Part 13

"I'm shouting, as you call it, because you talk like the police. 'You're very early--Where are you going?--What have you got there?' What business is it of yours?"

Masha looked searchingly at him, and said, reproachfully:

"How high and mighty you've grown!"

"Oh, go to the devil!" snarled Lunev, and sat down at the table.

Masha felt insulted, and turned away. Looking small and delicate, she shook back her dark hair from time to time, coughing and blinking when the smoke from the samovar she was tending irritated her eyes. Her face was thin, and the eyes shone all the more brightly for the dark circles round them. She was like the flowers that spring up amid grass and weeds in an overgrown garden.

Ilya looked at her and thought how the child lived all alone in this underground cave, working like a full-grown woman, how there was not, and perhaps never would be, any joy in life for her, condemned always to live in this straitened, dirty place. But he might live now as he had always desired, in peace and cleanliness. The thought filled him with happiness. Then at once he felt his unkindness to Masha.

"Masha!" he cried.

"Well, what now, cross-patch?"

"D'you know, I'm a bad lot," said Lunev, and his voice shook, while he wondered in his heart if he should tell her or no.

Masha turned towards him with a smile:

"Pity there's no one to give you a beating, that's what you want, you bad fellow!"

"Oh! have a little patience."

"No--no--you don't deserve any," said Masha, then approaching him quickly, she said in a tone of entreaty: "Ilya dear, ask your uncle to take me with him, will you? Ask him! I'll go on my knees and thank you."

"Where do you want to go?" asked Lunev, tired and too busy with his own thoughts to attend.

"To the holy places. Dear Ilya, ask him."

With hands clasped and eyes streaming, she stood in front of him, as though before a shrine.

"It would be so lovely, in spring, through the fields and woods. I'd go on and on, ever so far. I think of it every day--I dream that I'm going there, how good it would be; speak to your uncle, tell him to take me! He listens to you--I won't be a trouble to him. I'll beg for myself. I'm so little, they'll give to me. Will you, Ilusha? I'll kiss your hand."

Suddenly she seized his hand and bent over it. He sprang up, pushing her back.

"Silly girl," he cried, "what are you doing? I've strangled a man!"

His own words terrified him and he added at once: "Perhaps--perhaps for all you know, I've done something terrible with these hands, and you'll kiss them."

"No, let me," said Masha, pressing closer to him. "What does it matter? I'll kiss them! Petrusha is worse than you, and I kiss his hand for every bit of bread. I hate it, but he wants it, so I do it, and then he pinches me and touches me, the beast!"

Ilya's heart sprang up joyfully in a moment, perhaps because he had said the terrible thing, perhaps because he had not said everything.

He smiled and spoke gently to the child. "All right, I'll fix it up with uncle, I'll manage it, you shall go on your pilgrimage. I'll give you some money for the journey."

"You dear!" cried Masha, and fell on his neck.

"Here let go! Stop it," said Lunev, seriously. "I promise you shall go. Will you pray for me, Mashutka?"

"Pray for you! My God!"

Jakov appeared in the door, and said wonderingly:

"What on earth are you screaming at? Can hear you in the courtyard."

"Jakov!" cried the girl joyfully, eager to tell him. "I'm going away, on the pilgrimage. Ilya's promised to speak to the hunchback, he'll take me with him," and she laughed delightedly.

"Will he do it?" Jakov asked thoughtfully.

"Why not? She won't get in the way, and it's a good thing for her. Look at her, her eyes are shining, hardly like a live person."

"Yes--yes," said Jakov. After a moment's pause, he began to whistle softly.

"What's up," asked Ilya.

"Now I'm done for, all alone here, like the moon in the sky."

"Oh, hire a nurse," said Ilya laughing.

"I'll take to drink," said Jakov, shaking his head.

Masha looked at him, hung her head, and went towards the door; from there she spoke in a reproachful, sad voice:

"How weak you are, Jakov!"

"And you're very strong, aren't you? leaving a friend in the lurch. Nice way you treat me--how shall I endure it without you?"

He sat down at the table opposite Ilya with a gloomy face, and said:

"Suppose I just go with Terenti, too, eh! on the quiet?"

"Do it! I would," advised Ilya.

"Yes, but my father'll put the police on me!"

All were silent. Jakov began with forced gaiety:

"It's jolly to get drunk! You think of nothing, you understand nothing, and it's jolly."

Masha put the samovar on the table, and said, shaking her head:

"Oh, you Aren't you ashamed to talk like that?"

"You can't talk," cried Jakov, crossly. "Your father doesn't worry you--let's you do as you like. You live as you please."

"A nice sort of life!" answered Masha. "I'd run away to get rid of it."

"It's bad for us all," said Ilya softly, and fell to brooding again.

Jakov began looking thoughtfully out of the window.

"If one could get away, anywhere, out of all this, sit in a wood, by a river, and think about things."

"That would be silly, to run away from life," said Ilya, peevishly. Jakov looked at him inquiringly, and said shyly:

"D'you know, I've found a book."

"What sort of book?"

"Very old. It's bound in leather. It looks like a psalter, and it's really a heretic book. I bought it of a Tartar for seventy kopecks."

"What's it called?" asked Ilya. He had no wish for conversation, but felt that silence might be perilous for him, and compelled himself to keep talking.

"The title's torn out," answered Jakov, sinking his voice, "but it's all about the very beginning of things. It's difficult, and so horrible. It says that Thales, of Miletus, first of all said: 'All life proceeds from the water, and God dwells in matter as the power of life.' And then there was a wicked man called Diagoras, who taught that there were more gods than one, and he didn't believe in God properly. And Epicurus is talked about, and he said that there is a God, but He troubles about no one, and cares for no one. That's to say that if there is a God, men have nothing to do with Him; at least, that's how I understand it. Live just as you please, there's no one who takes any heed what you do."

Ilya got up out of his chair with wrinkled brow, and interrupted his friend's discourse.

"It'd be a good thing to take that book and thump you on the head with it."

"Whatever for?" cried Jakov, hurt at Ilya's comment.

"So's you won't read any more, stupid! And the man who wrote that book's a stupid too." He went round the table, bent over his friend, full of anger, shouting at Jakov, as though hammering his big head with the words.

"There is a God! He sees everything. He knows everything. There's no one beside Him. Life is given to you to try you, and sin to prove you. Can you stand firm or no? If you can't then comes the punishment, be sure of it. Not from men; from Him, d'you see? It'll come; it won't fail."

"Stop!" cried Jakov. "Did I say anything about that?"

"I don't care. Your punishment'll come. How can you judge me, eh?" cried Ilya, pale with excitement, mastered by a quite incomprehensible passion that had caught him all of a sudden. "Not a hair falls from your head, except by His will, d'you hear? And if I have fallen into sin, it was by His will, you fool!"

"Are you crazy or what is it?" cried Jakov, terrified, and leaning against the wall. "What sin have you fallen into?"

Ilya heard the question through the buzzing and roaring in his ears, and it was like a cold breath blowing upon him. He looked suspiciously at Jakov and at Masha, who was also disturbed by his excitement and outcry.

"I was only speaking by way of example," he said, in a dull way, and sat down again.

"You don't seem well," remarked Masha shyly.

"Your eyes are so heavy," added Jakov, and examined him attentively.

Ilya passed his hand involuntarily over his eyes and said, quietly:

"It's nothing; it'll pass off."

A few minutes later he felt he could not endure this painful, distressing association with his friends, and went to his own room without waiting for tea. He had scarcely lain down on his bed before Terenti appeared. Ever since the hunchback had decided to go to the Holy Cities to seek forgiveness for his sins, his face wore a clearer, happier expression, as though he experienced already a foretaste of the joy that release from his weight of guilt would achieve for him. Gently he approached his nephew's bed, and said, smiling and friendly, stroking his beard:

"I saw you come in, and I thought, I'll go and have a chat. We shan't be here together much longer."

"You're really going?" asked Ilya, drily.

"As soon as it's warmer, off I go. I want to be in Kiev for Easter."

"Look here! Couldn't you take little Masha with you?"

"What? No; that's impossible," cried the hunchback, with a gesture of refusal.

"Listen," Ilya went on, obstinately. "She's nothing to do here; and now she's just the age--Jakov, Petrusha, and all the rest, you understand? This house is like a gulf of destruction for every one, a damnable place! Let her go. Perhaps she'll never come back."

"But how can I take her with me?"

"Take her--just take her!" said Ilya, persisting. "You can spend for her the hundred roubles you were going to give me. I don't need your money. And she will pray for you. Her prayers will be worth a good deal."

The hunchback came nearer, and said, after a pause: "A good deal--That's true--You're right. But I can't take the money from you. We'll leave it as we settled. And for Masha, I'll see to it." His eyes shone with joy, and he whispered: "Do you know whom I got to know yesterday? A famous man, Peter Vassilitsch. Have you never heard of the Bible preacher, a man of wisdom! God must have sent him to me, to free my soul from doubt concerning the Lord's forgiveness of a sinner like me."

Ilya said nothing. He only wished that his uncle would leave him alone. With half-shut eyes he looked out of the window.

"We talked of sin and the salvation of the soul," whispered Terenti. "He said to me: 'As the chisel needs the stone to gain its sharpness, so man heeds sin, to wear away his soul, and bring it to the dust at the feet of all-merciful God.'"

Ilya looked at his uncle, and said, with a mocking laugh:

"Tell me, is this preacher like Satan, by any chance?"

"How can you talk like that?" and Terenti recoiled a step. "He's a God-fearing man, he's more famous than Antipa, your grandfather--yes."

"Oh! all right, what else did he say?"

Suddenly Ilya laughed, a dry, unpleasant laugh; his uncle turned away surprised and asked: "What's the matter with you?"

"Nothing. He was quite right, that preacher. Yes--the devil! I think so too, word for word."

"He said, too," Terenti began with relish, "that sin gives the soul wings--wings of repentance to fly to the throne of the Almighty."

"Do you know," interrupted Ilya, "you're rather like Satan, too!"

The hunchback stretched out his arms like a great bird spreading its wings, and stood paralysed with fear and anger.

Ilya sat up on his bed, pushed his uncle aside, and said, gloomily:

"Get away!"

Terenti stood in the middle of the room; he looked darkly at his nephew who sat on the bed, his head on his breast, and his shoulders up to his ears.

"Suppose I won't repent," said Ilya boldly. "Suppose I think I didn't want to sin--everything happened of itself, everything is by God's will, why should I trouble? He knows all, and guides all; if He hadn't willed it, He would have held me back. So I was right in all I did. All men live in unrighteousness and sin, but how many repent?--Well, what do you say to that?"

"I don't understand; God help you!" said Terenti sadly and sighed.

"You don't understand? Then let me alone!"

He stretched himself again on his bed; after a pause, he added:

"Really, I believe I'm ill."

"It looks like it."

"I must get to sleep; go, let me alone. I want to sleep."

When he was alone, Ilya felt a whirlpool raging in his head. All the extraordinary experiences he had lived through in a few short hours, grew to a dense hot mist, and weighed on his brain. He felt as though he had endured the torture for ever so long, as though he had killed the old man not to-day, but many days ago.

He shut his eyes and did not move. In his ears rang the old man's squeaking voice: "Now then, your coins, quick!" and again came that hoarse cry of anguish: "My darling! My darling." The harsh voice of the black-bearded merchant, Masha's entreaty, the words of the heretic book, the pious talk of the preacher, all blended into one wild confused sound. Everything reeled around him, and in swift, ungoverned movement, swept him down. Fear left him, he needed only rest, sleep, forgetfulness. He slept.

In the morning when he waked, he saw by the light on the wall opposite the window that it was a clear, frosty day. His head was dull and confused, but his heart was peaceful. He recalled the events of yesterday, watched the course of his own thought and felt convinced that he would know how to conduct himself. Half an hour later he went down the sunny street, his box against his breast, blinking his eyes before the dazzle of the snow, and calmly contemplating the folk he met. If he passed a church he took off his cap and crossed himself. Even before the church near the closed shop of Poluektov he crossed himself and went on without a trace of fear or remorse or any disturbing feeling. At his mid-day meal in an ale-house, he read in a paper the account of the daring murder of the money-changer. At the end of the article was written: "The police are taking active steps to arrest the criminal." As he read these words he shook his head with an incredulous smile, he was firmly convinced that the murderer would never be arrested, unless he himself desired to be taken.

XIV.

In the evening of this day Olympiada sent a letter to Ilya by her servant:

"Be at the corner of Kusnezkaya Street, by the Public Baths, at nine o'clock."

As Ilya read the words, he felt his body contract internally, and he shivered as if with cold. Once more he saw the contemptuous expression on the face of his mistress, and in his ears rang her rough, insulting words: "Couldn't you come some other time?"

He looked the letter all over, and could not determine why Olympiada had appointed this particular meeting place. Then all at once, he feared to understand, and his heart beat fiercely. He was punctual. The sight of Olympiada's tall figure among the many women who were walking, singly or in couples, near the public baths, increased his anxiety and restlessness. She wore an old fur jacket and a veil. He could only see her eyes. He stood before her in silence.

"Come!" she said, and added, softly: "Turn up your coat-collar!"

They walked through the passage of the building, keeping their faces turned aside, and disappeared quickly into a private room. Olympiada quickly threw aside her veil, and Ilya took new courage at the sight of her calm face, its colour heightened by the cold. Almost immediately he felt, however, that he disliked to see her so unmoved. She sat down on the divan, and said, looking in his face in a friendly way:

"Well, my lad! We'll soon appear together before the police?"

"Why?" asked Ilya, and wiped the hoar frost from his moustache.

"How stupid you can seem! As if you didn't know!" cried Olympiada quietly, with a tinge of mockery. Then her brows contracted, and she said, seriously, in a low tone:

"D'you know the police agent was at my house to-day. What d'you say to that?"

Ilya looked at her, and said, drily:

"What's that to me? Don't trouble me with your police, or anything else. Tell me simply why you've brought me here, with all this precaution."

Olympiada looked at him searchingly, then said, with a mocking laugh: "Oh, you'll still play the innocent--but there's no time for that. Listen. When the police officer examines you and asks you when you got to know me, and whether you visited me often, say just the plain truth--exactly--do you hear?"

"I hear," said Ilya, and smiled.

"And if he asks you about the old man, say you never saw him, never; that you know nothing of him, that you never heard that any one was keeping me--d'you understand?"

She looked Ilya through and through with an air of command. He felt an evil thought push up in him, that yet gave him pleasure. He thought that Olympiada feared him, and he found in himself a desire to torture her. He knit his brows and looked in her face with a furtive smile, but said nothing. A spasm of fear twitched her features, and she stepped back a pace, pale, whispering softly: "What is the matter? Why do you look like that? Ilya, Ilya!"

"Tell me, why should I lie?" he asked, showing his teeth scornfully. "I have seen the old man at your house."

Then, resting his elbows on the marble-topped table, he went on slowly and quietly, with a sudden access of bitter anger:

"I did see him once, and I thought: 'This is the man who stands in my way and has spoilt my life;' and if I did not strangle him then and there----"

"Don't tell lies!" cried Olympiada, loudly, and struck the table. "It is a lie! He was not in your way."

"How was he not?"

"He did nothing to you. You had only to wish it, and I'd have given him the go-by. Didn't I tell you I'd show him the door right away, if you wanted it? You smile there and you don't say anything. You never really loved me. It was your own choice to share with him. You worthless----"

"Stop! Be quiet!" cried Ilya. He sprang up, but at once sat down again, as though the woman had crushed him by her accusation.

"I will not be quiet!" she cried aloud. "I loved you because you were good-looking and wholesome; and you, what have you done to me? Did you ever say: 'Choose--him or me!' Did you ever say it? No! You were nothing but a love-sick tom-cat, like all the others."

Ilya started at this insulting reproach. There was a darkness before his eyes, and with clenched fist he sprang up again.

"Stop! How dare you?"

"You'll strike me, will you? Well, then, do it!" and her eyes flashed threateningly and she ground her teeth. "Strike me, and I'll tear the door open and cry out that you killed him and planned it with me. Well, do it!"

For a moment Ilya was paralysed with fear, but the feeling only touched his heart and vanished at once. Only he breathed with difficulty, as though unseen hands had him by the throat.

Again he sank back on the divan, was silent for a while, then gave a forced laugh. He saw Olympiada bite her lips and look as if seeking something round the dirty room, full of a damp, soapy vapour. Then she sat down on the divan close to the door, let her head fall, and said:

"Laugh away, you devil!"

"I will, certainly."

"When I saw you, I said 'that's the man for me, he'll help me, save me.'"

"Lipa," said Ilya gently.

She sat motionless and did not answer.

"Lipa," he repeated, and then with a sense as of hurling himself into an abyss, he said slowly, clearly:

"I did strangle the old man, by God!"

She shuddered, lifted her head and looked at him with wide eyes. Her lips began to tremble and she stammered:

"Silly boy, how frightened you are!"

Ilya understood that it was she who felt the fear, and did not want to believe his words. He got up, moved nearer, and sat down beside her, smiling vaguely. She caught his head to her breast, and whispered in her deep voice, as she kissed his hair: "Ilushka! Ilushka! Why do you hurt me so? I was so glad you killed him, the old sneak."

"Yes, I did it," he said, and nodded his head.

"Sh!" said the woman, anxiously. "I'm glad he's out of the way. That's what should happen to them all--all who ever touched me. You are the only man I ever met. You are the first, my dear one."

Her words drew him closer to her. He nestled with his face against her breast, till he could hardly breathe, but would not loosen his embrace, for he felt she was the only human being that was really near to him, and that more than ever now he needed her.

"When you stand there fresh and healthy, and look at me angrily, then I feel the degradation of my life, and I love you even for that, because of your pride."

Great tears fell on Ilya's face, and as their falling moved him, over his own cheeks flowed a stream that freed his soul. She took his head in her hands, kissed eyes and cheeks, and lips, and said:

"I know it's only my beauty holds you--your heart doesn't love me, and it condemns me. You can't forgive me my life, and that old man."

"Don't speak of him," said Ilya. He dried his face with her kerchief and rose up calm.

"Let come what may," he said slowly and firmly. "If God means to punish, He finds the way. I thank you, Lipa, for your words, what you say is right. I am guilty towards you. I thought you were--only such a one as----and you are----forgive me dear!"

He stammered with dry lips and dim eyes. Slowly, he smoothed his disordered hair with a trembling hand, and said in a dull, hopeless way:

"I am guilty of everything. Why? Why? Oh! Satan!"

"Olympiada caught his hand; he sank on the divan beside her and said, not heeding her whispered words:

"Do you understand? I strangled him; do you believe it?"

"Sh!" cried Olympiada, in an anxious muffled voice. "What are you saying?"

She embraced him closely, and looked into his face with troubled eyes.

"Let me go! it--it happened all of a sudden--God knows I didn't mean to do it. I only wanted to see his hateful face again, that's why I went into the shop. I had no intention,--and then it came in a moment, the devil urged me and God did not hold me back. I shouldn't have taken the money, that was silly, ah!"

He sighed deeply, and the hard rind of his heart seemed to loosen. Olympiada was quivering at his story, she held him even closer and whispered brokenly, disconnectedly. Presently she said: "It was a good thing you took the money, they'll think now it was for robbery, and not for jealousy; that would be worse for us."

"I don't feel sorry," said Ilya thoughtfully. "I won't repent. God may punish me! Men are not my judges; what sort of judges would they be! I know no men without sin, not one. I'll wait."

"O God," stammered Olympiada. "What is it? What will happen? Dear, I'm quite stupid. I can't think clearly--but let's go away from here--it's time."

She stood up and swayed like a drunken woman. But when she had fastened her veil, she said of a sudden, quite calmly:

"What's going to happen, Ilya? Will it go hard----?"

Ilya shook his head.

"Tell the magistrate everything, just as it was; that is, not everything, but----"

"I'll say it. Do you think I won't stand up for myself, or that I want to go to Siberia for this old wretch and a matter of two thousand roubles? No? I've something else to do with my life!"

His face was red with excitement, and his eyes shone. She came close to him and said in a whisper:

"Did you really only take two thousand roubles?"

"Two thousand and a little more."

"Poor boy; no luck even there!" and the tears shone in her eyes.

Ilya, smiled and said bitterly:

"Ah! d'you think I did it for the money? you know better--wait!--let me go first."

"Come and see me soon; there's no need for us to hide; come soon."

They parted with a long passionate kiss. As soon as Ilya reached the street he hailed a droshky. As he went he kept looking back to see if he were followed. His heart was lighter and a warm, tender feeling for Olympiada awaked in it. By no word or look had she wounded him, when he made his confession, she had rather taken on herself a part of the guilt than thrust him away. One minute before, when she did not know, she was ready to destroy him; he had read it in her face; then suddenly she had changed; he smiled gently as he thought of it.