At this moment the shopman set me to do some work, and I left the old man alone in the gallery, but he went on talking to space:

"O soul without wings! O blind-born kitten, whither shall I run to get away from you?"

And then, with bent head and hands resting on his knees, he fell into a long silence, gazing, intent and motionless, up at the gray winter sky.

He began to take more notice of me, and his manner was kinder. When he found me with a book, he would glance over my shoulder, and say:

"Read, youngster, read; it is worth your while! It may be that you are clever; it is a pity that you think so little of your elders. You can stand up to any one, you think, but where will your sauciness land you in the end? It will lead you nowhere, youngster, but to a convict's prison. Read by all means; but remember that books are books, and use your own brains! Danilov, the founder of the Xlist sect, came to the conclusion that neither old nor new books were necessary, and he put them all in a sack, and threw them in the water. Of course that was a stupid thing to do, but——And now that cur, Aleksasha, must come disturbing us."

He was always talking about this Aleksasha, and one day he came into the shop, looking preoccupied and stem, and explained to the shopman:

"Aleksander Vassiliev is here in the town; he came yesterday. I have been looking for him for a long time, but he has hidden himself somewhere!"

The shopman answered in an unfriendly tone:

"I don't know anything about him!"

Bending his head, the old man said:

"That means that for you, people are either buyers or sellers, and nothing more! Let us have some tea."

When I brought in the big copper tea-pot, there were visitors in the shop. There was old Lukian, smiling happily, and behind the door in a dark corner sat a stranger dressed in a dark overcoat and high felt boots, with a green belt, and a cap set clumsily over his brows. His face was indistinct, but he seemed to be quiet and modest, and he looked somewhat like a shopman who had just lost his place and was very dejected about it.

Petr Vassilich, not glancing in his direction, said something sternly and ponderously, and he pulled at his cap all the time, with a convulsive movement of his right hand. He would raise his hand as if he were about to cross himself, and push his cap upwards, and he would do this until he had pushed it as far back as his crown, when he would again pull it over his brows. That convulsive movement reminded me of the mad beggar, Igosha, "Death in his pocket."

"Various kinds of reptiles swim in our muddy rivers, and make the water more turbid than ever," said Petr Vassilich.

The man who resembled a shopman asked quietly and gently:

"Do you mean that for me?"

"And suppose I do mean it for you?"

Then the man asked again, not loudly but very frankly:

"Well, and what have you to say about yourself, man?"

"What I have to say about myself, I say to God—that is my business."

"No, man, it is mine also," said the new-comer solemnly and firmly. "Do not turn away your face from the truth, and don't blind yourself deliberately; that is the great sin towards God and your fellow-creatures——"

I liked to hear him call Petr Vassilich "man," and his quiet, solemn voice stirred me. He spoke as a good priest reads, "Lord and Master of my life," and bending forward, got off his chair, spreading his hands before his face:

"Do not judge me; my sins are not more grievous than yours."

The samovar boiled and hissed, the old valuer spoke contemptuously, and the other continued, refusing to be stopped by his words:

"Only God knows who most befouls the source of the Holy Spirit. It may be your sin, you book-learned, literary people. As for me, I am neither book-learned nor literary; I am a man of simple life."

"We know all about your simplicity—we have heard of it—more than we want to hear!"

"It is you who confuse the people; you break up the true faith, you scribes and Pharisees. I—what shall I say? Tell me—"

"Heresy," said Petr Vassilich. The man held his hands before his face, just as if he were reading something written on them, and said warmly: "Do you think that to drive people from one hole to another is to do better than they? But I say no! I say: Let us be free, man! What is the good of a house, a wife, and all your belongings, in the sight of God? Let us free ourselves, man, from all that for the sake of which men fight and tear each other to pieces—from gold and silver and all kinds of property, which brings nothing but corruption and uncleanness! Not on earthly fields is the soul saved, but in the valleys of paradise! Tear yourself away from it all, I say; break all ties, all cords; break the nets of this world. They are woven by antichrist. I am going by the straight road; I do not juggle with my soul'; the dark world has no part in me."

"And bread, water, clothes—do you have any part in them? They are worldly, you know," said the valuer maliciously.

But these words had no effect on Aleksander. He talked all the more earnestly, and although his voice was so low, it had the sound of a brass trumpet.

"What is dear to you, man? The one God only should be dear to you. I stand before Him, cleansed from every stain. Remove the ways of earth from your heart and see God; you alone—He alone! So you will draw near to God; that is the only road to Him. That is the way of salvation—to leave father and mother—to leave all, and even thine eye, if it tempts thee—pluck it out! For God's sake tear yourself from things and save your soul; take refuge in the spirit, and your soul shall live for ever and ever."

"Well, it is a case with you, of the dog returning to his vomit," said Petr Vassiliev, rising, "I should have thought that you would have grown wiser since last year, but you are worse than ever."

The old man went swaying from the shop onto the terrace, which action disturbed Aleksander. He asked amazedly and hastily:

"Has he gone? But—why?"

Kind Lukian, winking consolingly, said:

"That's all right—that's all right!"

Then Aleksander fell upon him:

"And what about you, worldling? You are also sewing rubbishy words, and what do they mean? Well—a threefold alleluia—a double——"

Lukian smiled at him and then went out on the terrace also, and Aleksander, turning to the shopman, said in a tone of conviction:

"They can't stand up to me, they simply can't! They disappear like smoke before a flame."

The shopman looked at him from under his brows, and observed dryly:

"I have not thought about the matter."

"What! Do you mean you have not thought about it? This is a business which demands to be thought about."

He sat for a moment in silence, with drooping head. Then the old men called him, and they all three went away.

This man had burst upon me like a bonfire in the night. He burned brightly, and when he was extinguished, left me feeling that there was truth in his refusal to live as other men.

In the evening, choosing a good time, I spoke about him excitedly to the head icon-painter. Quiet and kind Ivan Larionovich listened to what I had to say, and explained:

"He belongs to the Byegouns,[1] a sort of sect; they acknowledge no authority."

"How do they live?"

"Like fugitives they wander about the earth; that is why they have been given the name Byegoun. They say that no one ought to have land, or property. And the police look upon them as dangerous, and arrest them."

Although my life was bitter, I could not understand how any one could run away from everything pleasant. In the life which went on around me at that time, there was much that was interesting and precious to me, and Aleksander Vassiliev soon faded from my mind.

But from time to time, in hours of darkness, he appeared to me. He came by the fields, or by the gray road to the forest, pushed his cap aside with a convulsive movement of his white hands, unsoiled by work, and muttered:

"I am going on the straight road; I have no part in this world; I have broken all ties."

In conjunction with him I remembered my father, as grandmother had seen him in her dream, with a walnut stick in his hand, and behind him a spotted dog running, with its tongue hanging out.

CHAPTER XIII

The icon-painting workshop occupied two rooms in a large house partly built of stone. One room had three windows overlooking the yard and one overlooking the garden; the other room had one window overlooking the garden and another facing the street. These windows were small and square, and their panes, irisated by age, unwillingly admitted the pale, diffused light of the winter days. Both rooms were closely packed with tables, and at every table sat the bent figures of icon-painters. From the ceilings were suspended glass balls full of water, which reflected the light from the lamps and threw it upon the square surfaces of the icons in white cold rays.

It was hot and stifling in the workshop. Here worked about twenty men, icon-painters, from Palekh, Kholia, and Mstir. They all sat down in cotton overalls with unfastened collars. They had drawers made of ticking, and were barefooted, or wore sandals. Over their heads stretched, like a blue veil, the smoke of cheap tobacco, and there was a thick smell of size, varnish, and rotten eggs. The melancholy Vlandimirski song flowed slowly, like resin:

How depraved the people have now become;
The boy ruined the girl, and cared not who knew.

They sang other melancholy songs, but this was the one they sang most often. Its long-drawn-out movement did not hinder one from thinking, did not impede the movement of the fine brush, made of weasel hair, over the surface of the icons, as it painted in the lines of the figure, and laid upon the emaciated faces of the saints the fine lines of suffering. By the windows the chaser, Golovev, plied his small hammer. He was a drunken old man with an enormous blue nose. The lazy stream of song was punctuated by the ceaseless dry tap of the hammer; it was like a worm gnawing at a tree. Some evil genius had divided the work into a long series of actions, bereft of beauty and incapable of arousing any love for the business, or interest in it. The squinting joiner, Panphil, ill-natured and malicious, brought the pieces of cypress and lilac-wood of different sizes, which he had planed and glued; the consumptive lad, Davidov, laid the colors on; his comrade, Sorokin, painted in the inscription; Milyashin outlined the design from the original with a pencil; old Golovev gilded it, and embossed the pattern in gold; the finishers drew the landscape, and the clothes of the figures; and then they were stood with faces or hands against the wall, waiting for the work of the face-painter.

It was very weird to see a large icon intended for an iconastasis, or the doors of the altar, standing against the wall without face, hands, or feet,—just the sacerdotal vestments, or the armor, and the short garments of archangels. These variously painted tablets suggested death. That which should have put life into them was absent, but it seemed as if it had been there, and had miraculously disappeared, leaving only its heavy vestments behind.

When the features had been painted in by the face-painter, the icon was handed to the workman, who filled in the design of the chaser. A different workman had to do the lettering, and the varnish was put on by the head workman himself Ivan Larionovich, a quiet man. He had a gray face; his beard, too, was gray, the hair fine and silky; his gray eyes were peculiarly deep and sad. He had a pleasant smile, but one could not smile at him. He made one feel awkward, somehow. He looked like the image of Simon Stolpnik, just as lean and emaciated, and his motionless eyes looked far away in the same abstracted manner, through people and walls.

Some days after I entered the workshop, the banner-worker, a Cossack of the Don, named Kapendiukhin, a handsome, mighty fellow, arrived in a state of intoxication. With clenched teeth and his gentle, womanish eyes blinking, he began to smash up everything with his iron fist, without uttering a word. Of medium height and well built, he cast himself on the workroom like a cat chasing rats in a cellar. The others lost their presence of mind, and hid themselves away in the corners, calling out to one another:

"Knock him down!"

The face-painter, Evgen Sitanov, was successful in stunning the maddened creature by hitting him on the head with a small stool. The Cossack subsided on the floor, and was immediately held down and tied up with towels, which he began to bite and tear with the teeth of a wild beast. This infuriated Evgen. He jumped on the table, and with his hands pressed close to his sides, prepared to jump on the Cossack. Tall and stout as he was, he would have inevitably crushed the breast-bone of Kapendiukhin by his leap, but at that moment Larionovich appeared on the scene in cap and overcoat, shook his finger at Sitanov, and said to the workmen in a quiet and business-like tone:

"Carry him into the vestibule, and leave him there till he is sober."

They dragged the Cossack out of the workshop, set the chairs and tables straight, and once again set to work, letting fall short remarks on the strength of their comrade, prophesying that he would one day be killed by some one in a quarrel.

"It would be a difficult matter to kill him," said Sitanov very calmly, as if he were speaking of a business which he understood very well.

I looked at Larionovich, wondering perplexedly why these strong, pugilistic people were so easily ruled by him. He showed every one how he ought to work; even the best workmen listened willingly to his advice; he taught Kapendiukhin more, and with more words, than the others.

"You, Kapendiukhin, are what is called a painter—that is, you ought to paint from life in the Italian manner. Painting in oils requires warm colors, and you have introduced too much white, and made Our Lady's eyes as cold as winter. The cheeks are painted red, like apples, and the eyes do not seem to belong to them. And they are not put in right, either; one is looking over the bridge of the nose, and the other has moved to the temple; and the face has not come out pure and holy, but crafty, wintry. You don't think about your work, Kapendiukhin."

The Cossack listened and made a wry face. Then smiling impudently with his womanish eyes, he said in his pleasant voice, which was rather hoarse with so much drinking:

"Ekh! I—va—a—n Larionovich, my father, that is not my trade. I was born to be a musician, and they put me among monks."

"With zeal, any business may be mastered."

"No; what do you take me for? I ought to have been a coachman with a team of gray horses, eh?" And protruding his Adam's apple, he drawled despairingly:

"Eh, i-akh, if I had a leash of grayhounds
And dark brown horses,
Och, when I am in torment on frosty nights
I would fly straight, straight to my love!"

Ivan Larionovich, smiling mildly, set his glasses straight on his gray, sad, melancholy nose, and went away. But a dozen voices took up the song in a friendly spirit, and there flowed forth a mighty stream of song which seemed to raise the whole work-shop into the air and shake it with measured blows:

"By custom the horses know
Where the little lady lives."

The apprentice, Pashka Odintzov, threw aside his work of pouring off the yolks of the eggs, and holding the shells in his hand, led the chorus in a masterly manner. Intoxicated by the sounds, they all forgot themselves, they all breathed together as if they had but one bosom, and were full of the same feelings, looking sideways at the Cossack. When he sang, the workshop acknowledged him as its master; they were all drawn to him, followed the brief movements of his hands; he spread his arms out as if he were about to fly. I believe that if he had suddenly broken off his song and cried, "Let us smash up everything," even the most serious of the workmen would have smashed the workshop to pieces in a few moments.

He sang rarely, but the power of his tumultuous songs was always irresistible and all-conquering. It was as if these people were not very strongly made, and he could lift them up and set them on fire; as if everything was bent when it came within the warm influence of that mighty organ of his.

As for me, these songs aroused in me a hot feeling of envy of the singer, of his admirable power over people. A painful emotion flowed over my heart, making it feel as if it would burst. I wanted to weep and call out to the singers:

"I love you!"

Consumptive, yellow Davidov, who was covered with tufts of hair, also opened his mouth, strangely resembling a young jackdaw newly burst out of the egg.

These happy, riotous songs were only sung when the Cossack started them. More often they sang the sad, drawn-out one about the depraved people, and another about the forests, and another about the death of Alexander I, "How our Alexander went to review his army." Sometimes at the suggestion of our best face painter, Jikharev, they tried to sing some church melodies, but it was seldom a success. Jikharev always wanted one particular thing; he had only one idea of harmony, and he kept on stopping the song.

He was a man of forty-five, dry, bald, with black, curly, gipsy-like hair, and large black brows which looked like mustaches. His pointed, thick beard was very ornamental to his fine, swarthy, un-Russian face, but under his protuberant nose stuck out ferocious-looking mustaches, superfluous when one took his brows into consideration. His blue eyes did not match, the left being noticeably larger than the right.

"Pashka," he cried in a tenor voice to my comrade, the apprentice, "come along now, start off: 'Praise—'Now people, listen!"

Wiping his hands on his apron, Pashka led off:

"Pr—a—a—ise—"

"The Name of the Lord," several voices caught it up, but Jikharev cried fussily:

"Lower, Evgen! Let your voice come from the very depths of the soul."

Sitanov, in a voice so deep that it sounded like the rattle of a drum, gave forth:

"R—rabi Gospoda (slaves of the Lord)—"

"Not like that! That part should be taken in such a way that the earth should tremble and the doors and windows should open of themselves!"

Jikharev was in a state of incomprehensible excitement. His extraordinary brows went up and down on his forehead, his voice broke, his fingers played on an invisible dulcimer.

"Slaves of the Lord—do you understand?" he said importantly. "You have got to feel that right to the kernel of your being, right through the shell. Slaves, praise the Lord! How is it that you—living people—do not understand that?"

"We never seem to get it as you say it ought to be," said Sitanov quietly.

"Well, let it alone then!"

Jikharev, offended, went on with his work. He was the best workman we had, for he could paint faces in the Byzantine manner, and artistically, in the new Italian style. When he took orders for iconostasis, Larionovich took counsel with him. He had a fine knowledge of all original image-paintings; all the costly copies of miraculous icons, Theodorovski, Kazanski, and others, passed through his hands. But when he lighted upon the originals, he growled loudly:

"These originals tie us down; there is no getting away from that fact."

In spite of his superior position in the workshop, he was less conceited than the others, and was kind to the apprentices—Pavl and me. He wanted to teach us the work, since no one else ever bothered about us.

He was difficult to understand; he was not usually cheerful, and sometimes he would work for a whole week in silence, like a dumb man. He looked on every one as at strangers who amazed him, as if it were the first time he had come across such people. And although he was very fond of singing, at such times he did not sing, nor did he even listen to the songs. All the others watched him, winking at one another. He would bend over the icon which stood sideways, his tablet on his knees, the middle resting on the edge of the table, while his fine brush diligently painted the dark, foreign face. He was dark and foreign-looking himself. Suddenly he would say in a clear, offended tone:

"Forerunner—what does that mean? Tech means in ancient language 'to go.' A forerunner is one who goes before,—and that is all."

The workshop was very quiet; every one was glancing askance at Jikharev, laughing, and in the stillness rang out these strange words:

"He ought to be painted with a sheepskin and wings."

"Whom are you talking to?" I asked.

He was silent, either not hearing my question or not caring to answer it. Then his words again fell into the expectant silence:

"The lives of the saints are what we ought to know! What do we know? We live without wings. Where is the soul? The soul—where is it? The originals are there—yes—but where are the souls?"

This thinking aloud caused even Sitanov to laugh derisively, and almost always some one whispered with malicious joy:

"He will get drunk on Saturday."

Tall, sinewy Sitanov, a youngster of twenty-two years, with a round face without whiskers or eyebrows, gazed sadly and seriously into the corner.

I remember when the copy of the Theodorovski Madonna, which I believe was Kungur, was finished. Jikharev placed the icon on the table and said loudly, excitedly:

"It is finished, Little Mother! Bright Chalice, Thou! Thou, bottomless cup, in which are shed the bitter tears from the hearts of the world of creatures!"

And throwing an overcoat over his shoulders, he went out to the tavern. The young men laughed and whistled, the elder ones looked after him with envious sighs, and Sitanov went to his work. Looking at it attentively, he explained:

"Of course he will go and get drunk, because he is sorry to have to hand over his work. That sort of regret is not given to all."

Jikharev's drinking bouts always began on Saturday, and his, you must understand, was not the usual alcoholic fever of the workman. It began thus: In the morning he would write a note and sent Pavl somewhere with it, and before dinner he would say to Larionovich:

"I am going to the bath to-day."

"Will you be long?"

"Well, Lord—"

"Please don't be gone over Tuesday!"

Jikharev bowed his bald cranium in assent; his brows twitched. When he returned from the baths, he attired himself fashionably in a false shirt-front and a cravat, attached a long silver chain to his satin waistcoat, and went out without speaking, except to say to Pavl and me:

"Clean up the workshop before the evening; wash the large table and scrape it."

Then a kind of holiday excitement showed itself in every one of them. They braced themselves up, cleaned themselves, ran to the bath, and had supper in a hurry. After supper Jikharev appeared with light refreshments, beer, and wine, and following him came a woman so exaggerated in every respect that she was almost a monstrosity. She was six feet five inches in height. All our chairs and stools looked like toys when she was there, and even tall Sitanov looked undersized beside her. She was well formed, but her bosom rose like a hillock to her chin, and her movements were slow and awkward. She was about forty years of age, but her mobile face, with its great horse-like eyes, was fresh and smooth, and her small mouth looked as if it had been painted on, like that of a cheap doll. She smiled, held out her broad hand to everyone, and spoke unnecessary words:

"How do you do? There is a hard frost to-day. What a stuffy smell there is here! It is the smell of paint. How do you do?"

To look at her, so calm and strong, like a large river at high tide, was pleasant, but her speech had a soporific influence, and was both superfluous and wearisome. Before she uttered a word, she used to puff, making her almost livid cheeks rounder than ever. The young ones giggled, and whispered among themselves:

"She is like an engine!"

"Like a steeple!"

Pursing her lips and folding her hands under her bosom, she sat at the cloth-covered table by the samovar, and looked at us all in turn with a kind expression in her horse-like eyes.

Every one treated her with great respect, and the younger ones were even rather afraid of her. The youths looked at that great body with eager eyes, but when they met her all-embracing glance, they lowered their own eyes in confusion. Jikharev was also respectful to his guest, addressed her as "you," called her "little comrade," and pressed hospitality upon her, bowing low the while.

"Now don't you put yourself out," she drawled sweetly. "What a fuss you are making of me, really!"

As for herself, she lived without hurry; her arms moved only from the elbow to the wrist, while the elbows themselves were pressed against her sides. From her came an ardent smell, as of hot bread. Old Golovev, stammering in his enthusiasm, praised the beauty of the woman, like a deacon chanting the divine praises. She listened, smiling affably, and when he had become involved in his speech, said of herself:

"We were not a bit handsome when we were young; this has all come through living as a woman. By the time we were thirty, we had become so remarkable that even the nobility interested themselves in us, and one district commander actually promised a carriage with a pair of horses."

Kapendiukhin, tipsy and dishevelled, looked at her with a glance of hatred, and asked coarsely:

"What did he promise you that for?"

"In return for our love, of course," explained the guest.

"Love," muttered Kapendiukhin, "what sort of love?"

"Such a handsome young man as you are must know all about love," answered the woman simply.

The workshop shook with laughter, and Sitanov growled to Kapendiukhin:

"A fool, if no worse, she is! People only love that way through a great passion, as every one knows."

He was pale with the wine he had drunk; drops of sweat stood on his temples like pearls; his intelligent eyes burned alarmingly.

But old Golovev, twitching his monstrous nose, wiped the tears from his eyes with his fingers, and asked:

"How many children did you have?"

"Only one."

Over the table hung a lamp; over the stove, another. They gave a feeble light; thick shadows gathered in the corners of the workshop, from which looked half-painted headless figures. The dull, gray patches in place of hands and heads look weird and large, and, as usual, it seemed to me that the bodies of the saints had secretly disappeared from the painted garments. The glass balls, raised right up to the ceiling, hung there on hooks in a cloud of smoke, and gleamed with a blue light.

Jikharev went restlessly round the table, pressing hospitality on every one. His broad, bald skull inclined first to one and then to another, his thin fingers always were on the move. He was very thin, and his nose, which was like that of a bird of prey, seemed to have grown sharper; when he stood sideways to the light, the shadow of his nose lay on his cheek.

"Drink and eat, friends," he said in his ringing tenor.

"Why do you worry yourself, comrade? They all have hands, and every one has his own hands and his own appetite; more than that no one can eat, however much they may want to!"

"Rest yourself, people," cried Jikharev in a ringing voice. "My friends, we are all the slaves of God; let us sing, 'Praise His Name.'"

The chant was not a success; they were all enervated and stupefied by eating and vodka-drinking. In Kapendiukhin's hands was a harmonica with a double keyboard; young Victor Salautin, dark and serious as a young crow, took up a drum, and let his fingers wander over the tightly stretched skin, which gave forth a deep sound; the tambourines tinkled.

"The Russian dance!" commanded Jikharev, "little comrade, please."

"Ach!" sighed the woman, rising, "what a worry you are!"

She went to the space which had been cleared, and stood there solidly, like a sentry. She wore a short brown skirt, a yellow batiste blouse, and a red handkerchief on her head.

The harmonica uttered passionate lamentations; its little bells rang; the tambourines tinkled; the skin of the drum gave forth a heavy, dull, sighing sound. This had an unpleasant effect, as if a man had gone mad and was groaning, sobbing, and knocking his head against the wall.

Jikharev could not dance. He simply moved his feet about, and setting down the heels of his brightly polished boots, jumped about like a goat, and that not in time with the clamorous music. His feet seemed to belong to some one else; his body writhed unbeautifully; he struggled like a wasp in a spider's web, or a fish in a net. It was not at all a cheerful sight. But all of them, even the tipsy ones, seemed to be impressed by his convulsions; they all watched his face and arms in silence. The changing expressions of his face were amazing. Now he looked kind and rather shy, suddenly he became proud, and frowned harshly; now he seemed to be startled by something, sighed, closed his eyes for a second, and when he opened them, wore a sad expression. Clenching his fists he stole up to the woman, and suddenly stamping his feet, fell on his knees in front of her with arms outspread and raised brows, smiling ardently. She looked down upon him with an affable smile, and said to him calmly:

"Stand up, comrade."

She tried to close her eyes, but those eyes, which were in circumference like a three copeck piece, would not close, and her face wrinkled and assumed an unpleasant expression.

She could not dance either, and did nothing but move her enormous body from side to side, noiselessly transferring it from place to place. In her left hand was a handkerchief which she waved languidly; her right was placed on her hip. This gave her the appearance of a large pitcher.

And Jikharev moved round this massive woman with so many different changes of expression that he seemed to be ten different men dancing, instead of one. One was quiet and humble, another proud and terrifying; in the third movement he was afraid, sighing gently, as if he desired to slip away unnoticed from the large, unpleasant woman. But still another person appeared, gnashing his teeth and writhing convulsively like a wounded dog. This sad, ugly dance reminded me of the soldiers, the laundresses, and the cooks, and their vile behavior.

Sitanov's quiet words stuck in my memory:

"In these affairs every one lies; that's part of the business. Every one is ashamed; no one loves any one—but it is simply an amusement."

I did not wish to believe that "every one lied in these affairs." How about Queen Margot, then? And of course Jikharev was not lying. And I knew that Sitanov had loved a "street" girl, and she had deceived him. He had not beaten her for it, as his comrades advised him to do, but had been kind to her.

The large woman went on rocking, smiling like a corpse, waving her handkerchief. Jikharev jumped convulsively about her, and I looked on and thought: "Could Eve, who was able to deceive God, have been anything like this horse?" I was seized by a feeling of dislike for her.

The faceless images looked from the dark walls; the dark night pressed against the window-panes. The lamps burned dimly in the stuffy workshop; if one listened, one could hear above the heavy trampling and the din of voices the quick dropping of water from the copper wash-basin into the tub.

How unlike this was to the life I read of in books! It was painfully unlike it. At length they all grew weary of this, and Kapendiukhin put the harmonica into Salautin's hands, and cried:

"Go on! Fire away!"

He danced like Vanka Tzigan, just as if he was swimming in the air. Then Pavl Odintzov and Sorokhin danced passionately and lightly after him. The consumptive Davidov also moved his feet about the floor, and coughed from the dust, smoke, and the strong odor of vodka and smoked sausage, which always smells like tanned hide.

They danced, and sang, and shouted, but each remembered that they were making merry, and gave each other a sort of test—a test of agility and endurance.

Tipsy Sitanov asked first one and then another:

"Do you think any one could really love a woman like that?"

He looked as if he were on the verge of tears.

Larionovich, lifting the sharp bones of his shoulders, answered:

"A woman is a woman—what more do you want?"

The two of whom they spoke disappeared unnoticed. Jikharev reappeared in the workshop in two or three days, went to the bath, and worked for two weeks in his corner, without speaking, pompous and estranged from every one.

"Have they gone?" asked Sitanov of himself, looking round the workshop with sad blue-gray eyes. His face was not handsome, for there was something elderly about it, but his eyes were clear and good. Sitanov was friendly to me—a fact which I owed to my thick note-book in which I had written poetry. He did not believe in God, but it was hard to understand who in the workshop, beside Larionovich, loved God and believed in Him. They all spoke of Him with levity, derisively, just as they liked to speak of their mistresses. Yet when they dined, or supped, they all crossed themselves, and when they went to bed, they said their prayers, and went to church on Sundays and feast days.

Sitanov did none of these things, and he was counted as an unbeliever.

"There is no God," he said.

"Where did we all come from, then?"

"I don't know."

When I asked him how God could possibly not be, he explained:

"Don't you see that God is height!"

He raised his long arm above his head, then lowered it to an arshin from the floor, and said:

"And man is depth! Is that true? And it is written: Man was created in the image and likeness of God,—as you know! And what is Golovev like?"

This defeated me. The dirty and drunken old man, in spite of his years, was given to an unmentionable sin. I remembered the Viatski soldier, Ermokhin, and grandmother's sister. Where was God's likeness in them?

"Human creatures are swine—as you know," said Sitanov, and then he tried to console me. "Never mind, Maxim, there are good people; there are!"

He was easy to get on with; he was so simple. When he did not know anything, he said frankly:

"I don't know; I never thought about it!"

This was something unusual. Until I met him, I had only come across people who knew everything and talked about everything. It was strange to me to see in his note-book, side by side with good poetry which touched the soul, many obscene verses which aroused no feeling but that of shame. When I spoke to him about Pushkin, he showed me "Gavrialad," which had been copied in his book.

"What is Pushkin? Nothing but a jester, but that Benediktov—he is worth paying attention to."

And closing his eyes he repeated softly:

"Look at the bewitching bosom
Of a beautiful woman."

For some reason he was especially partial to the three lines which he quoted with joyful pride:

"Not even the orbs of an eagle
Into that warm cloister can penetrate
And read that heart."

"Do you understand that?"

It was very uncomfortable to me to have to acknowledge that I did not understand what he was so pleased about.

CHAPTER XIV

My duties in the workshop were not complicated.

In the morning when they were all asleep, I had to prepare the samovar for the men, and while they drank tea in the kitchen, Pavl and I swept and dusted the workshop, set out red, yellow, or white paints, and then I went to the shop. In the evening I had to grind up colors and "watch" the work. At first I watched with great interest, but I soon realized that all the men who were engaged on this handicraft which was divided up into so many processes, disliked it, and suffered from a torturing boredom.

The evenings were free. I used to tell them stories about life on the steamer and different stories out of books, and without noticing how it came about, I soon held a peculiar position in the workshop as story-teller and reader.

I soon found out that all these people knew less than I did; almost all of them had been stuck in the narrow cage of workshop life since their childhood, and were still in it. Of all the occupants of the workshop, only Jikharev had been in Moscow, of which he spoke suggestively and frowningly:

"Moscow does not believe in tears; there they know which side their bread is buttered."

None of the rest had been farther than Shuya, or Vladimir. When mention was made of Kazan, they asked me:

"Are there many Russians there? Are there any churches?"

For them, Perm was in Siberia, and they would not believe that Siberia was beyond the Urals.

"Sandres come from the Urals; and sturgeon—where are they found? Where do they get them? From the Caspian Sea? That means that the Urals are on the sea!"

Sometimes I thought that they were laughing at me when they declared that England was on the other side of the Atlantic, and that Bonaparte belonged by birth to a noble family of Kalonga. When I told them stories of what I had seen, they hardly believed me, but they all loved terrible tales intermixed with history. Even the men of mature years evidently preferred imagination to the truth. I could see very well that the more improbable the events, the more fantastic the story, the more attentively they listened to me. On the whole, reality did not interest them, and they all gazed dreamily into the future, not wishing to see the poverty and hideousness of the present.

This astonished me so much the more, inasmuch as I had felt keenly enough the contradiction existing between life and books. Here before me were living people, and in books there were none like them—no Smouri, stoker Yaakov, fugitive Aleksander Vassiliev, Jikharev, or washerwoman Natalia.

In Davidov's trunk a torn copy of Golitzinski's stories was found—"Ivan Vuijigin," "The Bulgar," "A Volume of Baron Brambeuss." I read all these aloud to them, and they were delighted. Larionovich said:

"Reading prevents quarrels and noise; it is a good thing!"

I began to look about diligently for books, found them, and read almost every evening. Those were pleasant evenings. It was as quiet as night in the workshop; the glass balls hung over the tables like white cold stars, their rays lighting up shaggy and bald heads. I saw round me at the table, calm, thoughtful faces; now and again an exclamation of praise of the author, or hero was heard. They were attentive and benign, quite unlike themselves. I liked them very much at those times, and they also behaved well to me. I felt that I was in my right place.

"When we have books it is like spring with us; when the winter frames are taken out and for the first time we can open the windows as we like," said Sitanov one day.

It was hard to find books. We could not afford to subscribe to a library, but I managed to get them somehow, asking for them wherever I went, as a charity. One day the second officer of the fire brigade gave me the first volume of "Lermontov," and it was from this that I felt the power of poetry, and its mighty influence over people. I remember even now how, at the first lines of "The Demon," Sitanov looked first at the book and then at my face, laid down his brush on the table, and, embracing his knee with his long arms, rocked to and fro, smiling.

"Not so much noise, brothers," said Larionovich, and also laying aside his work, he went to Sitanov's table where I was reading. The poem stirred me painfully and sweetly; my voice was broken; I could hardly read the lines. Tears poured from my eyes. But what moved me still more was the dull, cautious movement of the workmen. In the workshop everything seemed to be diverted from its usual course—drawn to me as if I had been a magnet. When I had finished the first part, almost all of them were standing round the table, closely pressing against one another, embracing one another, frowning and laughing.

"Go on reading," said Jikharev, bending my head over the book.

When I had finished reading, he took the book, looked at the title, put it under his arm, and said:

"We must read this again! We will read it to-morrow! I will hide the book away."

He went away, locked "Lermontov" in his drawer, and returned to his work. It was quiet in the workshop; the men stole back to their tables. Sitanov went to the window, pressed his forehead against the glass, and stood there as if frozen. Jikharev, again laying down his brush, said in a stern voice:

"Well, such is life; slaves of God—yes—ah!"

He shrugged his shoulders, hid his face, and went on:

"I can draw the devil himself; black and rough, with wings of red flame, with red lead, but the face, hands, and feet—these should be bluish-white, like snow on a moonlight night."

Until close upon supper-time he revolved about on his stool, restless and unlike himself, drumming with his fingers and talking unintelligibly of the devil, of women and Eve, of paradise, and of the sins of holy men.

"That is all true!" he declared. "If the saints sinned with sinful women, then of course the devil may sin with a pure soul."

They listened to him in silence; probably, like me, they had no desire to speak. They worked unwillingly, looking all the time at their watches, and as soon as it struck ten, they put away their work altogether.

Sitanov and Jikharev went out to the yard, and I went with them. There, gazing at the stars, Sitanov said:

"Like a wandering caravan
Thrown into space, it shone."

"You did not make that up yourself!"

"I can never remember words," said Jikharev, shivering in the bitter cold. "I can't remember anything; but he, I see—It is an amazing thing—a man who actually pities the devil! He has made you sorry for him, hasn't he?"

"He has," agreed Sitanov.

"There, that is a real man!" exclaimed Jikharev reminiscently. In the vestibule he warned me: "You, Maxim, don't speak to any one in the shop about that book, for of course it is a forbidden one."

I rejoiced; this must be one of the books of which the priest had spoken to me in the confessional.

We supped languidly, without the usual noise and talk, as if something important had occurred and we could not keep from thinking about it, and after supper, when we were going to bed, Jikharev said to me, as he drew forth the book:

"Come, read it once more!"

Several men rose from their beds, came to the table, and sat themselves round it, undressed as they were, with their legs crossed.

And again when I had finished reading, Jikharev said, strumming his fingers on the table:

"That is a living picture of him! Ach, devil, devil—that's how he is, brothers, eh?"

Sitanov leaned over my shoulder, read something, and laughed, as he said:

"I shall copy that into my own note-book." Jikharev stood up and carried the book to his own table, but he turned back and said in an offended, shaky voice:

"We live like blind puppies—to what end we do not know. We are not necessary either to God or the devil! How are we slaves of the Lord? The Jehovah of slaves and the Lord Himself speaks with them! With Moses, too! He even gave Moses a name; it means 'This is mine'—a man of God. And we—what are we?"

He shut up the book and began to dress himself, asking Sitanov:

"Are you coming to the tavern?"

"I shall go to my own tavern," answered Sitanov softly.

When they had gone out, I lay down on the floor by the door, beside Pavl Odintzov. He tossed about for a long time, snored, and suddenly began to weep quietly.

"What is the matter with you?"

"I am sick with pity for all of them," he said. "This is the fourth year of my life with them, and I know all about them."

I also was sorry for these people. We did not go to sleep for a long time, but talked about them in whispers, finding goodness, good traits in each one of them, and also something which increased our childish pity.

I was very friendly with Pavl Odintzov. They made a good workman of him in the end, but it did not last long; before the end of three years he had begun to drink wildly, later on I met him in rags on the Khitrov market-place in Moscow, and not long ago I heard that he had died of typhoid. It is painful to remember how many good people in my life I have seen senselessly ruined. People of all nations wear themselves out, and to ruin themselves comes natural but nowhere do they wear themselves out so terribly quickly, so senselessly, as in our own Russia.

Then he was a round-headed boy two years older than myself; he was lively, intelligent, and upright; he was talented, for he could draw birds, cats, and dogs excellently, and was amazingly clever in his caricatures of the workmen, always depicting them as feathered. Sitanov was shown as a sad-looking woodcock standing on one leg, Jikharev as a cock with a torn comb and no feathers on his head; sickly Davidov was an injured lapwing. But best of all was his drawing of the old chaser, Golovev, representing him as a bat with large whiskers, ironical nose, and four feet with six nails on each. From the round, dark face, white, round eyes gazed forth, the pupils of which looked like the grain of a lentil. They were placed crossways, thus giving to the face a lifelike and hideous expression.

The workmen were not offended when Pavl showed them the caricatures, but the one of Golovev made an unpleasant impression on them all, and the artist was sternly advised:

"You had better tear it up, for if the old man sees it, he will half kill you!"

The dirty, putrid, everlastingly drunk old man was tiresomely pious, and inextinguishably malicious. He vilified the whole workshop to the shopman whom the mistress was about to marry to her niece, and who for that reason felt himself to be master of the whole house and the workpeople. The workmen hated him, but they were afraid of him, and for the same reason were afraid of Golovev, too.

Pavl worried the chaser furiously and in all manner of ways, just as if he had set before himself the aim of never allowing Golovev to have a moment's peace. I helped him in this with enthusiasm, and the workshop amused itself with our pranks, which were almost always pitilessly coarse. But we were warned:

"You will get into trouble, children! Kouzka-Juchek will half kill you!"

Kouzka-Juchek was the nickname of the shopman, which was given to him on the quiet by the workshop.

The warning did not alarm us. We painted the face of the chaser when he was asleep. One day when he was in a drunken slumber we gilded his nose, and it was three days before he was able to get the gold out of the holes in his spongy nose. But every time that we succeeded in infuriating the old man, I remembered the steamboat, and the little Viatski soldier, and I was conscious of a disturbance in my soul. In spite of his age, Golovev was so strong that he often beat us, falling upon us unexpectedly; he would beat us and then complain of us to the mistress.

She, who was also drunk every day, and for that reason always kind and cheerful, tried to frighten us, striking her swollen hands on the table, and crying: "So you have been saucy again, you wild beast? He is an old man, and you ought to respect him! Who was it that put photographic solution in his glass, instead of wine?"

"We did."

The mistress was amazed.

"Good Lord, they actually admit it! Ah, accursed ones, you ought to respect old men!"

She drove us away, and in the evening she complained to the shopman, who spoke to me angrily:

"How can you read books, even the Holy Scriptures, and still be so saucy, eh? Take care, my brother!"

The mistress was solitary and touchingly sad. Sometimes when she had been drinking sweet liqueurs, she would sit at the window and sing:

"No one is sorry for me,
And pity have I from none;
What my grief is no one knows;
To whom shall I tell my sorrow."

And sobbingly she drawled in the quavering voice of age:

"U—00—00—"

One day I saw her going down the stairs with a jug of warm milk in her hands, but suddenly her legs gave way under her. She sat down, and descended the stairs, sadly bumping from step to step, and never letting the jug out of her hand. The milk splashed over her dress, and she, with her hands outstretched, cried angrily to the jug:

"What is the matter with you, satyr? Where are you going?"

Not stout, but soft to flabbiness, she looked like an old cat which had grown beyond catching mice, and, languid from overfeeding, could do no more than purr, dwelling sweetly on the memories of past triumphs and pleasures.

"Here," said Sitanov, frowning thoughtfully, "was a large business, a fine workshop, and clever men labored at this trade; but now that is all done with, all gone to ruin, all directed by the paws of Kuzikin! It is a case of working and working, and all for strangers! When one thinks of this, a sort of spring seems to break in one's head. One wants to do nothing,—a fig for any kind of work!—just to lie on the roof, lie there for the whole summer and look up into the sky."

Pavl Odintzov also appropriated these thoughts of Sitanov, and smoking a cigarette which had been given him by his elders, philosophized about God, drunkenness, and women. He enlarged on the fact that all work disappears; certain people do it and others destroy it, neither valuing it nor understanding it.

At such times his sharp, pleasant face frowned, aged. He would sit on his bed on the floor, embracing his knees, and look long at the blue square of the window, at the roof of the shed which lay under a fall of snow, and at the stars in the winter sky.

The workmen snored, or talked in their sleep; one of them raved, choking with words; in the loft, Davidov coughed away what was left of his life. In the corner, body to body, wrapped in an iron-bound sleep of intoxication, lay those "slaves of God"—Kapendiukhin, Sorokhin, Pershin; from the walls icons without faces, hands, or feet looked forth. There was a close smell of bad eggs, and dirt, which had turned sour in the crevices of the floor.

"How I pity them all!" whispered Pavl. "Lord!"

This pity for myself and others disturbed me more and more. To us both, as I have said before, all the workmen seemed to be good people, but their lives were bad, unworthy of them, unbearably dull. At the time of the winter snowstorms, when everything on the earth—the houses, the trees—was shaken, howled, and wept, and in Lent, when the melancholy bells rang out, the dullness of it all flowed over the workshop like a wave, as oppressive as lead, weighing people down, killing all that was alive in them, driving them to the tavern, to women, who served the same purpose as vodka in helping them to forget.

On such evenings books were of no use, so Pavl and I tried to amuse the others in our own way: smearing our faces with soot and paint, dressing ourselves up and playing different comedies composed by ourselves, heroically fighting against the boredom till we made them laugh. Remembering the "Account of how the soldier saved Peter the Great," I turned this book into a conversational form, and climbing on to Davidov's pallet-bed, we acted thereon cheerfully, cutting off the head of an imaginary Swede. Our audience burst out laughing.

They were especially delighted with the legend of the Chinese devil, Sing-U-Tongia. Pashka represented the unhappy devil who had planned to do a good deed, and I acted all the other characters—the people of the field, subjects, the good soul, and even the stones on which the Chinese devil rested in great pain after each of his unsuccessful attempts to perform a good action.

Our audience laughed loudly, and I was amazed when I saw how easily they could be made to laugh. This facility provoked me unpleasantly.

"Ach, clowns," they cried. "Ach, you devils!"

But the further I went, the more I was troubled with the thought that sorrow appealed more than joy to the hearts of these people. Gaiety has no place in their lives, and as such has no value, but they evoke it from under their burdens, as a contrast to the dreamy Russian sadness. The inward strength of a gaiety which lives not of itself not because it wishes to live, but because it is aroused by the call of sad days, is suspect. And too often Russian gaiety changes suddenly into cruel tragedy. A man will be dancing as if he were breaking the shackles which bound him. Suddenly a ferocious wild beast is let loose in him, and with the unreasoning anguish of a wild beast he will throw himself upon all who come in his way, tear them in pieces, bite them, destroy them.

This intense joy aroused by exterior forces irritated me, and stirred to self-oblivion, I began to compose and act suddenly created fantasies—for I wanted so much to arouse a real, free, and unrestrained joy in these people. I succeeded in some measure. They praised me, they were amazed at me, but the sadness which I had almost succeeded in shaking off, stole back again, gradually growing denser and stronger, harassing them.

Gray Larionovich said kindly:

"Well, you are an amusing fellow, God bless you!"

"He is a boon to us," Jikharev seconded him.

"You know, Maxim, you ought to go into a circus, or a theater; you would make a good clown."

Out of the whole workshop only two went to the theaters, on Christmas or carnival weeks, Kapendiukhin and Sitanov, and the older workmen seriously counseled them to wash themselves from this sin in the baptismal waters of the Jordan. Sitanov particularly would often urge me:

"Throw up everything and be an actor!"

And much moved, he would tell me the "sad" story of the life of the actor, Yakolev.

"There, that will show you what may happen!"

He loved to tell stories about Marie Stuart, whom he called "the rogue," and his peculiar delight was the "Spanish nobleman."

"Don Cæsar de Bazan was a real nobleman. Maximich! Wonderful!"

There was something of the "Spanish nobleman" about himself.

One day in the market-place, in front of the fire-station, three firemen were amusing themselves by beating a peasant. A crowd of people, numbering about forty persons, looked on and cheered the soldiers. Sitanov threw himself into the brawl. With swinging blows of his long arms he struck the firemen, lifted the peasant, and carried him into the crowd, crying:

"Take him away!"

But he remained behind himself, one against three. The yard of the fire-station was only about ten steps away; they might easily have called others to their aid and Sitanov would have been killed. But by good luck the firemen were frightened and ran away into the yard.

"Dogs!" he cried after them.

On Sunday the young people used to attend boxing-matches held in the Tyessni yard behind the Petropavlovski churchyard, where sledge-drivers and peasants from the adjacent villages assembled to fight with the workmen. The wagoners put up against the town an eminent boxer, a Mordovan giant with a small head, and large eyes always full of tears. Wiping away the tears with the dirty sleeve of his short caftan, he stood before his backers with his legs planted widely apart, and challenged good-naturedly:

"Come on, then; what is the matter with you? Are you cold?"

Kapendiukhin was set up against him on our side, and the Mordovan always beat him. But the bleeding, panting Cossack said:

"I 'll lick that Mordovan if I die for it!"

In the end, that became the one aim of his life. He even went to the length of giving up vodka, rubbed his body with snow before he went to sleep, ate a lot of meat, and to develop his muscles, crossed himself many times every evening with two pound weights. But this did not avail him at all. Then he sewed a piece of lead inside his gloves, and boasted to Sitanov:

"Now we will finish the Mordovan!"

Sitanov sternly warned him:

"You had better throw it away, or I will give you away before the fight."

Kapendiukhin did not believe him, but when the time for the fight arrived, Sitanov said abruptly to the Mordovan:

"Step aside, Vassili Ivanich; I have something to say to Kapendiukhin first!"

The Cossack turned purple and roared:

"I have nothing to do with you; go away!"

"Yes, you have!" said Sitanov, and approaching him, he looked into the Cossack's face with a compelling glance.

Kapendiukhin stamped on the ground, tore the gloves from his hands, thrust them in his breast, and went quickly away from the scene of his fight.

Both our side and the other were unpleasantly surprised, and a certain important personage said angrily to Sitanov:

"That is quite against the rules, brother,—to bring private affairs to be settled in the world of the prize ring!"

They fell upon Sitanov from all sides, and abused him. He kept silence for a long time, but at length he said to the important personage:

"Am I to stand by and see murder done?"

The important personage at once guessed the truth, and actually taking off his cap said:

"Then our gratitude is due to you!"

"Only don't go and spread it abroad, uncle!"

"Why should I? Kapendiukhin is hardly ever the victor, and ill-success embitters a man. We understand! But in future we will have his gloves examined before the contest."

"That is your affair!"

When the important personage had gone away, our side began to abuse Kapendiukhin:

"You have made a nice mess of it. He would have killed his man, our Cossack would, and now we have to stay on the losing side!"

They abused him at length, captiously, to their hearts' content.

Sitanov sighed and said:

"Oh, you guttersnipes!"

And to the surprise of everyone he challenged the Mordovan to a single contest. The latter squared up and flourishing his fists said jokingly:

"We will kill each other."

A good number of persons, taking hands, formed a wide, spacious circle. The boxers, looking at each other keenly, changed over, the right hand held out, the left on their breasts. The experienced people noticed at once that Sitanov's arms were longer than those of the Mordovan. It was very quiet; the snow crunched under the feet of the boxers. Some one, unable to restrain his impatience, muttered complainingly and eagerly:

"They ought to have begun by now."

Sitanov flourished his right hand, the Mordovan raised his left for defense, and received a straight blow under the right arm from Sitanov's left hand. He gasped, retired, and exclaimed in a tone of satisfaction:

"He is young, but he is no fool!"

They began to leap upon one another, striking each other's breasts with blows from their mighty fists. In a few minutes not only our own people, but strangers began to cry excitedly:

"Get your blows in quicker, image-painter! Fix him up, embosser."

The Mordovan was a little stronger than Sitanov, but as he was considerably the heavier, he could not deal such swift blows, and received two or three to every one he gave. But his seasoned body apparently did not suffer much, and he was laughing and exclaiming all the time, when, suddenly, with a heavy upward blow he put Sitanov's right arm out of joint from the shoulder.

"Part them; it is a draw!" cried several voices, and, breaking the circle, the crowd gathered round the pugilists.

"He is not very strong but he is skilful, the image-painter," said the Mordovan good-naturedly. "He will make a good boxer, and that I say before the whole world!"

The elder persons began a general wrestling match, and I took Sitanov to the Feldsher bone-setter. His deed had raised him still higher in my esteem, had increased my sympathy with him, and his importance in my eyes.

He was, in the main, very upright and honorable, and he felt that he had only done his duty, but the graceless Kapendiukhin made fun of him lightly.

"Ekh, Genya, you live for show! You have polished up your soul like a samovar before a holiday, "and you go about boasting, 'look how brightly it shines!' But your soul is really brass, and a very dull affair, too."

Sitanov remained calmly silent, either working hard or copying Lermontov's verses into his note-book. He spent all his spare time in this copying, and when I suggested to him:

"Why, when you have plenty of money, don't you buy the book?" he answered:

"No, it is better in my own handwriting."

Having written a page in his pretty, small handwriting, he would read softly while he was waiting for the ink to dry:

"Without regret, as a being apart,
You will look down upon this earth,
Where there is neither real happiness
Nor lasting beauty."

And he said, half-closing his eyes:

"That is true. Ekh! and well he knows the truth, too!"

The behavior of Sitanov to Kapendiukhin always amazed me. When he had been drinking, the Cossack always tried to pick a quarrel with his comrade, and Sitanov would go on for a long time bearing it, and saying persuasively:

"That will do, let me alone!"

And then he would start to beat the drunken man so cruelly that the workmen, who regarded internal dissensions amongst themselves merely as a spectacle, interfered between the friends, and separated them.

"If we did n't stop Evgen in time, he would beat any one to death, and he would never forgive himself," they said.

When he was sober Kapendiukhin ceaselessly jeered at Sitanov, making fun of his passion for poetry and his unhappy romance, obscenely, but unsuccessfully trying to arouse jealousy. Sitanov listened to the Cossack's taunts in silence, without taking offense, and he sometimes even laughed with Kapendiukhin at himself.

They slept side by side, and at night they would hold long, whispered conversations about something. These conversations gave me no peace, for I was anxious to know what these two people who were so unlike each other found to talk about in such a friendly manner. But when I went near them, the Cossack yelled:

"What do you want?"

But Sitanov did not seem to see me.

However, one day they called me, and the Cossack asked:

"Maximich, if you were rich, what would you do?"

"I would buy books."

"And what else?"

"I don't know."

"Ekh!" said Kapendiukhin, turning away from me in disgust, but Sitanov said calmly:

"You see; no one knows that, whether they be old or young. I tell you that riches in themselves are worth nothing, unless they are applied to some special purpose."

I asked them, "What are you talking about?"

"We don't feel inclined to sleep, and so we are talking," answered the Cossack.

Later, listening to them, I found that they were discussing by night those things which other people discussed by day—God, truth, happiness, the stupidity and cunning of women, the greediness of the rich, and the fact that life is complicated and incomprehensible.

I always listened to their conversations eagerly; they excited me. I was pleased to think that almost every one had arrived at the same conclusion; namely, that life is evil, and that we ought to have a better form of existence! But at the same time I saw that the desire to live under better conditions would have no effect, would change nothing in the lives of the work-people, in their relations one with another. All these talks, throwing a light upon my life as it lay before me, revealed at the same time, beyond it, a sort of melancholy emptiness; and in this emptiness, like specks of dust in a pond ruffled by the wind, floated people, absurdly and exasperatingly, among them those very people who had said that such a crowd was devoid 'of sense. Always ready to give their opinion, they were always passing judgment on others, repeating, bragging, and starting bitter quarrels about mere trifles. They were always seriously offending one another. They tried to guess what would happen to them after death; while on the threshold of the workshop where the washstand stood, the floor-boards had rotted away. From that damp, fetid hole rose the cold, damp smell of sour earth, and it was this that made one's feet freeze. Pavl and I stopped up this hole with straw and cloths. We often said that the boards should be renewed, but the hole grew larger and larger, and in bad weather fumes rose from it as from a pipe. Every one caught cold, and coughed. The tin ventilator in the fortochka squeaked, and when some one had oiled it, though they had all been grumbling at it, Jikharev said:

"It is dull, now that the fortochka has stopped squeaking."

To come straight from the bath and lie down on a dirty, dusty bed, in the midst of dirt and bad smells, did not revolt any one of them. There were many insignificant trifles which made our lives unbearable, which might easily have been remedied, but no one took the trouble to do anything.

They often said:

"No one has any mercy upon human creatures,—neither God nor we ourselves."

But when Pavl and I washed dying Davidov, who was eaten up with dirt and insects, a laugh was raised against us. They took off their shirts and invited us to search them, called us blockheads, and jeered at us as if we had done something shameful and very ludicrous.