Part 2

Yes,--it is two years now since Chang and the captain have been occupied, day in and day out, in visiting one restaurant after another. There they drink, have snacks, contemplate the other drunkards who drink and have snacks alongside of them, amid the noise, tobacco smoke, and all sorts of bad odours. Chang lies on the floor, at the captain’s feet. As for the captain, he sits and smokes, his elbows firmly planted on the table,--a habit he has acquired at sea; he is awaiting that hour when it will be necessary, in accordance with some law which he had himself mentally formulated, to migrate to some other restaurant or coffee-house: Chang and the captain breakfast in one place, drink coffee in another, dine in a third, and sup in a fourth. Usually the captain is silent. But there are times when the captain meets some one of his erstwhile friends, and then he talks all day long without cease of the insignificance of life, and every minute regales with wine now himself, now his _vis à vis_, now Chang,--the last always has some bit of china on the floor before him. They would pass the present day also in precisely the same way: they had agreed to breakfast this day with a certain old friend of the captain’s, an artist in a high silk hat. And that meant that at first they would sit in a certain malodorous beer-shop, among red-faced Germans,--stolid, business-like people, who worked from morn till night with, of course, the sole aim of drinking, eating, working all over again, and propagating others of their kind. Then they would go to a coffee-house filled to overflowing with Greeks and Jews, whose entire existence, likewise senseless but exceedingly perturbed, was swallowed up in ceaseless expectation of stock-exchange news: and from the coffee-house they would set out for a restaurant whither flocked all sorts of human rag-tag, and there they would sit far into the night....

A winter day is short, but with a bottle of wine, sitting in conversation with a friend, it is still shorter. And now Chang, the captain, and the artist had already been both in the beer-shop and in the coffee-house, and it is the sixth hour that they have been sitting and drinking in the restaurant. And again the captain, having put his elbows on the table, is ardently assuring the artist that there is but one truth in this world,--a truth evil and base. “You just look about you,” he is saying, “you just recall all those that you and I see every day in the beer-shop, in the coffee-house, and out on the street! My friend, I have seen the entire earthly globe--life is like that all over! Everything that these people pretend as constituting their life is all bosh and a lie: they have neither God, nor conscience, nor a sensible purpose in existing, nor love, nor friendship, nor honesty,--there is even no common pity. Life is a dreary, winter day in a filthy tavern, no more....”

And Chang, lying under the table, hears all this in the fog of a tipsiness, in which there is no longer any exhilaration. Does he agree with the captain, or does he not? It is impossible to answer this definitely,--but since it is impossible, it means that things are in a bad way. Chang does not know, does not understand, whether the captain is right; but then, it is only when we experience sorrow that we all say: “I do not know, I do not understand,”--whereas when joy is its portion every living being is convinced that it knows all things, understands all things.... But suddenly a ray of sunlight seems to cut through this fog of tipsiness: there is a sudden tapping of a baton against a music stand on the band-stand of the restaurant--and a violin begins to sing, followed by a second, a third.... They sing more and more passionately, more and more sonorously,--and a minute later Chang’s soul overflows with an entirely different yearning, with an entirely different sadness. His soul quivers from an incomprehensible rapture, from some sweet torment, from a longing for something indefinite,--and Chang no longer distinguishes whether he is in a dream or awake. He yields with all his being to the music, submissively follows it into some other world--and once more he sees himself on the threshold of that beautiful world; silly, with a faith in the universe, a puppy on board a steamer in the Red Sea....

“Yes, but how was it?” he half-thinks, half-dreams. “Yes, I remember: it was a good thing to be alive on that hot noonday on the Red Sea!” Chang and the captain were sitting in the round-house; later on they stood on the ship’s bridge.... Oh, how much light there was; what a deep blue the sea was, and how azure the sky! How amazingly vivid against the background of the sky were all these white, red, and yellow sailors’ blouses hung out to dry at the prow! Then, afterwards, Chang and the captain and the other men of the ship (whose faces were brick-red, with oily eyes, whereas their foreheads were white and perspiring), breakfasted in the hot general cabin of first-class, under an electric ventilator buzzing and blowing out of a corner. After breakfast Chang took a little nap; after tea he had dinner, and after dinner he was again sitting aloft, before the pilot’s round-house, where a steward had placed a canvas chair for the captain, and gazing far out at the sea; at the sunset, tenderly green among the many-coloured and many-formed little clouds; at the sun, wine-red and shorn of its beams, that, as soon as it had touched the turbid horizon, lengthened out and took on the semblance of a dark-flamed mitre.... Rapidly did the steamer run in pursuit of it; over the side the smooth, watery humps simply flashed by, giving off a sheen of blueish-lilac shagreen. But the sun hastened on and on,--the sea seemed to be absorbing it,--and kept on decreasing and decreasing, and became an elongated, glowing ember. It began to quiver and went out; and, as soon as it had gone out, the shadow of some sadness immediately fell upon all the world, and the wind, constantly blowing harder as the night came on, became still more turbulent. The captain, gazing at the dark flame of the sunset, was sitting with his head bared, his hair a-flutter in the wind, and his face was pensive, proud, and sad. And one felt that he was happy none the less, and that not only this entire steamer, running on at his will, but all the universe as well was in his power; because at that moment all the universe was in his soul,--and also because even then there was the odour of wine on his breath....

And when the night fell, it was awesome and magnificent. It was black, disquieting, with an unruly wind, and with such a vivid glow from the waves swirling up around the steamer that Chang, who was trotting behind the captain as the latter rapidly and ceaselessly paced the deck, would jump away with a yelp from the side of the ship. And the captain again picked Chang up in his arms, and putting his cheek against Chang’s beating heart,--for it beat in precisely the same way as the captain’s--walked with him to the very end of the deck, on to the poop, and stood there for a long time in the darkness, bewitching Chang with a wondrous and horrible spectacle: from under the towering, enormous stern, from under the dully raging propeller, myriads of white-flamed needles were pouring forth with a crisp swishing; they extricated themselves and were instantly whirled away into the snowy, sparkling path that the steamer was laying down. Now, again, there would be enormous blue stars: now some sort of tightly-coiled blue globes that would explode vividly, and, fading out, smoulder mysteriously with pale-green phosphorescence within the boiling watery hummocks. The wind, coming from all directions, beat strongly and softly upon Chang’s muzzle, ruffling and chilling the thick fur upon his chest; and, nestling closely to the captain, as though they were both of the same kin, Chang scented an odour that seemed to be that of cold sulphur, breathed in the air coming from the furrowed inmost depths of the sea. And the stern kept on quivering; it was lowered and lifted by some great and unutterably free force, and Chang swayed and swayed, excitedly contemplating this blind and dark, yet an hundredfold living, dully turbulent Bottomless Gulf. And at times some especially mischievous and ponderous wave, noisily flying past the stern, would illumine the hands and the silvery clothes of the captain with an eldritch glow....

On this night the captain for the first time brought Chang into his large and cozy cabin, softly illuminated by a lamp under a red silk shade. Upon the writing table, that was squeezed in tightly near the captain’s bed, in the light and shade thrown by the lamp, stood two narrow frames, holding two photographic portraits: one of a pretty little petulant girl in curly locks, seated at her capricious ease in a deep arm-chair; and the other that of a young woman, taken almost at full length, with a white lace parasol over her shoulder, in a large lace hat, and wearing a smart spring dress,--she was stately, slender, beautiful and pensive, like some Georgian _tsarevna_. And the captain said, as he undressed to the noise of the black waves beyond the open window:

“This woman won’t like you and me, Chang! There are some feminine souls, brother, which languish eternally in a certain pensive yearning for love, and who just for that very same reason never love anybody. There are such,--and how shall they be judged for all their heartlessness, falsehood, their dreams of going on the stage, of owning an automobile, of yachting picnics, of some sportsman or other, who pretends to be an Englishman, and tortures his hair, all greasy with pomatum, into a straight parting? Who shall divine them? Everyone according to his or her lights, Chang; and are they not fulfilling the innermost secret behests of Tao Itself, even as they are being fulfilled by some sea-creature that is now freely going upon its way in these black, fiery-armoured waves?”

“Oo-oo!” said the captain, sitting down on a chair and unlacing his white shoe. “What didn’t I go through, Chang, when I felt for the first time that she was not entirely mine,--on that night when for the first time she had gone alone to the Yacht Club ball and had returned toward morning, like a wilted rose, pale from fatigue and her still unabated excitement, with her eyes all dark, widened, and distant from me! If you only knew how inimitably she wanted to hoodwink me, with what artless wonder she asked: ‘But aren’t you asleep yet, poor dear?’ Right then I could not have uttered even a word, and she understood me at once and became silent; she merely threw a quick glance at me,--and began undressing in silence. I wanted to kill her, but she dryly and calmly said: ‘Help me unfasten my dress at the back,’--and I submissively approached her and began with trembling hands to unfasten all these hooks and snaps,--and just as soon as I saw her body through the open dress, saw her back between the shoulder blades, and her chemise, dropping off the shoulders and tucked into the corset; just as soon as I felt the scent of her black hair and caught a glimpse of her breasts, raised up by the corset, reflected in the bright pier glass....”

And, without finishing, the captain waved his hand in a hopeless gesture.

He undressed, lay down, and extinguished the light, and Chang, turning and settling in the morocco chair near the writing table, saw how the black cerement of the sea was furrowed by rows of white flame, flaring up and fading out; saw how some lights flashed up ominously upon the black horizon; saw how an awesome living wave would run up from thence and with a menacing noise would grow higher than the side of the ship, and look into the cabin,--like some serpent of fairy tale shining through and through with eyes of the natural colours of precious stones, shining through and through with translucent emeralds and sapphires. And he saw how the steamer thrust it aside and evenly kept on in its course, amid the ponderous and vacillant masses of this primordial element, now foreign and inimical to us, that is called Ocean....

In the night the captain emitted some sudden cry; and, frightened himself by this cry, which rang with some basely-plaintive passion, he instantly awoke. Having lain for a minute in silence, he sighed and said mockingly:

“Yes, there’s a story for you! ‘_As_ a jewel of gold in a swine’s snout, _so is_ a fair woman!...’ Thrice right art thou, Solomon, Sage of Sages!”

He found in the darkness his cigarette case and lit a cigarette, but, having taken two deep puffs at it, he let his hand drop,--and fell asleep so, with the little red glow of the cigarette in his hand. And again it grew quiet--only the waves glittered, swayed, and noisily rushed past the ship’s side. The Southern Cross from behind the black clouds....

But here Chang is deafened by an unexpected thunder peal. He jumps up in terror. What has happened? Has the steamer again struck against underwater rocks through the fault of the intoxicated captain, as was the case three years ago? Has the captain again fired a pistol at his beautiful and pensive wife? No; this is not night all about them now; neither are they at sea, nor in Elissavetinskaya Street on a wintry noonday,--but in a brightly-lit restaurant, filled with noise and smoke. It is the intoxicated captain, who had struck his fist against the table, and is now shouting to the artist:

“Bosh, bosh! As a jewel of gold in a swine’s snout,--that’s what your Woman is! ‘I have decked my bed with coverings of tapestry, with carved _works_, with fine linen of Egypt.... Come, let us take our fill of love ... for the goodman _is_ not at home....’ Bah! Woman! ‘For her house inclineth unto death, and her paths unto the dead....’ But that is enough, that is enough, my friend. It is time to go,--they are closing up this place; come on!”

And a minute later the captain, Chang, and the artist are already in the street, where the wind and the snow make the street-lamps flicker. The captain embraces and kisses the artist, and they go in different directions. Chang, sullen and half asleep, is running sidewise over the sidewalk after the captain, who walks rapidly and unsteadily.... Again a day has passed,--dream or reality?--and again darkness, cold, and fatigue reign over the universe.... No, the captain is right, most assuredly right: life is simply poisonous and malodorous alcohol, nothing more....

Thus, monotonously, do the days and nights of Chang pass. But suddenly one morning the universe, like a steamer, runs at full speed against an underwater reef, hidden from heedless eyes. Awaking on a certain wintry morning, Chang is struck by the great silence reigning in the room. He quickly jumps up from his place, rushes toward the captain’s bed,--and sees that the captain is lying with his head convulsively thrown back, with his face grown pallid and chill, with his eyelashes half-open and unmoving. And, upon seeing these eyelashes, Chang emits a howl as despairing as if he had been thrown off his feet and cut in two by a speeding automobile.... Then, when the door of the room has been taken off its hinges, when people enter, depart, and arrive again, speaking loudly,--the most diversified people: porters, police-men, the artist in the high silk hat, and all sorts of other gentlemen who used to sit in restaurants with the captain,--then Chang seems to turn to stone.... Oh, how fearfully the captain had said at one time: “On that day the keepers of the house shall tremble ... and those that look out of the windows be darkened ... also they shall be afraid of _that which is_ high, and fears shall be in the way ... because man goeth to his long home, and the mourners go about the streets.... For the pitcher is broken at the fountain, and the wheel broken at the cistern....” But Chang does not feel even terror now. He lies on the floor, his muzzle toward the corner; he has shut his eyes tight that he might not behold the universe, might forget it. And the universe murmurs over him dully and distantly, like the sea over one who descends deeper and deeper into its abyss.

But when he does come to himself again, it is near the doors of a chapel, in the porch. He sits near them with drooping head; dull, half-dead,--only he is all shaking in a chill. And suddenly the chapel door is flung open,--and a wondrous scene, all mellifluously chanting, strikes the eyes and the heart of Chang. Before Chang is a semi-dark Gothic chamber, with the red stars of flames, a whole forest of tropical plants, a coffin of oak raised high upon a black scaffolding. There is a black throng of people; there are two women wondrous in their marble-like beauty and their deep mourning, who seem just like two sisters of different ages; and, over all this, reverberations, thunder peals, a choir,--of men sonorously clamorous of some sorrowful joy of the angels. Solemnity, confusion, pomp,--and chantings not of this earth, drowning all else in their strains. And Chang’s every hair stands up on end from anguish and rapture before this sonorous vision. And the artist, who, with reddened eyes, stepped out of the chapel at that moment, stops in amazement:

“Chang!” he says in alarm, stooping down to him, “Chang, what is the matter with you?”

And, laying a hand that has begun to tremble upon Chang’s head, he stoops still lower,--and their eyes, filled with tears, meet with such love for each other, that Chang’s entire being cries out inaudibly to all the universe: “Ah, no, no,--there is upon earth some third truth, that has not been made known to me!”

That day, having returned from the cemetery, Chang moves into the house of his third master,--again up aloft, to a garret; but a garret warm, redolent of cigars, with rugs upon the floor, with antique furniture placed about it, and hung with brocaded stuffs.... It is growing dark; the fireplace is filled with glowing, sombrely-scarlet lumps of heat; Chang’s new master is seated in a chair. He had not even taken off his overcoat and his high silk hat upon returning home; he had sat down with his cigar in a deep chair, and is now smoking and gazing into the dusk of his _atelier_. As for the fatigued, tortured-out Chang,--he is lying on a rug near the fireplace, his eyes shut, his muzzle resting on his front paws. And he dreams, he sees as in a vision:

Some One is lying there, beyond the darkening city, beyond the enclosure of the cemetery, in that which is called a crypt, a grave. But this Some One is not the captain,--no. If Chang loves and feels the captain, if he sees him with the vision of memory,--that divine thing within him which he does not understand himself,--it means that the captain is still with him: in that universe, without beginning and without end, which is inaccessible to Death. In this universe there must be but one truth,--the third; but what that truth is, is known only to that last Master to whom Chang must now soon return.

_1916._

A COMPATRIOT

This _moujik_ of Briansk had been brought from the village to Moscow when he was a little boy; he had run errands at a merchant’s warehouse in Iliyinka; he used to fly like an arrow to taverns to get hot water for tea: seizing the tea kettle, he would dash through the galleries of the Stariya Riyady--the Old Shops--drawing, with a dark jet of water, the figure eight upon the gray floor.... On a brisk winter day, perhaps with a light snow falling, the Iliyinka thoroughfare would be black with people; the horses of the cabbies would be shufflingly trotting along,--but he, in just his shirt and without a cap (his head resembling a rusty hedgehog), would jump out of the house, dart off the sidewalk, and start sliding on his soles upon the ice in the gutter....

Imagine, then, how strange it is to see this _moujik_ in the tropics, at the equator! He is sitting in his office in an old-fashioned house of Dutch architecture. Beyond the window lies the white city in the blaze of the sun; there are naked black rickshaw-men, shops of Australian wares and of precious stones, hotels filled with tourists from all the ends of the world; in the warm green water of the harbour float American and Japanese steamers; beyond the harbour, along the lowlands of the shores, grow cocoanut groves.... Clad all in white, tall, knotty, with flaming red hair, with a blueish freckled skin, pale, energetically exhilarated (or, to put it more simply, just daft) from the heat, from nervousness, from constant tipsiness and from business activity,--he is, to look at him, either a Swede or an Englishman. His desk is all cluttered with papers, with bills. The air is filled with the crisp rattling of typewriters. An old Hindu, bare-footed, in robe and turban, noiselessly and rapidly changes with his dark, exquisite, silver-ringed hands little bottles of cold soda water, and every minute, with a mysterious expression on his face, announces the visitors, adding “Sir” at every word. But the “Sir” is completely absorbed in conversation with his friend from Russia, before whom he is playing the rôle of the affable lord of this tropical island. Upon the table are several open boxes of the most expensive cigars; of Turkish, Egyptian, English and Havana cigarettes. He is a connoisseur of tobaccos,--as well as of everything else, by the way. He regales his guest now with this brand, now with the other, saying, as though in passing: “This, I think isn’t at all bad....” Throwing a casual glance at some paper submitted to him, he, in the midst of the conversation, firmly and abruptly dashes off his signature upon it. Upon seeing a visitor enter, he changes the expression on his face, disposes of the matter in hand in two or three phrases, and again renews the interrupted conversation. When receiving some dispatch, his manner of opening it is especially negligent; for a moment, as he runs through it, he frowns: “What idiots!” he will say vehemently, in vexation; and throwing the dispatch to one side, immediately forgets about it,--or pretends that he does so.... All are idiots to him. He has already succeeded in astonishing his guest with his self-assurance, his decisive and sceptical mind, his enormous worldly experience and his wide acquaintance with people of the most diverse classes and stations. No matter who among the celebrities of Moscow is named,--merchants, administrators, physicians, journalists,--he knows them all, and knows well, besides, the price of each and all. And what information does he not possess concerning back-stage mysteries, exceptional careers, and shady histories!