i lived three years as overseer in that dead town, amid empty buildings,watching the workmen pull down clumsy stone shops in the autumn, andrebuild them in the same way in the spring.
the master took great care that i should earn his five rubles. if the floorof a shop had to be laid again, i had to remove earth from the whole area tothe depth of one arshin. the dock laborers were paid a ruble for this work,but i received nothing; and while i was thus occupied, i had no time to lookafter the carpenters, who unscrewed the locks and handles from the doorsand committed petty thefts of all kinds.
both the workmen and the contractors tried in every way to cheat me, tosteal something, and they did it almost openly, as if they were performing anunpleasant duty; were not in the least indignant when i accused them, butwere merely amazed.
“you make as much fuss over five rubles as you would over twenty. it isfunny to hear you!”
i pointed out to my riiaster that, while he saved one ruble by my labor,he lost ten times more in this way, but he merely blinked at me and said :
“that will do! you are making that up!”
i understood that he suspected me of conniving at the thefts, whicharoused in me a feeling of repulsion towards him, but i was not offended. inthat class of life they all steal, and even the master liked to take what did notbelong to him.
when, after the fair, he looked into one of the shops which he was torebuild, and saw a forgotten samovar, a piece of crockery, a carpet, or a pairof scissors which had been forgotten, even sometimes a case, or somemerchandise, my master would say, smiling:
“make a list of the things and take them all to the store-room.”
and he would take them home with him from the store-room, telling mesometimes to cross them off the list.
i did not love “things”; i had no desire to possess them; even books werean embarrassment to me. i had none of my own, save the little volumes ofberanger and the songs of heine. i should have liked to obtain pushkin, butthe book-dealer in the town was an evil old man, who asked a great deal toomuch for pushkin’s works. the furniture, carpets, and mirrors, which bulkedso largely in my master’s house, gave me no pleasure, irritated me by theirmelancholy clumsiness and smell of paint and lacquer. most of all i dislikedthe mistress’s room, which reminded me of a trunk packed with all kinds ofuseless, superfluous objects. and i was disgusted with my master forbringing home other people’s things from the store-house. queen margot’srooms had been cramped too, but they were beautiful in spite of it.
life, on the whole, seemed to me to be a disconnected, absurd affair;there was too much of the ob — viously stupid about it. here we werebuilding shops which the floods inundated in the spring, soaking through thefloors, making the outer doors hang crooked. when the waters subsided thejoists had begun to rot. annually the water had overflowed the market-placefor the last ten years, spoiling the buildings and the bridges. these yearlyfloods did enor — mous damage, and yet they all knew that the waters wouldnot be diverted of themselves.
each spring the breaking of the ice cut up the barges, and dozens ofsmall vessels. the people groaned and built new ones, which the ice againbroke. it was like a ridiculous treadmill whereon one remains always in thesame place. i asked osip about it. he looked amazed, and then laughed.
“oh, you heron! what a young heron he is! what is it to do with you atall? what is it to you,but then he spoke more gravely, although he could not extinguish thelight of merriment in his pale blue eyes, which had a clearness not belongingto old age.
“that’s a very intelligent observation! let us suppose that the affair doesnot concern you; all the same it may be worth something to you tounderstand it. take this case, for example — ”
and he related in a dry speech, interspersed lavishly with quaint sayings,unusual comparisons, and all kinds of drollery:
“here is a case where people are to be pitied; they have only a little land,and in the springtime the volga overflows its banks, carries away the earth,and lays it upon its own sand-banks. then others complain that the bed ofthe volga is choked up. the spring-time streams and summer rains tear upthe gulleys, and again earth is carried away to the river.”
he spoke without either pity or malice, but as if he enjoyed hisknowledge of the miseries of life, and although his words were in agreementwith my own ideas, yet it was unpleasant to listen to them.
“take another instance; fires.”
i don’t think i can remember a summer when the forests beyond thevolga did not catch fire. every july the sky was clouded by a muddy yellowsmoke; the leaden sun, all its brightness gone, looked down on the earth likea bad eye.
“as for forests, who cares about them?” said osip. “they all belong to thenobles, or the crown; the peasants don’t own them. and if towns catch fire,that is not a very serious business either. rich people live in towns ; they arenot to be pitied. but take the villages. how many villages are burned downevery summer? not less than a hundred, i should think; that’s a seriousloss!”
he laughed softly.
“some people have property and don’t know how to manage it, andbetween ourselves, a man has to work not so much on his own behalf, or onthe land, as against fire and water.”
“why do you laugh ?”
“why not? you won’t put a fire out with your tears, nor will they makethe floods more mighty.”
i knew that this handsome old man was more clever than any one i hadmet; but what were his real sympathies and antipathies? i was thinkingabout this all the time he was adding his little dry sayings to my store.
“look round you, and see how little people preserve their own, or otherpeople’s strength. how your master squanders yours! and how much doeswater cost in a village? reflect a little; it is better than any cleverness whichcomes from learning. if a peasant’s hut is burned, another one can be put upin its place, but when a worthy peasant loses his sight, you can’t set thatright! look at ardalon, for example, or grisha ; see how a man can breakout! a foolish fellow, the first, but grisha is a man of understanding. hesmokes like a hayrick. women attacked him, as worms attack a murderedman in a wood.”
i asked him without anger, merely out of curiosity:
“why did you go and tell the master about my ideas?’
he answered calmly, even kindly:
“so that he might know what harmful ideas you have. it was necessary,in order that he may teach you better ones. who should teach you, if not he?
i did not speak to him out of malice, but out of pity for you. you are not astupid lad, but the devil is racking your brain. if i had caught you stealing, orrun — ning after the girls, or drinking, i should have held my tongue. but ishall always repeat all your wild talk to the master; so now you know.”
“i won’t talk to you, then!”
he was silent, scratching the resin off his hands with his nails. then helooked at me with an expression of affection and said:
“that you will! to whom else will you talk? there is no one else.”
clean and neat, osip at times reminded me of the stoker, yaakov,absolutely indifferent to every one. sometimes he reminded me of the valuer,petr vassiliev, sometimes of the drayman, petr; occasionally he revealed atrait which was like grandfather. in one way or another he was like all the oldmen i had known. they were all amazingly interesting old men, but i feltthat it was impossible to live with them ; it would be oppressive andrepulsive. they had corroded their own hearts, as it were ; their cleverspeeches hid hearts red with rust. was osip good-hearted? no. malevolent?
also no. that he was clever was all that was clear to me. but while itastounded me by its pliability, that intelligence of his deadened me, and theend of it was that i felt he was inimical to me in all kinds of ways.
in my heart seethed the black thoughts :
“all human creatures are strangers to one another despite their sweetwords and smiles. and more; we are all strangers on the earth, too; no oneseems to be bound to it by a powerful feeling of love. grandmother aloneloved to be alive, and loved all crea — tures — grandmother and graciousqueen margot.
sometimes these and similar thoughts increased the density of the darkfog around me. life had become suffocating and oppressive; but how could ilive a different life? whither could i go? i had no one to talk to, even, exceptosip, and i talked to him more and more often. he listened to my heatedbabbling with evident interest, asked me questions, drove home a point, andsaid calmly :
“the persistent woodpecker is not terrible; no one is afraid of him. butwith all my heart i advise you to go into a monastery and live there till youare grown up. you will have edifying conversations with holy men to consoleyou, you will be at peace, and you will be a source of revenue to the monks.
that’s my sincere advice to you. it is evident that you are not fit for worldlybusiness.”
i had no desire to enter a monastery, but i felt that i was being entangledand bewildered in the enchanted circle of the incomprehensible. i wasmiserable. life for me was like a forest in autumn. the mushrooms had comeand gone, there was nothing to do in the empty forest, and i seemed to knowall there was to know in it.
i did not drink vodka, and i had nothing to do with girls; books took theplace of these two forms of intoxication for me. but the more i read, theharder it was for me to go on living the empty, unnecessary life that mostpeople lived.
i had only just turned fifteen years of age, but sometimes i felt like anelderly man. i was, as it were, inwardly swollen and heavy with all i had livedthrough and read, or restlessly pondered. looking into myself, i discoveredthat my receptacle for impressions was like a dark lumber-room closelypacked with all kinds of things, of which i had neither the strength nor thewit to rid myself.
and although they were so numerous, all these cumbersome articleswere not solidly packed, but floated about, and made me waver as watermakes a piece of crockery waver which does not stand firm.
i had a fastidious dislike of unhappiness, illness, and grievances. when isaw cruelty, blood, fights even verbal baiting of a person, it aroused aphysical repulsion in me which was swiftly transformed into a cold fury. thismade me fight myself, like a wild beast, after which i would be painfullyashamed of myself.
sometimes i was so passionately desirous of beating a bully that i threwmyself blindly into a fight, and even now i remember those attacks ofdespair, born of m/ impotence, with shame and grief.
within me dwelt two persons. one was cognizant of only too manyabominations and obscenities, somewhat timid for that reason, was crushedby the knov/ledge of everyday horrors, and had begun to view life and peopledistrustfully, contemptuously, with a feeble pity for every one, includinghimself. this person dreamed of a quiet, solitary life with books, withoutpeople, of monasteries, of a forest-keeper’s lodge, a railway signal box, ofpersia, and the office of the night watchman somewhere on the outskirts ofthe town. only to see fewer people, to be remote from human creatures!
the other person, baptized by the holy spirit of noble and wise books,observing the overwhelming strength of the daily horrors of life, felt howeasily that strength might sap one’s brain-power, trample the heart withdirty footprints, and, fighting against it with all his force, with clenched teethand fists, was always ready for a quarrel or a fight. he loved and pitiedactively, and, like the brave hero in french novels, drew his sword from hisscabbard on the slightest provocation, and stood in a warlike position.
at that time i had a bitter enemy in the door-keeper of one of thebrothels in little pokrovski street. i made his acquaintance one morning as iwas going to the market-place; he was dragging from a hackney-carriage,standing at the gate in front of the house, a girl who was dead drunk. heseized her by the legs in their wrinkled stockings, and thus held her shamelessly,bare to the waist, exclaiming and laughing. he spat upon her body,and she came down with a jolt out of the carriage, dishevelled, blind, withopen mouth, with her soft arms hanging behind her as if they had no joints.
her spine, the back of her neck, and her livid face struck the seat of thecarriage and the step, and at length she fell on the pavement, striking herhead on the stones.
the driver whipped up his horse and drove off, and the porter, takingone foot in each hand and stepping backward, dragged her along as if shehad been a corpse. i lost control of myself and made a rush at him, but asluck would have it, i hurled myself against, or accidentally ran into arainwater-barrel, which saved both the porter and me a great deal ofunpleasantness. striking him on the rebound, i knocked him over, darted upthe steps, and desperately pulled the bell-handle. some infuriated peoplerushed on the scene, and as i could not explain anything, i went away,picking up the barrel.
on the way i overtook the cab. the driver looked down at me from thecoach-box and said:
“you knocked him over smartly.”
i asked him angrily how he could allow the portel to make sport of thegirl, and he replied calmly, with a fastidious air:
“as for me, let them go to the dogs! a gentleman paid me when he puther in my cab. what is it to me if one person beats another?”
“and if he had killed her?’
“oh, well ; you soon kill that sort!” said the driver, as if he had repeatedlytried to kill drunken girls.
after that i saw the porter nearly every day. when i passed up the streethe would be sweeping the pavement, or sitting on the steps as if he werewaiting for me. as i approached him he would stand up, tuck up his sleeves,and announce kindly:
“i am going to smash you to atoms now!”
he was over forty, small, bow-legged, with a pendulous paunch. whenhe laughed he looked at me with beaming eyes, and it was terribly strange tome to see that they were kind and merry. he could not fight, because hisarms were shorter than mine, and after two or three turns he let me go,leaned his back against the gate, and said, apparently in great surprise :
“all right; you wait, clever!”
these fights bored me, and one day i said to him :
“listen, fool! why don’t you let me alone?”
“why do you fight, then?” he asked reproachfully.
i asked him in turn why he had maltreated the girl.
“what did it matter to you? are you sorry for her?’
“of course i am!”
he was silent, rubbing his lips, and then asked:
“and would you be sorry for a cat?”
“yes, i should.”
then he said:
“you are a fool, rascal! wait; i’ll show you something.”
i never could avoid passing up that street — it was the shortest way —but i began to get up earlier, in order not to meet the man. however, in a fewdays i saw him again, sitting on the steps and stroking a smoke-colored catwhich lay on his knees. when i was about three paces from him he jumpedup, seized the cat by the legs, and dashed its head against the stonebalustrade, so that i was splashed with the warm blood. he then hurled thecat under my feet and stood at the gate, crying:
“what now?”
what could i do? wc rolled about the yard like two curs, and afterward,as i sat on a grassy slope, nearly crazy with inexpressible grief, i bit my lipsto keep myself from howling. when i remember it i shiver with a feeling ofsickening repulsion, amazed that i did not go out of my mind and kill someone.
why do i relate these abominations? so that you may know, kind sirs,that is not all past and done with! you have a liking for grim fantasies; youare delighted with horrible stories well told; the grotesquely terrible excitesyou pleasantly. but i know of genuine horrors, everyday terrors, and i havean undeniable right to excite you unpleasantly by telling you about them, inorder that you may remember how we live, and under what circumstances. alow and unclean life it is, ours, and that is the truth!
i am a lover of humanity and i have no desire to make any onemiserable, but one must not be sentimental, nor hide the grim truth with themotley words of beautiful lies. let us face life as it is! all that is good andhuman in our hearts and brains needs renewing. what went to my head mostof all was the attitude of the average man toward women. from my readingof novels i had learned to look upon woman as the best and most significantthing in life. grandmother had strengthened me in this belief by her storiesabout our lady and vassilissia the wise. what i knew of the unhappylaundress, natalia, and those hundred and thousands of glances and smileswhich i observed, with which women, the mothers of life, adorn this life ofsordid joys, sordid loves, also helped me.
the books of turgenieff sang the praises of woman, and with all the goodi knew about women i had adorned the image of queen margot in mymemory. heine and turgenieff especially gave me much that was preciousfor this purpose.
in the evenings as i was returning from the market-place i used to halton the hill by the walls of the kreml and look at the sun setting beyond thevolga. fiery streams flowed over the heavens; the terrestrial, beloved riverhad turned purple and blue. sometimes in such moments the land lookedlike an enor — mous convict barge ; it had the appearance of a pig be — inglazily towed along by an invisible steamer.
but i thought more often of the great world, of towns which i had readabout, of foreign countries where people lived in a different manner. writersof other countries depicted life as cleaner, more attractive, less burdensomethan that life which seethed slug — gishly and monotonously around me.
this thought calmed my disturbed spirit, aroused visions of the possibility ofa different life for me.
and i felt that i should meet some simple-minded, wise man who wouldlead me on that broad, bright road.
one day as i sat on a bench by the walls of the kreml my uncle yaakovappeared at my side. i had not noticed his approach, and i did not recognizehim at once. although we had lived in the same town during several years,we had met seldom, and then only accidentally and for a mere glimpse ofeach other.
“ekh! how you have stretched out!” he said jestingly, and we fell totalking like two people long ac — quainted but not intimate.
from what grandmother had told me i knew that uncle yaakov hadspent those years in quarrelling and idleness; he had had a situation asassistant warder at the local goal, but his term of service ended badly. thechief warder being ill, uncle yaakov arranged festivities in his own quartersfor the convicts. this was discovered, and he was dismissed and handed overto the police on the charge of having let the prisoners out to “take a walk” inthe town at night. none of them had escaped, but one was caught in the actof trying to throttle a certain deacon. the business draggged on for a longtime, but the matter never came into court; the convicts and the warderswere able to exculpate my good uncle. but now he lived without working onthe earnings of his son who sang in the church choir at rukavishnikov, whichwas famous at that time. he spoke oddly of this son:
“he has become very solemn and important! he is a soloist. he getsangry if the samovar is not ready to time, or if his clothes are not brushed. avery dapper fellow he is, and clean.”
uncle himself had aged considerably; he looked grubby and fallen away.
his gay, curly locks had grown very scanty, and his ears stuck out ; in thewhites of his eyes and on the leathery skin of his shaven cheeks thereappeared thick, red veins. he spoke jestingly, but it seemed as if there weresomething in his mouth which impeded his utterance, although his teethwere sound.
i was glad to have the chance of talking to a man who knew how to livewell, had seen much, and must therefore know much. i well remembered hislively, comical songs and grandfather’s words about him:
“in songs he is king david, but in business he plots evil, like absalom!”
on the promenade a well-dressed crowd passed and repassed :
luxuriously attired gentlemen, chinovniks, officers ; uncle was dressed in ashabby, autumn overcoat, a battered cap, and brown boots, and was visiblypricked by annoyance at the thought of his own costume. we went into oneof the public-houses on the pochainski causeway, taking a table near thewindow which opened on the market-place.
“do you remember how you sang:
“a beggar hung his leggings to dry,and another beggar came and stole them away?”
when i had uttered the words of the song, i felt for the first time theirmocking meaning, and it seemed to me that my gay uncle was both witty andmalicious. but he, pouring vodka into a glass, said thoughtfully :
“well, i am getting on in years, and i have made very little of my life.
that song is not mine; it was composed by a teacher in the seminary. whatwas his name now? he is dead; i have forgotten. we were great friends. hewas a bachelor. he died in his sleep, in a fit. how many people have gone tosleep that i can remember! it would be hard to count them. you don’t drink?
that is right; don’t! do you see your grandfather often? he is not a happy oldman. i believe he is going out of his mind.”
after a few drinks he became more lively, held him-self up, lookedyounger, and began to speak with more animation. i asked him for the storyof the convicts.
“you heard about it?” he inquired, and with a glance around, andlowering his voice, he said :
“what about the convicts? i was not their judge, you know ; i saw themmerely as human creatures, and i said : ‘brothers, let us live together inharmony, let us live happily! there is a song,’ i said, ‘which runs like this :
“imprisonment to happiness is no bar. let them do with us as they will!
still we shall live for sake of laughter, he is a fool who lives otherwise.”
he laughed, glanced out of the window on the darkening causeway, andcontinued, smoothing his whis — kers :
“of course they were dull in that prison, and as soon as the roll-call wasover, they came to me. we had vodka and dainties, sometimes provided byme, sometimes by themselves. i love songs and dancing, and among themwere some excellent singers and dancers. it was astonishing! some of themwere in fetters, and it was no calumny to say that i undid their chains ; it istrue. but bless you, they knew how to take them off by themselves without ablacksmith; they are a handy lot of people; it is astonishing! but to say that ilet them wander about the town to rob people is rubbish, and it was neverproved!”
he was silent, gazing out of the window on the causeway where themerchants were shutting up their chests of goods ; iron bars rattled, rustyhinges creaked, some boards fell with a resounding crash. then winking atme gaily, he continued in a low voice :
“to speak the truth, one of them did really go out at night, only he wasnot one of the fettered ones, but simply a local thief from the lower end of thetown; his sweetheart lived not far away on the pechorka. and the affair withthe deacon happened through a mistake; he took the deacon for a merchant.
it was a winter night, in a snowstorm; everybody was wearing a fur coat ;how could he tell the difference in his haste between a deacon and amerchant?”
this struck me as being funny, and he laughed himself as he said:
“yes, by gad! it was the very devil — ”
here my uncle became unexpectedly and strangely angry. he pushedaway his plate of savories, frowned with an expression of loathing, and,smoking a cigarette, muttered:
“they rob one another; then they catch one another and put one anotheraway in prisons in siberia, in the galleys; but what is it to do with me? i spitupon them all! i have my own soul!”
the shaggy stoker stood before me ; he also had been wont to “spit upon”
people, and he also was called yaakov.
“what are you thinking about ?” asked my uncle softly.
“were you sorry for the convicts?”
“it is easy to pity them, they are such children; it is amazing! sometimesi would look at one of them and think: i am not worthy to black his boots;although i am set over him! clever devils, skilful with their hands.”
the wine and his reminiscences had again pleasantly animated him.
with his elbows resting on the window-sill, waving his yellow hand with thecigarette between its fingers, he spoke with energy:
“one of them, a crooked fellow, an engraver and watchmaker, wasconvicted of coining. you ought to have heard how he talked! it was like asong, a flame! ‘explain to me,’ he would say; ‘why may the exchequer coinmoney while i may not? tell me that!’ and no one could tell him why, noone, not even i, and i was chief over him. there was another, a well-knownmoscow thief, quiet mannered, foppish, neat as a pin, who used to saycourteously: ‘people work till their senses are blunted, and i have no desireto do the same. i have tried it. you work and work till weariness has made afool of you, get drunk on two copecks, lose seven copecks at cards, get awoman to be kind to you for five copecks, and then, all over again, cold andhungry. no,’ he says, ‘i am not playing that game.’ ”
uncle yaakov bent over the table and continued, reddening to the tips ofhis ears. he was so excited that even his small ears quivered.
“they were no fools. brother; they knew what was right! to the devilwith red tape! take myself, for instance; what has my life been? i look backon !t with shame, everything by snatches, stealthily; my sorrows were myown, but all my joys were stolen. either my father shouted, ‘don’t you dare!’
or my wife screamed, ‘you cannot!’ i was afraid to throw down a ruble. andso all my life has passed away, and here i am acting the lackey to my ownson. why should i hide it? i serve him, brother, meekly, and he scolds melike a gentleman. he says, ‘father!’ and i obey like a footman. is that what iwas born for, and what i struggled on in poverty for — that i should beservant to my own son? but, even without that, why was i born? whatpleasure have i had in life?”
i listened to him inattentively. however, i said reluctantly, and notexpecting an answer:
“i don’t know what sort of a life mine will be.”
he burst out laughing.
“well, and who does know? i have never met any one yet who knew! sopeople live; he who can get accustomed to anything — ”
and again he began to speak in an offended, angry tone:
“one of the men i had was there for assault, a man from orla, agentleman, who danced beautifully. he made us all laugh by a song aboutvanka :
“vanka passes by the churchyard,that is a very simple matter!
ach! vanka, draw your horns infor you won’t get beyond the graveyard!
“i don’t think that is at all funny, but it is true! as you can’t come back, youcan’t see beyond the graveyard. in that case it is the same to me whether iam a convict, or a warder over convicts.”
he grew tired of talking, drank his vodka, and looked into the emptydecanter with one eye, like a bird. he silently lighted another cigarette,blowing the smoke through his mustache.
“don’t struggle, don’t hope for anything, for the grave and thechurchyard let no man pass them,” the mason, petr, used to say sometimes,yet he was absolutely dissimilar to uncle yaakov. how many such sayings iknew already!
i had nothing more to ask my uncle about. it was melancholy to be withhim, and i was sorry for him. i kept recalling his lively songs and the soundof the guitar which produced joy out of a gentle melancholy.
i had not forgotten merry tzigan. i had not forgotten, and as i looked atthe battered countenance of uncle yaakov, i thought involuntarily:
“does he remember how he crushed tzigan to death with the cross?”
but i had no desire to ask him about it. i looked into the causeway, whichwas flooded with a gray august fog. the smell of apples and melons floatedup to me. along the narrow streets of the town the lamps gleamed; i knew itall by heart. at that moment i heard the siren of the ribinsk steamer, andthen of that other which was bound for perm.
“well, we ‘d better go,” said my uncle.
at the door of the tavern as he shook my hand he said jokingly:
“don’t be a hypochondriac. you are rather inclined that way, eh? spit onit! you are young. the chief thing you have to remember is that tate is nohindrance to happiness.’ well, good-by; i am going to uspen!”
my cheerful uncle left me more bewildered than ever by hisconversation.
i walked up to the town and came out in the fields. it was midnight;heavy clouds floated in the sky, obliterating my shadow on the earth by theirown black shadows. leaving the town for the fields, i reached the volga, andthere i lay in the dusty grass and looked for a long time at the river, themeadow, on that motionless earth. across the volga the shadows of theclouds floated slowly; by the time they had reached the meadows they lookedbrighter, as if they had been washed in the water of the river. everythingaround seemed half asleep, stupefied as it were, moving unwillingly, andonly because it was compelled to do so, and not from a flaming love ofmovement and life.
and i desired so ardently to cast a beneficent spell over the whole earthand myself, which would cause every one, myself included, to be swept by ajoyful whirlwind, a festival dance of people, loving one another in this life,spending their lives for the sake of others, beautiful, brave, honorable.
i thought:
“i must do something for myself, or i shall be ruined.”
on frowning autumn days, when one not only did not see the sun, butdid not feel it, either — forgot all about it, in fact — on autumn days, morethan once — i happened to be wandering in the forest. having left the highroad and lost all trace of the pathways, i at length grew tired of looking forthem. setting my teeth, i went straight forward, over fallen trees which wererotting, over the unsteady mounds which rose from the marshes, and in theend i always came out on the right road.
it was in this way that i made up my mind.
in the autumn of that year i went to kazan, in the secret hope of findingsome means of studying there.
