CHAPTER VII
The old man became sulky and taciturn. He peered around strangely, suddenly burst into a passion, shouted, and howled dismally, like a sick dog. He constantly complained of a pain in his head and nausea. At meals he smelt of the food suspiciously, crumbled the bread into small pieces with his shaking fingers, and held the tea and brandy up to the light. His nightly scoldings of Rayisa, in which he threatened to bring ruin upon her, became more and more frequent. But she answered all his outcries with soft composure.
Yevsey's love for the woman waxed stronger, and his sad, embittered heart was filled with hatred of his master.
"Don't I understand what you're up to, you low-down woman?" raged the old man. "What does my sickness come from? What are you poisoning me with?"
"What are you saying? What are you saying?" exclaimed the woman, her calm voice quivering. "You are sick from old age."
"You lie! You lie!"
"And from fright besides."
"You miserable creature, keep quiet!"
"You suffer from the weight of years."
"You lie!"
"And it's time you thought of death."
"Aha! That's what you want! You lie! You hope in vain! I'm not the only one to know all about you. I told Dorimedont Lukin about you." He burst again into a loud tearful whine. "I know he's your paramour. It's he who talked you over into poisoning me. You think you'll have it easier with him, don't you? You won't, you won't!"
Once at night, during a similar scene, Rayisa left the old man's room with a candle in her hand, half dressed, white and voluptuous. She walked as in a dream, swaying from side to side and treading uncertainly with her bare feet. Her eyes were half closed, the fingers of her out-stretched right hand clawed the air convulsively. The little smoky red tongue of the candle inclined toward her breast, almost touching her shirt. It illuminated her lips parted in exhaustion and sickness, and set her teeth agleam.
After she had passed Yevsey without noticing him, he instinctively followed her to the door of the kitchen, where the sight that met his gaze numbed him with horror. The woman was holding a large kitchen knife in her hand, testing its sharp edge with her finger. She bent her head, and put her hand to her full neck near the ear, where she sought something with her long fingers. Then she drew a breath, and quietly returned the knife to the table. Her hands fell at her sides.
Yevsey clutched the doorpost. At the sound the woman started and turned.
"What do you want?" she demanded in an angry whisper.
Yevsey answered breathlessly.
"He'll die soon. Why are you doing that to yourself? Please don't do it. You mustn't."
"Hush!"
She put her hands on Yevsey as if for support, and walked back into the old man's room.
Soon the master became unable to leave his bed. His voice grew feeble, and frequently a rattle sounded in his throat. His face darkened, his weak neck failed to sustain his head, and the grey tuft on his chin stuck up oddly. The physician came every day. Each time Rayisa gave the sick man medicine, he groaned hoarsely:
"With poison, eh? Oh, oh, you wicked thing!"
"If you don't take it, I'll throw it away."
"No, no! Leave it! and to-morrow I'll call the police. I'll ask them what you are poisoning me with."
Yevsey stood at the door, sticking first his eye, then his ear to the chink. He was ready to cry out in amazement at Rayisa's patience. His pity for her rose in his breast more and more irrepressibly, and an ever keener desire for the death of the old man. It was difficult for him to breathe, as on a dry icy-cold day.
The bed creaked. Yevsey heard the thin sounds of a spoon knocking against glass.
"Mix it, mix it! You carrion!" mumbled the master.
Once he ordered Rayisa to carry him to the sofa. She picked him up in her arms as if he were a baby. His yellow head lay upon her rosy shoulder, and his dark, shrivelled feet dangled limply in the folds of her white skirt.
"God!" wailed the old man, lolling back on the broad sofa. "God, why hast Thou given over Thy servant into the hands of the wicked? Are my sins more grievous than their sins, O Lord? And can it be that the hour of my death is come?" He lost breath and his throat rattled. "Get away!" he went on in a wheezing voice. "You have poisoned one man – I saved you from hard labor, and now you are poisoning me – ugh, ugh, you lie!"
Rayisa slowly moved aside. Yevsey now could see his master's little dry body. His stomach rose and fell, his feet twitched, and his lips twisted spasmodically, as he opened and closed them, greedily gasping for air, and licked them with his thin tongue, at the same time displaying the black hollow of his mouth. His forehead and cheeks glistened with sweat, his little eyes, now looking large and deep, constantly followed Rayisa.
"And I have nobody, no one near me on earth, no true friend. Why, O Lord?" The voice of the old man wheezed and broke. "You wanton, swear before the ikon that you are not poisoning me."
Rayisa turned to the corner, and crossed herself.
"I don't believe you, I don't believe you," he muttered, clutching at the underwear on his breast and at the back of the sofa, and digging his nails into them.
"Drink your medicine. It will be better for you," Rayisa suddenly almost shrieked.
"It will be better," the old man repeated. "My dear, my only one, I will give you everything, my own Ray – "
He stretched his bony arm toward her and beckoned to her to draw near him, shaking his black fingers.
"Ah, I am sick of you, you detestable creature," Rayisa cried in a stifled voice; and snatching the pillow from under his head she flung it over the old man's face, threw herself upon it, and held his thin arms, which flashed in the air.
"You have made me sick of you," she cried again. "I can't stand you any more. Go to the devil! Go, go!"
Yevsey dropped to the floor. He heard the stifled rattle, the low squeak, the hollow blows; he understood that Rayisa was choking and squeezing the old man, and that his master kept beating his feet upon the sofa. He felt neither pity nor fear. He merely desired everything to be accomplished more quickly. So he covered his eyes and ears with his hands.
The pain of a blow caused by the opening of the door compelled him to jump to his feet. Before him stood Rayisa arranging her hair, which hung over her shoulders.
"Well, did you see it?" she asked gruffly. Her face was red, but now more calm. Her hands did not tremble.
"I did," replied Yevsey, nodding his head. He moved closer to Rayisa.
"Well, if you want to, you can inform the police."
She turned and walked into the room leaving the door open. Yevsey remained at the door, trying not to look at the sofa.
"Is he dead, quite dead?" he asked in a whisper.
"Yes," answered the woman distinctly.
Then Yevsey turned his head, and regarded the little body of his master with indifferent eyes. Flat and dry it lay upon the sofa as if glued there. He looked at the corpse, then at Rayisa, and breathed a sigh of relief.
In the corner near the bed the clock on the wall softly and irresolutely struck one and two. The woman started at each stroke. The last time she went up to the clock, and stopped the halting pendulum with an uncertain hand. Then she seated herself on the bed, putting her elbows on her knees and pressing her head in her hands. Her hair falling down, covered her face and hands as with a dense dark veil.
Scarcely touching the floor with his toes, so as not to break the stern silence, Yevsey went over to Rayisa, and stationed himself at her side, dully looking at her white round shoulder. The woman's posture roused the desire to say something soothing to her.
"That's what he deserved," he uttered in a low grave voice.
The stillness round about was startled, but instantly settled down again, listening, expecting.
"Open the window," said Rayisa sternly. But when Yevsey walked away from her, she stopped him with a low question, "Are you afraid?"
"No."
"Why not? You are a timid boy."
"When you are around, I'm not afraid."
"Are you sorry for him?"
"No."
"Open the window."
The cold night air streamed into the room, and blew out the lamplight. The shadows quickly flickered on the wall and disappeared. The woman tossed her hair back and straightened herself to look at Yevsey with her large eyes.
"Why am I going to ruin?" she asked in perplexity. "It has been this way all my life. From one pit to another, each deeper than the one before."
Yevsey again stationed himself beside her; they were silent for a long time. Finally she put her soft, but cool hand around his waist, and pressing him to her asked softly:
"Listen, will you tell?"
"No," he answered, closing his eyes.
"You won't tell? To nobody? Never?" the woman asked in a mournful tone.
"Never!" he repeated quietly but firmly.
"Don't tell. I'll be helpful to you," she urged him, kindly stroking his cheek.
She rose, looked around, and spoke to him in a businesslike way:
"Dress yourself. It's cold. And the room must be put in order a little. Go, get dressed."
When Yevsey returned he saw the master's body completely covered with a blanket. Rayisa remained as she had been, half dressed with bare shoulders. This touched him. They set the room to rights, working without haste and looking at each other now and then silently and gravely.
The boy felt that this silent nocturnal activity in the close room bound him more firmly to the woman, who was just as solitary as himself, and like him, knew terror. He tried to remain as near her as possible, and avoided looking at the master's body.
It began to dawn. Rayisa listened to the sound of the waking house and city. She sighed, and beckoned to Yevsey.
"Now, go lie down and sleep. I will wake you soon, and send you with a note to Dorimedont Lukin. Go!" She led him to the chest upon which he slept and felt the bedding with her hand. "Oh, what a hard bed you have!"
When he had lain down, she seated herself beside him, and stroked his head and shoulders with her soft smooth hand, while she spoke in a gentle chant.
"Give him the note. And if he asks you how it happened, tell him you don't know. Tell him you were asleep and didn't see anything."
She was silent, and knit her brows. Overcome by exhaustion Yevsey, warmed by the woman's body and lulled by her even speech, began to drowse.
"No," she continued, "that's not right."
She gave her directions calmly and intelligently, and her caresses, warm and sweet, awakened memories of his mother. He felt good. He smiled.
"Dorimedont Lukin is a spy, too," he heard her lulling, even voice. "Be on your guard. Be careful. If he gets it out of you, I'll say you knew everything and helped me. Then you'll be put in prison, too." Now she, too, smiled, and repeated, "In prison, and then hard labor. Do you understand?"
"Yes," Yevsey answered happily, looking into her face with half-closed eyes.
"You are falling asleep. Well, sleep." Happy and grateful he heard the words in his slumber. "Will you forget everything I told you? What a weak, thin little fellow you are! Sleep!"
Yevsey fell asleep, but soon a stern voice awoke him.
"Boy, get up! Quick! Boy!"
He rose with a start of his whole body, and stretched out his hand. At his bed stood Dorimedont Lukin holding a cane.
"Why are you sleeping? Your master died, yet you sleep."
"He's tired. We didn't sleep the whole night," said Rayisa, who was looking in from the kitchen with her hat on and her umbrella in her hand.
"Tired? On the day of your benefactor's death you must weep, not sleep. Dress yourself."
The flat pimply face of the spy was stern. His words compelled Yevsey imperiously, like reins steering a docile horse.
"Run to the police station. Here's a note. Don't lose it."
In a half fainting condition Yevsey dressed himself wearily, and went out in the street. He forced his eyes open as he ran over the pavement bumping into everyone he met.
"I wish he would be buried soon," he thought disconnectedly. "Dorimedont will frighten her, and she'll tell him everything. Then I'll go to prison, too. But if I am there with her, I won't be afraid. She went after him herself, she didn't send me, she was sorry to wake me up – or maybe she was afraid – how am I going to live now?"
When he returned he found a black-bearded policeman and a grey old man in a long frock coat sitting in the room. Dorimedont was speaking to the policeman in a commanding voice.
"Do you hear, Ivan Ivanovich, what the doctor says? So it was a cancer. Aha, there's the boy. Hey, boy, go fetch half a dozen bottles of beer. Quick!"
Rayisa was preparing coffee and an omelet in the kitchen. Her sleeves were drawn up over her elbow, and her white hands darted about dexterously.
"When you come back, I'll give you coffee," she promised Yevsey, smiling.
Yevsey was kept running all day. He had no chance to observe what was happening in the house, but felt that everything was going well with Rayisa. She was more beautiful than ever. Everybody looked at her with satisfaction.
At night when almost sick with exhaustion Yevsey lay down in bed with an unpleasant sticky taste in his mouth, he heard Dorimedont say to Rayisa in an emphatic, authoritative tone:
"We mustn't let that boy out of our sight, you understand? He's stupid."
Then he and Rayisa entered Yevsey's room. The spy put out his hand with an important air, and said snuffling:
"Get up! Tell us how you're going to live now."
"I don't know."
"If you don't know, who is to know?" The spy's eyes bulged, his face and nose grew purple. He breathed hotly and noisily, resembling an overheated oven. "I know," he answered himself, raising the finger on which was the ring.
"You will live with us, with me," said Rayisa kindly.
"Yes, you will live with us, and I will find a good place for you."
Yevsey was silent.
"Well, what's the matter with you?"
"Nothing," said Yevsey after a pause.
"You ought to thank me, you little fool," Dorimedont explained condescendingly.
Yevsey felt that the little grey eyes held him fast to something as if with nails.
"We'll be better to you than relatives," continued Dorimedont, walking away, and leaving behind the heavy odor of beer, sweat, and grease.
Yevsey opened the window, and listened to the grumbling and stirring of the dark, exhausted city sinking into sleep. A sharp aching pain stole up from somewhere. Faintness seized the boy's body. A thin cord, as it were, cut at his heart, and made breathing difficult. He lay down and groaned and peered into the darkness with frightened eyes. Wardrobes and trunks moved about in the obscurity, black dancing spots rocking to and fro. Walls scarcely visible turned and twisted. All this oppressed Yevsey with unconquerable fear, and pushed him into a stifling corner, from which it was impossible to escape.
In Rayisa's room the spy guffawed.
"M-m-m-my! Ha, ha, ha! It's nothing – it will pass away – ha, ha! You'll get used – "
Yevsey thrust his head under the pillow in order not to hear these irritating exclamations. A minute later, unable to catch his breath, he jumped from bed. The dry dark feet of his master flashed before him, his little red sickly eyes lighted up. Yevsey uttered a short shriek, and ran to Rayisa's door with outstretched hands. He pushed against it and cried:
"I'm afraid."
Two large bodies in the room bounded to their feet. Someone bawled in a startled angry voice: "Get out of there!"
Yevsey fell to his knees, and sank down on the floor at their feet like a frightened lizard.
"I'm afraid! I'm afraid!" he squeaked.
The following days were taken up with preparations for the funeral and with the removal of Rayisa to Dorimedont's quarters. Yevsey flung himself about like a little bird in a cloud of dark fear. Only occasionally did the timid thought flicker in his mind like a will o' the wisp, "What will become of me?" It saddened his heart, and awoke the desire to run away and hide himself. But everywhere he met the eagle eyes of Dorimedont, and heard his dull voice:
"Boy, quick!"
The command resounded within Yevsey, and pushed him from side to side. He ran about for whole days at a time. In the evening he fell asleep empty and exhausted, and his sleep was heavy and black and full of terrible dreams.
CHAPTER VIII
From this life Yevsey awoke in a dusky corner of a large room with a low ceiling. He sat holding a pen in his hand at a table covered with dirty green oilcloth, and before him lay a thick book in which there was writing, and a few pages of blank ruled paper. He did not understand what he had to do with all this apparatus, and looked around helplessly.
There were many tables in the room with two or four persons at each. They sat there with a tired and vexed expression on their faces, moving their pens rapidly, smoking much, and now and then casting curt words at one another. The pungent blue smoke floated to the window casements, where it met the deafening noise that entered importunately from the street. Numberless flies buzzed about the occupants' heads, crawled over the tables and notices on the walls, and knocked against the panes. They resembled the people who filled this stifling filthy cage with their bustle.
Gendarmes stood at the doors, officers came and went, various persons entered, exchanged greetings, smiled obsequiously, and sighed. Their rapid, plaintive talk, which kept up a constant see-saw, was broken and drowned by the stern calls of the clerks.
Yevsey sat in his corner with his neck stretched over the table and his transparent eyes wide open, scrutinizing the different clerks in an attempt to remember their faces and figures. He wanted to find someone among them who would help him. The instinct of self-protection, now awakened in him, concentrated all his oppressed feelings, all his broken thoughts, into one clear endeavor to adapt himself to this place and these people, as soon as possible, in order to make himself unnoticed among them.
All the clerks, young and old, had something in common, a certain seedy and worn appearance. They were all equally dejected, but they easily grew excited and shouted, gesticulating and showing their teeth. There were many elderly and bald-headed men among them, of whom several had red hair and two grey hair. Of the two, one was a tall man who wore his hair long and had a large mustache, resembling a priest, whose beard has been shaved off. The other was a red-faced man with a huge beard and a bare skull. It was the last who had put Yevsey into a corner, set a book before him, and, tapping his finger upon it, had told him to copy certain parts of it.
Now an elderly woman all in black stood before this old man, and drawled in a plaintive tone:
"Little father, gracious sir."
"You disturb me in my work," shouted the old man without looking at her.
And at the door sitting upon a bench a little thin young girl in a pink dress was sobbing and wiping her face with her white apron.
"I am not guilty."
"Who is whining there?" asked a sharp voice.
The outsiders who came in did nothing but complain, make requests, and justify themselves. They spoke while standing, humbly and tearfully. The officials, on the other hand, remained seated and shouted at them, now angrily, now in ridicule, and now wearily. Paper rustled, and pens squeaked, and all this noise was penetrated by the steady weeping of the girl.
"Aleksey," the man with the grey beard called aloud, "take this woman away from here." His eyes were arrested by the sight of Klimkov. He walked up to him hastily, and asked gruffly, in astonishment, "What's the matter with you? Why aren't you writing?"
Yevsey dropped his head, and was silent.
"Hmm, another fool given a job," said the old man shrugging his shoulders. "Hey, Zarubin!" he shouted as he walked away.
A dry thin boy with a low forehead and restless eyes and black curls on a small head sat down beside Yevsey.
"What's the trouble?" he asked, nudging Yevsey's side with his elbow.
"I don't understand what to do," explained Klimkov in a frightened tone.
From somewhere within the youngster in the region of his stomach came a hollow, broken sound, "Ugh!"
"I'll teach you," he said in a low voice, as if communicating some important secret. "I'll teach you, and you'll give me half a ruble. Got half a ruble?"
"No."
"When you get your pay? All right?"
"All right."
The boy seized the paper, and in the same mysterious tone continued:
"You see? The first names and the family names are marked in the book with red dots. Well, you must copy them on this paper. When you are done, call me, and I'll see whether you haven't put down a pack of lies. My name is Yakov Zarubin."
Again a sound seemed to break inside the boy's body and drop softly, "Ugh!" He glided nimbly between the tables, his elbows pressed to his sides, his wrists to his breast. He turned his small black head in all directions, and darted his narrow little eyes about the room. Yevsey looked after him, then reverently dipped pen in ink, and began to write. Soon he settled into that pleasant state of forgetfulness of his surroundings which had grown customary with him. He became absorbed in the work, which required no thought, and in it he lost his fear.
Yevsey quickly became accustomed to his new position. He did everything mechanically, and was ready to serve anyone at any time. In order the more immediately to get away from people, he subordinated himself submissively to everybody, and cleverly took refuge in his work from the cold curiosity and the cruel pranks of his fellow-clerks. Taciturn and reserved, he created for himself an unperceived existence in his corner. He lived like a nocturnal bird perched upon a dark post of observation without understanding the meaning of the noisy, motley days that passed before his round fathomless eyes.
Every hour he heard complaints, groans, ejaculations of fright, the stern voices of the police officers, the irritated grumbling and angry fun of the clerks. Often people were beaten on their faces, and dragged out of the door by their necks. Not infrequently blood was drawn. Sometimes policemen brought in persons bound with ropes, bruised and bellowing with pain.
The thieves who were led in wore an embarrassed air, but smiled at everybody as on a familiar. The street women also smiled ingratiatingly, and always arranged their dress with one and the same gesture. Those who had no passports observed a sullen or dejected silence, and looked askance at all with a hopeless gaze. The political offenders under police supervision came in proudly. They disputed and shouted, and never greeted anybody connected with the place. They behaved toward all there with tranquil contempt or pronounced hostility. This class of culprits was talked of a great deal in the chancery, almost always in fun, sometimes inimically. But under the ridicule and enmity Yevsey felt a hidden interest and something like reverent awe of these people who spoke so loudly and independently with everybody.
The greatest interest of the clerks was aroused by the political spies. These were men with indeterminate physiognomies, taciturn and severe. They were spoken of with keen envy. The clerks said they made huge sums of money, and related with terror how everything was known to them, everything open, and how immeasurable was their power over people's lives. They could fix every person, so that no matter where he moved he would inevitably land in prison.
The broad gaze of Klimkov lightly embraced everything moving about him. He imperceptibly gathered up experience, which his weak, uninformed mind was incapable of combining into a harmonious whole. But the numerous impressions heaping up one upon the other were forced into unity by the very weight of their mass, and aroused an unconscious greed for new observations. They sharpened his curiosity, and unexpectedly pointed to conclusions, secretly hinted at certain possibilities which sometimes frightened Yevsey by their boldness.
No one about him pitied anybody else. Neither was Yevsey sorry for people. It began to seem to him that all were feigning even when they cried and groaned from beatings. In all eyes he saw something concealed, something distrustful, and more than once his ear caught the cry, threatening though not uttered aloud:
"Wait, our turn will come some day, too."
In the evening, during those hours when he sat almost alone in the large room and recalled the impressions of the day, everything seemed superfluous and unreal, everything was unintelligible, a hindrance to people, and caused them perplexity and vexation. All seemed to know that they ought to live quietly, without malice, but for some reason no one wanted to tell the others his secret of a different life. No one trusted his neighbor, everybody lied, and made others lie. The irritation caused by this system of life was clearly apparent. All complained aloud of its burdensomeness, each looked upon the other as upon a dangerous enemy, and dissatisfaction in life waged war with mistrust, cutting the soul in two.
Klimkov did not dare to think in this wise, but he felt more and more clearly the lack of order and the oppressive weight of everything that whirled around him. At times he was seized by a heavy, debilitating sense of boredom. His fingers grew languid, he put the pen aside, and rested his head on the table, looking long and motionlessly into the murky twilight of the room. He painstakingly endeavored to find in the depths of his soul that which was essential to him.
Then his chief, the long-nosed old man with the shaven face and grey mustache would shout to him:
"Klimkov, are you asleep?"
Yevsey would seize the pen and say to himself with a sigh:
"It will pass away."
But Yevsey could not make out whether he still believed in the phrase, or had already ceased to believe in it and was merely saying it to himself for the sake of saying it.