Orlóff and His Wife: Tales of the Barefoot Brigade

*

One day I was inspecting the trade-school in N.... My guide was a well-known man, one of its founders. He conducted me over this model school, and explained things to me:

"As you see, we have reason to boast.... Our nurseling is growing and developing splendidly. The teaching corps are wonderfully well matched. In the boot and shoe shop, for example, we have a woman teacher, a plain female shoemaker, a peasant woman, that is to say, even a very ordinary peasant woman, such a dainty, roguish creature, but of irreproachable conduct.—However, devil take that side of the matter.... Ye-es! So then, as I was saying, that shoemaker is a simple little peasant woman, but how she does work!... how cleverly she teaches her trade, with what love she treats the little children—it's amazing! she's an invaluable worker.... She works for twelve rubles a month, and lodgings at the school ... and she supports two orphans, to hoot, on her scanty means! She's a very interesting figure, I must tell you."

He praised the woman shoemaker so zealously that he evoked in me a desire to make her acquaintance. This was soon arranged, and one day Matréna Ivánovna Orlóff narrated to me the sad story of her life. For a while, after she had separated from her husband, he gave her no rest:—He came to her in a drunken condition, kicked up rows, spied on her everywhere, and was merciless. She bore it patiently.

When the barracks were closed the woman doctor suggested to Matréna Ivánovna that she should get a place at the school, and defend her against her husband. Both undertakings were successful, and Mrs. Orlóff entered upon a tranquil, laborious life: under the guidance of her acquaintances, the women medical practitioners, she learned to read and write, took two orphans out of the asylum to rear,—a girl and a boy,—and was working away, content with herself, with grief and terror recalling her past. She was perfectly devoted to her pupils, understood the significance of her activity in a broad sense, discharged it in a thoroughly competent manner, and had won general interest and sympathy for herself among the managers of the school. But she was coughing with a dry, suspicious cough, an ominous flush burned on her sunken cheeks, and her gray eyes held much melancholy. Her married life with uneasy Gríshka was taking effect.

But he had dropped his wife, and it was now the third year since he had annoyed her. He sometimes made his appearance in N., but did not show himself to Matréna. He was "on the tramp," as she defined to me his manner of life.

I succeeded in making his acquaintance. I found him in one of the dives of the town, and after two or three sittings, he and I became friends. After repeating to me the story which his wife had told me, he meditated for a little while, and then said:

"So you see, Maxím Savvátievitch, it raised me up, and then dashed me down. So I never performed any heroic deed. Even to this day, I long to distinguish myself in some way.... I'd like to mash up the whole earth into dust or assemble a gang of comrades and kill off all the Jews ... down to the very last one! Or, in general, something which would set me up above all men, and so that I could spit on them from a height.... And say to them: 'Akh, you reptiles! Why do you live? How do you live? You're a pack of hypocritical rascals, that's all you are!' And then, I'd kick up my heels from above or there below, and ... they'd smash into bits! Ye-es, so I would! Devil take it ... it's tiresome! And akh, how tiresome and narrow life is to me!... I thought, when I got rid of Matréshka:—'Co-ome now, Grínya,[19] sail away into freedom, the anchor's weighed!' On the contrary, it didn't come out that way—the channel was shallow! Stop! And I ran aground.... But I shan't dry up, never fear! I shall display myself! How?—the devil only knows that!... My wife? Well I consign her to all the devils! Does a man like me want a wife?... What should I do with her ... when I feel drawn in all four quarters at once?... I was born with uneasiness in my heart ... and it is my fate to be a tramp! The very best position in the world is free—and yet cramped! I've walked and ridden in all directions,... and found no consolation.... Do I drink? Of course, and what of that? Vodka extinguishes the heart, all the same.... And my heart bums with a great fire.... Everything is repulsive—towns, villages, people of different calibres ... Faugh! Can't anything better be invented? They're all down on one another.... I'd like to choke the whole lot of them! Ekh, life, you're the devil's great wisdom!"

The heavy door of the dram-shop where Orlóff and I were sitting, kept opening incessantly, creaking in a voluptuous sort of way as it did so. And the interior of the dram-shop aroused one's imagination of some sort of wild beast's maw, which was slowly but inevitably devouring, one after the other, the poor Russian people, the uneasy and the rest.

KONOVÁLOFF

As I carelessly ran my eye over the newspaper, it fell upon the name of Konováloff, and as it arrested my attention, I read the following:

"Last night, Alexánder Ivánovitch Konováloff, petty burgher of the town of Muróm, aged forty, hanged himself to the ventilator of the stove in the general ward of the local prison. The suicide was arrested in Pskóff, for vagrancy, and was forwarded by stages, under police escort, to his native place. The prison authorities state that he was always a quiet, reticent, thoughtful man. The prison doctor decided that melancholia must be regarded as the cause which incited Konováloff to suicide." I read this brief announcement in brevier type—it is the custom to print notes about the destruction of insignificant people in small type—I read it through, and reflected that I might be able to throw a somewhat clearer light upon the cause which had led that meditative man to go out of life, because I had known him, and, at one time, had lived with him. Indeed, I had not even the right to remain silent concerning him:—he was a splendid young fellow, and such as he are not often met with on life's highway.

I was eighteen years old when I first met Konováloff. At that time, I was working in a bakery, as assistant baker. The baker was a soldier from "the musical division," a terrible vódka-drinker, who frequently spoiled the dough, and when he was drunk, was fond of playing tunes on his lips, and strumming out various pieces with his fingers on anything that came handy. When the proprietor of the bakery reprimanded him for having spoiled his wares, or for being behindhand with them in the morning, he flew into a rage, and cursed the proprietor, cursed him mercilessly, always calling his attention, at the same time, to his musical talent.

"The dough has stood too long!"—he shouted, bristling up his long red mustache, and making a noise with his thick lips, which were always moist, for some reason or other.—"The crust is burned! The bread is raw! Akh, the devil take you, you cock-eyed spectre! Was I born into the world to do this work? Curse you and your work—I'm a musician! Do you understand? If the viola-player got drunk, I used to play the viola: if the hautboy man was under arrest, I blew the hautboy; if the cornet-à-piston has fallen ill, who can take his place? Sutchkóff, I! Glad to do my best, your Well-Born![1] Tim-tar-ram-ta-ddi! But you're a p-peasant, katzáp![2] Pay me my wages and discharge me!"

And the proprietor, a corpulent, bloated man, with small squinting eyes which were buried in fat, and a feminine face, stamped about the floor with his short, fat legs, his huge body swaying heavily the while, and roared, in a squealing voice:

"Ruiner! Destroyer! Christ-seller of a Judas! Oh Lord, why hast Thou chastised me with such a man!" Spreading his short fingers wide apart, he raised his hands to heaven, and all of a sudden roared loudly, in an ear-splitting voice:—

"And what if I hand you over to the police for your mutiny?"

"Hand the servitor of the Tzar and the Fatherland over to the police?" bellowed the soldier, and started to administer a drubbing to the proprietor. The latter beat a retreat, spitting to one side in disgust, snorting wrathfully and cursing. This was all that he could do—it was summer, a season when it is extremely difficult to find a good baker in the Vólga river-town.

Such scenes were of almost every day occurrence. The soldier drank, spoiled the dough and played various marches and waltzes or "numbers," as he expressed it; the proprietor gnashed his teeth, and the result of it all was, that I was obliged to work for two, which was not very logical, and was very fatiguing.

And I was highly delighted when, one day, the following scene took place between the proprietor and the soldier. "Well, soldier," said the proprietor, making his appearance in the bakery with a beaming and satisfied countenance, and his little eyes sparkled with a malicious smile,—"well, soldier, puff out your lips, and play the campaign march!"

"What's that for?!" gloomily said the soldier, who was lying on the tub with the dough, and, as usual, was half drunk.

"Prepare to march, corporal!" said the proprietor exultantly.

"Whither?" inquired the soldier, lowering his legs off the tub, and feeling that something was wrong.

"Wherever you like—to a Turkish woman or an English woman, as you please."

"How am I to understand that?" shouted the soldier vehemently.

"You are to understand that I won't keep you another hour. Go upstairs, get your wages, and take yourself off—march!"

The soldier had become accustomed to feel his strength, and the helpless position of his master, and the latter's announcement somewhat sobered him: he could not help understanding how difficult it would be for him, with his knowledge of the trade, to find another place.

"Come now, you're lying!..." he said with alarm, rising to his feet.

"Get out with you,—get out...."

"Get out?"

"Clear out!"

"That means, I have worked myself out," and the soldier shook his head sadly.... "You have sucked the blood out of me, sucked me dry, and now you turn me out. That's clever! That's good! Akh, you ... spider!"

"I'm a spider, am I?" boiled up the proprietor.

"Yes, you are! A blood-sucking spider—that's what you are!" said the soldier with conviction, and walked, reeling, toward the door.

The proprietor looked after him with a spiteful laugh, and his little eyes glittered joyfully.

"Go along with you, now, and get a place with somebody! Ye-es! I've given you such a character everywhere, my dear little dove, that you may beg as you will—no one will take you! They won't hire you anywhere.... I've settled your hash for you, you rotten-headed, stupid, infernal creature!"

"Have you already hired a new baker?" I inquired.

"A new one? No, he isn't new—he's the old one. He was my friend. Ah, what a baker! Regular gold! But he's a drunkard also, eh, what a drunkard! Only, he has long fits of hard drinking.... Now he'll come, and set to work, and for three or four months he'll strain every sinew and toil away like a bear! He'll know no sleep, no rest, and won't stick at the wages, no matter what you give him. He'll work and sing! He sings so, my dear fellow, that it's even impossible to listen to him—your heart grows heavy with it. He sings, and sings—and then he takes to drink again!"

The proprietor sighed, and waved his hand with a hopeless gesture.

"And when he starts in to drink—there's no stopping him. He drinks until he falls ill, or has drunk himself stark naked.... Then he feels ashamed of himself, probably, for he vanishes somewhere, like an unclean spirit at the smell of incense.... And here he is.... Have you really come, Lesá?"

"Yes," replied a deep, chest voice from the threshold. There, with his shoulder propped against the jamb of the door, stood a tall, broad-shouldered peasant, about thirty years of age. In costume, he was a typical tramp; in face and figure, a genuine Slav—a rare specimen of the race. He wore a red cotton shirt, incredibly dirty and tattered, full trousers of coarse, home-made linen, and on one of his feet were the remains of a rubber boot, while on the other was an old leather boot-leg. His light, reddish-brown hair was tangled all over his head, and small chips, straws and bits of paper stuck in the snarls: all these things also adorned his luxuriant, light-reddish beard, which covered his chest like a fan. His long, pallid, weary face was lighted up by large, pensive blue eyes, which gazed at me with a caressing smile. And his lips which were handsome, although a trifle pale, also smiled beneath his reddish mustache. This smile seemed to say:

"This is the sort of fellow I am.... Don't condemn me...."

"Come in, Sashók, here's your helper," said the proprietor, rubbing his hands, and affectionately eyeing over the mighty form of the new baker. The latter stepped forward silently, and offered me his long hand, with the powerful wrist of a legendary hero; we exchanged greetings; he seated himself on the bench, stretched his legs out in front of him, stared at them, and said to the proprietor:

"Buy me two changes of shirts, Nikola Nikítitch, and boot-slippers.[3] And some linen for a cap."

"You shall have them all, never fear! I have caps on hand; you shall have shirts and trousers by this evening. Come now, set to work in the meantime; I know you, I know what sort of a fellow you are. I don't mean to insult you—no one can insult Konováloff ... because he never insults anyone. Is the boss a wild beast? I have worked myself, and I know how a radish makes the tears flow.... Well, stay here, my lads, and I'll take myself off...."

We were left alone.

Konováloff sat on the bench and gazed about him with a smile, but without saying a word. The bakery was located in a cellar, with a vaulted ceiling, and its three windows were below the level of the earth. There was not much light, and there was very little air, but, on the other hand, there was a great deal of dampness, dirt and flour dust. Along the walls stood long bins: one had dough on it, on another the dough had just been mixed with yeast, the third was empty. Upon each bin fell a dull streak of light from one of the windows. The huge oven took up nearly one third of the bakery; beside it, on the filthy floor, lay sacks of flour. In the oven long logs of wood were blazing hotly, and their flame, reflected on the gray wall of the bakery, surged and quivered, as though it were narrating some story without sounds. The odor of fermenting dough and of humidity filled the rank air.

The vaulted, soot-begrimed ceiling oppressed one with its weight, and the combination of daylight and of the fire in the oven formed a sort of vague illumination which was very trying to the eyes. Through the windows, a dull roar poured in, and dust blew in from the street. Konováloff surveyed everything, sighed, and turning half-way round to me, inquired in a bored tone:

"Have you been working here long?"

I told him. Then we fell silent again, and inspected each other with furtive, sidelong glances.

"What a jail!" he sighed.... "Shan't we go out into the street, and sit at the gate?"

We went out to the gate, and sat down on the bench.

"We can breathe here, at least. I can't get used to this pit all at once ... no I can't. Judge for yourself—I've just come from the sea.... I've been working at the fishing stations on the Caspian. And, all of a sudden, from that airy space—bang! into a hole!"

He looked at me with a melancholy smile, and ceased speaking, staring intently at the people who passed by in carriages and on foot. In his clear blue eyes shone much melancholy over something or other.... Twilight descended; it was stifling, noisy, dusty in the street, and the houses cast shadows across the road. Konováloff sat with his back resting against the wall, his arms folded across his chest, and his fingers straying through the silky strands of his beard. I gazed askance at his pallid, oval face, and thought: What sort of a man is this? But I could not make up my mind to enter into conversation with him, because he was my master, and also because he inspired me with a strange sort of respect for him.

His brow was furrowed with three slender wrinkles, but sometimes they were smoothed out, and disappeared, and I very much wished to know what the man was thinking about.

"Come along: it must be time to set the third batch of dough to rise. You mix the second, and, in the meantime, I'll set it, and then we'll knead out the loaves."

When he and I had "weighed out" and placed in the pans one mountain of dough, mixed another, and set the leavened dough for a third—we sat down to drink tea, and then Konováloff, putting his hand into the breast of his shirt, asked me:

"Do you know how to read? Here then, read this,"—and he thrust into my hand a small smeared and crumpled sheet of paper.

"Dear Sásha,"[4] I read. "I salute and kiss you from afar. Things are going badly with me, and life is tiresome, I can hardly wait for the day when I shall elope with you, or shall live in your company; this accursed life has bored me to the last degree, although, at first, I liked it. You will understand that well, and I, also, had begun to understand it, when I became acquainted with you. Please write to me as soon as you can; I want very much to receive a little note from you. And meanwhile, farewell until we meet again, but not good-bye, you dear bearded friend of my soul. I will not write you any reproaches, although I'm angry with you, because you are a pig—you went away without taking leave of me. Nevertheless, you have never been anything but good to me: you were the first of that sort, and I shall never forget it. Can't you make an effort, Sásha, to have me excluded? The girls told you that I would run away from you, if I were excluded; but that is all nonsense, and a downright lie: If you would only take pity on me, I would be like a dog to you, after my exclusion. It would be so easy for you to do that, you know, but it's very difficult for me. When you were with me, I wept because I was forced to live like that, although I did not tell you so. Until we meet again. Your Kapitólina."

Konováloff took the letter from me, and began thoughtfully to turn it about between the fingers of one hand, while he twisted his beard with the other.

"And do you know how to write?"

"Yes."

"And have you ink?"

"Yes."

"Write a letter to her, for Christ's sake, won't you? She must consider me a rascal, she must be thinking that I have forgotten her.... Write!"

"Very well. This very minute, if you like.... Who is she?"

"A woman of the town...? You can see for your-self—she writes about her exclusion. That means, that I am to promise the police that I will marry her, and then they will give her back her passport, and will take her little book away from her, and from that time forth, she will be free! Do you catch on?"

Half an hour later a touching epistle to her was ready.

"Come now, read it, and let's see how it has turned out?" begged Konováloff impatiently.

This is the way it had turned out:

"Kápa! You must not think that I am a scoundrel, and that I have forgotten you. No, I have not forgotten you, but I have simply been on a spree, and have drunk up all my money. Now I have hired out in a place again, and to-morrow I shall get the boss to advance me some money, and I will send it to Philip, and he will have you excluded. There will be money enough for your journey. And meanwhile—farewell until we meet. Your Alexánder."

"Hm...." said Konováloff, scratching his head,—"you ain't much of a writer. You haven't put any compassion into your letter, nor any tears. And then, again—I asked you to curse me with all sorts of words, and you haven't written a bit of that..

"But why should I?"

"So that she may see that I feel ashamed in her presence, that I understand that I am to blame toward her. And what have you done! You've written it just exactly as though you were scattering peas! Now, you mix in some tears!"

I was compelled to mix some tears into the letter, which I managed to do successfully. Konováloff was satisfied, and laying his hand on my shoulder, he said cordially:

"There, that's stunning! Thanks! Evidently, you're a good lad ... which means, that you and I are going to get along well together."

I had no doubt on that point, and asked him to tell me about Kapitólina.

"Kapitólina? She's a young girl—quite a child. She was the daughter of a merchant in Vyátka.... Well, and she went astray. The longer it lasted, the worse it got, and she went into one of those houses ... you know? I came—and saw that she was still a mere child! Good Lord, I said to myself, is it possible? Well, so I made acquaintance with her. She began to cry. Says I: 'Never mind, have patience! I'll get you out of this—only wait!' And I had everything ready, that is to say, the money and all ... And, all of a sudden, I went on a spree, and found myself in Astrakhan. A certain man told her where I was, and she wrote me that letter, to Astrakhan...."

"Well, and what are you going to do about it,"—I asked him, "do you intend to marry her?"

"Marry her,—how can I? If I have one of my drinking bouts, what sort of a bridegroom would I be? No, this is what I mean to do. I'll get her released—and then, she may go wherever she likes. She'll find a place for herself ... perhaps she'll turn out a decent woman."

"She says she wants to live with you...."

"Oh, she's only fooling. They're all like that—all the women.... I know them very well indeed. I've had a lot of different sorts. One, even, was a merchant's wife, and rich! I was a groom in a circus, and she cast her eyes on me. 'Come,' says she,—'and be my coachman.' About that time I had got sick of the circus, so I consented, and went. Well, and so.... She began to make up to me. They had a house, horses, servants—they lived like the nobility. Her husband was a short, fat man, after the style of our boss, but she was as thin and flexible as a cat, and fiery. When she used to embrace me, and kiss me on the lips—hot coals seemed to be sprinkled on my heart. And I'd get all of a tremble, and even feel frightened. She used to kiss me, and cry all the time; even her shoulders heaved. I would ask her: 'What ails you, Vyérunka?' And she would say: 'You're a child, Sásha; you don't understand anything.' She was stunning.... And she spoke the truth when she said I didn't understand anything—I was pretty much of a fool, I know. What I do—I don't understand. How I live—I don't think!"

He ceased speaking, and gazed at me with widely-opened eyes; in them shone something which was not exactly fright, nor yet exactly a query,—something troubled and meditative, which rendered his handsome face still more melancholy and more beautiful ...

"Well, and how did you end matters with the merchant's wife?" I asked.

"Well, you see, sadness descends upon me. Such sadness, I must tell you, brother, that at those times I simply can't live. It's as though I were the only man on all the earth, and there were no living thing anywhere except myself. And at such times, everything is repugnant to me—every earthly thing; and I become a burden to myself, and all people are a burden to me; if all of them were to fall dead, I wouldn't give a sigh! It must be an ailment, with me. It made me take to drinking ... before that, I did not drink. Well, so this sadness came upon me, and I said to her, to that merchant's wife: 'Véra Mikháilovna! Let me go, I can't stand it any longer!'-'What,' says she, 'are you tired of me?'—And she laughed, you know, in such an ugly way.—'No,' says I, 'I'm not tired of you, but I'm no match for myself.' At first she didn't understand me, and she even began to scream, and to rail.... Afterwards, she did understand. She dropped her head, and said:'Well, then, go!...' and burst out crying. Her eyes were black, and she was all swarthy. Her hair was black, also, and curly. She was not of the merchant-class by birth, but the daughter of a state official.... Ye-es ... I was sorry for her, but I was repulsive even to myself at that time. Why did I knuckle under to a woman?—anybody knows why.... Of course, she found life tiresome with such a husband. He was exactly like a sack of flour.... She cried for a long time—she had got used to me.... I used to pet her a lot: I used to take her in my arms, and rock her. She would fall asleep, and I would sit and gaze at her. People are very handsome in their sleep, they are so simple; they breathe and smile, and that's all. And then again—when we lived at the villa in the country, she and I used to go driving together—she loved that with all her heart. We would come to some little nook in the forest, tie the horses, and cool ourselves off on the grass. She would order me to lie down, then she would put my head on her knees, and read me some little book or other. I would listen, and listen, until I fell asleep. She read nice stories, very nice stories. One of them I shall never forget—about dumb Gerásim,[5] and his beloved dog. He, that dumb fellow, was a persecuted man, and no one loved him, except his dog. People laughed at him, and all that sort of thing, and he went straight to his dog.... It was a very pitiful story ... yes! But the affair took place in the days of serfdom.... And his lady-mistress says to him: 'Dumb man, go drown your dog, for he howls.'—Well, so the dumb man went.... He took a boat, and put the dog aboard it, and set out.... At this point, I used to feel the cold shivers run over me. Oh Lord! The sole joy on earth of a dumb man was being killed! What sort of behavior is that? Akh—they were wonderful tales! And really—there was this good thing about it! There are people for whom all the world consists of one thing—a dog, for example. And why a dog? Because there is no one else to love such a man, but the dog loves him. It is impossible for a man to live without some sort of love;—that's why he is given a soul, that he may love.... She read me a great many stories. She was a splendid woman, and I'm sorry for her this minute.... If it hadn't been for my planet,—I wouldn't have left her until she wished it herself, or until her husband had found out about my performances with her. She was so caressing—first of all; that is to say, not exactly caressing, in the way of giving presents, but, so ... caressing after the fashion of the heart. She would kiss me and she was just the same as any other woman ... and then, such a sort of fit would come over her ... so that it was downright astonishing what a good person she was. She would look straight into your soul, and talk to you like a nurse or a mother. At such times, I was just like a five-year-old boy with her. But nevertheless, I went away from her—because of that sadness! I pined for some other place.... 'Good-bye,' says I, 'Véra Mikháilovna, forgive me.'—'Good-bye, Sásha,' says she. And the queer woman—she bared my arm to the elbow, and set her teeth into it, as though it had been meat! I came near yelling! So she almost bit out a whole piece ... my arm ached for three weeks afterwards. And here, you see, the mark is there yet...."

Baring his arm, as muscular as that of a hero of epic song, white and red, he showed it to me, with an amiably melancholy smile. On the skin of the arm, near the elbow bend, a scar was plainly visible—two semicircles, which almost met at the tips. Konováloff looked at them, and shook his head, with a smile.

"The queer woman!" he repeated; "she bit me by way of a keepsake."

I had heard stories in this spirit before. Every member of the "barefoot brigade" has, in his past, a "merchants wife," or "a young lady of the nobility," and in the case of nearly all tramps, this merchant's wife and this well-born young lady turn out to be thoroughly fantastic figure, through countless repetitions, almost always combining the most contradictory physical and psychical features. If to-day she is blue-eyed, malicious and merry, you may expect to hear of her a week later as black-eyed, amiable and tearful. And the tramp generally talks about her in a sceptical tone, with a mass of details which are degrading to her. But the story narrated by Konováloff did not arouse in me the distrust created by tales I had heard in the past. It rang true, it contained details with which I was unfamiliar—those readings from books, that epithet of 'boy,' as applied to the mighty form of Konováloff.

I pictured to myself the willowy woman, sleeping in his arms, with her head clinging close to his broad breast—it was a fine picture, and still further convinced me as to the truth of his story. And, in conclusion, his sad soft tone as he recalled the "merchant's wife"—was a unique tone. The genuine tramp never speaks in that tone either about women or about anything else—he likes to show that there is nothing on earth which he dares not revile.

"Why don't you say something? Do you think I am lying?"—inquired Konováloff, and, for some reason, alarm rang out in his voice. He stretched himself out on the sacks of flour, holding a glass of tea in one hand, and with the other stroking his beard. His blue eyes gazed at me searchingly and inquiringly, and the wrinkles lay sharply across his brow.... "No, you'd better believe me.... What object have I in lying? Even supposing that the like of us tramps are great hands at telling yarns.... It can't be done my friend:—if a man has never had anything good in life, surely he harms no one by making up with himself some tale or other, and telling it as a fact. He keeps on telling it, and comes to believe it himself, as though it had actually happened—he believes it, and—well, it is agreeable to him. Many folks live by that. You can't prevent it.... But I have told you the truth, as it happened, so I have told it to you.... Is there anything peculiar about that? A woman lives along, and gets bored, and the women are all good-for-nothing creatures.... Supposing I am a coachman, that makes no difference to a woman, because coachmen and gentlemen and officers are all men.... And all are pigs in her sight, all seek one and the same thing, and each one tries to take as much as he can, and to pay as little as possible. And the simple man is even better, more conscientious than the rest. And I'm very simple ... the women all understand that very well about me,... they see that I will not offend them—that is to say, I won't ... do ... I won't jeer at them. When a woman sins, there's nothing she fears so much as a sneer, ridicule. They are more shame-faced than we are. We take our own, and, as like as not, go to the bazaar and tell about it, and begin to brag—'see here, look how we have cheated one fool!' ... But a woman has nowhere to go, no one will reckon her sin as a dashing deed. My good fellow, even the most abandoned of them have more shame than we have."

I listened to him and thought: Was it possible that this man was true to himself in making all these speeches which did not fit in with him at all?

But he, thoughtfully riveting upon me his eyes, clear as those of a child, went on talking, and astounded me more and more by his remarks.

It seemed to me that I was enveloped by something in the nature of a fog, a warm fog, which cleansed my heart, already, even at that time, greatly soiled with the mire of life.

The wood in the oven had burned down, and the bright pile of coals cast a rosy glow on the wall of the bakery ... it quivered ...

Through the window peeped a tiny speck of the blue sky with two stars in it. One of them—the large one—gleamed like an emerald, the other, not far from it, was barely visible.

A week passed, and Konováloff and I had become friends. "You, also, are a simple lad! That's good!"—he said to me, with a broad smile, as he slapped me on the shoulder with his huge hand.

He worked artistically. It was a sight worth seeing—how he exercised over a lump of dough weighing two hundred and fifty pounds, rolling it about in the mould, or how, bent over the bin, he kneaded, his mighty arms plunged to the elbows in the springy mass, which squeaked under his fingers of steel.

At first, when I saw how swiftly he hurled into the oven the raw loaves, which I could hardly toss fast enough from the moulds to his shovel,—I was afraid that he would pile them one on top of the other; but when he had baked three ovenfuls, and not one of the one hundred and twenty loaves—superb, rosy, tall—showed any sign of a "crush," I understood that I had to deal with an artist in his own line. He loved to work, became absorbed in his business, grew depressed when the oven baked badly, or when the dough rose slowly, waxed angry and reviled the proprietor if the latter bought damp flour, and was as merry and contented as a child if the loaves came out of the oven properly rounded, tall, well-risen, with a moderately rosy hue, and thin, crisp crust. He was accustomed to take the most successful loaf from the shovel into his hand, and tossing it from palm to palm, scorching himself in the operation, laugh gaily, as he said to me:

"Eh, what a beauty you and I have made...."

And I found it pleasant to watch this gigantic child, who put his whole soul into his work, as every man, in every sort of work should do.

One day I asked him:

"Sásha, I am told that you sing well?"

He frowned and dropped his head.

"I do sing.... Only, I do it by fits and starts in streaks.... When I begin to get sad, I shall begin to sing ... And if I begin to sing ... I shall begin to grieve. You'd better hold your tongue about that, don't tease me. Don't you sing yourself? Akh, you ... what a piece you are! You'd ... better wait for me ... and whistle, in the meanwhile. Then we will both sing together. Is it a bargain?"

Of course, I assented, and whistled, when I wanted to sing. But sometimes I broke off, and began to hum beneath my breath, as I kneaded the dough, and rolled out the loaves. Konováloff listened to me, moved his lips, and after a while, reminded me of my promise. And sometimes he shouted roughly at me:

"Drop that! Don't groan!"

One day I took a small book out of my trunk, and, propping myself in the window, I began to read.

Konováloff was dozing, stretched out on the bin with the doughy but the rustle of the leaves, as I turned them over above his ear made him open his eyes.

"What's that little book about?"

It was "The Villagers of Podlípovo."[5]

"Read it aloud, won't you?" he entreated.

So I began to read, as I sat on the window-sill, and he sat up on the bin, and leaning his head against my knees, he listened.—From time to time I glanced across the book at his face, and met his eyes—they cling to my memory yet—widely opened, intent, full of profound attention ...

And his mouth, also, was half open, revealing two rows of white, even teeth. His uplifted brows, the curving wrinkles on his lofty forehead, his arms, with which he clasped his knees, his whole motionless, attentive attitude warmed me up, and I endeavored, as intelligibly and as picturesquely as possible, to narrate to him the sad story of Sysóika and Pilá.

At last I got tired, and closed the book.

"Is that all?" Konováloff asked me, in a whisper.

"Less than half."

"Will you read it all aloud?"

"If you like."

"Ekh!"—He clasped his head in his hands, and began to rock back and forth, as he sat on the board. He wanted to say something, he opened and shut his mouth, sighing like a pair of bellows, and, for some reason or other, puckering up his eyes. I had not expected this result, and did not understand its meaning.

"How you read that!"—he began in a whisper.—"In different voices ... How alive they all are. Apróska! She fairly squeals! Pilá ... what fools! It made me feel ridiculous to hear that ... but I restrained myself. What comes next? Where are they going? Lord God! How true to nature it is! Why, they are just like real people ... the most genuine sort of peasants.... And exactly as though they were alive, and their voices, and their faces.... Listen, Maxím! Let's put the bread in the oven, and then you go on reading!" We put the bread in the oven, prepared another batch of loaves, and for another hour and forty minutes I continued to read the book. Then there was another pause—the bread was done, we took out the loaves, put in others, mixed some more dough, set some more to rise ... and all this was done with feverish haste, and almost in silence.

Konováloff, with brows knitted in a frown, flung rare and monosyllabic orders at me, and hurried, hurried ...

Toward morning, we had finished the book, and I felt as though my tongue had turned to wood.

Seated astride of a sack of flour, Konováloff stared me straight in the face with strange eyes, and maintained silence, with his arms propped on his knees.

"Is it good?" I asked.

He shook his head, puckered up his eyes, and again—for some reason in a whisper—began:

"Who wrote that?"—In his eyes gleamed amazement not to be expressed in words, and his face suddenly flushed with ardent feeling.

I told him who had written the book.

"Well—he's a man, that he is! How he grasped them! Didn't he? It's downright terrible. It grips your heart, that is, it nips your soul—it's so full of life. Well, now, what about him, that writer, what happened to him for that?"

"What do you mean?"

"Well, for example, did they give him a reward or anything there?"

"But what did they need to reward him for?" I inquired, with crafty intent.

"For what? The book ... in the nature of a police document. As soon as they read it ... they consider: Pilá, Sysóika ... what sort of folks were they? Everybody feels sorry for them.... They're unenlightened, innocent folks ... What a life they had! Well, and...."

Konováloff looked at me in confusion, and timidly asserted:

"Some sort of orders ought to be given about that. Surely, they are human beings, and they ought to be supported."

In reply to this, I delivered a whole lecture to him ... But, alas! it did not produce the effect on which I had reckoned.

Konováloff fell into meditation, drooped his head, rocked his whole body about, and began to sigh, not interfering with a single word in my attempt to play the part of a professor. I got tired, at last, and paused.

Konováloff raised his head and gazed sorrowfully at me.

"And so they did not give him anything?" he inquired.

"Whom?" I asked, having entirely forgotten Ryeshétnikoff.

"The author?"

I was vexed. I made no reply, conscious that this vexation was begetting in me irritation toward my peculiar audience, which, evidently, did not regard himself as competent to settle world-problems, and was inclined to interest himself in the fate of a man rather than in the fates of humanity.

Konováloff, without waiting for my answer, took the book in his hands, carefully turned it over, opened it, shut it, and putting it back in its place, heaved a deep sigh.

"How wonderful it all is, oh Lord!" he said, in an undertone .... "A man has written a book?... just paper and a few little dots, that's all.... He wrote it ... and ... is he dead?"

"Yes," I answered curtly.

At that time, I could not endure philosophy, and still less metaphysics; but Konováloff, without inquiring as to my tastes, went on:

"He is dead, but the book remains, and people read it. A man looks at it with his eyes, and utters various words. And you listen, and understand: folks have lived in the world—Pilá, and Sysóika and Apróska.... And you feel sorry for those folks, although you never have seen them, and they are nothing whatever to you! There may be thousands of live folks just like them walking along the street, and you see them, but you don't know anything about them ... and you care nothing about them ... they walk on, and on.... But in the book there are none of them ... still, you are so sorry for them that your very heart aches.... How can a man understand that?—and so the author got no reward, and is dead? Nothing happened to him?"

I fairly exploded with rage. I told him all about the rewards of authors....

Konováloff listened to me, his eyes starting from their sockets with amazement, as he smacked his lips with compassion.

"A pretty state of things!" he sighed, from a full breast, and gnawing his left mustache, he hung his head with sorrow.

Then I began to talk about the fatal influence of the dram-shop on the life of the Russian literary man, about the great and genuine talents which had gone to perdition through vódka—the only consolation of their hard-working lives.

"But is it possible that such men drink?" Konováloff asked me, in a whisper. Distrust of me, together with terror, and pity for these people flashed in his widely-opened eyes.—"They drink! How can they ... after they have written books, take to drink?"

In my opinion, this was an irrelevant question, and I made no reply to it.

"Of course, they do it afterwards,...." Konováloff settled the point.—"Men live and watch life, and suck in the bitterness of others' lives. They must have eyes of a special sort. And hearts, also.... They gaze at life, and grow sad.... And they pour out their grief in their books—.... But this does them no good because their hearts are touched—and you can't burn grief out of that even with fire ... all that is left for them to do, is to extinguish it with vódka. Well, and so they drink.... Have I got that right?"

I agreed with him, and this seemed to give him courage.

"Well, and in all justice,"—he continued, to develop the psychology of authors,—"they ought to be distinguished for that. Isn't that so? Because they understand more than others, and point out divers disorders to others. Now take me, for instance, what am I? A barefooted, naked tramp,... a drunkard and a crack-brained fellow. There is no justification for my life. Why do I live on the earth, and to whom on earth is my life of any use, if you stop to consider it? I have no home of my own, no wife, no children—and I don't even feel the want of any. I live and grieve.... What about? I don't know. It's somewhat as though my mother had brought me into the world without something which all other people possess ... something which is more necessary than anything else to a man. I have no inward guide to my path ... do you understand? How shall I express it? I haven't got the right sort of spark ... or force, or whatever it is, in my soul. Well, some piece or other has been left out of me—and that's all there is to it! You understand? So I live along, and search for that missing piece, and 'grieve for it, but what it is—is more than I know myself...."

"Why do you say this?" I asked.

He gazed at me, holding his hand to his head the while, and a powerful effort was written on his face—the labor of a thought which is seeking for itself a form.

"Why? Because—of the disorder of life.... That is to say ... here am I living on, we'll say, and there's no place for me to go ... nothing that I can hang on to ... and such a life is confusion."

"Well, and what comes next?" I pursued my inquiries as to the connection between him and authors, which was incomprehensible to me.

"What next?... That's what I can't tell you.... But this is what I think, that if some writer would cast an eye on me, then ... he might be able to explain my life to me ... couldn't he? What do you think about it?"

I thought I was capable myself of explaining his life to him, and immediately set about this task, which, in my opinion, was easy and clear. I began to discourse about conditions and surroundings, about inequality in general, about people who are the victims of life, and people who are life's priests.

Konováloff listened attentively. He sat opposite me, with his cheek resting on his hand, and his large blue eyes widely opened, thoughtful and intelligent, gradually clouded over, as with a thin mist, while the folds lay more sharply across his forehead, and he seemed to be holding his breath, all absorbed as he was in his desire to comprehend my remarks.

All this was very flattering to me. With fervor I depicted to him his life, and demonstrated to him, that he was not to blame for being what he was; that is to say, that he, as a fact, was perfectly logical and quite regularly founded on a long series of premises from the distant past. He was the mournful victim of conditions, a being equal in rights with all men, by his very nature, and reduced by a long line of historical injustices to the degree of a social cipher. I wound up my explanation with the remark, which I had already made several times:

"You have nothing to blame yourself for.... You have been wronged...."

He maintained silence, never taking his eyes from me; I beheld a brilliant, kindly smile dawn in them, and waited, with impatience, to see how he would reply to my speech.

The smile played over his lips, now he laughed affectionately, and reaching toward me with a soft, feminine movement, he laid his hand on my shoulder.

"How easily you talk about all that, brother! Only, whence comes your knowledge of all these matters? Is it all from books? But you have read a great lot of them, evidently—of books! Ekh, if I could only read as many! But the chief point is—that you speak very compassionately. This is the first time I have ever heard such a speech. It's wonderful! Everybody accuses his neighbor of his bad luck, but you accuse life, the whole order of things.

"According to you it appears that a man is not to blame, himself, for anything whatever, but it is written in his fate that he is to be a tramp—well, and so he is a tramp, and it's very queer about prisoners, too: they steal because they have no work, but must eat.... How pitiful all that is, according to your showing! You have a weak heart, evidently!"

"Wait a bit!"—said I, "do you agree with me? Have I spoken truly?"

"You know best whether it is true or not—you can read and write.... It is true, I suppose, if you apply it to others.... But as for me...."

"What then?"

"Well, I'm a special article.... Who's to blame if I drink? Pávelka, my brother, doesn't drink,—he has a bakery of his own in Perm. But here am I—I'm as good a workman as he is—but I'm a vagrant and a drunkard, and I have no longer any standing or position in life ... Yet we are the children of one mother. He is younger than I am. So it would appear that there is something wrong about me.... That means, that I was not born as a man should be born. You say yourself, that all men are equals: a man is born, he lives out his appointed time, then he dies! But I'm on a separate path.... And I'm not the only one—there are a lot of us like that. We must be peculiar people, and don't fit into any rule. We need a special account ... and special laws ... very strict laws,—to exterminate us out of life! For we are of no use, and we take up room in it, and stand in the way of other folks.... Who is to blame for us?—We are, ourselves—before ourselves and before life.... Because we have no desire to live, and we have no feeling toward ourselves.... Our mothers begot us in an unlucky hour—that's where the trouble lies...."

I was overwhelmed by this unexpected confutation of my deductions.... He—that big man with the clear eyes of a child—set himself apart from life in the ranks of the men who are useless in it, and therefore subject to extermination, with so light a spirit, with such laughing sadness, that I was positively stunned by his self-abasement, which I had never, up to that moment, beheld in any member of the barefoot brigade, who, as a whole, are beings torn loose from everything, hostile to everything, and ready to try the force of their exasperated scepticism on everyone.... I had encountered only men who threw the blame on everything and complained of everything, persistently thrusting themselves aside from the series of obvious facts which obstinately confuted their personal infallibility, and who always cast the responsibility of their bad luck on taciturn Fate, on wicked people.... Konováloff did not blame Fate, and uttered not one word about people. He alone was to blame for all the disorder of his individual life, and the more persistently I endeavored to prove to him that he was "the victim of circumstances and conditions," the more persistently did he argue with me as to his own guilt toward himself and toward life for his mournful lot.... This was original, and it enraged me. But he experienced satisfaction in scourging himself; it was with satisfaction and nothing else that his eyes beamed, when he shouted at me, in a ringing baritone voice:

"Every man is the master of himself, and no one is to blame if I am a scoundrel!"

In the mouth of an educated man, such remarks would not have surprised me, for there is no ulcer which cannot be found in the tangled and complicated psychical organism called "the intelligent man." But from the lips of a tramp, although he was an intelligent man, amid the scorned of fate, the naked, hungry and vicious creatures half men, half beasts, who fill the filthy dens of the towns,—from the lips of a tramp it was strange to hear these remarks. I was forced to the conclusion that Konováloff really was—a special article,—but I did not wish to admit it.

From the inner point of view, Konováloff was a typical representative, down to the most petty detail, of the "golden horde";[6] but, alas! the longer I inspected him, the more convinced did I become that I had to deal with a variety which infringed upon my idea as to people who ought, long ago, to have been accounted a class, and who thoroughly merit attention, as hungering and thirsting in a powerful degree, as very malicious and far from stupid....