MAXIM GORKY (continued 8)

"And how did you find the road?"

"Why, the horses got chilled, and started ahead of their own accord, and they went on, and on until they reached a village thirteen versts away from ours. You know, our village is near here, about four versts distant. If you were to go along the shore, and then by the footpath, through the forest, to the right, you would come upon a hollow, and our home-farm would be in sight. But by the highway, it is ten versts from here."

Several saucy birds hovered around them, and perching upon the branches of the bushes, twittered valiantly, as though imparting to one another their impressions concerning these two persons, alone there in the heart of the forest. From afar laughter, talking and the splash of oars was wafted to them,—probably from Grigóry and Másha as they rowed on the river.

"Suppose we call them, and go in that direction, among the pines?"—suggested Várenka.

He assented, and placing her hand to her mouth like a trumpet, she began to shout:

"Row thi-is wa-ay!"

Her bosom strained with the cry, and Ippolít Sergyéevitch admired her in silence. He had to think of some-thing—of something very serious, he felt,—but he did not wish to think, and this faint appeal of his mind did not prevent his calmly and freely resigning himself to the more powerful command of his feelings.

The boat came in sight. Grigóry's face was sly and rather guilty; Másha's bore a fictitious expression of anger; but Várenka, as she took her seat in the boat, glanced at them, and laughed, and then they both began to laugh, confused and happy.

"Venus and her petted slaves," said Ippolít Sergyéevitch to himself.

In the pine forest it was solemn and still as in a temple, and the mighty, stately tree-trunks stood like columns, supporting a heavy vault of dark verdure. A warm, heavy odor of resin filled the air, and under their feet the dry pine-needles crackled softly. In front, behind, on every side, stood the reddish pines, and only here and there, at their roots, through a layer of needles, did a pallid green force its way. In the stillness and in silence the two people strolled slowly amid this dumb life, turning now to the right, now to the left, to avoid trees which barred their path.

"We shall not go astray?"—inquired Ippolít Sergyéevitch.

"I go astray?" said Várenka in surprise.—"I can always, everywhere find the way I require ... all one has to do is to look at the sun."

He did not ask her how the sun pointed out the road to her, he did not, in the least, wish to speak, although he felt, at times, that he might say a very great deal to her. But these were internal impulses of desire, flashing up on the surface of his calm mood, and dying out again in a second, without agitating him. Várenka walked by his side, and on her face he beheld the reflection of quiet ecstasy.

"Is this nice?" she asked him, now and then, and a caressing smile caused her lips to quiver.

"Yes, very," he replied briefly, and again they fell silent, as they roamed through the forest. It seemed to him that he was a young man, devoutly in love, a stranger to sinful intentions, and to all inward conflict with himself. But every time that his eyes fell upon the spots of mud on her gown, a disquieting shadow fell upon his soul. And he did not understand how this happened, that suddenly, all in a moment, when such a shadow enveloped his consciousness, with a deep sigh, as though casting off a weight, he said to her:

"What a beauty you are!"

She looked at him in amazement.

"What ails you? You have held your peace, held your peace—and then, suddenly, you say that!"

Ippolít Sergyéevitch smiled faintly, disarmed by her composure.

"It is so beautiful here.. you know! The forest is beautiful ... and you are like a fairy in it ... or, you are a goddess, and the forest is your temple."

"No," she replied, with a smile, "it is not my forest, it belongs to the Crown, but our forest is yonder, down the river."

And she pointed with her hand somewhere to one side.

"Is she jesting, or ... does not she understand?—" said Ippolít Sergyéevitch to himself, and a persistent desire to talk to her about her beauty began to blaze up within him. But she was pensive, calm, and this restrained him during the entire time of their stroll.

They rambled on for a long time, but said little, for the soft, peaceful impressions of that day had breathed into their souls a sweet languor, in which all desires had sunk to rest, except the desire to meditate in silence upon something inexpressible in words.

On their return home, they learned that Elizavéta Sergyéevna had not yet arrived, and they began to drink tea, which Másha hastily prepared. Immediately after tea, Várenka rode off homeward, having exacted from him a promise to come to their manor with Elizavéta Sergyéevna. He saw her off, and as he reached the terrace, he surprised in himself a mournful sensation of having lost something which was indispensable to him. As he sat at the table, whereon still stood his glass of tea, which had grown cold, he sternly tried to bring himself up short, to suppress this whole play of emotions excited by the day, but pity for himself made its appearance, and he rejected all operations on himself.

"Why?" he said to himself—"can all this be serious? It is a frolic, nothing more. It will not hurt her, it cannot hurt her, even if I wished it. It somewhat interferes with my life ... but there is so much that is young and beautiful about it...."

Then, smiling condescendingly to himself, he recalled his firm resolve to develop her mind, and his unsuccessful efforts to do so.

"No, evidently, one must use different words with her. These unadulterated natures are more inclined to yield their directness to metaphysics ... defending themselves against logic by the armor of blind, primitive feeling.... She is a strange girl!"

His sister found him engrossed in thoughts about her. She made her appearance in noisy, animated mood,—such as he had not beheld her hitherto. After ordering Másha to boil the samovár, she seated herself opposite her brother, and began to tell him about the Benkóvskys. "Forth from all the cracks of their ancient house peer the cruel eyes of poverty, which is celebrating its victory over that family. In the house, to all appearances, there is not a kopék of money, nor any provisions; they sent to the village to get eggs for dinner. There was no meat at dinner, and so old Benkóvsky talked a great deal about vegetarianism, and about the possibility of the moral regeneration of people on that basis. The whole place reeks of decay, and they are all bad-tempered—from hunger, probably." She had gone to them with the proposition that they should sell her a small plot of land which cut into her estate.

"Why did you do that?" inquired Ippolít Sergyéevitch, with interest.

"Well, you can hardly appreciate the calculations which I am carrying out. Imagine—it is on account of my future children,—" she said, laughing. "Well, and how have you passed the time?"

"Agreeably."

She said nothing, but eyed him askance.

"Excuse me for the question ... aren't you a little bit afraid of being captivated by Várenka?"

"What is there to fear?" he inquired, with an interest which was incomprehensible to himself.

"The possibility of being strongly carried away?"

"Well, I am hardly capable of that.." he replied sceptically, and he believed that he was speaking the truth.

"And if that is the case, it is very good indeed. A little—that is all well enough, but you are rather cold ... too serious.. for your years. And really.... I shall be glad if she stirs you up a little.... Perhaps you would like to see her more frequently?..."

"She made me promise to go to their house, and begged you to do so...." Ippolít Sergyéevitch informed her.

"When do you wish to go?"

"It makes no difference to me ... Whenever you find it convenient. You are in good spirits to-day...."

"Is that very noticeable?"—she laughed.—"What of it? I have passed the day pleasantly. On the whole ... I am afraid it will seem cynical to you ... but the truth is, that since the day of my husband's funeral, I feel that I am reviving to new life ... I am egotistical—of course! But it is the joyous egotism of a person who has been released from prison to freedom.... Condemn me ... but be just."

"How many accusations for such a short speech! You are glad and ... go on being glad...." laughed Ippolít Sergyéevitch amiably.

"And you are kind and charming to-day," said she.—"You see—a little happiness—and a person immediately becomes better, kinder. But some over-wise people think that sufferings purify us ... I should like to have life, by applying that theory to them, purify their minds from error...."

"But if you were to make Várenka suffer—what would become of her?" Ippolít Sergyéevitch asked himself.

They soon parted. She began to play, and he, going off to his own room, lay down on his couch and began to reflect,—what sort of an idea of him had that young girl formed? Did she consider him handsome? Or clever? What was there about him that could please her? Something attracted her to him—that was evident to him. But it was not likely that he possessed in her eyes any value as a clever, learned man; she so lightly brushed aside all his theories, views, exhortations. It was more probable that he pleased her simply as a man.

And on arriving at this conclusion, Ippolít Sergyéevitch flushed with proud joy. Closing his eyes, with a smile of satisfaction, he pictured to himself this girl as submissive to him, conquered by him, ready to do anything for him, timidly entreating him to take her, and teach her to think, to live, to love.

III.

When Elizavéta Sergyéevna's cabriolet stopped at the porch of Colonel Ólesoff's house, the tall, thin figure of a woman in a loose gray gown made its appearance, and a bass voice rang out, with a strong burr on the letter "r":

"A-ah! What a pleasant surprise!"

Ippolít Sergyéevitch even shivered at this greeting, which resembled a bellow.

"My brother Ippolít ..." Elizavéta Sergyéevna introduced him, after she and the woman had kissed each other.

"Margarita Rodiónovna Lutchítzky."

Five cold, sticky bones pressed Ippolít Sergyéevitch's fingers; flashing gray eyes were riveted on his face, and Aunt Lutchítzky boomed away in her bass voice, distinctly enunciating every phrase, as though she were counting them, and were afraid of saying too much.

"I am very glad to make your acquaintance...."

Then she moved to one side, and laid her hand on the house-door.

"Pray, come in!"

Ippolít Sergyéevitch stepped across the threshold, and a hoarse cough and an irritated exclamation were borne to meet him from some quarter:

"Devil take your stupidity! Go along, see, and tell me, who-o has come...."

"Go in, go in, Elizavéta Sergyéevna," urged on her brother, perceiving that he had halted, hesitatingly.—"It's the colonel shouting ... It is we who have come, colonel!"

In the middle of a large room with a low ceiling, stood a massive arm-chair, and in it was squeezed a big, lymphatic body, with a red, wizened face, overgrown with gray moss. The upper part of this mass turned heavily, emitting a choking snort. Behind the arm-chair rose the shoulders of a tall, stout woman, who gazed into Ippolít Sergyéevitch's face with lack-lustre eyes.

"I'm glad to see you ... is this your brother?... Colonel Vasíly Ólesoff ... he beat the Turks and the Tekke Turkomans, and now he himself is conquered by diseases ... ho, ho, ho! I'm glad to see you. Varvára has been drumming in my ears all summer about your learning, and all the rest of it ... Pray, come hither, into the drawing-room ... Thékla, push me in!"

The wheels of the chair squeaked piercingly, the colonel lurched forward, threw himself back, and broke into a hoarse cough, wagging his head about as though he wanted it to break off.

"When your master coughs—stand still! Haven't I told you that a thousand times?"

And Aunt Lutchítzky, seizing Thékla by the shoulder, crushed her down to the floor.

The Polkánoffs stood and waited, until the heavily swaying body of Ólesoff should have finished coughing. At last they moved forward, and found themselves in a small room, where it was suffocating, dark and cramped with a superabundance of softly-stuffed furniture in canvas covers.

"Pray seat yourselves ... Thékla,—call your young mistress!" commanded Aunt Lutchítzky.

"Elizavéta Sergyéevna, my dear, I am glad to see you!" announced the colonel, staring at his guest from beneath his gray eyebrows which met over his nose, with eyes as round as those of an owl. The colonel's nose was comically huge, and its tip, purple and shining, mournfully hid itself in the thick brush of his whiskers.

"I know that you are as glad to see me as I am to see you...." said his visitor caressingly.

"Ho, ho, ho! That's a lie—begging your pardon! What pleasure is there in seeing an old man, crippled with gout, and sick with an inexorable thirst for vódka? Twenty-five years ago, one might really have rejoiced at the sight of Váska Ólesoff ... and many women did rejoice ... but now, I'm utterly useless to you, and you're utterly useless to me.... But when you are here, they give me vódka—and so, I'm glad to see you!"

"Don't talk much, or you'll begin to cough again...." Margarita Bodiónovna warned him.

"Did you hear?—" the colonel turned to Ippolít Sergyéevitch.—"I must not talk—it's injurious, I must not drink, it's injurious,—I must not eat as much as I want,—it's injurious! Everything is injurious, devil take it! And I see, that it's injurious for me to live! Ho, ho, ho! I have lived too long ... I hope you may never have occasion to say the same thing about yourself.... However, you will certainly die early, you'll get the consumption,—you have an impossibly narrow chest...."

Ippolít Sergyéevitch looked, now at him, now at Aunt Lutchítzky, and thought of Várenka:

"And what monsters she lives among!"

He had never tried to depict to himself the setting of her life, and now he was crushed by what he beheld. The harsh, angular leanness of Aunt Lutchítzky offended his eyes; he could not bear to look at her long neck, covered with yellow skin, and every time she spoke he began to be apprehensive of something, as though in anticipation that the bass sounds, which emanated from this woman's broad bosom, flat as a board, would rend her breast. And the rustle of Aunt Lutchítzky's skirts seemed to him to be her bones rubbing against each other. The colonel reeked with some sort of liquor, sweat, and vile tobacco. Judging from the gleam in his eyes, he must often be in a fury, and Ippolít Sergyéevitch, as he imagined him in a state of exasperation, felt loathing for the old man. The rooms were not comfortable, the wall-paper was smoke-begrimed, and the tiles of the stoves were streaked with cracks, which, however, made them look like marble. The paint had been rubbed off of the floors by the wheels of the rolling-chair, the window-frames were awry, the panes were dull, everything breathed forth an odor of age, perishing with exhaustion.

"It is sultry to-day,..." remarked Elizavéta Sergyéevna.

"There will be rain," declared Mrs. Lutchítzky categorically.

"Really?" said the visitor doubtfully.

"Trust to Margarita,—" said the old man hoarsely.—"She knows everything that will take place.... She assures me so every day.... 'You will die,' she says, 'and they will rob Várya, and break her head....'—you see? I dispute it:—the daughter of Colonel Ólesoff will not permit anyone to turn her head ... she'll do it herself; and that I shall die—is true.. that is to say, it is as it should be. And you, my learned gentleman, how do you feel yourself? A very small fish in a big tank?"

"No, why should I? It is a beautiful wooded country ...." replied Ippolít Sergyéevitch courteously.

"It is a beautiful wooded country here? Phew! That means that you haven't seen anything beautiful on earth. The valley of Kazanlik in Bulgaria is beautiful,... it is beautiful in Kherassan ... on the Murgal river there is a spot like paradise itself... Ah! My precious child!..."

Várenka brought with her an aroma of freshness into the musty atmosphere of the drawing-room. Her form was enveloped in some sort of mantle, of light lilac sarpinka.[1] In her hands she held a huge bouquet of freshly-gathered flowers, and her face was beaming with pleasure. "How nice that you have come to-day!—" she exclaimed, as she greeted her guests.—"I was just preparing to go to you ... they have been nagging me!"

And with a sweeping gesture, she designated her father and Margarita Rodiónovna, who was sitting beside her visitor with such unnatural rigidity, that her backbone seemed to have turned to stone, and to be incapable of bending.

"Varvára! You're talking nonsense!" she cried sternly to the young girl, with flashing eyes.

"Don't scream! If you do, I'll tell about Lieutenant Yákovleff, and his fiery heart...."

"Ho, ho, ho! Várka[2]—be quiet! I'll tell it myself...."

"What sort of a place have I got into?"—meditated Ippolít Sergyéevitch, gazing at his sister in amazement.

But, evidently, all this was familiar to her, and although a smile of disdain quivered on the corners of her mouth, she looked on and listened with composure.

"I will go and see about tea!"—announced Margarita Bodiónovna, stretching herself upward, without bending her body, and disappeared, after casting a glance of reproach at the colonel.

Várenka sat down in her aunt's place, and began to whisper something in Elizavéta Sergyéevna's ear.

"Why has she such a passion for loose garments!" said Ippolít Sergyéevitch to himself, casting a furtive glance at her figure, as it bent toward his sister, in a fine pose. But the colonel rumbled away, like a cracked double-bass:

"Of course, you are aware, that Margarita is the wife of my comrade, Lieutenant-Colonel Lutchítzky, who was killed at Iski-Zagra. She made the campaign with him, that she did! She's an energetic woman, you know. Well, and in our regiment there was a Lieutenant Yákovleff ... such a delicate young lady he was ... his chest was crushed by a Turkish volunteer, and consumption ensued, so that was the end of him! Well, and when he fell ill, she nursed him for five months! What do you think of that? hey? And, do you know, she gave him her word that she would not marry. She was young, and handsome ... a very striking woman. Very worthy men courted her, courted her seriously—Captain Shmurló, a very fine young Little Russian, even took to drink and left the service. I, also ... that is to say, I also proposed to her:— 'Margarita! marry me!' ... She would not ... it was very stupid of her, but noble, of course. And then, when I was seized with the gout, she presented herself, and said: 'You are alone in the world, I am alone ...' and so forth and so on. Touching and saintly. Eternal friendship, and we snarl at each other all the time. She comes here every summer, she even wants to sell her estate and settle down here forever, that is to say, until I die. I appreciate it—but it's all ridiculous, isn't it? Ho, ho, ho! For she was a passionate woman, and you see how he has dried her up? Don't play with fire ... ho! She flies into a rage, you know, when one narrates this poetry of her life, as she expresses it. 'Don't you dare,' says she, 'to insult the holy things of my heart with your abominable tongue!' Ah! Ho, ho, ho! But, as a matter of fact, what sort of a holy thing is it? A delusion of the mind ... the dreams of a school-girl.... Life is simple, isn't it? Enjoy yourself, and die when your time comes, that's the whole philosophy! But ... die when your time comes! But here now, I have overlived the right time, I hope you won't do that...."

Ippolít Sergyéevitch's head was reeling with the story, and the odor which emanated from the colonel. But Várenka, paying no heed whatever to him, and, probably, not comprehending how little agreeable the conversation with her father was to him, was chatting, in a low tone, with Elizavéta Sergyéevna, listening seriously and attentively to her.

"I invite you to drink tea!—" Margarita Rodiónovna's bass voice rang out in the doorway.—"Varvára, wheel your father!"

Ippolít Sergyéevitch drew a breath of relief and followed Várenka, who lightly pushed in front of her the heavy chair.

Tea was prepared in the English fashion, with a mass of cold viands. A huge rare piece of roast beef was flanked by bottles of wine, and this evoked a laugh of contentment on the part of the colonel. It seemed as though even his half-dead legs, enveloped in bear-skin, quivered with the anticipation of pleasure. He was rolled up to the table, and stretching out his fat, trembling hands, overgrown with dark hair, toward the bottles, he laughed aloud, shaking the air of the great dining-room, set around with chairs plaited from osier twigs.

The tea-drinking lasted a torturingly long time, and throughout it the colonel narrated military anecdotes, in a hoarse voice, Margarita Bodiónovna interposed brief remarks in her bass, and Várenka chatted softly but vivaciously with Elizavéta Sergyéevna.

"What is she talking about?"—thought Ippolít Sergyéevitch sadly, delivered over to the colonel as a victim.

It seemed to him that she was paying too little attention to him to-day. Was this coquetry? And he felt that he was on the point of becoming angry with her. But now she cast a glance in his direction, and uttered a ringing laugh.

"My sister has called her attention to me!" reflected Ippolít Sergyéevitch, frowning with displeasure.

"Ippolít Sergyéevitch! Have you finished your tea?" inquired Várenka.

"Yes, long ago...."

"Would you like to take a stroll? I will show you some splendid places!"

"Let us go. And will you come too, Liza?"

"No! I find it pleasant to sit with Margarita Rodiónovna and the Colonel."

"Ho, ho, ho! Agreeable to stand on the brink of the grave, into which my half-dead body is rolling!" and the colonel roared with laughter. "Why do you say that?"

"The next thing, she will be asking me—'don't you find it tiresome at our house?'—" thought Ippolít Sergyéevitch, as he emerged with Várenka from the house into the garden. But she asked him:

"How do you like papa?"

"Oh!"—exclaimed Ippolít Sergyéevitch softly. "He inspires respect!"

"Aha!" replied Várenka, with satisfaction.—"That's what everybody says. He's frightfully brave! You know, he does not talk about himself, but Aunt Lutchítzky was in the same regiment with him, and she said that at Górny Dubnyák a ball crushed his horse's nostrils, and the animal carried him straight in among the Turks. But the Turks pursued him; he managed to wheel and gallop along their line; of course, they killed the horse; he fell, and saw that four men were running toward him ... One rushed up, and brandished the butt-end of a rifle over him, but papa let fly,—whack! and the man fell at his feet. He discharged a revolver straight in his face—bang! And then he pulled his leg out from under the horse, and the other three rushed up, and more after them, and our own soldiers flew to meet them, with Yákovleff ... you know who he was?... Papa seized the dead man's rifle, sprang to his feet—and forward! But he was awfully strong, and that came near ruining him; he hit the Turk over the head, and the gun broke, and he had nothing but his sword left, but it was bad and dull, and a Turk was trying to kill him with a bayonet-thrust in the breast. Then papa grasped the strap of the rifle in his hand, and ran to meet his own men, dragging the Turk after him. He understood that he was lost, turned his face toward the foe, wrenched the gun away from the Turk, and dashed at them—hurrah! Then Yákovleff rushed up with the soldiers, and they set to work so heartily, that the Turks beat a retreat. They gave papa the George[3] for that, but he flew into a rage, because they did not give the George to a non-commissioned officer of his regiment, who had saved Yákovleff twice and papa once in that fight, and refused the cross. But when they gave it to the non-commissioned officer, then he took it."

"You tell about that fight exactly as though you had taken part in it...." remarked Ippolít Sergyéevitch, interrupting her narration.

"Ye-es...." she said slowly, sighing and puckering up her eyes.—"I like war ... And I'm going, as a Sister of Mercy, if they begin to fight...."

"Then I shall go as a soldier...."

"You?" she inquired, scanning his figure.—"Come, you are jesting,... you would make a poor soldier.. you are so weak, so thin...."

This stung him.

"I am strong enough, I assure you...." he declared, as though warning her.

"Well, you don't say so?" said Várenka composedly, not believing him.

A raging desire to seize her in his arms, and crush her to his breast with all his might flamed up within him—to crush her so that the tears would gush forth from her eyes. He cast a hasty glance around, twitched his shoulders, and immediately felt ashamed of his impulse.

They walked through the garden along a path set with regular rows of apple-trees, and behind them, at the end of the path, gazed forth the windows of the house. Apples kept falling from the trees, striking the earth dully, and voices resounded somewhere close at hand. One asked:

"I suppose he has come wooing too?"

But the other swore gruffly.

"Wait ..." Várenka stopped her companion, grasping his sleeve, "let's hear what they have to say about us...."

He cast a harsh glance at her, and said:

"I am not fond of eavesdropping to the gossip of servants."

"But I love it...." declared Várenka, "when they are by themselves, they always talk very interestingly about us, their masters...."

"It may be interesting, but it is not nice...." laughed Ippolít Sergyéevitch.

"Why not? They always speak well of me."

"I congratulate you...."

He was the prey of a malicious impulse to speak sharply, rudely to her, to wound her. To-day her conduct agitated him:—yonder, in the house, she had paid no attention to him for a long time, just as though she did not understand that he had come for her sake, and to see her, and not to see her crippled father, and dried-up aunt. Then, when she pronounced him a weakling, she had begun to look upon him with a certain condescension.

"What is the meaning of all this?" he said to himself.—"If my exterior does not please her, and I am not interesting from the internal point of view—what has attracted her to me? A new face—and nothing more?"

He believed that she was gravitating toward him, and thought that he had to deal with coquetry under the guise of ingenuousness and artlessness.

"Perhaps she considers me stupid ... and hopes that I shall grow wiser...."

"My aunt is right ... it is going to rain!" said Várenka, gazing into the distance,—"see, what a dark cloud ... and it is growing sultry, as it always does before a thunder-storm...."

"That is unpleasant.." said Ippolít Sergyéevitch. "We must turn back, and warn my sister...."

"Why?"

"That we may return home before it begins to rain...."

"Who is going to let you go? And you would not be able to get there before the thunderstorm begins.... You will have to wait here."

"And what if the rain should last until night?"

"You will spend the night with us," said Várenka categorically.

"No, that is inconvenient...." protested Ippolít Sergyéevitch.

"Oh Lord! Is it so difficult to spend one night inconveniently?"

"I had not my own comfort in view...."

"Then don't worry yourself about other people—each person can take care of himself."

They disputed and walked on, but the dark cloud swept swiftly to meet them across the sky, and already the thunder was beginning to rumble somewhere far away. An oppressive sultriness permeated the atmosphere, as though the approaching thunder-cloud, condensing all the burning heat of the day, were driving it before it. And the leaves on the trees grew still, in eager expectation of the refreshing moisture.

"Shall we turn back?" suggested Ippolít Sergyéevitch.

"Yes, because it is stifling.... How I detest the time before something is coming ... before a thunderstorm, before holidays. The thunderstorm or the holiday is all well enough in itself, but it is tiresome to wait for it. If everything could only be done at once ... you could lie down and sleep—it is winter, and cold; you wake—and it is spring, with flowers and sun ... or, the sun is shining, and, all at once, there is darkness, thunder, a downpour...."

"Perhaps you would like to have a man also change as suddenly and unexpectedly?" inquired Ippolít Sergyéevitch, with a laugh.

"A man should always be interesting...." she said, sententiously.

"But what do you mean by being interesting?"—exclaimed Ippolít Sergyéevitch, with vexation.

"What do I mean? Why ... it is difficult to say I think that all people would be interesting, if they were more ... lively ... yes, more lively! If they laughed, sang, played more ... if they were more daring, stronger ... even audacious ... even coarse.."

He listened attentively to her definitions, and asked himself:

"Is she recommending to me the programme of the relations which she wishes me to bear toward her?..."

"There's no swiftness in people.. and everything ought to be done swiftly, in order that life should be interesting ...." she explained, with a serious face.

"Who knows? Perhaps you are right...." remarked Ippolít Sergyéevitch softly. "That is to say, not entirely right...."

"Don't excuse yourself!—" she laughed.—"Why not entirely? It's either entirely right or not right at all ... it's either good or bad ... either handsome or homely ... that's the way to argue! But people say: 'she's quite nice, quite pretty ...' and it's simply out of cowardice that they speak in that way ... they're afraid of the truth, for some reason or other!"

"Well, you know, that by just this division into two, you insult far too many!"

"How so?"

"By injustice...."

"A man always keeps coming back to that same justice! Just as though all life were contained in it and one couldn't possibly get along without it. But who wants it?" She cried out angrily and capriciously, and her eyes kept contracting and emitting sparks.

"Everyone, Varvára Vasílievna! Everyone, from the peasant ... to yourself...." said Ippolít Sergyéevitch didactically, as he watched her agitation, and tried to explain it to himself.

"I don't want any justice!"—she rejected it with decision, and even made a gesture with her hand, as though she were repelling something.—"And if I do need it, I'll find it for myself ... Why are you forever bothering yourself about people? And ... you simply say that, in order to make me angry ... because to-day you are consequential, and pompous...."

"I? I make you angry? Why?" said Ippolít Sergyéevitch, in amazement.

"How should I know? Because you are bored, probably .... But ... you'd better stop it! I'm loaded to the muzzle.. even without your interference! They have been feeding me on sermons the whole week, all because of my suitors ... they have flooded me with every sort of venom ... and vile suspicions ... thanks to you!"

Her eyes flashed with a phosphorescent gleam, her nostrils quivered, and she trembled all over with the agitation which had suddenly seized upon her. Ippolít Sergyéevitch, with a mist in his eyes, and a rapid beating of the heart, began hotly to defend her against herself.

"I did not mean to anger you...."

But, at that moment, the thunder crashed noisily over their heads—as though some monstrously-large and coarsely-good-natured person were laughing. Stunned by the terrific sound, they both shuddered, and halted, for an instant, but immediately set out, at a rapid pace, for the house. The foliage trembled on the trees, and a shadow fell upon the earth from the thunder-cloud, which spread over the sky in a soft, velvety canopy.

"But what a quarrel you and I have had!" said Várenka on the way. —"I did not notice how the cloud was creeping up."

On the porch of the house stood Elizavéta Sergyéevna, and Aunt Lutchítzky, with a large straw hat on her head, which made her look like a sunflower.

"There is going to be a terrific thunderstorm," she announced, in her impressive bass voice, straight in Ippolít Sergyéevitch's face, as though she considered it her plain duty to assure him of the approach of the tempest. Then she said:

"The colonel has fallen asleep...." and vanished.

"How does this please you?" asked Elizavéta Sergyéevna, indicating the sky with a nod.—"I think we shall be obliged to spend the night here."

"If we do not incommode anyone...."

"That's just like a man!"—exclaimed Várenka staring at him with amazement, and almost with pity.—

"You're always afraid of inconveniencing people, of being unjust ... akh, oh Lord! Well, and you must find it tiresome to live ... always on pins and needles! The way I think about it is—if you want to inconvenience people, do it, if you want to be unjust, be unjust!..."

"And God Himself will decide who is in the right," interposed Elizavéta Sergyéevna, smiling at her with a consciousness of her own superiority.—"I think I must hide myself under the roof.... What are you going to do?"

"We will watch the thunderstorm here,—won't we?" the girl asked, addressing Ippolít Sergyéevitch.

He expressed his assent by a bow.

"Well, I am not fond of the grandiose phenomena of Nature.. if they are likely to produce fever or a cold in the head. Moreover, one can enjoy a thunderstorm through the window-panes ... aï!"

The lightning flashed; the gloom, rent by it, quivered, for a moment revealing what it had engulfed, and then flowed together again. For a couple of seconds, a crushing silence reigned, then the thunder roared, like the discharge of a battery, and its rumblings rolled over the house. The wind burst forth, and seizing the dust and rubbish on the ground, and whirled around with everything it had gathered, rising upward in a column. Straws, bits of paper, leaves flew about; the martins clove the air with frightened squeaks, the foliage rustled dully on the trees, on the iron roof of the house the dust could be heard, giving rise to a noisy rattle.

Várenka watched this play of the storm from behind the jamb of the door, and Ippolít Sergyéevitch, winking from the dust, stood behind her. The porch was like a box, which is dark inside, but when the lightning flashed, the girl's graceful figure was illuminated by a bluish, spectral light.

"Look ... look!" cried Várenka, when the lightning rent the thunder-cloud.... "did you see? The thunder-cloud seems to smile—doesn't it? It greatly resembles a smile ... there are just such surly and taciturn people—that sort of a man remains silent, keeps silent for ever so long, and then, all of a sudden, he smiles:—his eyes blaze, his teeth gleam.... And here comes the rain!"

On the roof the big, heavy drops of rain drummed, at long intervals, at first, then closer and closer together, and, at last, with a roaring noise.

"Let us go away..." said Ippolít Sergyéevitch "... you will get wet."

He found it awkward to stand so close to her, in that dense darkness—awkward and disagreeable. And he thought, as he looked at her neck:

"What if I were to kiss it?"

The lightnings flashed, lighting up half of the heaven, and by their illumination Ippolít Sergyéevitch perceived that Várenka was waving her arms, with cries of rapture, and standing, with her body leaning backward, as though presenting her breast to the lightning. He seized her from behind, by the waist, and almost laying his head on her shoulder, he asked her, panting:

"What ... what ... is the matter with you?"

"Why, nothing!" she exclaimed with vexation, freeing herself from his arms with a supple, powerful motion of her body.—"Good heavens, how frightened you are ... and you a man!"

"I was alarmed for you," he said, in low tone, retreating into the corner.

The contact with her seemed to burn his hands, and filled his breast with inextinguishable fire of desire to embrace her, to embrace her strongly, even to pain. He had lost his self-control, and he wanted to quit the porch, and stand in the rain, where the big drops were lashing the trees like scourges.

"I will go into the house," said he.

"Let us go," agreed Várenka with displeasure, and slipping noiselessly past him, she went through the door.

"Ho, ho, ho!" the colonel greeted them.—"What? By order of the commander of the elements you are arrested until further notice? Ho, ho, ho!"

"This is a frightful thunderstorm," remarked Aunt Lutchítzky, with the utmost seriousness, intently scanning the pale face of their guest.

"I do not like these mad fits of Nature!" said Elizavéta Sergyéevna, with a scornful grimace on her cold face.—"Thunder-storms, snow-storms;—why such a useless waste of a mass of energy?"

Ippolít Sergyéevitch, suppressing his emotion, hardly found the strength to ask his sister calmly:

"Will it last long, do you think?"

"All night," Margarita Rodiónovna answered him.

"I think it will," assented his sister.

"You can't tear yourselves away from here!" declared Várenka, with a laugh.

Polkánoff shuddered, feeling that there was something fatal in her laugh.

"Yes, we shall be obliged to spend the night here," said Elizavéta Sergyéevna.... "We cannot pass through the Kámoff thicket of young trees, by night, without defacing the equipage ... by good luck...."

"There are plenty of chambers here," announced aunt Lutchítzky.

"Then ... I will beg you to excuse me! a thunderstorm has the most shocking effect upon me!... I should like to know ... where I am to be quartered ... I will go there, for a few minutes."

Ippolít's words, uttered in a low, broken voice, produced a general alarm.

"Sal ammoniac!" boomed Margarita Rodiónovna, in her deep bass, and, springing from her chair, she disappeared.

Várenka bustled about the room with astonishment written on her face, and said to him:

"I'll show you directly ... I will assign you a place ... where it is quiet...."

Elizavéta Sergyéevna was the most composed of them all, and asked him, with a smile:

"Are you dizzy?"

And the colonel said, hoarsely:

"Fiddle-faddle! It will pass off! My comrade, Major Gortáloff, who was killed by the Turks during a sortie, was a dashing fellow! Oh! a rare fellow! A valiant young man! At Sístoff, he walked forward straight on the bayonets, ahead of the soldiers, as calmly as though he were leading a dance:—he hewed, slashed, shouted, broke his sword, seized a club, and thrashed the Turks with that. He was a brave man, and there aren't many such! But he, also, got nervous in a thunderstorm, like a woman ... it was ridiculous! He turned pale, and reeled, as you do, and cried 'akh,' and 'okh!' He was a hard drinker, and a jolly dog, twelve vershóks tall[4] ... imagine how it became him!"

Ippolít Sergyéevitch looked, and listened, made his excuses, calmed them all, and cursed himself. His head really was swimming, and when Margarita Rodiónovna thrust a smelling-bottle under his nose, and commanded him: "Smell that!" ... he seized the salts, and began inhaling the penetrating odor into his nostrils, feeling, that this whole scene was comic, and was lowering him in Várenka's eyes.

The rain beat angrily against the window, the lightnings flashed in their glare, the peals of thunder made the panes rattle in a frightened way, and all this reminded the colonel of the uproar of battle.

"During the last Turkish campaign ... I don't remember where ... there was just such a tumult as this. Thunder, a torrent of rain, lightning, volleys of firing from the artillery, a scattered fire from the infantry.... Lieutenant Vyákhireff took out a bottle of brandy, put the neck in his lips, and—bul-bul-bul! And a bullet smashed the bottle to flinders! The Lieutenant looked at the neck of the bottle in his hand, and said: 'Devil take it, they are making war on bottles!' Ho, ho, ho! But I said to him: 'You're mistaken, Lieutenant, the Turks are firing at bottles, but it is you who are making war on bottles!' Ho, ho, ho! Witty, wasn't it?"

"Do you feel better?" Aunt Lutchítzky asked Ippolít Sergyéevitch.

He thanked her, with clenched teeth, as he looked at them all with mournfully-angry eyes, and remarked that Várenka was smiling incredulously and with surprise at something which his sister was whispering to her, with her ear bent toward her. At last he succeeded in getting away from these people, and flinging himself on the divan in the little chamber which had been assigned to him, he began to reduce his emotions to order, to the sound of the rain.

Impotent wrath against himself struggled within him with the desire to understand how it had come about, that he had lost the power of self-control,—could the attraction toward that young girl be so deeply seated within him? But he could not manage to settle down upon any one thing, and pursue his thought to the end; a fierce tempest of excited emotions was raging within him. At first he resolved, that he would come to an explanation with her that very day, and immediately rejected this resolve, when he remembered, that behind it stood the obligation which he was reluctant to fulfil, of entering into definite relations to Várenka, and, of course, he could not marry that beautiful monster! He blamed himself for having gone so far in his infatuation for her, and for having lacked boldness in his dealings with her. It seemed to him, that she was entirely ready to give herself to him, and that she was coldly playing with him, playing like a coquette. He called her stupid, an animal, heartless, and answered himself, defending her. And the rain dashed menacingly against the window, and the whole house shook with the peals of thunder.

But there is no fire which does not die out! After a prolonged and painful struggle, Ippolít Sergyéevitch succeeded in repressing himself within the bounds of reason, and all his agitated emotions, beating a retreat to some spot deep within his heart, gave way to confusion and indignation at himself.

A young girl, irreparably spoiled by her abnormal surroundings, inaccessible to the suggestions of sound sense, immovably steadfast in her errors,—that strange young girl had turned him almost into an animal, in the course of three months! And he felt himself crushed by the disgrace of the fact. He had done all he could to render her human; if he had not been able to do more, that was no fault of his. But after he had done what he could, he ought to have gone away from her, and he was to blame for not having taken his departure at the proper time, and for having allowed her to evoke in him a shameful outburst of sensuality.

"A less honorable man than myself would have been wiser than I, under the given circumstances, I think." One unexpected thought stung him painfully:

"Is it honor which restrains me? Perhaps, it is only weakness of feeling? What if it is not feeling, but desire which agitates me thus? Am I capable of loving, in general ... can I be a husband and a father.. have I that within me which is required for those obligations? Am I alive?—" As he meditated in this direction, he was conscious of a coldness within him, and of something timid, which humiliated him.

He was soon summoned to supper.

Várenka greeted him with a searching glance, and the amiable query: "is your headie better?"

"Yes, thank you...." he replied drily, seating himself at a distance from her, and thinking to himself:

"She does not even know how to speak: 'is your headie better?' indeed!"

The colonel dozed, nodding his head, and sometimes snoring, all three of the ladies sat in a row on the divan, and chatted about trifles. The noise of the rain on the windows became more gentle, but that faint, persistent sound clearly bore witness to the firm intention of the rain to drench the earth for an interminably long time. The darkness stared in at the windows, the room was close and the odor of kerosene from the three lamps which were burning, mingling with the odor of the colonel, increased the stifling atmosphere, and the nervous state of Ippolít Sergyéevitch.

He looked at Várenka and reflected:

"She does not come near me ... why? I wonder whether Elizavéta ... has been telling her some nonsense or other ... has been drawing conclusions from her observations of me?"

In the dining-room, fat Thékla was bustling about. Her big eyes kept peering into the drawing-room at Ippolít Sergyéevitch, who was silently smoking a cigarette.

"My lady! Supper is ready...." she announced, with a sigh, slowly presenting her figure in the drawing-room door.

"Let us go and eat ... Ippolít Sergyéevitch, if you please. Aunty, it is not necessary to disturb papa, let him stay here and doze ... for if he goes there, he will begin to drink again."

"That is sensible...." remarked Elizavéta Sergyéevna.

But Aunt Lutchítzky said, in a low voice, with a shrug of the shoulders:

"It's late in the day now, to think of that ... if he drinks, he'll die all the sooner, but, on the other hand, he'll have some pleasure; if he doesn't drink, he will live a year longer, but not so pleasantly."

"And that is sensible, also,..." remarked Elizavéta Sergyéevna.

At table, Ippolít Sergyéevitch sat beside Várenka, and noticed that the girl's proximity was again arousing an agitation within him. He very much desired to move so dose to her that he could touch her gown. And, as he watched himself, according to his wont, he thought, that in his infatuation for her there was much obstinacy of the flesh, but strength of spirit....

"A withered heart!"—he cried bitterly to himself. And then he noticed, almost with pride, that he was not afraid to speak the truth about himself, and understood how to interpret every fluctuation of his "ego."

Engrossed with himself, he maintained silence.

At first Várenka addressed him frequently, but on receiving, in reply, curt, monosyllabic words, she evidently lost all desire to converse with him. Only after supper, when they were left entirely alone, did she ask him simply:

"Why are you so depressed? Do you feel bored, or are you displeased with me?"

He replied, that he did not feel depressed, much less was he displeased with her.

"Then what is the matter with you?" she persisted.

"Nothing in particular, apparently ... but ... sometimes ... an excess of attentions to a man tires him."

"An excess of attentions?" Várenka anxiously put a counter-question.—"Whose? Papa's? For aunty has not been talking with you."

He felt that he was blushing under this invulnerable artlessness, or hopeless stupidity. But she, not waiting for his reply, suggested to him, with a smile:

"Don't be like that, will you? Please! I have a dreadful dislike for gloomy people.... Come, what do you think of this—let us play cards.. do you know how?"

"I play badly.. and, I must confess, that I am not fond of that form of uselessly wasting time said Ippolít Sergyéevitch, feeling that he was effecting a reconciliation with her.

"I don't like it either ... but what is one to do? You see how tiresome it is here!" said the young girl bitterly.—"I know that you have become as you are precisely because it is so tedious."

He began to assure her of the contrary, and the more he talked, the more ardent did his words become, until, at last, before he knew what he was doing, he wound up:

"If you like, I should not find it tiresome in a desert with you...."

"What am I to do for that?" she caught him up, and he perceived that her wish to cheer him up was thoroughly sincere.

"You need do nothing,—" he replied, concealing deep within him the reply which he would have liked to make.

"No, really, you came hither to rest, you have so much difficult work, you require strength, and before your arrival, Liza said to me: 'You and I will help the learned man to rest and divert himself....' But we ... what can I do? Really!... if I could get away from this tediousness ... I'd kiss you heartily!"

Things grew dark before his eyes, and all the blood flew to his heart so stormily that he fairly reeled.

"Try it ... kiss me ... kiss me...." he said, in a low voice, as he stood before her, without seeing her.

"Oho! So that's what you are like!" laughed Várenka, and vanished.

He hastened after her, and stopped short, clutching at the jamb of the door, and his whole being yearned toward her.

A few seconds later he saw the colonel:—the old man was sleeping, with his head resting on his shoulder, and snoring sweetly. It was this sound which attracted Ippolít Sergyéevitch's attention. Then he was compelled to convince himself that the monotonous and lugubrious moaning was not resounding in his own breast, but outside the windows, and that it was the rain weeping, and not his suffering heart. Then anger flashed up within him.

"You are playing with me ... you are playing with me thus?" ... he reiterated to himself, gritting his teeth, and he threatened her with some humiliating chastisement. His breast was in a glow, but his feet and his head stung him like sharp icicles.

Laughing merrily over something, the ladies entered, and, at the sight of them, Ippolít Sergyéevitch inwardly pulled himself together. Aunt Lutchítzky was laughing in a dull way, as though bubbles were bursting somewhere in her chest. Várenka's face was animated by a roguish smile, and Elizavéta Sergyéevna's laughter was condescendingly restrained.

"Perhaps they are laughing at me!" thought Ippolít Sergyéevitch.

The game of cards which Várenka had suggested did not take place, and this afforded Ippolít Sergyéevitch the possibility of withdrawing to his room, under the pretext of indisposition. As he left the drawing-room, he felt three pairs of eyes fixed on his back, and knew that they all expressed astonishment. He was not disconcerted by this, being full of the desire to revenge himself on the naughty little girl, to humiliate her, for having dared to indulge in such pranks, to make her weep, and to gaze at her and laugh aloud at her tears. But his feelings could not remain long at such a pitch of intensity, he was accustomed to subject their fermentation to the power of reason, and he never expressed them until they had cooled down. His vanity was irritated to the point of suffering by the conviction that she was playing with him: but, along with this, there again sprang up the resolve, which had been suppressed by the recent scene, to pay off the girl by utter neglect of her beauty. She must be made to feel of how little consequence she was in his eyes,—it would be good for her, but it must be a lesson, not vengeance, of course.

Such arguments always soothed him, but now there was in his breast something which could not be put aside, which was oppressive, and he simultaneously wished and did not wish to define this singular, almost painful sensation.

"Damn all nameless sensations!" he exclaimed to himself.

But some drops of water, which fell from somewhere to the floor, monotonously beat out:

"Tak ... tak...."

After sitting there an hour, in this state of conflict with himself in the unsuccessful endeavor to comprehend what remained incomprehensible, and was more powerful than all he did comprehend, he decided to go to bed, and sleep, in order that he might depart on the morrow, free from everything which so had worried and humiliated him. But, as he lay in his bed, he involuntarily pictured to himself Várenka as he had beheld her on the porch, with her arms uplifted, as though for an embrace, with her bosom quivering with satisfaction at the flashing of the lightning. And again he reflected, that if he had been bolder with her ... and then he stopped himself, and finished the thought thus:—then he would have fastened about his neck a mistress who was indisputably very beautiful, but frightfully inconvenient, burdensome, and stupid, with the character of a wildcat, and with the coarsest sensuality, that was certain!...

But all at once, in the midst of these thoughts, illuminated by a surmise or a foreboding, he trembled all over, leaped swiftly to his feet, and running to the door of his room, he unlocked it. Then, smiling, he again lay down in his bed, and began to stare at the door, thinking to himself, with hope and rapture:

"That does happen ... that does happen...."

He had read, somewhere, of its having happened once: she had entered during the night, and had surrendered herself, asking nothing, demanding nothing, simply for the sake of the sensation. Várenka.. assuredly, she had something in common with the heroine of that story,—she was capable of acting thus. In her charming exclamation: "So that's what you are like!"—there had, perhaps, rung for him, a promise, which he had not understood And now, suddenly, she would come, clad in white, all trembling with shame and desire!

He rose from his bed several times, lent an ear to the stillness of the house, to the noise of the rain against the windows, and cooled his fevered body. But everything was quiet, and the longed-for sound of footsteps did not ring through the stillness.

"How will she enter?"—he said to himself, and he pictured her to himself, on the threshold of the door, with a proud resolute face.—Of course, she would give her beauty to him proudly! It was the gift of an empress. But perhaps she would stand before him with drooping head, abashed, modest, with tears in her eyes. Or, she would make her appearance with a laugh, with a quiet laugh, at his torments, which she knew, which she always noted, though she never showed him that she noticed them, in order to trouble him, and to amuse herself.

In this condition, verging on the delirium of madness, depicting sensuous scenes in his imagination, irritating his nerves, Ippolít Sergyéevitch did not notice that the rain had ceased, and that the stars were peering in through his window, from a clear sky. He was awaiting the sound of footsteps, a woman's footsteps, which should bring him pleasure. But they did not ring out through the slumberous stillness. At times, and only for a brief moment, the hope of embracing the young girl died out in him; then he heard, in the hurried beating of his heart, a reproach to himself, and he recognized the fact that his recent condition was one that was foreign to him, was disgraceful to him, both painful and repulsive. But the inner world of a man is too complicated and varied to permit of any one thing persistently holding all aspirations in equilibrium, and therefore, in the life of every man, there is an abyss, into which he will fall without warning, when the time for it arrives. And the cautious, by the bitter irony of the powers which govern life, fall the most deeply, and injure themselves the most painfully.

He raved until morning dawned, tortured by passion, and when the sun had already risen, footsteps did make themselves heard. He sat up in bed, trembling, with swollen eyes, and waited, and felt that when she did make her appearance, he would not be able to utter a single word of gratitude to her. But the steps which were approaching his door were slow, heavy....

And now the door opened softly ... Ippolít Sergyéevitch threw himself back feebly on his pillow, and, closing his eyes, remained motionless.

"Have I waked you up? I want your boots ... and your trousers ..." said fat Thékla, in a sleepy voice, as she approached the bed, with the slowness of an ox. Sighing, yawning, and knocking against the furniture, she gathered up his clothing, and went out, leaving behind her an odor of the kitchen.

He lay there for a long time, broken and annihilated, indifferently watching in himself the slow disappearance of the fragments of those images which had racked his nerves all night.

Again the peasant woman entered, with his clothing, well-brushed, laid it down, and went out, panting heavily. He began to dress himself, without stopping to consider why it was necessary to do it so early. Then, without reflecting, he decided to go and take a bath in the river, and this animated him, to a certain degree. Treading softly over the floors, he passed the room in which the colonel's snore was booming, then the door of another chamber. He paused, for an instant, before it, but after bestowing an attentive glance upon it, he felt sure that it was not the one. And, at last, half asleep, he emerged into the garden, and walked down the narrow path, knowing that it would lead him to the river.

The weather was clear and fresh, the rays of the sun had not yet lost the rosy hues of dawn. The starlings were chattering vivaciously with one another as they pecked at the cherries. On the leaves, drops of dew quivered like diamonds; falling to the earth, in joyous, sparkling tears, they vanished. The earth was damp, but it had swallowed up all the moisture which had fallen during the night, and nowhere was there mud or a puddle visible:—Everything round about was pure, and fresh and new—as though everything had been born that night, and everything was quiet and motionless, as though it had not yet become used to life on the earth, and, beholding the sun for the first time, in silent astonishment it was admiring its marvellous beauty.

Ippolít Sergyéevitch gazed about him, and the shroud of mire which had clothed his mind and soul during the night that was past began to release him from its folds, making way for the pure breath of the new-born day, filled with sweet and refreshing perfumes.

Here was the river, still rose-colored and gold in the rays of the sun. The water, slightly turbid from the rain, faintly reflected the verdure of the banks in its waves. Somewhere, close at hand, a fish was splashing, and this splashing, and the songs of the birds were the only sounds which broke the stillness of the morning. Had it not been damp, he might have lain down on the ground, beside the river, under the canopy of verdure, and remained there until his soul had regained its composure from the emotions which he had experienced.

Ippolít Sergyéevitch walked along the shore, fantastically carved into sandy promontories, and tiny bays surrounded with verdure, and a new picture opened out before him almost every half-dozen paces. As he strolled thus noiselessly, on the very edge of the water, he knew that new and ever new scenes awaited him. And he scrutinized in detail the outlines of every bay, and the forms of the trees, which bent over them, as though desirous of ascertaining with certainty, precisely how the details of this picture differed from those of the one he had just left behind.

And, all at once, he came to a halt, dazzled.

Before him, up to her waist in the water, stood Várenka, with her head bent over, squeezing her wet hair with her hands. Her body was rosy with the cold and the rays of the sun, drops of water glistened on it like silver scales. They trickled slowly from her shoulders and breast, and fell into the water, and before falling, each drop glittered for a long time in the sunlight, as though it did not wish to leave the body which it had washed. And the water was streaming from her hair, passing through the rosy fingers of the young girl with a tender dripping sound which smote sweetly on the ear.

He gazed at her in ecstasy, with reverence, as at something holy—so pure and harmonious was the beauty of this young girl, in the blooming freshness of her youth, and he felt no other desire, save that of gazing upon her. Above her head, on the branch of a hazel-bush, a nightingale was sobbing and singing, but for him, the whole light of the sun, and all sounds were concentrated in that young girl, amid the waves. And the waves softly stroked her body, noiselessly and caressingly passing around it, in their peaceful flow.

But the good is as brief as the beautiful is rare, and what he beheld, he beheld for a few seconds only, for the girl suddenly raised her head, and with an angry cry, she swiftly dropped into the water up to her neck.

This movement of hers was reflected in his heart—it seemed to fall, shuddering, into a cold which cramped him. The girl gazed at him with flashing eyes, and a frown of anger intersected her brow, distorting her face with fear, scorn and wrath. He heard her indignant voice:

"Begone ... go away! What are you doing? Aren't you ashamed of yourself!..."

But her words floated to him from somewhere in the distance, dimly, forbidding him nothing. And he bent over the water, stretching out his arms, hardly able to stand on his feet, which were trembling with his efforts to support his unnaturally-curved body, flaming with the torture of passion. The whole of him, every fibre of his being, yearned toward her, and now, at last, he fell upon his knees, which almost touched the water.

She cried out in anger, made a movement to swim away, but halted, saying in a low, agitated voice:

"Go away ... I will not tell anyone...."

"I cannot...." he tried to answer her, but his trembling lips refused to utter the words, for they had no power to say anything.

"Have a care ... you! Go away!"—screamed the girl.—"You scoundrel! You base man...."

What were these cries to him? He gazed into her eyes with his own drily burning eyes, and kneeling there, he waited for her, and he would have waited, had he known, that someone was brandishing an axe over his head, to smash his skull.

"Oh! you ... disgusting dog ... come, I'll give it to you...." whispered the young girl, with loathing, and suddenly dashed out of the water toward him.

She grew before his eyes, grew, as she dazzled him with her beauty,—and now she stood complete, to her very toes, before him, very beautiful and wrathful; he saw this, and awaited her with eager perturbation. Now she bent toward him ... he flourished his arms, but embraced the air.

And at that moment, a blow in the face from something damp and heavy blinded him, and he fell backward.

He began swiftly to rub his eyes—damp sand was under his fingers, and upon his head, shoulders, and cheeks blows rained down. But the blows did not evoke pain in him, but some other sentiment, and as he shielded his head with his hands, he did so mechanically rather than consciously. He heard angry sobs.... At last, overturned by a powerful blow in the breast, he fell on his back. He was not beaten again. The bushes rustled and grew still.... Incredibly long were the seconds of sullen silence which ensued after that rustling died out. The man still lay there motionless, crushed by his disgrace, and filled with an instinctive longing to hide himself from his shame, he pressed closely to the earth. When he opened his eyes, he perceived the infinitely-deep, blue sky, and it seemed to him that it was swiftly retreating further away from him, higher, higher ... and this made him breathe so heavily that he groaned, and slowly sank away somewhere, where there were no sensations.

... Thus he lay, until he felt cold; when he opened his eyes he saw Várenka bending over him. Through her fingers tears were dripping upon his face. He heard her voice:

... "Well—is this nice?... How will you go to the house in this state?... all dirty, muddy, wet, and torn ... Ekh, you stupid!... Do say that you tumbled into the water from the bank.... Aren't you ashamed of yourself? For, you know, I might have killed you ... if I had happened to get hold of something else."

And she said a great deal more to him, but all this did not, in the least, diminish or augment what he felt. And he made no reply to her words, until she told him that she was going. Then he asked softly:

"You?... I shall not see you ... anymore?"

And when he asked this he remembered and understood that he ought to say to her: "Forgive me...."

But he did not manage to say it, because, with a wave of her hand, she vanished among the trees.

He sat, with his back propped against the trunk of a tree, or something, and stared dully at the turbid water of the river as it flowed past his feet.

And it flowed slowly ... slowly ... slowly on....

COMRADES

I.

The hot July sun shone dazzlingly over Smólkina, flooding its aged huts with an abundant torrent of brilliant rays. There was an especially great amount of sunlight on the roof of the village Elder's hut, which had recently been covered afresh with smoothly planed boards, yellow and fragrant. It was Sunday, and almost the entire population of the village had come out into the street, thickly overgrown with grass, and sprinkled with hillocks of dried mud. In front of the Elder's hut, a large group of peasant men and women had assembled, some were sitting on the earth, which was banked up around the foundation of the hut, others flat on the ground, others, still, were standing; small children were chasing one another in and out among them, every now and then receiving from their elders angry shouts and raps.

The centre of the throng was a tall man, with long, drooping mustaches. From his light-brown face, covered with a thick, blue mark of beard and a network of deep wrinkles, from the locks of gray hair which hung down beneath a dirty straw hat,—one might judge that this man was fifty years of age. He was staring at the ground, and the nostrils of his large, cartilaginous nose were quivering, and when he raised his head, casting a glance at the windows of the Elder's hut, his eyes became visible,—large, sad, even gloomy eyes, which were deeply sunken in their orbits, while his thick eyebrows threw a shadow over the dark pupils. He was clad in the cinnamon-brown, tattered cassock of a monastic lay-brother, which barely covered his knees, and was girt about him with a rope. On his back was a canvas wallet, in his right hand, a long staff with an iron ferrule, with his left hand he clutched at his breast. The people round about stared at him suspiciously, sneeringly, with scorn, and, at last, with plain delight, that they had succeeded in catching the wolf before he had managed to do any damage to their flock. He had passed through the village, and, approaching the window of the Elder's hut, he had asked for a drink. The Elder had given him kvas[1] and had talked with him. But the wayfarer, contrary to the habit of pilgrims, had answered very reluctantly.... The Elder had asked him if he had a passport, and it turned out that he had not. And they had detained the wayfarer, resolved to send him to the District Council. The Elder had selected the sótsky[2] as his escort, and now, inside his hut, he was giving the latter instructions concerning the journey, leaving the prisoner in the midst of the crowd, who were making merry at his expense.

As the prisoner had been brought to a halt at the trunk of a white willow tree, so he remained standing, with his curved back resting against it.

But now, on the porch of the hut, a wall-eyed old man, with a foxy face, and a small, gray, wedge-shaped beard, made his appearance. He lowered his booted feet sedately from step to step, and his round little belly waggled solidly under his long shirt of sarpinka.[3] And over his shoulders peered the square, bearded face of the policeman.

"You understand, Efímushka?" the Elder asked the policeman.

"What is there to understand? I understand all about it. That means, that I, the policeman of Smólkina, am bound to conduct this man to the Rural Chief, and—that's all there is to it!"—and having uttered his speech with distinct articulation, and with comical importance, the policeman winked at the spectators.

"And the document?"

"The document—lives in my breast."

"Well, all right!" said the Elder argumentatively, and he added, as he scratched his ribs violently:

"Then go ahead, and God be with you!"

"Start up! Shall we march on, father?" the policeman smilingly asked the prisoner.

"You might provide a conveyance," replied the latter, in a low tone to the policeman's question. The Elder grinned.

"A con-ve-eyance! Get out with you! There are lots of tramps like you cropping up in the fields and villages ... there wouldn't be horses enough to go around for them all. So trot along on your own legs. That's the way!"

"Never mind, father, we'll walk!"—said the policeman encouragingly.... "Do you think it's far from us? With God's blessing, not more than twenty versts! Yes, and it can't be as much as that. You and I will soon roll there. And there you can rest yourself."

"In the cooler..."[4] explained the Elder.

"That's nothing," the policeman hastened to remark ... "When a man's tired he can rest even in jail. And then—the cooler—it's refreshing ... after a hot day—it's very nice indeed there!"

The prisoner cast a surly glance at his escort—the latter smiled frankly and cheerfully.

"Come on, now, respected father! Farewell, Vasíl Gavrílitch! Go along!"

"The Lord be with you, Efímushka!—Keep a sharp lookout!"

"Look as sharp—as though you had three eyes!" put in a young fellow in the crowd.

"Lo-ook here now! Am I a baby, I'd like to know?"

And they set off, keeping close to the huts, in order to walk in the strip of shade. The man in the cassock went first, with the loose but swinging gait of a pedestrian accustomed to walking. The policeman, with a stout cudgel in his hand, walked behind.

Efímushka was a small peasant, low of stature, squarely built, with a broad, kindly face, framed in a light-brown beard which fell in tufts, and began just below his clear, gray eyes. He was almost always smiling at something, displaying strong, yellow teeth, and wrinkling the skin between his eyebrows, as though he were on the point of sneezing. He was clad in a long, full smock, whose skirts were tucked into his girdle, in order that they might not entangle his legs, on his head was stuck a dark-green cap without a visor, which was pulled down over his brows in front, and bore a strong resemblance to a prison-cap.

His companion walked on, paying no attention to him, as though he were not even conscious of his presence behind him. Their way led along a narrow country road; it wound, in serpentine curves, through a waving sea of rye, and the shadows of the travellers crept over the gold of the ears.

On the horizon the crest of a forest shone blue, on the wayfarers' left, the sown fields stretched out into the endless distance, and among them la; the dark blot of a village, and beyond it, again, were fields, which vanished in pale-blue mist.

On their right, from behind a clump of willows, the spire of a belfry, still surrounded by scaffoldings, and not yet painted, pierced the blue sky—it gleamed so brilliantly in the sun, that it was painful to look at.

Larks were trilling in the sky, corn-flowers smiled among the rye, and the weather was hot—almost stifling. The dust flew up from under the travellers' feet.

Efímushka began to feel bored. Being a great chatterer by nature, he could not hold his tongue for long, and clearing his throat, he suddenly struck up, in a falsetto voice:

"Hey—ekh—the-ere, and why-y is thi-i-is ... An' why do-oth sor-row gnaw my heart?"

"If your voice gives out, blow it up to its limits! Hm—ye-es ... but I did use to sing ... The Víshenki teacher used to say,—'come on, now, Efímushka, strike up!' And he and I burst into a flood of song! he was a just young fellow...."

"Who was he?" inquired the man in the cassock, with a bass voice.

"Why, the Víshenki teacher...."

"Víshenki—was that his name?"

"Víshenki is the name of a village, brother. But the teacher's name was Pável Mikháïlitch. He was a first-class man. He died three years ago...."

"Was he young?"

"He was under thirty...."

"What did he die of?...."

"Of grief, I suppose."

Efímushka's companion cast a sidelong glance at him, and burst out laughing.

"You see, my dear man, this is the way it was—he taught, he taught seven years in succession, and then he began to cough. He coughed, and coughed, and began to grieve.... Well, and with the grief, of course, he began to drink vódka. But Father Alexéi did not like him, and when he took to drink, that Father Alexéi sent off a document to the town—thus and so, says he—the teacher drinks, and 'tis nothing but a scandal. Then they sent another document from the town, in reply, and a woman teacher. She was a very long woman, and bony, with a huge nose. Well Pável Mikháïlitch sees that his business is done for. He was grieved; 'here I've taught and taught,' says he ... 'akh, you devils!' He went from the school straight to the hospital, and five days later, he gave up his soul to God.... That's all...."

They walked on for some time in silence. The forest drew nearer to the pedestrians with every step, growing before their very eyes, and turning green from blue.

"Are we going through the forest?" inquired Efímushka's companion.

"We shall cut across the corner of it, about half a verst. But why? Hey? What are you up to? I perceive that you are a goose, respected father!"

And Efímushka laughed, and wagged his head.

"What do you mean?" inquired the prisoner.

"Why, nothing. Akh, you stupid!" Shall we go through the forest?9 says he. You're simple, my dear man, nobody with any sense would have asked that question. Any sensible man would have walked straight up to the forest, and then...."

"What?"

"Nothing! I see through you, brother. Ekh, you dear, sly humbug! No—you drop that idea—about the forest! Do you think you can get the better of me? Why, I could manage three such as you, and I could whip you with one hand, while the other was bound to my body ... Do you understand?"

"Yes! You fool!—" said the prisoner, curtly and significantly.

"What? Did I guess you?"—said Efímushka triumphantly.

"Blockhead! What have you guessed?" said the prisoner, with a wry smile.

"About the forest ... I understand!... 'I,' says he—that is you,—'when we come to the forest, will cut him down'—meaning me,—'I'll cut him down, and make off across the fields, and the forests?' Isn't that it?"

"You're stupid ..." said the man who had been divined, shrugging his shoulders.—"Come now, where could I go to?"

"Well, wherever you please—that's your affair."

"But where?—" Efímushka's companion was either angry, or was very anxious to hear from his escort precisely where he could go.

"Wherever you please, I tell you!" repeated Efímushka calmly.

"I have no place to run to, brother, none!"—said his companion quietly.

"Oh, co-ome now!" ejaculated the escort incredulously, and even waved his hand. "There's always some place to run to. The earth is big. There's always room for one man on it."

"Well, what do you mean? Do you mean that I am to run away?"—inquired the prisoner with curiosity, and he laughed.

"What a man you are! You're very fine! Is that proper? If you run away, whom can they put in prison, instead of you? They'll put me there in your place. No, I only said that by way of talking...."

"You're a blessed fool.. yet you seem a good sort of peasant,—" said Efímushka's travelling-companion with a sigh. Efímushka hastened to agree with him.

"That's just what some folks do call me, a blessed fool ... and as for my being a good sort of a peasant—that's true too. I'm straightforward, that's the chief thing. Some folks always act in a roundabout way, with guile, but what's that to me? I'm a man who is alone in the world. If you're guileful, you die, and if you live uprightly, you die. So I try to be as straightforward as possible."

"You do well!"—remarked Efímushka's companion indifferently.

"Why not? Why should I begin to squirm in my soul, when I'm alone, that's all there is to it. I'm a free man, brother. As I like, so I live, I pass my life according to the law.... Ye-es.... And what is your name?"

"My name? Well.. call me Pável Ivánoff, if you like...."

"Very well! Are you an ecclesiastic?"

"N-no...."

"Well, now? Why, I thought you were...."

"Did you think so from my dress?"

"Yes, exactly so! You're for all the world like a runaway monk, or a disfrocked priest.... But your face doesn't suit, in the face you look more like a soldier.... God knows what sort of a man you are"—and Efímushka cast an inquisitive glance at the pilgrim. The latter sighed, adjusted his hat on his head, mopped his perspiring brow, and asked the policeman:

"Do you smoke tobacco?"

"Oh, mercy me! Of course I smoke!"

He pulled a dirty tobacco-pouch out of his bosom, and bending his head, but not halting, he began to stuff tobacco into a clay pipe.

"There now, smoke that!"—The prisoner stopped, and bending toward a match which his escort lighted, he drew in his cheeks. Blue smoke floated up into the air.

"From what class do you come? Are you a petty burgher?"

"A noble...." said the prisoner briefly, and spat to one side, on the ears of rye, already clothed in a golden glow.

"E-eh! That's clever! Then how do you come to be going about without a passport?"

"Why, I'm just roaming."

"Well—well! That's practical! Your nobility is accustomed to this wolfs life, I guess? E-ekh, you unfortunate!"

"Well, that will do ... stop your chatter,"—said the unfortunate curtly.

But Efímushka, with growing curiosity and sympathy, scrutinized the passportless man, and wagging his head thoughtfully, he went on:

"A-aï! How Fate does play with a man, when you come to think of it! How, I suppose it is true that you are a nobleman, because you carry yourself so magnificently. Have you been living long in this manner?"

The man with the magnificent carriage cast a surly glance at Efímushka, and waved him off with his hand, as he would have treated a troublesome wasp.

"Drop it, I say! Why are you persisting, like a woman?"

"Now, don't you get angry!"—remarked Efímushka soothingly. "I'm speaking with pure motives ... I have a very kind heart...."

"Well, that's lucky for you ... But your tongue wags incessantly—that's unlucky for me."

"Well, all right! I can hold my tongue ... a man can hold his tongue if people don't want to listen to his conversation. But you're getting angry without any cause.... Is it my fault that you have been compelled to live the life of a vagabond?"

The prisoner halted, and set his teeth so tightly, that his cheek-bones stood out like two acute angles, and the gray bristles on them stood on end. He eyed Efímushka from head to foot, with eyes puckered up and blazing with wrath.

But before Efímushka observed this pantomime, he began again to cover the ground with long strides.

On the countenance of the loquacious policeman lay an impress of pensiveness. He stared upward, at the spot whence the trills of the larks poured forth, and whistled to them through his teeth, brandishing his cudgel in time with his steps. They reached the edge of the forest. It stood like a dark, motionless wall—not a sound was wafted from it to greet the travellers. The sun was already setting, and its slanting rays dyed the crests of the trees with crimson and gold. From the trees breathed forth a fragrant dampness, the twilight, and concentrated silence, which filled the forest gave birth to a feeling of awe.

When a forest stands before one's eyes, dark and motionless, when it is completely submerged in mysterious stillness, and every tree seems to be listening keenly to something—then the forest appears to be full of something living, which is only temporarily keeping quiet. And one waits, with the expectation that the next moment something vast and incomprehensible to human understanding will emerge from it, will emerge, and begin to speak in a mighty voice about the great mysteries of Nature's creation....

II.

On reaching the edge of the forest, Efímushka and his companion decided to take a rest, and seated themselves on the grass, near a large oak stump. The prisoner slowly drew the wallet from his shoulders, and indifferently inquired of the policeman:

"Would you like some bread?"

"If you give it, I'll chew it," replied Efímushka, with a smile.

And so they began, in silence, to chew their bread. Efímushka ate slowly, sighing all the while, and gazing off somewhere into the distance, across a field on his left, but his companion was entirely engrossed in the process of satisfying his hunger, ate fast, and munched noisily, measuring his crust of bread with his eyes. The field darkened, the grain had already lost its golden hue, and had become rosy-yellow, tufts of dark clouds crept up the sky from the southwest, and shadows fell from them upon the plain,—fell, and crept over the ears of grain to the forest, where sat the two dark human figures. And the trees, also, cast dark shadows on the earth, and from the shadow sadness breathed upon the soul.

"I thank thee, oh Lord!—" exclaimed Efímushka, gathering up from the skirts of his smock the crumbs of bread, and licking them from his palm with his tongue. "The Lord has fed me—no one saw it, and he who saw it, took no offence! Friend! Shall we sit here a little hour? Shall we get to the cooler soon enough?"

The friend shook his head.

"Well, then, see here.... This place is very beautiful, it's a memorable spot to me ... Yonder, to the left, the manor of the Tutchkóffs used to stand...."

"Where?" ... asked the prisoner quickly, turning in the direction in which Efímushka waved his hand....

"Why, yonder—beyond the point of forest ... Everything around here used to belong to them. They were the richest of gentry, but after the Emancipation they went to decay.... I used to belong to them,—all of us used to be their serfs. It was a big family ... The Colonel himself was Alexánder Nikítitch Tutchkóff. There were children: four sons—what has become of them all now? It's as if people were blown away by the wind, like the leaves in autumn. Only Iván Alexándrovitch remains,—I'm taking you to him now, he's our Rural Chief ... He's an old man...."

The prisoner began to laugh. He laughed in a low tone, with a peculiar sort of internal laughter,—his chest and belly heaved, but his face remained immovable, only through his grinning teeth broke forth dull sounds, resembling a bark.

Efímushka shrivelled up apprehensively, and drawing his cudgel nearer to his hand, he asked him:

"What's the matter with you? Have you got a fit, or what?... hey?"

"Nothing ... it will pass off," said the prisoner spasmodically but amiably. "You were telling me, you know...."

"Well, ye-es! So you see, these Tutchkóff gentry were great folks, and now they are gone.... Some have died, others have disappeared, and left no trace behind them.... There was one in particular...? the youngest of them all. His name was Víctor ... Vítya. He and I were chums.... At the time when the Emancipation was proclaimed, he and I were fourteen years old.... What a boy he was, may the Lord remember his soul for good! Pure as a brook! Like it he streamed on all day long, and rippled like it.... Where is he now? Is he alive or not?"

"How was he so good?" his companion softly asked Efímushka.

"In every way!"—exclaimed Efímushka.—"In beauty, brains, kind heart.... Akh, you strange man! my darling, my ripe berry! you ought to have seen us two in those days ... aï, aï, aï! What games we played, how merry life was,—the sweetest of the sweet! He used to shout—'Efímka![1]—let's go hunting!' He had a gun,—his father gave it to him on his saint's day,—and I used to carry the gun. And we would ramble about here in the forest for one day, two days, three days! When we got home, he got a scolding and I got a thrashing; and, behold, the next day, it was again: 'Efímka! let's go after mushrooms!—' He and I killed birds by the thousand! We gathered puds[2] of mushrooms! He used to catch butterflies and beetles, and stick them on pins, in little boxes. It was a busy time! He taught me to read and write ... 'Efímka,' says he, 'I'll teach you. Go ahead!—' Well, and so I began. 'Say A,' says he! I yell—'A-A!' We laugh! At first I looked on the matter as a joke—what does a peasant want with reading and writing? Well, and he exhorted me: 'Your mind is given to you, you fool, so that you may learn.... If you know how to read and write,' says he, 'you'll know how a man must live, and where to seek the truth.' ... Of course, a little child is apt, evidently he had heard that sort of speech from his elders, and began to talk like that himself.... It was all nonsense, of course.... That sort of knowledge is in the heart, and the heart will point out about the right.... It—the heart—is quick-sighted. Well, and so he taught me, and he got so interested in that matter, that he wouldn't let me rest! I was worn out! I entreated him! 'Vítya,' says I, 'reading and writing are beyond my power, I can't conquer them,' says I. Then ho-ow he did roar at me!? I'll thrash you with papa's kazák whip,—learn your lesson!—' 'Akh, have mercy! I'll learn....' Once I ran away from my lesson. I just jumped up and took to my heels! Then he hunted me all day long, with his gun—he wanted to shoot me. He said to me afterward—' if I had met you that day,' says he, 'I'd have shot you!' You see what a sharp fellow he was! Inflexible, fiery—a real gentleman.... He was fond of me; he had a flaming soul.... Once my daddy decorated my back with the reins, and when he, that Vítya, saw it, he came to our hut,—and my heavens!—what a row! he turned all pale, and shook all over, and clenched his fists, and wanted to go after daddy in the loft! 'How dared you do it?' says he. Daddy says—'I'm his father! Aha!—' 'Well, very good, father, I won't come to an agreement with you, until your back is just like Efímka's.' He burst out crying after these words and ran away.... Well, and what do you say to that, father? For he kept his word. Evidently, he instigated the house-servants, or something of that sort, only, one day daddy came home grunting; he tried to take off his shirt, but it had dried fast to his back.... Father was very angry with me that time—'all on account of you,' says he, 'I'm suffering, you nobleman's toady.' And he gave me a healthy licking. But as for my being a nobleman's toady, he was wrong about that,—I wasn't anything of the sort...."

"That's true, Efímka, you were not!" said the prisoner in confirmation, and trembled all over. "It's immediately apparent that you could not be a nobleman's toady," he added rather hastily.

"Exactly so!" exclaimed Efímushka ... "I simply loved him, that Vítya ... He was just the sort of a child whom everyone loved,—and not I alone.... He used to make various remarks ... I don't remember what they were, more than thirty years have passed since those days—Akh, oh Lord! where is he now? I think, that if he is still alive, he must be either occupying a very lofty place, or ... be seething in the very gulf of misery.... Such is human life! It boils and boils, and nothing sensible ever comes of it ... And people disappear ... and one feels sorry for the people, deadly sorry!—" Efímushka, sighing heavily, hung his head upon his breast. The silence lasted for a minute.

"And are you sorry for me?" asked the prisoner merrily. Merrily is the only way to describe his manner of asking, his whole face was illuminated by such a fine, kind smile ...

"Yes, you queer man!—" exclaimed Efímushka,—"how can I help being sorry for you? What are you, when you stop to think about it? If you tramp about in this way, evidently, it is because you have nothing of your own on earth, neither nook nor chip ... But perhaps you are bearing a great sin with you—who knows? you're an unfortunate man—that's the only word for it...."

"Exactly so,—" said the prisoner.

And again they fell silent. The sun had set now, and the shadows had grown more dense. The air smelled of damp earth, and flowers, and forest mould ... They sat for a long time, thus silent.

"Well, however beautiful it is here, we must go on ... We have still eight versts to walk.... Come on there, father, get up!"

"Let us sit a little longer,—" entreated the father.

"Well, I have no objection, I'm fond of being near the forest by night myself ... Only, when shall we get to the Rural Chief? He'll scold me—tell me I'm late."

"Never mind, he won't scold...."

"Do you mean to speak a word for me?—" grinned the policeman.

"Yes."

"You don't say so?"

"Why not?"

"You're a joker! He'll pepper you!"

"Will he thrash me?"

"He's fierce! And clever—he'll give you a whack in the ear, and it will be as good as a scythe through your legs."

"Well, we'll give him as good as he sends," said the prisoner confidently, tapping his escort on the shoulder in a friendly way.

This was familiar, and Efímushka did not like it. Look at it as you might, he was one of the authorities, and that goose must not forget that Efímushka had his brass shield of office in his breast. Efímushka rose to his feet, took his stick in his hand, hung the shield outside, in the very middle of his breast, and said sternly:

"Get up, come along!"

"I won't!" said the prisoner.

Efímushka was abashed, and, with starting eyes, he made no reply for a minute, not understanding how the prisoner had come to be such a jester all of a sudden.

"Well, don't loll there, come along!" he repeated more gently.

"I won't come along!" repeated the prisoner, with decision.

"Do you mean that you won't come with me?" shouted Efímushka, in wrath and amazement.

"Exactly that. I want to spend the night here with you ... Come now, light a fire."

"I'll teach you to spend the night! I'll light such a fire in your ribs—I'll make it pleasant for you!" menaced Efímushka. But, in the depths of his soul, he was amazed. The man said, "I won't go"—but he offered no opposition, did not begin a fight, but simply lay still on the ground, and nothing more. What was he to do?

"Don't yell, Efím,—" the prisoner calmly advised him.

Again Efímushka was reduced to silence, and shifting from foot to foot, over his prisoner, he stared at him with bursting eyes. And the man stared at him, stared and smiled. Efímushka pondered heavily what he was to do next.

And what had made this vagabond, hitherto so surly and cross, now suddenly turn so amiable? And what if he were to fall upon him, bind his hands, give him a cut or two across the throat, and so end it all? And in the very severest tone of authority which he had at his command, Efímushka said:

"Well, you burnt-out scrap, see here—you've put on airs enough, and I've had enough of it! Get up! Or I'll bind you, and then you'll go, never fear! Understand? Well? Look out—I'll thrash you!"

"Me, do you mean?" laughed the prisoner.

"Whom do you suppose?"

"You, Efím Grýzloff, will thrash Vítya Tutchkóff?"

"Akh—you're firing high!—" exclaimed Efímushka, in astonishment,—"but who are you, anyway? What sort of an exhibition are you going through with me?"

"Come, stop shouting, Efímushka, it's time you recognized me,—" said the prisoner, with a calm smile, and rose to his feet,—"won't you exchange greetings!"

Efímushka staggered back from the hand which was extended to him, and stared, with all his eyes, into the face of his prisoner. Then his lips quivered, and his whole face wrinkled up....

"Viktor Alexándrovitch, and is it really you?" he asked in a whisper.

"If you like—I will show you my papers? But the best way of all is—to recall old times.... Come now ... how you fell into the wolfs hole, in the Ramén pine woods? And how I climbed a tree for a bird's nest, and hung head downward from a bough? And how we stole cream from the old dairy-woman, Petróvna? And the fairy-tales she used to tell us?"