Chapter XII (2)

“Nothing pleases him--business, work, all people and deeds. Suppose I see that all is deceit, that business is not business, but merely a plug that we prop up with it the emptiness of our souls; that some work, while others only give orders and sweat, but get more for that. Why is it so? Eh?”

“I cannot grasp your idea,” announced Taras, when Foma paused, feeling on himself Lubov’s contemptuous and angry look.

“You do not understand?” asked Foma, looking at Taras with a smile. “Well, I’ll put it in this way:

A man is sailing in a boat on the river. The boat may be good, but under it there is always a depth all the same. The boat is sound, but if the man feels beneath him this dark depth, no boat can save him.”

Taras looked at Foma indifferently and calmly. He looked in silence, and softly tapped his fingers on the edge of the table. Lubov was uneasily moving about in her chair. The pendulum of the clock told the seconds with a dull, sighing sound. And Foma’s heart throbbed slowly and painfully, as though conscious that here no one would respond with a warm word to its painful perplexity.

“Work is not exactly everything for a man,” said he, more to himself than to these people who had no faith in the sincerity of his words. “It is not true that in work lies justification. There are people who do not work at all during all their lives long, and yet they live better than those that do work. How is that? And the toilers--they are merely unfortunate--horses! Others ride on them, they suffer and that’s all. But they have their justification before God. They will be asked: ‘To what purpose did you live?’ Then they will say: ‘We had no time to think of that. We worked all our lives.’ And I--what justification have I? And all those people who give orders--how will they justify themselves? To what purpose have they lived? It is my idea that everybody necessarily ought to know, to know firmly what he is living for.”

He became silent, and, tossing his head up, exclaimed in a heavy voice:

“Can it be that man is born merely to work, acquire money, build a house, beget children and--die? No, life means something. A man is born, he lives and dies. What for? It is necessary, by God, it is necessary for all of us to consider what we are living for. There is no sense in our life. No sense whatever! Then things are not equal, that can be seen at once. Some are rich--they have money enough for a thousand people, and they live in idleness. Others bend their backs over their work all their lives, and yet they have not even a grosh. And the difference in people is very insignificant. There are some that have not even any trousers and yet they reason as though they were attired in silks.”

Carried away by his thoughts, Foma would have continued to give them utterance, but Taras moved his armchair away from the table, rose and said softly, with a sigh:

“No, thank you! I don’t want any more.”

Foma broke off his speech abruptly, shrugged his shoulders and looked at Lubov with a smile.

“Where have you picked up such philosophy?” she asked, suspiciously and drily.

“That is not philosophy. That is simply torture!” said Foma in an undertone. “Open your eyes and look at everything. Then you will think so yourself.”

“By the way, Luba, turn your attention to the fact,” began Taras, standing with his back toward the table and scrutinizing the clock, “that pessimism is perfectly foreign to the Anglo-Saxon race. That which they call pessimism in Swift and in Byron is only a burning, sharp protest against the imperfection of life and man. But you cannot find among them the cold, well weighed and passive pessimism.”

Then, as though suddenly recalling Foma, he turned to him, clasping his hands behind his back, and, wriggling his thigh, said:

“You raise very important questions, and if you are seriously interested in them you must read books. In them will you find many very valuable opinions as to the meaning of life. How about you--do you read books?”

“No!” replied Foma, briefly.

“Ah!”

“I don’t like them.”

“Aha! But they might nevertheless be of some help to you,” said Taras, and a smile passed across his lips.

“Books? Since men cannot help me in my thoughts books can certainly do nothing for me,” ejaculated Foma, morosely.

He began to feel awkward and weary with this indifferent man. He felt like going away, but at the same time he wished to tell Lubov something insulting about her brother, and he waited till Taras would leave the room. Lubov washed the dishes; her face was concentrated and thoughtful; her hands moved lazily. Taras was pacing the room, now and then he stopped short before the sideboard on which was the silverware, whistled, tapped his fingers against the window-panes and examined the articles with his eyes half shut. The pendulum of the clock flashed beneath the glass door of the case like some broad, grinning face, and monotonously told the seconds. When Foma noticed that Lubov glanced at him a few times questioningly, with expectant and hostile looks, he understood that he was in her way and that she was impatiently expecting him to leave.

“I am going to stay here over night,” said he, with a smile. “I must speak with my godfather. And then it is rather lonesome in my house alone.”

“Then go and tell Marfusha to make the bed for you in the corner room,” Lubov hastened to advise him.

“I shall.”

He arose and went out of the dining-room. And he soon heard that Taras asked his sister about something in a low voice.

“About me!” he thought. Suddenly this wicked thought flashed through his mind: “It were but right to listen and hear what wise people have to say.”

He laughed softly, and, stepping on tiptoe, went noiselessly into the other room, also adjoining the dining-room. There was no light there, and only a thin band of light from the dining-room, passing through the unclosed door, lay on the dark floor. Softly, with sinking heart and malicious smile, Foma walked up close to the door and stopped.

“He’s a clumsy fellow,” said Taras.

Then came Lubov’s lowered and hasty speech:

“He was carousing here all the time. He carried on dreadfully! It all started somehow of a sudden. The first thing he did was to thrash the son-in-law of the Vice-Governor at the Club. Papa had to take the greatest pains to hush up the scandal, and it was a good thing that the Vice-Governor’s son-in-law is a man of very bad reputation. He is a card-sharper and in general a shady personality, yet it cost father more than two thousand roubles. And while papa was busying himself about that scandal Foma came near drowning a whole company on the Volga.”

“Ha-ha! How monstrous! And that same man busies himself with investigating as to the meaning of life.”

“On another occasion he was carousing on a steamer with a company of people like himself. Suddenly he said to them: ‘Pray to God! I’ll fling every one of you overboard!’ He is frightfully strong. They screamed, while he said: ‘I want to serve my country. I want to clear the earth of base people.’”

“Really? That’s clever!”

“He’s a terrible man! How many wild pranks he has perpetrated during these years! How much money he has squandered!”

“And, tell me, on what conditions does father manage his affairs for him? Do you know?”

“No, I don’t. He has a full power of attorney. Why do you ask?”

“Simply so. It’s a solid business. Of course it is conducted in purely Russian fashion; in other words, it is conducted abominably. But it is a splendid business, nevertheless. If it were managed properly it would be a most profitable gold mine.”

“Foma does absolutely nothing. Everything is in father’s hands.”

“Yes? That’s fine.”

“Do you know, sometimes it occurs to me that his thoughtful frame of mind--that these words of his are sincere, and that he can be very decent. But I cannot reconcile his scandalous life with his words and arguments. I cannot do it under any circumstances!”

“It isn’t even worthwhile to bother about it. The stripling and lazy bones seeks to justify his laziness.”

“No. You see, at times he is like a child. He was particularly so before.”

“Well, that’s what I have said: he’s a stripling. Is it worth while talking about an ignoramus and a savage, who wishes to remain an ignoramus and a savage, and does not conceal the fact? You see: he reasons as the bear in the fable bent the shafts.”

“You are very harsh.”

“Yes, I am harsh! People require that. We Russians are all desperately loose. Happily, life is so arranged that, whether we will it or not, we gradually brace up. Dreams are for the lads and maidens, but for serious people there is serious business.”

“Sometimes I feel very sorry for Foma. What will become of him?”

“That does not concern me. I believe that nothing in particular will become of him--neither good nor bad. The insipid fellow will squander his money away, and will be ruined. What else? Eh, the deuce take him! Such people as he is are rare nowadays. Now the merchant knows the power of education. And he, that foster-brother of yours, he will go to ruin.”

“That’s true, sir!” said Foma, opening the door and appearing on the threshold.

Pale, with knitted brow and quivering lips, he stared straight into Taras’s face and said in a dull voice: “True! I will go to ruin and--amen! The sooner the better!”

Lubov sprang up from the chair with frightened face, and ran up to Taras, who stood calmly in the middle of the room, with his hands thrust in his pockets.

“Foma! Oh! Shame! You have been eavesdropping. Oh, Foma!” said she in confusion.

“Keep quiet, you lamb!” said Foma to her.

“Yes, eavesdropping is wrong!” ejaculated Taras, slowly, without lifting from Foma his look of contempt.

“Let it be wrong!” said Foma, with a wave of the hand. “Is it my fault that the truth can be learned by eavesdropping only?”

“Go away, Foma, please!” entreated Lubov, pressing close to her brother.

“Perhaps you have something to say to me?” asked Taras, calmly.

“I?” exclaimed Foma. “What can I say? I cannot say anything. It is you who--you, I believe, know everything.”

“You have nothing then to discuss with me?” asked Taras again.

“I am very pleased.”

He turned sideways to Foma and inquired of Lubov:

“What do you think--will father return soon?”

Foma looked at him, and, feeling something akin to respect for the man, deliberately left the house. He did not feel like going to his own huge empty house, where each step of his awakened a ringing echo, he strolled along the street, which was enveloped in the melancholy gray twilight of late autumn. He thought of Taras Mayakin.

“How severe he is. He takes after his father. Only he’s not so restless. He’s also a cunning rogue, I think, while Lubka regarded him almost as a saint. That foolish girl! What a sermon he read to me! A regular judge. And she--she was kind toward me.” But all these thoughts stirred in him no feelings--neither hatred toward Taras nor sympathy for Lubov. He carried with him something painful and uncomfortable, something incomprehensible to him, that kept growing within his breast, and it seemed to him that his heart was swollen and was gnawing as though from an abscess. He hearkened to that unceasing and indomitable pain, noticed that it was growing more and more acute from hour to hour, and, not knowing how to allay it, waited for the results.

Then his godfather’s trotter passed him. Foma saw in the carriage the small figure of Yakov Mayakin, but even that aroused no feeling in him. A lamplighter ran past Foma, overtook him, placed his ladder against the lamp post and went up. The ladder suddenly slipped under his weight, and he, clasping the lamp post, cursed loudly and angrily. A girl jostled Foma in the side with her bundle and said:

“Excuse me.”

He glanced at her and said nothing. Then a drizzling rain began to fall from the sky--tiny, scarcely visible drops of moisture overcast the lights of the lanterns and the shop windows with grayish dust. This dust made him breathe with difficulty.

“Shall I go to Yozhov and pass the night there? I might drink with him,” thought Foma and went away to Yozhov, not having the slightest desire either to see the feuilleton-writer or to drink with him.

At Yozhov’s he found a shaggy fellow sitting on the lounge. He had on a blouse and gray pantaloons. His face was swarthy, as though smoked, his eyes were large, immobile and angry, his thick upper lip was covered with a bristle-like, soldier moustache. He was sitting on the lounge, with his feet clasped in his huge arms and his chin resting on his knees. Yozhov sat sideways in a chair, with his legs thrown across the arm of the chair. Among books and newspapers on the table stood a bottle of vodka and there was an odour of something salty in the room.

“Why are you tramping about?” Yozhov asked Foma, and, nodding at him, said to the man on the lounge: “Gordyeeff!”

The man glanced at the newcomer and said in a harsh, shrill voice: “Krasnoshchokov.”

Foma seated himself on a corner of the lounge and said to Yozhov:

“I have come to stay here over night.”

“Well? Go on, Vasily.”

The latter glanced at Foma askance and went on in a creaking voice:

“In my opinion, you are attacking the stupid people in vain. Masaniello was a fool, but what had to be performed was done in the best way possible. And that Winkelried was certainly a fool also, and yet had he not thrust the imperial spears into himself the Swiss would have been thrashed. Have there not been many fools like that? Yet they are the heroes. And the clever people are the cowards. Where they ought to deal the obstacle a blow with all their might they stop to reflect: ‘What will come of it? Perhaps we may perish in vain?’ And they stand there like posts--until they breathe their last. And the fool is brave! He rushes headforemost against the wall--bang! If his skull breaks--what of it? Calves’ heads are not dear. And if he makes a crack in the wall the clever people will pick it open into gates, will pass and credit themselves with the honour. No, Nikolay Matveyich, bravery is a good thing even though it be without reason.”

“Vasily, you are talking nonsense!” said Yozhov, stretching his hand toward him.

“Ah, of course!” assented Vasily. “How am I to sip cabbage soup with a bast shoe? And yet I am not blind. I can see. There is plenty of brains, but no good comes of it. During the time the clever people think and reflect as to how to act in the wisest way, the fools will down them. That’s all.”

“Wait a little!” said Yozhov.

“I can’t! I am on duty today. I am rather late as it is. I’ll drop in tomorrow--may I?”

“Come! I’ll give a roasting!”

“That’s exactly your business.”

Vasily adjusted himself slowly, rose from the lounge, took Yozhov’s yellow, thin little hand in his big, swarthy paw and pressed it.

“Goodbye!”

Then he nodded toward Foma and went through the door sideways.

“Have you seen?” Yozhov asked Foma, pointing his hand at the door, behind which the heavy footsteps still resounded.

“What sort of a man is he?”

“Assistant machinist, Vaska Krasnoshchokov. Here, take an example from him: At the age of fifteen he began to study, to read and write, and at twenty-eight he has read the devil knows how many good books, and has mastered two languages to perfection. Now he’s going abroad.”

“What for?” inquired Foma.

“To study. To see how people live there, while you languish here--what for?”

“He spoke sensibly of the fools,” said Foma, thoughtfully.

“I don’t know, for I am not a fool.”

“That was well said. The stupid man ought to act at once. Rush forward and overturn.”

“There, he’s broken loose!” exclaimed Yozhov. “You better tell me whether it is true that Mayakin’s son has returned?”

“Yes.”

“Why do you ask?”

“Nothing.”

“I can see by your face that there is something.”

“We know all about his son; we’ve heard about him.”

“But I have seen him.”

“Well? What sort of man is he?”

“The devil knows him! What have I to do with him?”

“Is he like his father?”

“He’s stouter, plumper; there is more seriousness about him; he is so cold.”

“Which means that he will be even worse than Yashka. Well, now, my dear, be on your guard or they will suck you dry.”

“Well, let them do it!”

“They’ll rob you. You’ll become a pauper. That Taras fleeced his father-in-law in Yekateringburg so cleverly.”

“Let him fleece me too, if he likes. I shall not say a word to him except ‘thanks.’”

“You are still singing that same old tune?”

“Yes.”

“To be set at liberty.”

“Yes.”

“Drop it! What do you want freedom for? What will you do with it? Don’t you know that you are not fit for anything, that you are illiterate, that you certainly cannot even split a log of wood? Now, if I could only free myself from the necessity of drinking vodka and eating bread!”

Yozhov jumped to his feet, and, stopping in front of Foma, began to speak in a loud voice, as though declaiming:

“I would gather together the remains of my wounded soul, and together with the blood of my heart I would spit them into the face of our intelligent society, the devil take it! I would say to them:

‘You insects, you are the best sap of my country! The fact of your existence has been repaid by the blood and the tears of scores of generations of Russian people. O, you nits! How dearly your country has paid for you! What are you doing for its sake in return? Have you transformed the tears of the past into pearls? What have you contributed toward life? What have you accomplished? You have permitted yourselves to be conquered? What are you doing? You permit yourselves to be mocked.’”

He stamped his feet with rage, and setting his teeth together stared at Foma with burning, angry looks, and resembled an infuriated wild beast.

“I would say to them: ‘You! You reason too much, but you are not very wise, and you are utterly powerless, and you are all cowards! Your hearts are filled up with morality and noble intentions, but they are as soft and warm as feather beds; the spirit of creativeness sleeps within them a profound and calm sleep, and your hearts do not throb, they merely rock slowly, like cradles.’ Dipping my finger in the blood of my heart, I would smear upon their brows the brands of my reproaches, and they, paupers in spirit, miserable in their self-contentment, they would suffer. Oh, how they would suffer! My scourge is sharp, my hand is firm! And I love too deeply to have compassion! They would suffer! And now they do not suffer, for they speak of their sufferings too much, too often, and too loud! They lie! Genuine suffering is mute, and genuine passion knows no bounds! Passions, passions! When will they spring up in the hearts of men? We are all miserable because of apathy.”

Short of breath he burst into a fit of coughing, he coughed for a long time, hopping about hither and thither, waving his hands like a madman. And then he again stopped in front of Foma with pale face and blood-shot eyes. He breathed heavily, his lips trembled now and then, displaying his small, sharp teeth. Dishevelled, with his head covered with short heir, he looked like a perch just thrown out of the water. This was not the first time Foma saw him in such a state, and, as always, he was infected by his agitation. He listened to the fiery words of the small man, silently, without attempting to understand their meaning, having no desire to know against whom they were directed, absorbing their force only. Yozhov’s words bubbled on like boiling water, and heated his soul.

“I will say to them, to those miserable idlers:

‘Look! Life goes onward, leaving you behind!’”

“Eh! That’s fine!” exclaimed Foma, ecstatically, and began to move about on the lounge. “You’re a hero, Nikolay! Oh! Go ahead! Throw it right into their faces!”

But Yozhov was not in need of encouragement, it seemed even as though he had not heard at all Foma’s exclamations, and he went on:

“I know the limitations of my powers. I know they’ll shout at me: ‘Hold your peace!’ They’ll tell me: ‘Keep silence!’ They will say it wisely, they will say it calmly, mocking me, they will say it from the height of their majesty. I know I am only a small bird, Oh, I am not a nightingale! Compared with them I am an ignorant man, I am only a feuilleton-writer, a man to amuse the public. Let them cry and silence me, let them do it! A blow will fall on my cheek, but the heart will nevertheless keep on throbbing! And I will say to them:

“‘Yes, I am an ignorant man! And my first advantage over you is that I do not know a single book-truth dearer to me than a man! Man is the universe, and may he live forever who carries the whole world within him! And you,’ I will say, ‘for the sake of a word which, perhaps, does not always contain a meaning comprehensible to you, for the sake of a word you often inflict sores and wounds on one another, for the sake of a word you spurt one another with bile, you assault the soul. For this, believe me, life will severely call you to account: a storm will break loose, and it will whisk and wash you off the earth, as wind and rain whisk and wash the dust off a tree I There is in human language only one word whose meaning is clear and dear to everybody, and when that word is pronounced, it sounds thus: ‘Freedom!’”

“Crush on!” roared Foma, jumping up from the lounge and grasping Yozhov by the shoulders. With flashing eyes he gazed into Yozhov’s face, bending toward him, and almost moaned with grief and affliction: “Oh! Nikolay! My dear fellow, I am mortally sorry for you! I am more sorry than words can tell!”

“What’s this? What’s the matter with you?” cried Yozhov, pushing him away, amazed and shifted from his position by Foma’s unexpected outburst and strange words.

“Oh, brother!” said Foma, lowering his voice, which thus sounded deeper, more persuasive. “Oh, living soul, why do you sink to ruin?”

“Who? I? I sink? You lie!”

“My dear boy! You will not say anything to anybody! There is no one to speak to! Who will listen to you? Only I!”

“Go to the devil!” shouted Yozhov, angrily, jumping away from him as though he had been scorched.

And Foma went toward him, and spoke convincingly, with intense sorrow:

“Speak! speak to me! I shall carry away your words to the proper place. I understand them. And, ah! how I will scorch the people! Just wait! My opportunity will come.”

“Go away!” screamed Yozhov, hysterically, squeezing his back to the wall, under Foma’s pressure. Perplexed, crushed, and infuriated he stood and waved off Foma’s arms outstretched toward him. And at this time the door of the room opened, and on the threshold appeared a woman all in black. Her face was angry-looking and excited, her cheek was tied up with a kerchief. She tossed her head back, stretched out her hand toward Yozhov and said, in a hissing and shrill voice:

“Nikolay Matveyich! Excuse me, but this is impossible! Such beast-like howling and roaring. Guests everyday. The police are coming. No, I can’t bear it any longer! I am nervous. Please vacate the lodgings to-morrow. You are not living in a desert, there are people about you here. And an educated man at that! A writer! All people require rest. I have a toothache. I request you to move tomorrow. I’ll paste up a notice, I’ll notify the police.”

She spoke rapidly, and the majority of her words were lost in the hissing and whistling of her voice; only those words were distinct, which she shrieked out in a shrill, irritated tone. The corners of her kerchief protruded on her head like small horns, and shook from the movement of her jaws. At the sight of her agitated and comical figure Foma gradually retreated toward the lounge, while Yozhov stood, and wiping his forehead, stared at her fixedly, and listened to her words:

“So know it now!” she screamed, and behind the door, she said once more:

“Tomorrow! What an outrage.”

“Devil!” whispered Yozhov, staring dully at the door.

“Yes! what a woman! How strict!” said Foma, looking at him in amazement, as he seated himself on the lounge.

Yozhov, raising his shoulders, walked up to the table, poured out a half a tea-glass full of vodka, emptied it and sat down by the table, bowing his head low. There was silence for about a minute. Then Foma said, timidly and softly:

“How it all happened! We had no time even to wink an eye, and, suddenly, such an outcome. Ah!”

“You!” said Yozhov in an undertone, tossing up his head, and staring at Foma angrily and wildly. “Keep quiet! You, the devil take you. Lie down and sleep! You monster. Nightmare. Oh!”

And he threatened Foma with his fist. Then he filled the glass with more brandy, and emptied it again.

A few minutes later Foma lay undressed on the lounge, and, with half-shut eyes, followed Yozhov who sat by the table in an awkward pose. He stared at the floor, and his lips were quietly moving. Foma was astonished, he could not make out why Yozhov had become angry at him. It could not be because he had been ordered to move out. For it was he himself who had been shouting.

“Oh devil!” whispered Yozhov, and gnashed his teeth.

Foma quietly lifted his head from the pillow. Yozhov deeply and noisily sighing, again stretched out his hand toward the bottle. Then Foma said to him softly:

“Let’s go to some hotel. It isn’t late yet.”

Yozhov looked at him, and, rubbing his head with his hands, began to laugh strangely. Then he rose from his chair and said to Foma curtly:

“Dress yourself!”

And seeing how clumsily and slowly he turned on the lounge, Yozhov shouted with anger and impatience:

“Well, be quicker! You personification of stupidity. You symbolical cart-shaft.”

“Don’t curse!” said Foma, with a peaceable smile. “Is it worthwhile to be angry because a woman has cackled?”

Yozhov glanced at him, spat and burst into harsh laughter.