Part 11

"The devil knows. She said, 'it would be better this way.' If children came, what could we do with them, and so----"

Ilya thought for a little, then said: "A sensible girl."

Pashka went on a step or two in silence. Then he wheeled sharp round, stood in front of Ilya, and said in a dull hissing voice:

"When I think that other men kiss her, then it's like molten lead driving through my limbs."

"Why don't you let her go?"

"Let her go?" cried Pavel in the highest astonishment. Ilya understood afterwards when he saw the girl.

They came to a one-storied house on the outskirts of the town. Its six windows were fast shut with thick shutters so that the house had the look of an old straggling granary. The wet, sloppy snow clung to roof and walls, as though it would conceal or smother the house.

Pashka knocked at the door and said:

"This is where they're looked after. Sidorisha gives her girls board and lodging and takes fifty roubles from each of them for it; she has only four altogether. Of course she keeps wine too, and beer, and sweetmeats, and all that you want, for the rest she lets the girls do what they want to, go out if they like, or stop at home if they like, only pay the fifty every month. They are all jolly girls; they make money as easily as----One of them, Olympiada, never takes less than four roubles."

There was a rustling the other side of the door. A yellow streak of light quivered in the air.

"Who is there?"

"I, Vassa Sidorovna--Gratschev."

"Oh! The door opened and a little dried-up old woman, with a big nose in her shrivelled face, held the candle up to Pavel's face, and said in a friendly way:

"Good evening, Pashka. Vyerunka has been waiting for you for a long time, and is quite cross. Who's that with you?"

"A friend."

"Who is it?" came a pleasant voice out of a long, dark corridor.

"A visitor for Vyera," said the old woman.

"Vyera, here's your sweetheart," cried the same clear voice, ringing through the corridor. At once at the end of the passage a door opened and the dainty figure of a girl, dressed in white, appeared in the bright patch of light, with her thick fair hair streaming round her face.

"How late you are!" she said, in a deep alto voice, pouting. Then she stood on the tips of her toes, put her hands on Pavel's shoulders, and looked at Ilya out of her soft brown eyes.

"This is my friend, Ilya Lunev. I met him, and that's how I'm a bit late."

"Welcome," she said, giving Ilya her hand, so that the wide sleeve of her loose white dress fell back almost up to the shoulder. Ilya pressed her hot, dry little hand respectfully, without a word. He looked at Pavel's sweetheart, with that feeling of joyful surprise with which a man greets a slender fragrant birch-tree in a thick wood full of brambles and marshy thickets. As she stood aside to let him enter, he stepped back, bowed, and said politely:

"Please, after you."

"How polite!" she laughed.

Her laughter was pleasant, gay and clear. Pavel laughed too, and said:

"You've turned his head already, Vyerka. See, how he stands there, like a bear in front of the honey jar."

"Is that true?" asked the girl, mischievously.

"Of course," answered Ilya, laughing. "I'm quite bewildered by your beauty."

"Here, you, listen! You just fall in love with her and I'll kill you," Pavel threatened, jokingly. It pleased him that his lady's beauty should make such an impression on his friend, and his eyes shone with pride as he looked at her. She, too, paraded her charms with a naïve coquetry, convinced of their power. She wore nothing but a bodice with sleeves, over a vest and a shining white petticoat; her healthy, sound, snow-white body showed through the bodice-opening. A childish, self-contented smile twitched at the corners of her red lips; it was as though she took pleasure in herself, like a child with a toy it is not yet tired of. Ilya could not take his eyes off her. He saw how gracefully she moved up and down in the room, and how she wrinkled up her little nose, and laughed and chattered, and looked tenderly at Pavel every now and then; his heart was heavy to think he had no such friend. He sat silently and looked about him. A table covered with a white cloth, stood in the middle of the little, tidy, brightly-lighted room; on the table the samovar bubbled cheerily, and everything round about it was fresh and gay; the cups, the wine-bottle, the plate with bread and sausage--everything had a clean new look; it struck Ilya as unusual, and moved him to envy Pavel, who sat there, quite blissful, and began to rhyme extempore:

"The sight of you, like bright sunshine, Streams over this poor heart of mine. Forgotten all my grief and pain, My heart begins to hope again. To call a beautiful girl one's own Is the greatest joy that can ever be known."

"Pashka, dear, how nice it is!" cried Vyera, delighted.

"Ah! it's hot! Hullo, you there, Ilya, leave off! Can't you look enough? Get one for yourself!"

"But she must be pretty," said Vyera, with a strange emphasis, looking Ilya in the eyes.

"Prettier than you can't be found," sighed Ilya, and laughed.

"Don't talk of things you don't understand," said Vyera, softly.

"He knows his way about," said Pashka. Then, turning to Ilya, went on, wrinkling his brow: "Here, now, everything is so clean and jolly, and then, all of a sudden--one thinks--It cuts one's heart."

"Don't think then!" cried Vyera, and bent over the table. Ilya looked at her, and saw how her ears grew red.

"You must think--" she went on, softly but firmly--"if I have only a day, still it's mine! It isn't easy for me, either, but I don't mix up the joy and the trouble; I keep it, like the song says: 'The sorrow I alone will bear, the joy together we shall share.'"

Pavel listened, but hardened his heart, in his sulky mood. Ilya longed to say something comforting, encouraging, and, after a pause, began:

"What's to be done when the knots won't be loosened? If I had lots of money, a thousand or ten thousand roubles, I'd give it to you, and say: 'There, take it, take it because of your love,' for I see it and feel it; for you it's a real true heart affair, and that is always pure to the conscience, and all the rest you can spit at."

A warm feeling flamed up and thrilled through him. He stood up when he saw the girl lift her head and look at him gratefully, while Pavel smiled, as though he waited for him to say more.

"It's the first time in my life I've seen such a beautiful thing," Ilya went on. "It's the first time I have seen how people can love one another; and, Pavel, it's the first time I've really got to know you--I've looked into your soul. I sit here and say frankly, I envy you; I'm sad and merry at the same time. God grant that all may be well with you! And--and as for the rest, let me say something. Suppose--I dislike Chuvashai and Mordvij, they're dirty and blear-eyed. But I bathe in the same river and drink the same water as they do. Am I to avoid the river because they are objectionable? Why should I? God cleanses it again."

"That's it, Ilya! You're a good fellow," cried Pavel, excitedly.

"But do you drink out of the river?" said Vyera, softly.

"I must find it first," laughed Ilya. "Pour me out a glass of tea to go on with, Vyera!"

"You're a nice boy!" cried the girl.

"Many thanks," said Ilya, seriously, bowed to her, and sat down again.

His words and the whole scene acted on Pavel like wine. His animated face reddened, his eyes shone with excitement, he sprang from his chair and paced the room joyously. "Ah, devil take it!" he cried, "the world's a jolly place, if men are as simple as children. It was a good thing I did when I brought you along, Ilya! Drink, brother! Fill up, Vyerunka!"

"Now there's no holding him," said the girl, and smiled at him tenderly. Then, turning to Ilya, "he's always like that, either as gay and shining as a rainbow, or dull, and grey, and cross."

"That's not good," said Lunev decidedly. Then all three began to chatter gaily and cheerfully, breaking into careless laughter every now and then.

There was a knock at the door, and a voice asked: "Vyera, may I come in?"

"Come in! come in! Ilya Jakovlevitsch, this is my friend, Lipa."

Ilya rose from his chair, and turned towards the door. A tall, stately woman stood before him, and looked in his face with calm blue eyes. From her dress came a sweet perfume, her cheeks were fresh and red, and her head was adorned with a crown-like mass of hair that made her look even taller.

"I was sitting alone in my room, so bored, and then, all at once I heard you talking and laughing, and so--well, I came here. You don't mind I hope? There's a gentleman without a lady. I will entertain him--shall I?"

With a graceful gesture, she placed her chair near Ilya's, seated herself, and asked: "You're rather bored with them, aren't you? They kiss and hug one another, and you're envious, eh?"

"I'm not bored with them," said Ilya, confused by feeling her so near.

"That's a pity," she said quietly, then turned from Ilya and went over to Vyera.

"Just think, I went to Mass yesterday at the nunnery, and I saw such a pretty nun in the choir, such a dear. I couldn't take my eyes off her, and thought why on earth did she go into the nunnery. I felt quite sorry."

"Why? I shouldn't pity her," said Vyera.

"Oh! Who's going to believe that!"

Ilya breathed in the costly perfume that floated round this woman, he looked sidelong at her and listened to her voice. She spoke with extraordinary calm and self-possession, there was something drowsy in her voice and it seemed as though a powerful, delightful scent streamed from her words also.

"D'you know, Vyera, I'm still considering if I shall go to Poluektov or not."

"I can't advise you."

"Perhaps I will. He's old and rich, and those are two important points. But he's miserly. I want five thousand roubles in my name in the bank, and a hundred and fifty roubles a month, and he only offers three thousand and a hundred."

"Don't talk of it now, Lipotshka!"

"All right, as you like," said Lipa, quietly, and turned again to Ilya. "Now, young man, let us talk a little. I like you, you've a nice face and serious eyes. What will you say to that?"

"I? I shan't say anything," said he, laughing carelessly, but feeling clearly how this woman ensnared him with her magic.

"Nothing? oh! you're bored;--what are you?"

"Pedlar."

"R--really? I thought you were a clerk in a bank, or in some shop. You look very good form."

"I like cleanliness," said Ilya. He felt oppressively hot, and his head was in a whirl with the perfume.

"You like cleanliness?--that's very nice. Are you a good hand at guessing?"

"I don't understand."

"Can't you guess that you're in the way here, eh;" and she looked right through him with her blue eyes.

"Oh! of course. I'll go," said Ilya confused.

"Wait a minute! Vyera, may I take this youngster away?"

"Of course, if he wants to go," answered Vyera, laughing.

"But where?" asked Ilya, in great excitement.

"Oh! go along you silly fellow!" cried Pashka.

Ilya stood there dazed and laughed vaguely, but the beautiful lady took his hand and led him out, saying in her quiet way: "You're not tamed yet, and I'm capricious and obstinate. If I made up my mind to put out the sun, I'd climb on the roof and blow at it till I'd used my last breath. Now you know what I'm like."

Ilya went with her hand in hand, hardly hearing her words and not understanding at all: he only felt she was so warm, and soft and fragrant.

XII.

His intimacy with Olympiada, so unexpectedly begun from a woman's whim, rendered Ilya at first quite arrogant. A proud self-confident feeling awakened in him, healing the little wounds that life had dealt his heart.

The thought that a lovely well-dressed lady gave him her precious kisses out of pure affection and demanded nothing in return, raised him more and more in his own eyes, and he felt as though he were floating in a broad stream, borne along by a peaceful flood that caressed his body tenderly and waked strength and courage in his limbs.

"My dear lad," said Olympiada to him, as she played with his hair or passed her finger over the dark down that covered his upper lip. "You're nicer every day, you've such a bold, confident heart, and I can see you're sure to get what you want. I like that. I'm made that way, too. If I were younger, I'd marry you and together we'd have a splendid time."

Ilya treated her with great respect. She seemed so sensible, and he liked her for the way she respected herself in spite of her vicious life. She never drank and used no foul words like the other women that he knew. Her body was as supple and strong as her full deep voice, and as tense as her character. Even her frugality, her love of order and cleanliness, and the readiness with which she could speak on any subject and ward off anything that irritated her pride, delighted him. Sometimes though, if he visited her and found her lying with dishevelled hair and pale, languid face, a bitter feeling of disgust would arise, and then as he looked gloomily into her wearied eyes he could bring no greeting from his lips. She must have understood his feeling readily, for she would wrap the coverlet round her and say:

"Off with you!--go and see Vyera--tell the old woman to bring me some snow-water!"

He would go to the clean little room and Vyera would laugh guiltily at the sight of his gloomy, displeased face. One day she asked him:

"Well, Ilya Jakovlevitsch, how are you getting on? How do you like it here?"

"Ah, Vyerotchka, sin can't stick to you; if you only smile it melts away like snow."

"I'm so sorry for you, both of you, poor fellows."

Ilya liked Vyera very much. He treated her as a little child, was very disturbed if she quarrelled with Pashka, and made the peace between them every time. He liked to sit in her room and watch her comb her golden hair, or sew at something, singing softly. Often he surprised in her eyes a gnawing pain, and sometimes her face twitched with a hopeless weary smile. At such a time he felt even more drawn to her, the misery of this little girl touched him more keenly and he would comfort her as well as he could. But she said:

"No, no, Ilya, we can't go on like this, it's quite impossible; think--I--I must live on in this filth, but Pavel, what place is there for him near me?"

"But he chooses it," said Ilya.

"Chooses?" came like an echo from her lips.

Olympiada interrupted the conversation, entering noiselessly in a wide blue cloak, like a cold moonbeam.

"Come to tea, my lad, and you come in too, presently, Vyerotchka."

Fresh and rosy from the cold water, clean, neat and calm, she took Ilya to her room without many words, and he followed, marvelling that this could be the same Olympiada he had seen before, faded and soiled by lustful hands.

While they drank their tea, she said to him: "It's a pity you're only a peasant lad and have learned so little, that'll make it harder for you in life, but anyhow you must drop your present business and try something else. Wait, I'll look out for a place for you--you must be looked after. As soon as I've fixed things up with Poluektov, I'll manage it."

"Is he going to give you the five thousand?"

"Of course," she answered with conviction.

"Well, if I ever meet him near you, I'll pull his head off," cried Ilya jealously.

"Why? he doesn't get in your way."

"He does, most decidedly, get in my way."

"But he's old and horrid," said Olympiada, laughing.

"Laugh away! I'll never believe that it's anything but a great sin to caress such a dirty beast."

"Wait a little, at least, till I get hold of his money."

The merchant did everything for her that she desired. Soon Ilya was sitting in her new house, seeing the thick carpets and the heavy plush-covered furniture, and listening to his lady's business-like remarks. He found in her no special pleasure in her altered surroundings, she was as calm and self-contained as ever. It was as though only the clothes were changed, nothing else.

"I am now twenty-seven,--when I am thirty, I shall have ten thousand roubles. Then I'll throw over the old man and be free; learn from me, my lad, how to deal with life."

Ilya learnt from her obstinate perseverance to attain a predetermined goal, but often the thought tortured him, that he shared her caresses with another, and a painful sense of degradation and weakness. At such times the vision would rise again of his shop, with the clean room, where he might entertain his lady. He didn't believe that he loved Olympiada, but she seemed quite necessary to him, as a sensible good comrade.

In this way, two months--three months passed away. One day, when he returned home, he betook himself to Perfishka's cellar, and saw with amazement Perfishka at the table with a bottle of brandy, and opposite him, Jakov sat, leaning heavily on the table, his head swaying, and said unsteadily:

"Splendid! If God sees everything and knows everything, then He sees me too. Every one has forsaken me, brother. I'm all alone. My father hates me, he's a scoundrel! He's a robber and a cheat, isn't he, Perfishka?"

"Right, Jakov. It's a pity, but it's true."

"Well, then, how am I to live? What am I to believe in?" asked Jakov, stammering and shaking his dishevelled hair. "I can't believe in my father. Ilya goes his own way. Masha is a child. Where is there a man? Perfishka, I tell you, there's not a man left in the world."

Ilya stood in the doorway, and heard his friend's drunken speech. His heart sank painfully. He saw Jakov's head loll, drooping and weak, on his thin neck, saw Perfishka's thin, yellow face lighted up with a pleased smile, and he would not believe that this could really be Jakov, the quiet, modest Jakov.

"What are you doing here?" he said reproachfully as he entered.

Jakov started, looked with startled eyes into Ilya's face, and said, with a despairing smile: "Ah, Ilya--is that all! I thought--my father----"

"What's all this about, tell me," Ilya interrupted.

"You let him alone, Ilya," cried Perfishka, and rose swaying from his chair. "He can please himself. Thank God that he still likes brandy."

"Ilya," cried Jakov convulsively, "my father thrashed me."

"That's so. I was a witness," explained Perfishka, and smote his breast with his fist. "I saw everything. I can take my oath! He knocked his teeth out, and made his nose bleed."

In fact, Jakov's face was swollen and his upper lip covered with blood. He stood in front of his comrade, and said, smiling mournfully:

"How dare he beat me? I'm nineteen, and I'd done nothing wrong."

"Why did he beat you, then?"

Jakov's lips twitched as though he was about to speak, but he said nothing. His bruised face quivered. He sank heavily on a chair, took his head in his hands, and began to sob aloud, so that his whole body shook. Perfishka, who had supported him as he sank down, poured out a glass of brandy, and said: "Let him cry. It's good when a man can. Mashutka, too, was in a state, quite bathed in tears. 'I'll scratch his eyes out,' she screamed right on, till I took her to Matiza."

"But what happened?"

"I can tell you exactly. It was quite a crazy business. Terenti, that uncle of yours, he began the thing. All at once he said to Petrusha, 'Let me go to Kiev,' he said, 'to the holy men!' Petrusha was delighted; that hump of Terenti's has worried his eyes, and to tell the truth, he's jolly glad to see Terenti's back; it's not nice to have some one about who knows a secret of yours--he! he! 'All right,' he says. 'Go along, and put in a little word for me too with the holy men.' And then Jakov starts in all of a sudden: 'Let me go too,' he says."

Perfishka began to roll his eyes, made a fierce grimace, and cried in a hoarse voice, imitating Petrusha:

"'Wha--a--at do you want to do?'"

"'I want to go with uncle to the holy men.'

"'What do you mean?'

"Jakov says, 'I could pray for you too.' Then Petrusha begins to roar, 'I'll teach you to pray!' Jakov sticks to his point. 'Let me go. God is pleased with the prayers of sons for their fathers' sins.' My word, how Petrusha hit him in the mouth, and again and again."

"I can't live with him," cried Jakov. "I'll go away. I'll hang myself. Why did he beat me--why? All I said came from my heart."

Ilya's heart sank at this outcry, and with a despairing shrug of his shoulders, he left the cellar. He was glad to hear that his uncle was going on a pilgrimage. Once Terenti was gone, he would finally leave this house, take a little room somewhere for himself, and be his own master. As he entered his room, Terenti appeared, following him. His eyes shone, his face wore an expression of joy. He approached Ilya and said: "Well, I'm going. O Lord, how glad I am! To step out of a cave, a cellar, into God's world. Surely He will not despise my prayer, since He lets me get away from this place."

"Do you know what's happened to Jakov?" said Ilya, drily.

"What?"

"He's got drunk."

"What do you say? That is wrong of him! Silly boy! And just now he was begging his father to let him go with me."

"Were you there when his father beat him?"

"Yes, of course. Why?"

"Why, can't you understand? That's why he's got drunk."

"Because of that? It's not possible!"

Ilya saw clearly that Jakov's fate was a matter of indifference to his uncle, and that strengthened his feeling of enmity against the hunchback. He had never seen Terenti so overjoyed, and the sight of this happiness, coming right after Jakov's misery, moved him strangely. He sat down at the window and said:

"Go on into the bar."

"Petrusha is there. I want to talk to you."

"Oh! what about?"

The hunchback came up to him and said mysteriously:

"I'm getting away. You're staying behind and that means--well----"

"Hurry up," said Ilya.

"Yes--yes, I want to; it isn't easy to say," said Terenti, in a subdued way, while his eyes blinked.

"Do you want to talk about me? eh?"

"Yes--yes--about you, too, but presently. I've saved some money."

Ilya looked at him and laughed maliciously.

"What d'you mean? Why d'you laugh?" cried his uncle, frightened.

"Oh, nothing. Well, then, you've _saved_ some money, have you?"

Ilya emphasised "saved."

"Yes, that's it," said Terenti, avoiding his look. "I shall give two hundred roubles to the monastery."

"O!"

"And a hundred to you."

"A hundred?" asked Ilya, suddenly, and at once he knew that in his soul for a long time the hope had lived that his uncle would give him not a hundred roubles, but a much bigger sum. He was angered against himself that his heart could entertain so hateful, calculating, an expectation, and against his uncle that the sum was so small. He got up, straightened himself, and said, full of scorn and insolence:

"I'll have none of your stolen money, d'you understand."

The hunchback recoiled in fear and sank on his bed, pale and wretched, his hair bristled, his mouth stood open, and he gazed at Ilya silently with stupid terror in his eyes.

"Well, why do you look like that? I don't want your money."

"Christ!" Terenti groaned hoarsely. "Why not, my dear, why not? Ilusha, you've been like a son to me." Then presently he went on in a whisper. "It was just--for you--for fear of what should happen to you, that I took the sin on my soul; take the money, take it, else the Lord won't forgive me."

"So," cried Ilya, mockingly, "you'll go to your God with an account book! Oh! you! did I ask you to steal old Jeremy's money; think what a good man he was you robbed!"

"Ilusha, you didn't ask to be born, either," said the uncle, and stretched out his hand to Ilya with an odd gesture. "No, take the money, quietly, for Christ's sake, to save my soul; if I come back, then you'll get it all, and meantime take this, my dear boy. God will not forgive my sins, if you don't take the money!"