The Schoolmistress and Other Stories
by
Anton Chekhov
Part 4 out of 4
"And is the father there?"
"Yes. . . . The father is all right. He sits in the corner and
says nothing. They have taken the children to relations. . . .
Well, Stepan, shall we have a game of trumps?"
"Yes," the coachman agreed, scratching himself, "and you,
Alyoshka, go to sleep. Almost big enough to be married, and
blubbering, you rascal. Come, go along, grandson, go along. . . .
The presence of the porter reassured Alyoshka. He went, not very
resolutely, towards the sledge and lay down. And while he was
falling asleep he heard a half-whisper.
"I beat and cover," said his grandfather.
"I beat and cover," repeated the porter.
The bell rang in the yard, the door creaked and seemed also
saying: "I beat and cover." When Alyoshka dreamed of the
gentleman and, frightened by his eyes, jumped up and burst out
crying, it was morning, his grandfather was snoring, and the
coach-house no longer seemed terrible.
PANIC FEARS
DURING all the years I have been living in this world I have only
three times been terrified.
The first real terror, which made my hair stand on end and made
shivers run all over me, was caused by a trivial but strange
phenomenon. It happened that, having nothing to do one July
evening, I drove to the station for the newspapers. It was a
still, warm, almost sultry evening, like all those monotonous
evenings in July which, when once they have set in, go on for a
week, a fortnight, or sometimes longer, in regular unbroken
succession, and are suddenly cut short by a violent thunderstorm
and a lavish downpour of rain that refreshes everything for a
long time.
The sun had set some time before, and an unbroken gray dusk lay
all over the land. The mawkishly sweet scents of the grass and
flowers were heavy in the motionless, stagnant air.
I was driving in a rough trolley. Behind my back the gardener's
son Pashka, a boy of eight years old, whom I had taken with me to
look after the horse in case of necessity, was gently snoring,
with his head on a sack of oats. Our way lay along a narrow
by-road, straight as a ruler, which lay hid like a great snake in
the tall thick rye. There was a pale light from the afterglow of
sunset; a streak of light cut its way through a narrow,
uncouth-looking cloud, which seemed sometimes like a boat and
sometimes like a man wrapped in a quilt. . . .
I had driven a mile and a half, or two miles, when against the
pale background of the evening glow there came into sight one
after another some graceful tall poplars; a river glimmered
beyond them, and a gorgeous picture suddenly, as though by
magic, lay stretched before me. I had to stop the horse, for our
straight road broke off abruptly and ran down a steep incline
overgrown with bushes. We were standing on the hillside and
beneath us at the bottom lay a huge hole full of twilight, of
fantastic shapes, and of space. At the bottom of this hole, in a
wide plain guarded by the poplars and caressed by the gleaming
river, nestled a village. It was now sleeping. . . . Its huts,
its church with the belfry, its trees, stood out against the
gray twilight and were reflected darkly in the smooth surface of
the river.
I waked Pashka for fear he should fall out and began cautiously
going down.
"Have we got to Lukovo?" asked Pashka, lifting his head lazily.
"Yes. Hold the reins! . . ."
I led the horse down the hill and looked at the village. At the
first glance one strange circumstance caught my attention: at the
very top of the belfry, in the tiny window between the cupola and
the bells, a light was twinkling. This light was like that of a
smoldering lamp, at one moment dying down, at another flickering
up. What could it come from?
Its source was beyond my comprehension. It could not be burning
at the window, for there were neither ikons nor lamps in the top
turret of the belfry; there was nothing there, as I knew, but
beams, dust, and spiders' webs. It was hard to climb up into
that turret, for the passage to it from the belfry was closely
blocked up.
It was more likely than anything else to be the reflection of
some outside light, but though I strained my eyes to the utmost,
I could not see one other speck of light in the vast expanse that
lay before me. There was no moon. The pale and, by now,
quite dim streak of the afterglow could not have been reflected,
for the window looked not to the west, but to the east. These and
other similar considerations were straying through my mind all
the while that I was going down the slope with the horse. At the
bottom I sat down by the roadside and looked again at the light.
As before it was glimmering and flaring up.
"Strange," I thought, lost in conjecture. "Very strange."
And little by little I was overcome by an unpleasant feeling. At
first I thought that this was vexation at not being able to
explain a simple phenomenon; but afterwards, when I suddenly
turned away from the light in horror and caugh t hold of Pashka
with one hand, it became clear that I was overcome with terror. .
. .
I was seized with a feeling of loneliness, misery, and horror, as
though I had been flung down against my will into this great hole
full of shadows, where I was standing all alone with the belfry
looking at me with its red eye.
"Pashka!" I cried, closing my eyes in horror.
"Well?"
"Pashka, what's that gleaming on the belfry?"
Pashka looked over my shoulder at the belfry and gave a yawn.
"Who can tell?"
This brief conversation with the boy reassured me for a little,
but not for long. Pashka, seeing my uneasiness, fastened his big
eyes upon the light, looked at me again, then again at the light.
. . .
"I am frightened," he whispered.
At this point, beside myself with terror, I clutched the boy with
one hand, huddled up to him, and gave the horse a violent lash.
"It's stupid!" I said to myself. "That phenomenon is only
terrible because I don't understand it; everything we don't
understand is mysterious."
I tried to persuade myself, but at the same time I did not leave
off lashing the horse. When we reached the posting station I
purposely stayed for a full hour chatting with the overseer, and
read through two or three newspapers, but the feeling of
uneasiness did not leave me. On the way back the light was not to
be seen, but on the other hand the silhouettes of the huts, of
the poplars, and of the hill up which I had to drive, seemed to
me as though animated. And why the light was there I don't know
to this day.
The second terror I experienced was excited by a circumstance no
less trivial. . . . I was returning from a romantic interview. It
was one o'clock at night, the time when nature is buried in the
soundest, sweetest sleep before the dawn. That time nature was
not sleeping, and one could not call the night a still one.
Corncrakes, quails, nightingales, and woodcocks were calling,
crickets and grasshoppers were chirruping. There was a light mist
over the grass, and clouds were scurrying straight
ahead across the sky near the moon. Nature was awake, as though
afraid of missing the best moments of her life.
I walked along a narrow path at the very edge of a railway
embankment. The moonlight glided over the lines which were
already covered with dew. Great shadows from the clouds kept
flitting over the embankment. Far ahead, a dim green light was
glimmering peacefully.
"So everything is well," I thought, looking at them.
I had a quiet, peaceful, comfortable feeling in my heart. I was
returning from a tryst, I had no need to hurry; I was not sleepy,
and I was conscious of youth and health in every sigh, every step
I took, rousing a dull echo in the monotonous hum of
the night. I don't know what I was feeling then, but I remember
I was happy, very happy.
I had gone not more than three-quarters of a mile when I suddenly
heard behind me a monotonous sound, a rumbling, rather like the
roar of a great stream. It grew louder and louder every second,
and sounded nearer and nearer. I looked round; a hundred paces
from me was the dark copse from which I had only just come; there
the embankment turned to the right in a graceful curve and
vanished among the trees. I stood still in perplexity and waited.
A huge black body appeared at once at the turn, noisily darted
towards me, and with the swiftness of a bird flew past me along
the rails. Less than half a minute passed and the blur had
vanished, the rumble melted away into the noise of the night.
It was an ordinary goods truck. There was nothing peculiar about
it in itself, but its appearance without an engine and in the
night puzzled me. Where could it have come from and what force
sent it flying so rapidly along the rails? Where did it come
from and where was it flying to?
If I had been superstitious I should have made up my mind it was
a party of demons and witches journeying to a devils' sabbath,
and should have gone on my way; but as it was, the phenomenon was
absolutely inexplicable to me. I did not believe my eyes, and
was entangled in conjectures like a fly in a spider's web. . . .
I suddenly realized that I was utterly alone on the whole vast
plain; that the night, which by now seemed inhospitable, was
peeping into my face and dogging my footsteps; all the sounds,
the cries of the birds, the whisperings of the trees, seemed
sinister, and existing simply to alarm my imagination. I dashed
on like a madman, and without realizing what I was doing I ran,
trying to run faster and faster. And at once I heard something to
which I had paid no attention before: that is, the plaintive
whining of the telegraph wires.
"This is beyond everything," I said, trying to shame myself.
"It's cowardice! it's silly!"
But cowardice was stronger than common sense. I only slackened my
pace when I reached the green light, where I saw a dark
signal-box, and near it on the embankment the figure of a man,
probably the signalman.
"Did you see it?" I asked breathlessly.
"See whom? What?"
"Why, a truck ran by."
"I saw it, . . ." the peasant said reluctantly. "It broke away
from the goods train. There is an incline at the ninetieth mile .
. .; the train is dragged uphill. The coupling on the last truck
gave way, so it broke off and ran back. . . . There is
no catching it now! . . ."
The strange phenomenon was explained and its fantastic character
vanished. My panic was over and I was able to go on my way.
My third fright came upon me as I was going home from stand
shooting in early spring. It was in the dusk of evening. The
forest road was covered with pools from a recent shower of rain,
and the earth squelched under one's feet. The crimson glow of
sunset flooded the whole forest, coloring the white stems of the
birches and the young leaves. I was exhausted and could hardly
move.
Four or five miles from home, walking along the forest road, I
suddenly met a big black dog of the water spaniel breed. As he
ran by, the dog looked intently at me, straight in my face, and
ran on.
"A nice dog!" I thought. "Whose is it?"
I looked round. The dog was standing ten paces off with his eyes
fixed on me. For a minute we scanned each other in silence, then
the dog, probably flattered by my attention, came slowly up to me
and wagged his tail.
I walked on, the dog following me.
"Whose dog can it be?" I kept asking myself. "Where does he come
from?"
I knew all the country gentry for twenty or thirty miles round,
and knew all their dogs. Not one of them had a spaniel like that.
How did he come to be in the depths of the forest, on a track
used for nothing but carting timber? He could hardly have
dropped behind someone passing through, for there was nowhere for
the gentry to drive to along that road.
I sat down on a stump to rest, and began scrutinizing my
companion. He, too, sat down, raised his head, and fastened upon
me an intent stare. He gazed at me without blinking. I don't know
whether it was the influence of the stillness, the shadows and
sounds of the forest, or perhaps a result of exhaustion, but I
suddenly felt uneasy under the steady gaze of his ordinary doggy
eyes. I thought of Faust and his bulldog, and of the fact that
nervous people sometimes when exhausted have hallucinations.
That was enough to make me get up hurriedly and hurriedly walk
on. The dog followed me.
"Go away!" I shouted.
The dog probably liked my voice, for he gave a gleeful jump and
ran about in front of me.
"Go away!" I shouted again.
The dog looked round, stared at me intently, and wagged his tail
good-humoredly. Evidently my threatening tone amused him. I ought
to have patted him, but I could not get Faust's dog out of my
head, and the feeling of panic grew more and more acute. . .
Darkness was coming on, which completed my confusion, and every
time the dog ran up to me and hit me with his tail, like a coward
I shut my eyes. The same thing happened as with the light in the
belfry and the truck on the railway: I could not stand it and
rushed away.
At home I found a visitor, an old friend, who, after greeting me,
began to complain that as he wa s driving to me he had lost his
way in the forest, and a splendid valuable dog of his had dropped
behind.
THE BET
IT WAS a dark autumn night. The old banker was walking up and
down his study and remembering how, fifteen years before, he had
given a party one autumn evening. There had been many clever men
there, and there had been interesting conversations. Among other
things they had talked of capital punishment. The majority of the
guests, among whom were many journalists and intellectual men,
disapproved of the death penalty. They considered that form of
punishment out of date, immoral, and unsuitable for Christian
States. In the opinion of some of them the death penalty ought to
be replaced everywhere by imprisonment for life.
"I don't agree with you," said their host the banker. "I have not
tried either the death penalty or imprisonment for life, but if
one may judge _a priori_, the death penalty is more moral and
more humane than imprisonment for life. Capital punishment kills
a man at once, but lifelong imprisonment kills him slowly. Which
executioner is the more humane, he who kills you in a few minutes
or he who drags the life out of you in the course of many years?"
"Both are equally immoral," observed one of the guests, "for they
both have the same object -- to take away life. The State is not
God. It has not the right to take away what it cannot restore
when it wants to."
Among the guests was a young lawyer, a young man of
five-and-twenty. When he was asked his opinion, he said:
"The death sentence and the life sentence are equally immoral,
but if I had to choose between the death penalty and imprisonment
for life, I would certainly choose the second. To live anyhow is
better than not at all."
A lively discussion arose. The banker, who was younger and more
nervous in those days, was suddenly carried away by excitement;
he struck the table with his fist and shouted at the young man:
"It's not true! I'll bet you two millions you wouldn't stay in
solitary confinement for five years."
"If you mean that in earnest," said the young man, "I'll take the
bet, but I would stay not five but fifteen years."
"Fifteen? Done!" cried the banker. "Gentlemen, I stake two
millions!"
"Agreed! You stake your millions and I stake my freedom!" said
the young man.
And this wild, senseless bet was carried out! The banker, spoilt
and frivolous, with millions beyond his reckoning, was delighted
at the bet. At supper he made fun of the young man, and said:
"Think better of it, young man, while there is still time. To me
two millions are a trifle, but you are losing three or four of
the best years of your life. I say three or four, because you
won't stay longer. Don't forget either, you unhappy man, that
voluntary confinement is a great deal harder to bear than
compulsory. The thought that you have the right to step out in
liberty at any moment will poison your whole existence in prison.
I am sorry for you."
And now the banker, walking to and fro, remembered all this, and
asked himself: "What was the object of that bet? What is the good
of that man's losing fifteen years of his life and my throwing
away two millions? Can it prove that the death penalty is better
or worse than imprisonment for life? No, no. It was all
nonsensical and meaningless. On my part it was the caprice of a
pampered man, and on his part simple greed for money. . . ."
Then he remembered what followed that evening. It was decided
that the young man should spend the years of his captivity under
the strictest supervision in one of the lodges in the banker's
garden. It was agreed that for fifteen years he should not
be free to cross the threshold of the lodge, to see human
beings, to hear the human voice, or to receive letters and
newspapers. He was allowed to have a musical instrument and
books, and was allowed to write letters, to drink wine, and to
smoke. By the terms of the agreement, the only relations he
could have with the outer world were by a little window made
purposely for that object. He might have anything he wanted --
books, music, wine, and so on -- in any quantity he desired by
writing an order, but could only receive them through the
window. The agreement provided for every detail and every trifle
that would make his imprisonment strictly solitary, and bound the
young man to stay there _exactly_ fifteen years, beginning from
twelve o'clock of November 14, 1870, and ending at twelve
o'clock of November 14, 1885. The slightest attempt on his part
to break the conditions, if only two minutes before the end,
released the banker from the obligation to pay him two millions.
For the first year of his confinement, as far as one could judge
from his brief notes, the prisoner suffered severely from
loneliness and depression. The sounds of the piano could be heard
continually day and night from his lodge. He refused wine and
tobacco. Wine, he wrote, excites the desires, and desires are the
worst foes of the prisoner; and besides, nothing could be more
dreary than drinking good wine and seeing no one. And tobacco
spoilt the air of his room. In the first year the books he sent
for were principally of a light character; novels with a
complicated love plot, sensational and fantastic stories, and so
on.
In the second year the piano was silent in the lodge, and the
prisoner asked only for the classics. In the fifth year music was
audible again, and the prisoner asked for wine. Those who watched
him through the window said that all that year he spent doing
nothing but eating and drinking and lying on his bed, frequently
yawning and angrily talking to himself. He did not read books.
Sometimes at night he would sit down to write; he would spend
hours writing, and in the morning tear up all that he had
written. More than once he could be heard crying.
In the second half of the sixth year the prisoner began zealously
studying languages, philosophy, and history. He threw himself
eagerly into these studies -- so much so that the banker had
enough to do to get him the books he ordered. In the course
of four years some six hundred volumes were procured at his
request. It was during this period that the banker received the
following letter from his prisoner:
"My dear Jailer, I write you these lines in six languages. Show
them to people who know the languages. Let them read them. If
they find not one mistake I implore you to fire a shot in the
garden. That shot will show me that my efforts have not been
thrown away. The geniuses of all ages and of all lands speak
different languages, but the same flame burns in them all. Oh, if
you only knew what unearthly happiness my soul feels now from
being able to understand them!" The prisoner's desire was
fulfilled. The banker ordered two shots to be fired in the
garden.
Then after the tenth year, the prisoner sat immovably at the
table and read nothing but the Gospel. It seemed strange to the
banker that a man who in four years had mastered six hundred
learned volumes should waste nearly a year over one thin book
easy of comprehension. Theology and histories of religion
followed the Gospels.
In the last two years of his confinement the prisoner read an
immense quantity of books quite indiscriminately. At one time he
was busy with the natural sciences, then he would ask for Byron
or Shakespeare. There were notes in which he demanded at the
same time books on chemistry, and a manual of medicine, and a
novel, and some treatise on philosophy or theology. His reading
suggested a man swimming in the sea among the wreckage of his
ship, and trying to save his life by greedily clutching first at
one spar and then at another.
II
The old banker remembered all this, and thought:
"To-morrow at twelve o'clock he will regain his freedom. By our
agreement I ought to pay him two millions. If I do pay him, it is
all over with me: I shall be utterly ruined."
Fifteen years before, his millions had been beyond his reckoning;
now he was afraid to ask himself which were greater, his debts or
his assets. Desperate gambling on the Stock Exchange, wild
speculation and the excitability whic h he could not get over
even in advancing years, had by degrees led to the decline of his
fortune and the proud, fearless, self-confident millionaire had
become a banker of middling rank, trembling at every rise and
fall in his investments. "Cursed bet!" muttered the old man,
clutching his head in despair "Why didn't the man die? He is only
forty now. He will take my last penny from me, he will marry,
will enjoy life, will gamble on the Exchange; while I shall look
at him with envy like a beggar, and hear from him every day the
same sentence: 'I am indebted to you for the happiness of my
life, let me help you!' No, it is too much! The one means of
being saved from bankruptcy and disgrace is the death of that
man!"
It struck three o'clock, the banker listened; everyone was asleep
in the house and nothing could be heard outside but the rustling
of the chilled trees. Trying to make no noise, he took from a
fireproof safe the key of the door which had not been opened for
fifteen years, put on his overcoat, and went out of the house.
It was dark and cold in the garden. Rain was falling. A damp
cutting wind was racing about the garden, howling and giving the
trees no rest. The banker strained his eyes, but could see
neither the earth nor the white statues, nor the lodge, nor the
trees. Going to the spot where the lodge stood, he twice called
the watchman. No answer followed. Evidently the watchman had
sought shelter from the weather, and was now asleep somewhere
either in the kitchen or in the greenhouse.
"If I had the pluck to carry out my intention," thought the old
man, "Suspicion would fall first upon the watchman."
He felt in the darkness for the steps and the door, and went into
the entry of the lodge. Then he groped his way into a little
passage and lighted a match. There was not a soul there. There
was a bedstead with no bedding on it, and in the corner there
was a dark cast-iron stove. The seals on the door leading to the
prisoner's rooms were intact.
When the match went out the old man, trembling with emotion,
peeped through the little window. A candle was burning dimly in
the prisoner's room. He was sitting at the table. Nothing could
be seen but his back, the hair on his head, and his hands. Open
books were lying on the table, on the two easy-chairs, and on the
carpet near the table.
Five minutes passed and the prisoner did not once stir. Fifteen
years' imprisonment had taught him to sit still. The banker
tapped at the window with his finger, and the prisoner made no
movement whatever in response. Then the banker cautiously broke
the seals off the door and put the key in the keyhole. The rusty
lock gave a grating sound and the door creaked. The banker
expected to hear at once footsteps and a cry of astonishment, but
three minutes passed and it was as quiet as ever in the room. He
made up his mind to go in.
At the table a man unlike ordinary people was sitting motionless.
He was a skeleton with the skin drawn tight over his bones, with
long curls like a woman's and a shaggy beard. His face was yellow
with an earthy tint in it, his cheeks were hollow, his back long
and narrow, and the hand on which his shaggy head was propped was
so thin and delicate that it was dreadful to look at it. His hair
was already streaked with silver, and seeing his emaciated,
aged-looking face, no one would have believed that he was only
forty. He was asleep. . . . In front of his bowed head there lay
on the table a sheet of paper on which there was something
written in fine handwriting.
"Poor creature!" thought the banker, "he is asleep and most
likely dreaming of the millions. And I have only to take this
half-dead man, throw him on the bed, stifle him a little with the
pillow, and the most conscientious expert would find no sign
of a violent death. But let us first read what he has written
here. . . ."
The banker took the page from the table and read as follows:
"To-morrow at twelve o'clock I regain my freedom and the right to
associate with other men, but before I leave this room and see
the sunshine, I think it necessary to say a few words to you.
With a clear conscience I tell you, as before God, who beholds
me, that I despise freedom and life and health, and all that in
your books is called the good things of the world.
"For fifteen years I have been intently studying earthly life. It
is true I have not seen the earth nor men, but in your books I
have drunk fragrant wine, I have sung songs, I have hunted stags
and wild boars in the forests, have loved women. . . .
Beauties as ethereal as clouds, created by the magic of your
poets and geniuses, have visited me at night, and have whispered
in my ears wonderful tales that have set my brain in a whirl. In
your books I have climbed to the peaks of Elburz and Mont
Blanc, and from there I have seen the sun rise and have watched
it at evening flood the sky, the ocean, and the mountain-tops
with gold and crimson. I have watched from there the lightning
flashing over my head and cleaving the storm-clouds. I have
seen green forests, fields, rivers, lakes, towns. I have heard
the singing of the sirens, and the strains of the shepherds'
pipes; I have touched the wings of comely devils who flew down to
converse with me of God. . . . In your books I have flung myself
into the bottomless pit, performed miracles, slain, burned towns,
preached new religions, conquered whole kingdoms. . . .
"Your books have given me wisdom. All that the unresting thought
of man has created in the ages is compressed into a small compass
in my brain. I know that I am wiser than all of you.
"And I despise your books, I despise wisdom and the blessings of
this world. It is all worthless, fleeting, illusory, and
deceptive, like a mirage. You may be proud, wise, and fine, but
death will wipe you off the face of the earth as though you were
no more than mice burrowing under the floor, and your posterity,
your history, your immortal geniuses will burn or freeze together
with the earthly globe.
"You have lost your reason and taken the wrong path. You have
taken lies for truth, and hideousness for beauty. You would
marvel if, owing to strange events of some sorts, frogs and
lizards suddenly grew on apple and orange trees instead of fruit,
or if roses began to smell like a sweating horse; so I marvel at
you who exchange heaven for earth. I don't want to understand
you.
"To prove to you in action how I despise all that you live by, I
renounce the two millions of which I once dreamed as of paradise
and which now I despise. To deprive myself of the right to the
money I shall go out from here five hours before the time fixed,
and so break the compact. . . ."
When the banker had read this he laid the page on the table,
kissed the strange man on the head, and went out of the lodge,
weeping. At no other time, even when he had lost heavily on the
Stock Exchange, had he felt so great a contempt for himself.
When he got home he lay on his bed, but his tears and emotion
kept him for hours from sleeping.
Next morning the watchmen ran in with pale faces, and told him
they had seen the man who lived in the lodge climb out of the
window into the garden, go to the gate, and disappear. The banker
went at once with the servants to the lodge and made sure
of the flight of his prisoner. To avoid arousing unnecessary
talk, he took from the table the writing in which the millions
were renounced, and when he got home locked it up in the
fireproof safe.
THE HEAD-GARDENER'S STORY
A SALE of flowers was taking place in Count N.'s greenhouses. The
purchasers were few in number -- a landowner who was a neighbor
of mine, a young timber-merchant, and myself. While the workmen
were carrying out our magnificent purchases and packing them
into the carts, we sat at the entry of the greenhouse and chatted
about one thing and another. It is extremely pleasant to sit in a
garden on a still April morning, listening to the birds, and
watching the flowers brought out into the open air and basking
in the sunshine.
The head-gardener, Mihail Karlovitch, a venerable old man with a
full shaven face, wearing a fur waistcoat and no coat,
superintended the packing of the plants himself, but at the same
time he listened to our conversation in the hope of hearing
something new. He was an intelligent, very good-hearted man,
respected by everyone. He was for some reason looked upon by
everyone as a German, though he was in reality on his father's
side Swedish, on his mother's side Russian, and attended the
Orthodox church. He knew Russian, Swedish, and German. He had
read a good deal in those languages, and nothing one could do
gave him greater pleasure than lending him some new book or
talking to him, for instance, about Ibsen.
He had his weaknesses, but they were innocent ones: he called
himself the head gardener, though there were no under-gardeners;
the expression of his face was unusually dignified and haughty;
he could not endure to be contradicted, and liked to be listened
to with respect and attention.
"That young fellow there I can recommend to you as an awful
rascal," said my neighbor, pointing to a laborer with a swarthy,
gipsy face, who drove by with the water-barrel. "Last week he was
tried in the town for burglary and was acquitted; they
pronounced him mentally deranged, and yet look at him, he is the
picture of health. Scoundrels are very often acquitted nowadays
in Russia on grounds of abnormality and aberration, yet these
acquittals, these unmistakable proofs of an indulgent attitude
to crime, lead to no good. They demoralize the masses, the sense
of justice is blunted in all as they become accustomed to seeing
vice unpunished, and you know in our age one may boldly say in
the words of Shakespeare that in our evil and corrupt age virtue
must ask forgiveness of vice."
"That's very true," the merchant assented. "Owing to these
frequent acquittals, murder and arson have become much more
common. Ask the peasants."
Mihail Karlovitch turned towards us and said:
"As far as I am concerned, gentlemen, I am always delighted to
meet with these verdicts of not guilty. I am not afraid for
morality and justice when they say 'Not guilty,' but on the
contrary I feel pleased. Even when my conscience tells me the
jury have made a mistake in acquitting the criminal, even then I
am triumphant. Judge for yourselves, gentlemen; if the judges and
the jury have more faith in _man_ than in evidence, material
proofs, and speeches for the prosecution, is not that faith _in
man_ in itself higher than any ordinary considerations? Such
faith is only attainable by those few who understand and feel
Christ."
"A fine thought," I said.
"But it's not a new one. I remember a very long time ago I heard
a legend on that subject. A very charming legend," said the
gardener, and he smiled. "I was told it by my grandmother, my
father's mother, an excellent old lady. She told me it in
Swedish, and it does not sound so fine, so classical, in
Russian."
But we begged him to tell it and not to be put off by the
coarseness of the Russian language. Much gratified, he
deliberately lighted his pipe, looked angrily at the laborers,
and began:
"There settled in a certain little town a solitary, plain,
elderly gentleman called Thomson or Wilson -- but that does not
matter; the surname is not the point. He followed an honorable
profession: he was a doctor. He was always morose and unsociable,
and only spoke when required by his profession. He never visited
anyone, never extended his acquaintance beyond a silent bow, and
lived as humbly as a hermit. The fact was, he was a learned man,
and in those days learned men were not like other people. They
spent their days and nights in contemplation, in reading and in
healing disease, looked upon everything else as trivial, and had
no time to waste a word. The inhabitants of the town understood
this, and tried not to worry him with their visits and empty
chatter. They were very glad that God had sent them at last a
man who could heal diseases, and were proud that such a
remarkable man was living in their town. 'He knows everything,'
they said about him.
"But that was not enough. They ought to have also said, 'He loves
everyone.' In the breast of that learned man there beat a
wonderful angelic heart. Though the people of that town were
strangers and not his own people, yet he loved them like
children, and did not spare himself for them. He was himself ill
with consumption, he had a cough, but when he was summoned to the
sick he forgot his own illness he did not spare himself and,
gasping for breath, climbed up the hills however high they might
be. He disregarded the sultry heat and the cold, despised thirst
and hunger. He would accept no money and strange to say, when one
of his patients died, he would follow the coffin with the
relations, weeping.
"And soon he became so necessary to the town that the inhabitants
wondered how they could have got on before without the man. Their
gratitude knew no bounds. Grown-up people and children, good and
bad alike, honest men and cheats -- all in fact, respected him
and knew his value. In the little town and all the surrounding
neighborhood there was no man who would allow himself to do
anything disagreeable to him; indeed, they would never have
dreamed of it. When he came out of his lodging, he never
fastened the doors or windows, in complete confidence that there
was no thief who could bring himself to do him wrong. He often
had in the course of his medical duties to walk along the
highroads, through the forests and mountains haunted by numbers
of hungry vagrants; but he felt that he was in perfect security.
"One night he was returning from a patient when robbers fell upon
him in the forest, but when they recognized him, they took off
their hats respectfully and offered him something to eat. When he
answered that he was not hungry, they gave him a warm
wrap and accompanied him as far as the town, happy that fate had
given them the chance in some small way to show their gratitude
to the benevolent man. Well, to be sure, my grandmother told me
that even the horses and the cows and the dogs knew him
and expressed their joy when they met him.
"And this man who seemed by his sanctity to have guarded himself
from every evil, to whom even brigands and frenzied men wished
nothing but good, was one fine morning found murdered. Covered
with blood, with his skull broken, he was lying in a ravine, and
his pale face wore an expression of amazement. Yes, not horror
but amazement was the emotion that had been fixed upon his face
when he saw the murderer before him. You can imagine the grief
that overwhelmed the inhabitants of the town and the surrounding
districts. All were in despair, unable to believe their eyes,
wondering who could have killed the man. The judges who conducted
the inquiry and examined the doctor's body said: 'Here we have
all the signs of a murder, but as there is not a man in the
world capable of murdering our doctor, obviously it was not a
case of murder, and the combination of evidence is due to simple
chance. We must suppose that in the darkness he fell into the
ravine of himself and was mortally injured.'
"The whole town agreed with this opinion. The doctor was buried,
and nothing more was said about a violent death. The existence of
a man who could have the baseness and wickedness to kill the
doctor seemed incredible. There is a limit even to wickedness,
isn't there?
"All at once, would you believe it, chance led them to
discovering the murderer. A vagrant who had been many times
convicted, notorious for his vicious life, was seen selling for
drink a snuff-box and watch that had belonged to the doctor. When
he was questioned he was confused, and answered with an obvious
lie. A search was made, and in his bed was found a shirt with
stains of blood on the sleeves, and a doctor's lancet set in
gold. What more evidence was wanted? They put the criminal in
prison. The inhabitants were indignant, and at the same time
said:
" 'It's incredible! It can't be so! Take care that a mistake is
not made; it does happen, you know, that evidence tells a false
tale.'
"At his trial the murderer obstinately denied his guilt.
Everything was against him, and to be convinced of his guilt was
as easy as to believe that this earth is black; but the judges
seem to have gone mad: they weighed every proof ten times, looked
distrustfully at the witnesses, flushed crimson and sipped water.
. . . The trial began early in the morning and was only finished
in the evening.
"'Accused!' the chief judge said, addressing the murderer, 'the
court has found you guilty of murdering Dr. So-and-so, and has
sentenced you to. . . .'
"The chief judge meant to say 'to the death penalty,' but he
dropped from his hands the paper on which the sentence was
written, wiped the cold sweat from his face, and cried out:
"'No! May God punish me if I judge wrongly, but I swear he is
not guilty. I cannot admit the thought that there exists a man
who would dare to murder our friend the doctor! A man could not
sink so low!'
"'There cannot be such a man!' the other judges assented.
"'No,' the crowd cried. 'Let him go!'
"The murderer was set free to go where he chose, and not one soul
blamed the court for an unjust verdict. And my grandmother used
to say that for such faith in humanity God forgave the sins of
all the inhabitants of that town. He rejoices when people
believe that man is His image and semblance, and grieves if,
forgetful of human dignity, they judge worse of men than of dogs.
The sentence of acquittal may bring harm to the inhabitants of
the town, but on the other hand, think of the beneficial
influence upon them of that faith in man -- a faith which does
not remain dead, you know; it raises up generous feelings in us,
and always impels us to love and respect every man. Every man!
And that is important."
Mihail Karlovitch had finished. My neighbor would have urged some
objection, but the head-gardener made a gesture that signified
that he did not like objections; then he walked away to the
carts, and, with an expression of dignity, went on looking after
the packing.
THE BEAUTIES
I
I REMEMBER, when I was a high school boy in the fifth or sixth
class, I was driving with my grandfather from the village of
Bolshoe Kryepkoe in the Don region to Rostov-on-the-Don. It was a
sultry, languidly dreary day of August. Our eyes were glued
together, and our mouths were parched from the heat and the dry
burning wind which drove clouds of dust to meet us; one did not
want to look or speak or think, and when our drowsy driver, a
Little Russian called Karpo, swung his whip at the horses and
lashed me on my cap, I did not protest or utter a sound, but
only, rousing myself from half-slumber, gazed mildly and
dejectedly into the distance to see whether there was a village
visible through the dust. We stopped to feed the horses in a big
Armenian village at a rich Armenian's whom my grandfather knew.
Never in my life have I seen a greater caricature than that
Armenian. Imagine a little shaven head with thick overhanging
eyebrows, a beak of a nose, long gray mustaches, and a wide
mouth with a long cherry-wood chibouk sticking out of it. This
little head was clumsily attached to a lean hunch-back carcass
attired in a fantastic garb, a short red jacket, and full bright
blue trousers. This figure walked straddling its legs and
shuffling with its slippers, spoke without taking the chibouk out
of its mouth, and behaved with truly Armenian dignity, not
smiling, but staring with wide-open eyes and trying to take as
little notice as possible of its guests.
There was neither wind nor dust in the Armenian's rooms, but it
was just as unpleasant, stifling, and dreary as in the steppe and
on the road. I remember, dusty and exhausted by the heat, I sat
in the corner on a green box. The unpainted wooden walls, the
furniture, and the floors colored with yellow ocher smelt of dry
wood baked by the sun. Wherever I looked there were flies and
flies and flies. . . . Grandfather and the Armenian were talking
about grazing, about manure, and about oats. .
. . I knew that they would be a good hour getting the samovar;
that grandfather would be not less than an hour drinking his tea,
and then would lie down to sleep for two or three hours; that I
should waste a quarter of the day waiting, after which there
would be again the heat, the dust, the jolting cart. I heard the
muttering of the two voices, and it began to seem to me that I
had been seeing the Armenian, the cupboard with the crockery, the
flies, the windows with the burning sun beating on them, for
ages and ages, and should only cease to see them in the far-off
future, and I was seized with hatred for the steppe, the sun, the
flies.. . .
A Little Russian peasant woman in a kerchief brought in a tray of
tea-things, then the samovar. The Armenian went slowly out into
the passage and shouted: "Mashya, come and pour out tea! Where
are you, Mashya?"
Hurried footsteps were heard, and there came into the room a girl
of sixteen in a simple cotton dress and a white kerchief. As she
washed the crockery and poured out the tea, she was standing with
her back to me, and all I could see was that she was of a
slender figure, barefooted, and that her little bare heels were
covered by long trousers.
The Armenian invited me to have tea. Sitting down to the table, I
glanced at the girl, who was handing me a glass of tea, and felt
all at once as though a wind were blowing over my soul and
blowing away all the impressions of the day with their dust and
dreariness. I saw the bewitching features of the most beautiful
face I have ever met in real life or in my dreams. Before me
stood a beauty, and I recognized that at the first glance as I
should have recognized lightning.
I am ready to swear that Masha -- or, as her father called her,
Mashya -- was a real beauty, but I don't know how to prove it. It
sometimes happens that clouds are huddled together in disorder on
the horizon, and the sun hiding behind them colors them and the
sky with tints of every possible shade--crimson, orange, gold,
lilac, muddy pink; one cloud is like a monk, another like a fish,
a third like a Turk in a turban. The glow of sunset enveloping a
third of the sky gleams on the cross on the church, flashes on
the windows of the manor house, is reflected in the river and the
puddles, quivers on the trees; far, far away against the
background of the sunset, a flock of wild ducks is flying
homewards. . . . And the boy herding the cows, and the surveyor
driving in his chaise over the dam, and the gentleman out for a
walk, all gaze at the sunset, and every one of them thinks it
terribly beautiful, but no one knows or can say in what its
beauty lies.
I was not the only one to think the Armenian girl beautiful. My
grandfather, an old man of seventy, gruff and indifferent to
women and the beauties of nature, looked caressingly at Masha for
a full minute, and asked:
"Is that your daughter, Avert Nazaritch?"
"Yes, she is my daughter," answered the Armenian.
"A fine young lady," said my grandfather approvingly.
An artist would have called the Armenian girl's beauty classical
and severe, it was just that beauty, the contemplation of which
-- God knows why!-- inspires in one the conviction that one is
seeing correct features; that hair, eyes, nose, mouth, neck,
bosom, and every movement of the young body all go together in
one complete harmonious accord in which nature has not blundered
over the smallest line. You fancy for some reason that the
ideally beautiful woman must have such a nose as Masha's,
straight and slightly aquiline, just such great dark eyes, such
long lashes, such a languid glance; you fancy that her black
curly hair and eyebrows go with the soft white tint of her brow
and cheeks as the green reeds go with the quiet stream. Masha's
white neck and her youthful bosom were not fully developed, but
you fancy the sculptor would need a great creative genius to mold
them. You gaze, and little by little the desire comes over you to
say to Masha something extraordinarily pleasant, sincere,
beautiful, as beautiful as she herself was.
At first I felt hurt and abashed that Masha took no notice of me,
but was all the time looking down; it seemed to me as though a
peculiar atmosphere, proud and happy, separated her from me and
jealously screened her from my eyes.
"That's because I am covered with dust," I thought, "am sunburnt,
and am still a boy."
But little by little I forgot myself, and gave myself up entirely
to the consciousness of beauty. I thought no more now of the
dreary steppe, of the dust, no longer heard the buzzing of the
flies, no longer tasted the tea, and felt nothing except that a
beautiful girl was standing only the other side of the table.
I felt this beauty rather strangely. It was not desire, nor
ecstacy, nor enjoyment that Masha excited in me, but a painful
though pleasant sadness. It was a sadness vague and undefined as
a dream. For some reason I felt sorry for myself, for my
grandfather and for the Armenian, even for the girl herself, and
I had a feeling as though we all four had lost something
important and essential to life which we should never find again.
My grandfather, too, grew melancholy; he talked no more about
manure or about oats, but sat silent, looking pensively at
Masha.
After tea my grandfather lay down for a nap while I went out of
the house into the porch. The house, like all the houses in the
Armenian village stood in the full sun; there was not a tree, not
an awning, no shade. The Armenian's great courtyard, overgrown
with goosefoot and wild mallows, was lively and full of gaiety in
spite of the great heat. Threshing was going on behind one of the
low hurdles which intersected the big yard here and there. Round
a post stuck into the middle of the threshing-floor ran a dozen
horses harnessed side by side, so that they formed one long
radius. A Little Russian in a long waistcoat and full trousers
was walking beside them, cracking a whip and shouting in a tone
that sounded as though he were jeering at the horses and showing
off his power over them.
"A--a--a, you damned brutes! . . . A--a--a, plague take you! Are
you frightened?"
The horses, sorrel, white, and piebald, not understanding why
they were made to run round in one place and to crush the wheat
straw, ran unwillingly as though with effort, swinging their
tails with an offended air. The wind raised up perfect clouds
of golden chaff from under their hoofs and carried it away far
beyond the hurdle. Near the tall fresh stacks peasant women were
swarming with rakes, and carts were moving, and beyond the stacks
in another yard another dozen similar horses were running round
a post, and a similar Little Russian was cracking his whip and
jeering at the horses.
The steps on which I was sitting were hot; on the thin rails and
here and there on the window-frames sap was oozing out of the
wood from the heat; red ladybirds were huddling together in the
streaks of shadow under the steps and under the shutters.
The sun was baking me on my head, on my chest, and on my back,
but I did not notice it, and was conscious only of the thud of
bare feet on the uneven floor in the passage and in the rooms
behind me. After clearing away the tea-things, Masha ran down
the steps, fluttering the air as she passed, and like a bird flew
into a little grimy outhouse--I suppose the kitchen--from which
came the smell of roast mutton and the sound of angry talk in
Armenian. She vanished into the dark doorway, and in her place
there appeared on the threshold an old bent, red-faced Armenian
woman wearing green trousers. The old woman was angry and was
scolding someone. Soon afterwards Masha appeared in the doorway,
flushed with the heat of the kitchen and carrying a big black
loaf on her shoulder; swaying gracefully under the weight of the
bread, she ran across the yard to the threshing-floor, darted
over the hurdle, and, wrapt in a cloud of golden chaff, vanished
behind the carts. The Little Russian who was driving the horses
lowered his whip, sank into silence, and gazed for a minute in
the direction of the carts. Then when the Armenian girl darted
again by the horses and leaped over the hurdle, he followed her
with his eyes, and shouted to the horses in a tone as though he
were greatly disappointed:
"Plague take you, unclean devils!"
And all the while I was unceasingly hearing her bare feet, and
seeing how she walked across the yard with a grave, preoccupied
face. She ran now down the steps, swishing the air about me, now
into the kitchen, now to the threshing-floor, now through the
gate, and I could hardly turn my head quickly enough to watch
her.
And the oftener she fluttered by me with her beauty, the more
acute became my sadness. I felt sorry both for her and for myself
and for the Little Russian, who mournfully watched her every time
she ran through the cloud of chaff to the carts. Whether it was
envy of her beauty, or that I was regretting that the girl was
not mine, and never would be, or that I was a stranger to her; or
whether I vaguely felt that her rare beauty was accidental,
unnecessary, and, like everything on earth, of short duration;
or whether, perhaps, my sadness was that peculiar feeling which
is excited in man by the contemplation of real beauty, God only
knows.
The three hours of waiting passed unnoticed. It seemed to me that
I had not had time to look properly at Masha when Karpo drove up
to the river, bathed the horse, and began to put it in the
shafts. The wet horse snorted with pleasure and kicked his
hoofs against the shafts. Karpo shouted to it: "Ba--ack!" My
grandfather woke up. Masha opened the creaking gates for us, we
got into the chaise and drove out of the yard. We drove in
silence as though we were angry with one another.
When, two or three hours later, Rostov and Nahitchevan appeared
in the distance, Karpo, who had been silent the whole time,
looked round quickly, and said:
"A fine wench, that at the Armenian's."
And he lashed his horses.
II
Another time, after I had become a student, I was traveling by
rail to the south. It was May. At one of the stations, I believe
it was between Byelgorod and Harkov, I got out of the tram to
walk about the platform.
The shades of evening were already lying on the station garden,
on the platform, and on the fields; the station screened off the
sunset, but on the topmost clouds of smoke from the engine, which
were tinged with rosy light, one could see the sun had not yet
quite vanished.
As I walked up and down the platform I noticed that the greater
number of the passengers were standing or walking near a
second-class compartment, and that they looked as though some
celebrated person were in that compartment. Among the curious
whom I met near this compartment I saw, however, an artillery
officer who had been my fellow-traveler, an intelligent, cordial,
and sympathetic fellow--as people mostly are whom we meet on our
travels by chance and with whom we are not long acquainted.
"What are you looking at there?" I asked.
He made no answer, but only indicated with his eyes a feminine
figure. It was a young girl of seventeen or eighteen, wearing a
Russian dress, with her head bare and a little shawl flung
carelessly on one shoulder; not a passenger, but I suppose a
sister or daughter of the station-master. She was standing near
the carriage window, talking to an elderly woman who was in the
train. Before I had time to realize what I was seeing, I was
suddenly overwhelmed by the feeling I had once experienced in
the Armenian village.
The girl was remarkably beautiful, and that was unmistakable to
me and to those who were looking at her as I was.
If one is to describe her appearance feature by feature, as the
practice is, the only really lovely thing was her thick wavy fair
hair, which hung loose with a black ribbon tied round her head;
all the other features were either irregular or very ordinary.
Either from a peculiar form of coquettishness, or from
short-sightedness, her eyes were screwed up, her nose had an
undecided tilt, her mouth was small, her profile was feebly and
insipidly drawn, her shoulders were narrow and undeveloped for
her age -- and yet the girl made the impression of being really
beautiful, and looking at her, I was able to feel convinced that
the Russian face does not need strict regularity in order to be
lovely; what is more, that if instead of her turn-up nose the
girl had been given a different one, correct and plastically
irreproachable like the Armenian girl's, I fancy her face would
have lost all its charm from the change.
Standing at the window talking, the girl, shrugging at the
evening damp, continually looking round at us, at one moment put
her arms akimbo, at the next raised her hands to her head to
straighten her hair, talked, laughed, while her face at one
moment wore an expression of wonder, the next of horror, and I
don't remember a moment when her face and body were at rest. The
whole secret and magic of her beauty lay just in these tiny,
infinitely elegant movements, in her smile, in the play of her
face, in her rapid glances at us, in the combination of the
subtle grace of her movements with her youth, her freshness, the
purity of her soul that sounded in her laugh and voice, and with
the weakness we love so much in children, in birds, in fawns,
and in young trees.
It was that butterfly's beauty so in keeping with waltzing,
darting about the garden, laughter and gaiety, and incongruous
with serious thought, grief, and repose; and it seemed as though
a gust of wind blowing over the platform, or a fall of rain,
would be enough to wither the fragile body and scatter the
capricious beauty like the pollen of a flower.
"So--o! . . ." the officer muttered with a sigh when, after the
second bell, we went back to our compartment.
And what that "So--o" meant I will not undertake to decide.
Perhaps he was sad, and did not want to go away from the beauty
and the spring evening into the stuffy train; or perhaps he, like
me, was unaccountably sorry for the beauty, for himself, and for
me, and for all the passengers, who were listlessly and
reluctantly sauntering back to their compartments. As we passed
the station window, at which a pale, red-haired telegraphist with
upstanding curls and a faded, broad-cheeked face was sitting
beside his apparatus, the officer heaved a sigh and said:
"I bet that telegraphist is in love with that pretty girl. To
live out in the wilds under one roof with that ethereal creature
and not fall in love is beyond the power of man. And what a
calamity, my friend! what an ironical fate, to be stooping,
unkempt, gray, a decent fellow and not a fool, and to be in love
with that pretty, stupid little girl who would never take a scrap
of notice of you! Or worse still: imagine that telegraphist is in
love, and at the same time married, and that his wife is as
stooping, as unkempt, and as decent a person as himself."
On the platform between our carriage and the next the guard was
standing with his elbows on the railing, looking in the direction
of the beautiful girl, and his battered, wrinkled, unpleasantly
beefy face, exhausted by sleepless nights and the jolting of the
train, wore a look of tenderness and of the deepest sadness, as
though in that girl he saw happiness, his own youth, soberness,
purity, wife, children; as though he were repenting and feeling
in his whole being that that girl was not his, and that for him,
with his premature old age, his uncouthness, and his beefy face,
the ordinary happiness of a man and a passenger was as far away
as heaven. . . .
The third bell rang, the whistles sounded, and the train slowly
moved off. First the guard, the station-master, then the garden,
the beautiful girl with her exquisitely sly smile, passed before
our windows. . . .
Putting my head out and looking back, I saw how, looking after
the train, she walked along the platform by the window where the
telegraph clerk was sitting, smoothed her hair, and ran into the
garden. The station no longer screened off the sunset, the plain
lay open before us, but the sun had already set and the smoke lay
in black clouds over the green, velvety young corn. It was
melancholy in the spring air, and in the darkening sky, and in
the railway carriage.
The familiar figure of the guard came into the carriage, and he
began lighting the candles.
THE SHOEMAKER AND THE DEVIL
IT was Christmas Eve. Marya had long been snoring on the stove;
all the paraffin in the little lamp had burnt out, but Fyodor
Nilov still sat at work. He would long ago have flung aside his
work and gone out into the street, but a customer from Kolokolny
Lane, who had a fortnight before ordered some boots, had been in
the previous day, had abused him roundly, and had ordered him to
finish the boots at once before the morning service.
"It's a convict's life!" Fyodor grumbled as he worked. "Some
people have been asleep long ago, others are enjoying themselves,
while you sit here like some Cain and sew for the devil knows
whom. . . ."
To save himself from accidentally falling asleep, he kept taking
a bottle from under the table and drinking out of it, and after
every pull at it he twisted his head and said aloud:
"What is the reason, kindly tell me, that customers enjoy
themselves while I am forced to sit and work for them? Because
they have money and I am a beggar?"
He hated all his customers, especially the one who lived in
Kolokolny Lane. He was a gentleman of gloomy appearance, with
long hair, a yellow face, blue spectacles, and a husky voice. He
had a German name which one could not pronounce. It was
impossible to tell what was his calling and what he did. When, a
fortnight before, Fyodor had gone to take his measure, he, the
customer, was sitting on the floor pounding something in a
mortar. Before Fyodor had time to say good-morning the contents
of the mortar suddenly flared up and burned with a bright red
flame; there was a stink of sulphur and burnt feathers, and the
room was filled with a thick pink smoke, so that Fyodor sneezed
five times; and as he returned home afterwards, he
thought: "Anyone who feared God would not have anything to do
with things like that."
When there was nothing left in the bottle Fyodor put the boots on
the table and sank into thought. He leaned his heavy head on his
fist and began thinking of his poverty, of his hard life with no
glimmer of light in it. Then he thought of the rich,
of their big houses and their carriages, of their hundred-rouble
notes. . . . How nice it would be if the houses of these rich men
-- the devil flay them! -- were smashed, if their horses died, if
their fur coats and sable caps got shabby! How splendid it would
be if the rich, little by little, changed into beggars having
nothing, and he, a poor shoemaker, were to become rich, and were
to lord it over some other poor shoemaker on Christmas Eve.
Dreaming like this, Fyodor suddenly thought of his work, and
opened his eyes.
"Here's a go," he thought, looking at the boots. "The job has
been finished ever so long ago, and I go on sitting here. I must
take the boots to the gentleman."
He wrapped up the work in a red handkerchief, put on his things,
and went out into the street. A fine hard snow was falling,
pricking the face as though with needles. It was cold, slippery,
dark, the gas-lamps burned dimly, and for some reason there was
a smell of paraffin in the street, so that Fyodor coughed and
cleared his throat. Rich men were driving to and fro on the road,
and every rich man had a ham and a bottle of vodka in his hands.
Rich young ladies peeped at Fyodor out of the carriages and
sledges, put out their tongues and shouted, laughing:
"Beggar! Beggar!"
Students, officers, and merchants walked behind Fyodor, jeering
at him and crying:
"Drunkard! Drunkard! Infidel cobbler! Soul of a boot-leg!
Beggar!"
All this was insulting, but Fyodor held his tongue and only spat
in disgust. But when Kuzma Lebyodkin from Warsaw, a
master-bootmaker, met him and said: "I've married a rich woman
and I have men working under me, while you are a beggar and have
nothing to eat," Fyodor could not refrain from running after him.
He pursued him till he found himself in Kolokolny Lane. His
customer lived in the fourth house from the corner on the very
top floor. To reach him one had to go through a long, dark
courtyard, and then to climb up a very high slipp ery stair-case
which tottered under one's feet. When Fyodor went in to him he
was sitting on the floor pounding something in a mortar, just as
he had been the fortnight before.
"Your honor, I have brought your boots," said Fyodor sullenly.
The customer got up and began trying on the boots in silence.
Desiring to help him, Fyodor went down on one knee and pulled off
his old, boot, but at once jumped up and staggered towards the
door in horror. The customer had not a foot, but a hoof like a
horse's.
"Aha!" thought Fyodor; "here's a go!"
The first thing should have been to cross himself, then to leave
everything and run downstairs; but he immediately reflected that
he was meeting a devil for the first and probably the last time,
and not to take advantage of his services would be foolish. He
controlled himself and determined to try his luck. Clasping his
hands behind him to avoid making the sign of the cross, he
coughed respectfully and began:
"They say that there is nothing on earth more evil and impure
than the devil, but I am of the opinion, your honor, that the
devil is highly educated. He has -- excuse my saying it -- hoofs
and a tail behind, but he has more brains than many a student."
"I like you for what you say," said the devil, flattered. "Thank
you, shoemaker! What do you want?"
And without loss of time the shoemaker began complaining of his
lot. He began by saying that from his childhood up he had envied
the rich. He had always resented it that all people did not live
alike in big houses and drive with good horses. Why, he asked,
was he poor? How was he worse than Kuzma Lebyodkin from Warsaw,
who had his own house, and whose wife wore a hat? He had the same
sort of nose, the same hands, feet, head, and back, as the rich,
and so why was he forced to work when others were enjoying
themselves? Why was he married to Marya and not to a lady
smelling of scent? He had often seen beautiful young ladies in
the houses of rich customers, but they either took no notice of
him whatever, or else sometimes laughed and whispered to each
other: "What a red nose that shoemaker has!" It was true that
Marya was a good, kind, hard-working woman, but she was not
educated; her hand was heavy and hit hard, and if one had
occasion to speak of politics or anything intellectual before
her, she would put her spoke in and talk the most awful nonsense.
"What do you want, then?" his customer interrupted him.
"I beg you, your honor Satan Ivanitch, to be graciously pleased
to make me a rich man."
"Certainly. Only for that you must give me up your soul! Before
the cocks crow, go and sign on this paper here that you give me
up your soul."
"Your honor," said Fyodor politely, "when you ordered a pair of
boots from me I did not ask for the money in advance. One has
first to carry out the order and then ask for payment."
"Oh, very well!" the customer assented.
A bright flame suddenly flared up in the mortar, a pink thick
smoke came puffing out, and there was a smell of burnt feathers
and sulphur. When the smoke had subsided, Fyodor rubbed his eyes
and saw that he was no longer Fyodor, no longer a shoemaker, but
quite a different man, wearing a waistcoat and a watch-chain, in
a new pair of trousers, and that he was sitting in an armchair at
a big table. Two foot men were handing him dishes, bowing low and
saying:
"Kindly eat, your honor, and may it do you good!"
What wealth! The footmen handed him a big piece of roast mutton
and a dish of cucumbers, and then brought in a frying-pan a roast
goose, and a little afterwards boiled pork with horse-radish
cream. And how dignified, how genteel it all was! Fyodor ate,
and before each dish drank a big glass of excellent vodka, like
some general or some count. After the pork he was handed some
boiled grain moistened with goose fat, then an omelette with
bacon fat, then fried liver, and he went on eating and was
delighted. What more? They served, too, a pie with onion and
steamed turnip with kvass.
"How is it the gentry don't burst with such meals?" he thought.
In conclusion they handed him a big pot of honey. After dinner
the devil appeared in blue spectacles and asked with a low bow:
"Are you satisfied with your dinner, Fyodor Pantelyeitch?"
But Fyodor could not answer one word, he was so stuffed after his
dinner. The feeling of repletion was unpleasant, oppressive, and
to distract his thoughts he looked at the boot on his left foot.
"For a boot like that I used not to take less than seven and a
half roubles. What shoemaker made it?" he asked.
"Kuzma Lebyodkin," answered the footman.
"Send for him, the fool!"
Kuzma Lebyodkin from Warsaw soon made his appearance. He stopped
in a respectful attitude at the door and asked:
"What are your orders, your honor?"
"Hold your tongue!" cried Fyodor, and stamped his foot. "Don't
dare to argue; remember your place as a cobbler! Blockhead! You
don't know how to make boots! I'll beat your ugly phiz to a
jelly! Why have you come?"
"For money."
"What money? Be off! Come on Saturday! Boy, give him a cuff!"
But he at once recalled what a life the customers used to lead
him, too, and he felt heavy at heart, and to distract his
attention he took a fat pocketbook out of his pocket and began
counting his money. There was a great deal of money, but Fyodor
wanted more still. The devil in the blue spectacles brought him
another notebook fatter still, but he wanted even more; and the
more he counted it, the more discontented he became.
In the evening the evil one brought him a full-bosomed lady in a
red dress, and said that this was his new wife. He spent the
whole evening kissing her and eating gingerbreads, and at night
he went to bed on a soft, downy feather-bed, turned from side to
side, and could not go to sleep. He felt uncanny.
"We have a great deal of money," he said to his wife; "we must
look out or thieves will be breaking in. You had better go and
look with a candle."
He did not sleep all night, and kept getting up to see if his box
was all right. In the morning he had to go to church to matins.
In church the same honor is done to rich and poor alike. When
Fyodor was poor he used to pray in church like this: "God,
forgive me, a sinner!" He said the same thing now though he had
become rich. What difference was there? And after death Fyodor
rich would not be buried in gold, not in diamonds, but in the
same black earth as the poorest beggar. Fyodor would burn in the
same fire as cobblers. Fyodor resented all this, and, too, he
felt weighed down all over by his dinner, and instead of prayer
he had all sorts of thoughts in his head about his box of money,
about thieves, about his bartered, ruined soul.
He came out of church in a bad temper. To drive away his
unpleasant thoughts as he had often done before, he struck up a
song at the top of his voice. But as soon as he began a policeman
ran up and said, with his fingers to the peak of his cap:
"Your honor, gentlefolk must not sing in the street! You are not
a shoemaker!"
Fyodor leaned his back against a fence and fell to thinking: what
could he do to amuse himself?
"Your honor," a porter shouted to him, "don't lean against the
fence, you will spoil your fur coat!"
Fyodor went into a shop and bought himself the very best
concertina, then went out into the street playing it. Everybody
pointed at him and laughed.
"And a gentleman, too," the cabmen jeered at him; "like some
cobbler. . . ."
"Is it the proper thing for gentlefolk to be disorderly in the
street?" a policeman said to him. "You had better go into a
tavern!"
"Your honor, give us a trifle, for Christ's sake," the beggars
wailed, surrounding Fyodor on all sides.
In earlier days when he was a shoemaker the beggars took no
notice of him, now they wouldn't let him pass.
And at home his new wife, the lady, was waiting for him, dressed
in a green blouse and a red skirt. He meant to be attentive to
her, and had just lifted his arm to give her a good clout on the
back, but she said angrily:
"Peasant! Ignorant lout! You don't know how to behave with
ladies! If you love me you will kiss my hand; I don't allow you
to beat me."
"This is a blasted existence!" thought Fyodor. "People do lead a
life! You mustn't sing, you mustn't play the concertina, you
mustn't have a lark with a lady. . . . Pfoo!"
He had no sooner sat down to tea with the lady when the evil
spirit in the blue spectacles appeared and said:
"Come, Fyodor Pantelyeitch, I have performed my part of the
bargain. Now sign your paper and come along with me!"
And he dragged Fyodor to hell, straight to the furnace, and
devils flew up from all directions and shouted:
"Fool! Blockhead! Ass!"
There was a fearful smell of paraffin in hell, enough to
suffocate one. And suddenly it all vanished. Fyodor opened his
eyes and saw his table, the boots, and the tin lamp. The
lamp-glass was black, and from the faint light on the wick came
clouds of stinking smoke as from a chimney. Near the table stood
the customer in the blue spectacles, shouting angrily:
"Fool! Blockhead! Ass! I'll give you a lesson, you scoundrel! You
took the order a fortnight ago and the boots aren't ready yet! Do
you suppose I want to come trapesing round here half a dozen
times a day for my boots? You wretch! you brute!"
Fyodor shook his head and set to work on the boots. The customer
went on swearing and threatening him for a long time. At last
when he subsided, Fyodor asked sullenly:
"And what is your occupation, sir?"
"I make Bengal lights and fireworks. I am a pyrotechnician."
They began ringing for matins. Fyodor gave the customer the
boots, took the money for them, and went to church.
Carriages and sledges with bearskin rugs were dashing to and fro
in the street; merchants, ladies, officers were walking along the
pavement together with the humbler folk. . . . But Fyodor did not
envy them nor repine at his lot. It seemed to him now that rich
and poor were equally badly off. Some were able to drive in a
carriage, and others to sing songs at the top of their voice and
to play the concertina, but one and the same thing, the same
grave, was awaiting all alike, and there was nothing in life for
which one would give the devil even a tiny scrap of one's soul.
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