in the face of the living! There! Get out, you brute! Get out of here!«

With anger he could no longer command, he threw her off him and she fell backwards against the wall. Apparently his mind was still confused, for his next movement, equally rapid and decisive, was to seize his revolver and look at its grinning, toothless mouth. But the girl never so much as saw his bespattered face, damp and disfigured with demoniac rage, nor the black revolver. She covered her eyes with her hands, as though to crush them into the farthest recesses of her brain, stepped forward swiftly and steadily, and flung herself on the bed, face down, in a fit of silent sobbing.

Everything had turned out different from what he had anticipated. Out of vapidity and nonsense there had crept forth a chaos--savage, drunken, and hysterical, with a crumpled, distorted face.

He shrugged his shoulders, put away the useless revolver, and began pacing the room, up and down. The girl was crying.

To and fro again. The girl was crying. He stopped beside her, his hands in his pockets, to look at her.

There, under his eyes, face down, lay a woman sobbing frantically in an agony of unbearable sorrow, sobbing as one who looks suddenly back on a wasted life or a better life irretrievably lost. Her naked, finely tapering shoulder blades were heaving as though to heap fuel on the raging furnace within, and sinking as though to compress the tense anguish in her bosom.

The music had started afresh; a mazurka now. And the jingle of spurs could be heard. Some officers must have come.

Such tears he had never seen! He was disconcerted. He took his hands out of his pockets, and said gently:

»Liuba!«

Still she sobbed.

»Liuba! What is the matter, Liuba?«

She answered, but so faintly that he could not hear. He sat by her on the bed, bent his shorn head, and laid a hand on her shoulders; and his hand responded with a quiver to the trembling of those pitiable shoulders.

»I can't hear what you say, Liuba?«

Then something distant, dull, soaked in tears:

»Wait--before you go ... over there ... some officers have arrived. They might see you ... My God--to think...!«

She sat up quickly on the bed, clasping her hands, eyes wide open staring into space in sudden fear. The terror lasted a moment, and then she again lay down and wept. Outside the spurs were jingling rhythmically, and the pianist with revived energy was conscientiously beating out a vigorous mazurka.

»Take a drink of water, Liuba, do I You really must ... please ...« he whispered as he bent over her. Her ear was covered with her hair, and fearing that she could not hear, he carefully brushed aside those dark curling locks, and discovered a hot little red shell of an ear.

»Please drink! I beg you!«

»No, I don't want a drink. There's no need.... It's all over.«

She had quieted down by now. The sobbing stopped; one more long throe, and the shuddering shoulders were pathetically still; he was gently stroking her neck down to the lace of the chemise.

»Are you better, Liuba?«

She said nothing, but heaved a long sigh and turned round, quickly glancing at him. Then she relaxed and sat up, looked up at him again, and rubbed his face and eyes with the plaits of her hair. She breathed another long sigh and quite gently and simply laid her head on his shoulder, and he as simply put an arm round her and drew her silently closer to him. His fingers touched her naked shoulder, but this no longer disturbed him. And thus they sat a long while without speaking, but with now and then a sigh, staring straight ahead of them into space with unseeing eyes.

Suddenly there was a sound of voices and steps in the corridor, a jingling of spurs, quite gentle and elegant, like that of young officers. The sound came nearer and halted at the door. He rose promptly. Someone was knocking at the door, first tapping with knuckles and then banging with their fists, and a woman's voice called out:

»Liubka, open the door!«

He looked at her and waited.

»Give me a handkerchief,« she said, without looking at him, and put her hand out. She rubbed her face hard, blew her nose noisily, threw the handkerchief on his knees, and went to the door. He watched and waited. On her way to the door she turned out the light, and it was all at once so dark that he could hear his own rather laboured breathing. And for some reason he sat down again on the creaking bed.

»Well? What is it? What do you want?« she asked through the door, without opening it, her voice calm, but still betraying some uneasiness.

Feminine voices were heard in argument and, cutting through them as scissors cut through a tangle of silk, a male voice, young, persuasive, seeming to proceed from behind strong white teeth and a soft moustache. Spurs jingled as though the speaker were responding with a bow. And--strange!--Liuba smiled.

»No. No! I don't want to come--Very well, do as you like. No, not for all your 'lovely Liubas'. I won't come.« Another knock at the door, laughter, a sound of scolding, more jingling of spurs, and it all moved away from the door, and died out somewhere down the corridor. In the dark, fumbling for his knee with her hand, Liuba sat down by him, but did not lay her head on his shoulder. She explained briefly:

»The officers are starting a dance. They are summoning everybody. They are going to have a cotillion.«

»Liuba,« he said, pleadingly, »please turn on the light. Don't be angry.«

She got up without a word and switched it on. And now she no longer sat with him but, as before, on the chair facing the bed. Her face was surly, uninviting, but courteous--like that of a hostess who cannot help sitting through an uninvited and overlong visit.

»You are not angry with me, Liuba?«

»No. Why should I be?«

»I wondered just now when you laughed so merrily.«

She laughed without looking up.

»When I feel merry, I laugh. But you can't leave just now. You'll have to wait until the officers get away. It won't be long.«

»Very well. I will wait, thank you, Liuba.«

She laughed again.

»How courteous you are!«

»Don't you like it?«

»Not too well. What are you by birth?«

»My father is a doctor in the military service. My grandfather was a peasant. We are old-ritualists.«

Liuba, surprised, looked up at him.

»Really? But you don't wear a cross round your neck.«

»A cross!« he laughed. »We wear our cross on our backs.«

The girl frowned slightly.

»You want to go to sleep? You'd better lie down than waste time in this way.«

»No, I won't lie down. I don't want to sleep any more.«

»As you wish.«

There was a long and awkward silence. Liuba gazed downwards and fixed her attention on turning a ring on her finger. He looked round the room; each time be conspicuously avoided meeting the girl's glance, and rested his eyes on the unfinished glass of cognac. Then, all at once, it became overwhelmingly clear to him, even palpably evident, that all this was no longer what it seemed--that little yellow glass with the cognac, the girl so absorbed in twiddling her ring--and he himself, too, he was no longer himself, but someone else, someone alien and quite apart.... Just then the music stopped and there followed a quiet jingle of spurs.... He seemed to himself to have lived at some time, not in this house, but in a place very much like it; and that he had been an active and even important person to whom something was now happening. That strange feeling was so powerful that he shuddered and shook his head; and the feeling soon left him, but not altogether; there remained some faint inexpungible trace of the turbulent memories of that which had never been. And quite often, in the course of this unusual night, he caught himself at a point whence he was looking down on some object or person, trying anxiously to recall them out of the deep darkness of the past, even out of what had never existed.

Had he not known it for a thing impossible, he would have said that he had already been here on some occasion, so familiar and habitual had it all become. And this was unpleasant; it had already imperceptibly estranged him from himself and his comrades, and mysteriously made him a part of this institution, part of its wild and loathesome life.

Silence became oppressive.

»Why aren't you drinking?« he asked.

She shivered.

»What?«

»You haven't finished your glass, Liuba. Why don't you?«

»I don't want to by myself.«

»I'm sorry, but I don't drink.«

»And I don't drink by myself.«

»I would rather eat a pear.«

»Pray do so. They are here for that purposes.«

»Wouldn't you like a pear?«

The girl did not answer, but turned aside and caught his glance resting on her naked and translucently rosy shoulders, and flung a grey knitted shawl over them.

»It's rather cold,« she said abruptly.

»Yes, a little cold,« he agreed, although it was very warm in that little room.

And again there was a long and tense silence. From the hall could be heard the catchy rhythm of a noisy _ritornello_.

»They are dancing,« he said.

»They are dancing,« she replied.

»What was it made you so angry with me, that you struck me, Liuba?«

The girl hesitated and then answered sharply.

»There was nothing else for it so I struck you. I didn't kill you, so why make a fuss about it?«

Her smile was ugly.

There was nothing else for it? She was looking straight at him with her dark rounded eyes, with a pallid and determined smile. Nothing else for it? He noticed a little dimple in her chin. It was hard to believe that this same head, this evil pallid head, had been lying on his shoulder a minute or two ago, that he had been caressing her!

»So that's the reason,« he said gloomily. He paced to and fro in the room once or twice, but not toward the girl; and when he sat down again in the same place his face wore a strangely sullen and rather haughty expression. He said nothing, but, raising his eyebrows, stared at the ceiling where there played a spot of light with red edges. Something was crawling across it, something small and black, probably a belated autumn fly, revived by the heat. It had been brought to life in the night, and certainly understood nothing and would soon die. He sighed.

But now she laughed aloud.

»What is there to make you merry?« He looked up coldly and turned aside.

»I suppose--you are very much like the author. You don't mind? He too at first pities me, and then gets angry, because I do not adore him as though he were an icon. He's so touchy. If he were God, he'd never forgive even one candle,« she smiled.

»But how do you know any authors? You don't read anything.«

»There is one ...« she said curtly.

He pondered, fixing on the girl his unswerving gaze, too calm in its scrutiny. Living in a turmoil himself, he began vaguely to recognize in the girl a rebellious spirit; and this agitated him and made him try to puzzle out why it was that her wrath had fallen on him. The fact that she had dealings with authors, and probably talked with them, that she could sometimes assume such an air of quiet dignity and yet could speak with such malice--all this gave her interest and endowed her blow with the character of something more earnest and serious than the mere hysterical outburst of a half-drunk, half-naked prostitute. At first he had been only indignant, not offended; but now, in this interval of reflection, he was gradually becoming affronted, and this not only intellectually.

»Why did you hit me, Liuba? When you strike anyone in the face, you should tell them why.«

He repeated his question sullenly and persistently. Obstinacy and stony hardness were expressed in his prominent cheekbones and the heavy brow that overshadowed his eyes.

»I don't know,« she replied with the same obduracy, but avoiding his gaze.

She did not wish to answer him. He shrugged his shoulders, and again went on, pertinaciously staring at the girl and weaving his fancies. His thought, usually sluggish, once aroused worked forcibly and could not be deterred--worked almost mechanically, turning into something like a hydraulic press which slowly sinking powders up stones and bends iron beams and crushes anyone that falls beneath it--slowly, indifferently, irresistibly. Turning neither to the left nor to the right, unmoved by sophisms, evasions, allusions, his thought would push forward clumsily and heavily until it ground itself down or reached the logical extreme beyond which lay the void and mystery. He did not dissociate his thought from himself; he thought integrally, with the whole of his body; and each logical deduction forthwith became real to him--as happens only with very healthy or direct persons who have not yet turned thought into a pastime.

And now, alarmed, driven out of his course, like a heavy locomotive that has slipped its rails on a pitch dark night and by some miracle continues leaping over hillocks and knolls, he was seeking a road and could not anyhow find it. The girl was still silent and evidently did not wish to talk.

»Liuba, let us have a quiet talk. We must try to....«

»I don't want to have a quiet talk.«

Then again:

»Listen, Liuba. You hit me, and I cannot let matters rest at that.«

The girl smiled.

»No? What will you do with me? Go to the police-court?«

»No, but I shall keep coming to you until you explain.«

»You will be welcome. Madame gets her profit.«

»I shall come tomorrow. I shall come....«

And then, suddenly, almost simultaneously with the thought that neither tomorrow nor the day after would he be able to come, there flashed upon him the surmise, almost certainty, why the girl had struck him. His face cleared.

»Oh, that's it then! That's why you struck me--because I pitied you? I offended you with my compassion? Yes, it is very stupid ... but really, I didn't mean to--though of course it hurts. After all, you are human, just as I am....«

»Just as you are?« she smiled.

»Well, let that pass. Give me your hand. Let's be friends.«

She turned pale.

»You want me to smack your face again?«

»Give me your hand--as friends--as friends,« he repeated sincerely, but for some reason in a low voice.

But Liuba got up, and moving a little distance away said:

»Do you know ... either you are a fool or you have been very little beaten!«

She looked at him and laughed aloud.

»My God, yes! My author! A most perfect author! How could one help hitting you, my dear?«

She apparently chose the word author purposely, and with some special and definite meaning. And then, with supreme disdain, taking no more account of him than of a chattel or hopeless imbecile or drunkard, she walked freely up and down, and jeered:

»Or was it that I hit you too hard? What are you whining about?«

He made no reply.

»My author says that I'm a hard fighter. Perhaps he has a finer face. However hard one smacks your cheeks you seem to feel nothing! Oh, I've knocked lots of people's mouths about, but I've never been so sorry for anyone as for my author. 'Hit away', he says, 'I deserve it.' A drunken slobberer! It's disgusting hitting him. He's a brute. But I hurt my hand on your face. Here--kiss it where it smarts!«

She thrust her hand to his lips and withdrew it swiftly. Her excitement was increasing. For some minutes it seemed as though she were choking in a fever; she rubbed her breast, breathing deeply through her open mouth, and unconsciously gripped the window curtains. And twice she stopped as she went to and fro to pour out a glass of cognac. The second time he remarked in a surly tone.

»You said you didn't drink alone.«

»I have no consistency, my dear,« she replied, quite simply. »I'm drugged, and unless I drink at intervals I stifle ... This revives me.«

Then all at once, as if she had only just noticed him, she raised her eyes in surprise, and laughed.

»Ah! There you are--still there! Not gone yet! Sit down, sit down!« With a savage light in her eyes, she threw off the knitted wrap, again baring her rosy shoulders and thin soft arms. »Why am I all wrapped up like this? It's hot here and I ... I must have been saving him! How kind!... Look here, you might at least take your trousers off. It's only good manners here to do without your trousers. If your drawers are dirty I'll give you mine. Oh, never mind the slit. Here, put them on. Now, my dear boy, you must, you'll have to....«

She laughed until she choked, begging and putting out her hands. Then she knelt down, clasping his hands, and implored him:--

»Now, my darling, do! And I'll kiss your hand!«

He moved away, and, with an air of sullen grief, said:

»What are you trying to do with me, Liuba? What have I done to you? My relations with you are quite proper. I'm being perfectly decent to you. What are you doing? What is it? Have I offended you? If I have, forgive me. You know, I am ... I don't know about these things.«

With a contemptuous shrug of her naked shoulders, Liuba rose from her knees and sat down, breathing heavily.

»You mean you won't put them on.«

»I'm sorry, but I should look....«