by Maxim Gorky
“What are you talking about?” Rayisa asked in amazement.
“That’s true.”
For several moments they looked at each other in silence. The boy’s heart beat quickly. His cheeks grew red with embarrassment.
“Well, now, go,” said Rayisa quietly arising. “Go, or else he will ask you why you stayed away so long. Don’t tell him you were with me. You won’t, will you?”
Yevsey walked away filled with the tender sound of the singing voice, and warmed by the sympathetic look. The woman’s words rang in his memory enveloping his heart in quiet joy.
That day was strangely long. Over the roofs of the houses and the Circle hung a grey cloud. The day, weary and dull, seemed to have become entangled in its grey mass, and, like the cloud, to have halted over the city. After dinner two customers entered the shop, one a stooping lean man with a pretty, grizzled mustache, the other a man with a red beard and spectacles. Both pottered about among the books long and minutely. The lean man kept whistling softly through his quivering mustache, while the red-bearded man spoke with the master.
Yevsey knew beforehand just what the master would say and how he would say it. The boy was bored. He was impatient for the evening to come, and he tried to relieve the tedium by listening to the words of the old man Raspopov, and verifying his conjectures while he arranged in a row the books the customers had selected.
“You are buying these books for a library?” the old man inquired affably.
“For the library of the Teachers’ Association,” replied the red-bearded man. “Why?”
“Now he’ll praise them up,” thought Yevsey, and he was not mistaken.
“You show extremely good judgment in your choice. It is pleasant to see a correct estimate of books.”
“Pleasant?”
“Now he’ll smile,” thought Yevsey.
“Yes, indeed,” said the old man, smiling graciously. “You get used to these books, so that you get to love them. You see they aren’t dead wood, but products of the mind. So when a customer also respects books, it is pleasant. Our average customer is a comical fellow. He comes and asks, ‘Have you any interesting books?’ It’s all the same to him. He seeks amusement, play, but no benefit. But occasionally someone will suddenly ask for a prohibited book.”
“How’s that? Prohibited?” asked the man screwing up his small eyes.
“Prohibited from libraries—published abroad, or secretly in Russia.”
“Are such books for sale?”
“Now he will speak real low.” Again Yevsey was not mistaken.
Fixing his glasses upon the face of the red-bearded man, the master lowered his voice almost to a whisper.
“Why not? Sometimes you buy a whole library, and you come across everything there, everything.”
“Have you such books now?”
“Several.”
“Let me see them, please.”
“Only I must ask you not to say anything about them. You see it’s not for the sake of profit, but as a courtesy. One likes to do favors now and then.”
The stooping man stopped whistling, adjusted his spectacles, and looked attentively at the old man.
Today the master was utterly loathsome to Yevsey, who kept looking at him with cold, gloomy malice. And now when Raspopov went over to the corner of the shop to show the red-bearded man some books there, the boy suddenly and quite involuntarily said in a whisper to the stooping customer:
“Don’t buy those books.”
Yevsey trembled with fright the moment he had spoken. The man raised his glasses, and peered into the boy’s face with his bright eyes.
“Why?”
With a great effort Yevsey answered after a pause:
“I don’t know.”
The customer readjusted his glasses, moved away from him, and began to whistle louder, looking sidewise at the old man. Then he raised his hand, which made him straighter and taller, stroked his grey mustache, and without haste walked up to his companion, from whom he took the book. He looked it over, and dropped it on the table. Yevsey followed his movements expecting some calamity to befall himself. But the stooping man merely touched his companion’s arm, and said simply and calmly:
“Well, let’s go.”
“But the books?” exclaimed the other.
“Let’s go. I won’t buy any books here.”
The red-bearded man looked at him, then at the master, his small eyes winking rapidly. Then he walked to the door, and out into the street.
“You don’t want the books?” demanded Raspopov.
Yevsey realized by his tone that the old man was surprised.
“I don’t,” answered the customer, his eyes fixed upon the face of the master.
Raspopov shrank. He went to his chair, and suddenly said with a wave of his hand in an unnaturally loud voice, which was new to Yevsey:
“As you please, of course. Still—excuse me, I don’t understand.”
“What don’t you understand?” asked the stooping man, smiling.
“You looked through the books for two hours or more, agreed on a price, and suddenly—why?” cried the old man in excitement.
“Well, because I recollected your disgusting face. You haven’t given up the ghost yet? What a pity!”
The stooping man pronounced his words slowly, not loud, and precisely. He left the shop deliberately, with a heavy tread.
For a minute the old man looked after him, then tore himself from where he was standing, and advanced upon Yevsey with short steps.
“Follow him, find out where he lives,” he said in a rapid whisper, clutching the boy’s shoulder. “Go! Don’t let him see you! You understand? Quick!”
Yevsey swayed from side to side, and would have fallen, had the old man not held him firmly on his feet. He felt a void in his breast, and his master’s words crackled there drily like peas in a rattle.
“What are you trembling about, you donkey? I tell you—”
When Yevsey felt his master’s hand release his shoulder, he ran to the door.
“Stop, you fool!” Yevsey stood still. “Where are you going? Why, you won’t be able—oh, my God! Get out of my sight!”
Yevsey darted into a corner. It was the first time he had seen his master so violent. He realized that his annoyance was tinged with much fear, a feeling very familiar to himself; and notwithstanding the fact that his own soul was desolate with fear, it pleased him to see Raspopov’s alarm.
The little dusty old man threw himself about in the shop like a rat in a trap. He ran to the door, thrust his head into the street, stretched his neck out, and again turned back into the shop. His hands groped over his body impotently, and he mumbled and hissed, shaking his head till his glasses jumped from his nose.
“Umm, well, well—the dirty blackguard—the idea! The dirty blackguard! I’m alive—alive!” Several minutes later he shouted to Yevsey. “Close the shop!”
On entering his room the old man crossed himself. He drew a deep breath, and flung himself on the black sofa. Usually so sleek and smooth, he was now all ruffled. His face had grown wrinkled, his clothes had suddenly become too large for him, and hung in folds from his agitated body.
“Tell Rayisa to give me some peppered brandy, a large glassful.” When Yevsey brought the brandy the master rose, drank it down in one gulp, and opening his mouth wide looked a long time into Yevsey’s face.
“Do you understand that he insulted me?”
“Yes.”
“And do you understand why?”
“No.”
The old man raised his hand, and silently shook his finger.
“I know him—I know a great deal,” he said in a broken voice.
Removing his black cap he rubbed his bare skull with his hands, looked about the room, again touched his head with his hands, and la
y down on the sofa.
Rayisa Petrovna brought in supper.
“Are you tired?” she asked as she set the table.
“It seems I am a little under the weather. Fever, I think. Give me another glass of brandy. Sit down with us. It’s too early for you to go.”
He talked rapidly. Rayisa sat down, the old man raised his glasses, and scanned her suspiciously from head to foot. At supper he suddenly lifted his spoon and said:
“Impossible for me to eat. I’ll tell you about something that happened.” Bending over the plate he was silent for some time as if considering whether or not to speak of the incident. Then he began with a sigh. “Suppose a man has a wife, his own house, not a large house, a garden, and a vegetable garden, a cook, all acquired by hard labor without sparing himself. Then comes a young man, sickly, consumptive, who rents a room in the garret, and takes meals with the master and mistress.”
Rayisa listened calmly and attentively. Yevsey felt bored. While looking into the woman’s face he stubbornly endeavored to comprehend what had happened in the shop that day. He felt as if he had unexpectedly struck a match and set fire to something old and long dried, which began to burn alarmingly and almost consumed him in its sudden malicious blaze.
“I must keep quiet,” he thought.
“Were you the man?” asked Rayisa.
Raspopov quickly raised his head.
“Why I?” he asked. He struck his breast, and exclaimed with angry heat, “The question here is, not about the man but about the law. Ought a man uphold the law? Yes, he ought. Without law it is impossible to live. You people are stupid, because man is in every respect like a beast. He is greedy, malicious, cruel.”
The old man rose a little from his armchair, and shouted his words in Rayisa’s face. His bald pate reddened. Yevsey listened to his exclamations without believing in their sincerity. He reflected on how people are bound together and enmeshed by some unseen threads, and how if one thread is accidentally pulled, they twist and turn, rage and cry out. So he said to himself:
“I must be more careful.”
The old man continued:
“Words bring no harm if you do not listen to them. But when the fellow in the garret began to trouble her heart with his ideas, she, a stupid young woman, and that friend of his who—who today—” The old man suddenly came to a stop, and looked at Yevsey. “What are you thinking about?” he asked in a low suspicious tone.
Yevsey rose and answered in embarrassment:
“I am not thinking.”
“Well, then, go. You’ve had your supper. So go. Clear the table.”
Desiring to vex his master Yevsey was intentionally slow in removing the dishes from the table.
“Go, I tell you!” the old man screamed in a squeaking voice. “Oh, what a fool you are!”
Yevsey went to his room, and seated himself on the chest. Having left the door slightly ajar, he could hear his master’s rapid talk.
“They came for him one night. She got frightened, began to shiver, understood then on what road these people had put her. I told her—”
“So it was you?” Rayisa asked aloud.
The old man now began to speak in a low voice, almost a whisper. Then Yevsey heard Rayisa’s clear voice:
“Did he die?”
“Well, what of it?” the old man shouted excitedly. “You can’t cure a man of consumption. He would have died at any rate.”
Yevsey sat upon the chest listening to the low rasping sound of his talk.
“What are you sitting there for?”
The boy turned around, and saw the master’s head thrust through the door.
“Lie down and sleep.”
The master withdrew his head, and the door was tightly closed.
“Who died?” Yevsey thought as he lay in bed.
The dry words of the old man came fluttering down and fluttering down, like autumn leaves upon a grave. The boy felt more and more distinctly that he lived in a circle of dread mystery. Sometimes the old man grew angry, and shouted; which prevented the boy from thinking or sleeping. He was sorry for Rayisa, who kept peacefully silent in answer to his ejaculations. At last Yevsey heard her go to her own room. Perfect stillness then prevailed in the master’s room for several minutes, after which Raspopov’s voice sounded again, but now even as usual:
“Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sit—”
With these reassuring words ringing in his ears Yevsey fell asleep.
The next morning Rayisa again called him to her.
“What happened in the shop yesterday?” she asked with a smile when he had seated himself.
Yevsey told her everything in detail, and she laughed contentedly and happily. She suddenly drew her brows together and asked in an undertone:
“Do you understand who he is?”
“No.”
“A spy,” she whispered, her eyes growing wide with fright.
Yevsey was silent. She rose and went to him.
“What a tragic fellow you are!” she said thoughtfully and kindly, stroking his head. “You don’t understand anything. You’re so droll. What was the stuff you told me the other day? What other life?”
The question animated him; he wanted very much to talk about it. Raising his head and looking into her face with the fathomless stare of blind eyes, he began to speak rapidly.
“Of course there’s another life. From where else do the fairy-tales come? And not only the fairy-tales, but—”
The woman smiled, and rumpled his hair with her warm fingers.
“You little stupid! They’ll seize you,” she added seriously, even sternly, “they’ll lead you wherever they want to, and do with you whatever they want to. That will be your life.”
Yevsey nodded his head, silently assenting to Rayisa’s words.
She sighed and looked through the window upon the street. When she turned to Yevsey, her face surprised him. It was red, and her eyes had become smaller and darker.
“If you were smarter,” she said in an indolent, hollow voice, “or more alert, maybe I would tell you something. But you’re such a queer chappie there’s no use telling you anything, and your master ought to be choked to death. There, now, go tell him what I’ve said—you tell him everything.”
Yevsey rose from the table, feeling as if a cold stream of insult had been poured over him. He inclined his head and mumbled:
“I’ll never tell anything about you—to nobody. I love you very much, and—even if you choked him, I wouldn’t tell anybody. That’s how I love you.”
He shuffled to the door, but the woman’s hands caught him like warm white wings, and turned him back.
“Did I insult you?” he heard. “Well, excuse me. If you knew what a devil he is, how he tortures me, and how I hate him. Dear me!” She pressed his face tightly to her breast, and kissed him twice. “So you love me?”
“Yes,” whispered Yevsey, feeling himself turning around lightly in a hot whirlpool of unknown bliss.
“How?”
“I don’t know. I love you very much.”
Laughing and fondling him, she said:
“You’ll tell me about it. Ah, you little baby!”
Going down the stairs he heard her satisfied laugh, and smiled in response. His head turned, his entire body was suffused with sweet lassitude. He walked quietly and cautiously, as if afraid of spilling the hot joy of his heart.
“Why have you been so long?” asked the master.
Yevsey looked at him, but saw only a confused, formless blur.
“I have a headache,” he answered slowly.
“And I, too. What does it mean? Has Rayisa gotten up?”
“Yes.”
“Did she speak to you?”
“Yes.”
<
br /> “What about?” the master asked hastily.
The question was like a slap in Yevsey’s face. He recovered, however, and answered indifferently:
“She said I hadn’t swept the kitchen clean.”
A few moments later Yevsey heard the old man’s low dejected exclamation:
“That woman is a dangerous creature! Yes, yes! She tries to find everything out, and makes you tell her whatever she wants.”
Yevsey looked at him from a distance, and thought:
“I wish you were dead.”
The days passed rapidly, fused in a jumbled mass, as if joy were lying in wait ahead. But every day grew more and more exciting.
CHAPTER VII
The old man became sulky and taciturn. He peered around strangely, suddenly burst into a passion, shouted, and howled dismally, like a sick dog. He constantly complained of a pain in his head and nausea. At meals he smelt of the food suspiciously, crumbled the bread into small pieces with his shaking fingers, and held the tea and brandy up to the light. His nightly scoldings of Rayisa, in which he threatened to bring ruin upon her, became more and more frequent. But she answered all his outcries with soft composure.
Yevsey’s love for the woman waxed stronger, and his sad, embittered heart was filled with hatred of his master.
“Don’t I understand what you’re up to, you low-down woman?” raged the old man. “What does my sickness come from? What are you poisoning me with?”
“What are you saying? What are you saying?” exclaimed the woman, her calm voice quivering. “You are sick from old age.”
“You lie! You lie!”
“And from fright besides.”
“You miserable creature, keep quiet!”
“You suffer from the weight of years.”
“You lie!”
“And it’s time you thought of death.”
“Aha! That’s what you want! You lie! You hope in vain! I’m not the only one to know all about you. I told Dorimedont Lukin about you.” He burst again into a loud tearful whine. “I know he’s your paramour. It’s he who talked you over into poisoning me. You think you’ll have it easier with him, don’t you? You won’t, you won’t!”
