THREE MEN (continued 7)

"She just swept everything clean like the wind!"

"There, did you see?" cried Ilya in triumph, pulling at his curly hair, "How she apologised, eh? You see what it's like to be really cultivated; you can respect a person, but you're never the first to make advances, see?"

"She's good," Gratschev confirmed him. "How long was she here? Close on an hour; it seems like a minute or two."

"Like a star."

"Yes, and put everything straight in no time; told us how and where and when."

Lunev laughed excitedly; he was delighted that this proud girl should have shown herself so capable and cheerful, and he was pleased with himself for knowing how to conduct himself worthily.

"Ah, yes," he cried regretfully. "I forgot; she took me by surprise with her apology."

"What did you forget?"

"I ought to have kissed her hand; that's what they do, educated people; it shows special respect."

Gavrik came in apparently loafing aimlessly.

"Ah, Gavrik!" said Ilya, and clapped him on the shoulder. "Your sister's a brick."

"Yes, she's a good sort," the boy agreed condescendingly. "Are we going to work to-day, or have a holiday? for I'd like to go into the country."

"No work to-day. Pavel, come, let's go for a walk."

"I shall go to the police station," said Pavel, and his face clouded over again.

"Perhaps they'll let me see her."

"I shall go for a walk," said Ilya.

Fresh and happy he strolled through the streets thinking of Gavrik's sister, and comparing this strange girl with all the people he had ever known. It was clear to him that she was better than them all, and had treated him better. The words of her apology rang in his ears, and he saw before him her face, with its wide nostrils, and every feature stamped with an expression of striving towards some unknown goal.

"And how she used to look down on me at first," he said to himself smiling, and began to wonder why at first she had treated him so proudly and distantly when she did not know him, and had hardly exchanged a word with him.

Life surged round about him. Students went by laughing, droshkys and carts of goods rolled past, a beggar limped along in front of him, his wooden leg tapping loudly on the stone pavement.

Two prisoners, guarded by a soldier, were carrying a wooden tub on a pole between them. A seller of pears passed along shouting, "Garden pears! Cooking pears!" Behind him ran a little dog with lolling tongue, rattle and crash, shouting and tramping, every sound blended in a lively, exciting hubbub. A warm dust whirled aloft and tickled the nostrils; the sun flamed out of a deep clean sky, and flooded the whole world with radiant splendour. Lunev looked at everything with a joy to which he had long been a stranger; everything in the streets seemed new and interesting; there, almost dancing along, goes a pretty girl with a merry red-cheeked face, and looks Ilya in the eyes, frank and friendly, as though she would say: "How nice you are!" Lunev smiled back at her. A droshky driver took off his hat, bowing sideways, with a grin, and said to a fat lady standing on the pavement: "It's too little, lady, five kopecks more." Ilya saw by his face that he was lying, the rascal—he had his proper fare. A young man hurries out of a shop with a copper can in his hand, pours out the cold water, sprinkling the passers-by, and the lid of the can rings cheerfully. The street is hot, stifling, noisy, and the thick green of the old lime-trees in the town churchyard is enticing with its peace and cool shade. The churchyard is surrounded with a white stone wall, and the thick foliage of the old trees sweeps up in a mighty wave to heaven, crowned with a spray of pointed green leaves. Against the blue every leaf stands out, and slowly quivering seems to melt away, and high over the foam of leaves shines the golden crosses of the church, a net-work of glancing, trembling rays.

Lunev entered the churchyard and went slowly along the broad alley, drawing deep breaths of perfume from the blossoming limes. Between the trees, under the branches' shade, stood monuments of marble and granite, stout and heavy, overgrown with moss and lichen. Here and there in the mysterious twilight crosses or half-erased inscriptions glimmered; golden honeysuckle, acacia, whitethorn and elder grew in the hedges, and their branches hid the graves. Here and there in the dense green a slender grey wooden cross appeared and was lost immediately among the surrounding bushes. White stems of young birch-trees glimmered like velvet through the thick network of leaves; they seemed to choose the shade with calculated modesty in order to be seen more easily. On green mounds, behind railings, shone gay flowers, a bee buzzed by in the stillness, two white butterflies played in the air; all kinds of flies swarmed noiselessly; and everywhere grasses and plants made towards the light, hid the mournful graves, and all the green of the churchyard was full of a tense striving to grow, to develop, to drink in air and light and change the richness of the earth to colour and scent and beauty for the joy of eyes and hearts. Everywhere life prevails and will prevail.

Lunev rejoiced to wander at will in the quiet and breathe in the sweet perfume of the flowers and the lime-trees. In his heart, too, there was rest and peace, he thought of nothing, but tasted the joy of solitude long unknown to him. He turned to the left out of the alley by a narrow path, and went slowly reading the inscriptions on crosses and gravestones. The graves hemmed him in with their railings, ornamental and wrought, or plain cast-iron.

"Beneath this cross rest the ashes of Vonifanty, servant of God."

He read and smiled, the name seemed ridiculous. Over the ashes of Vonifanty was set a huge granite stone. Near by in another enclosure rested "Peter Babushkin, twenty-eight years old."

"A young fellow," thought Ilya.

On a pillar of white marble he read:

"Earth's little flower is plucked and dies, A new star shines in heaven's skies."

Lunev read the couplet over and felt something touching in it. Suddenly he felt as though he had been struck to the heart, he swayed and shut his eyes; but through his closed lids he still saw clearly the inscription that had terrified him. The shining, golden letters on the big, brown stone seemed to have been cut on his brain:

"Here lies the body of the merchant Gilde Vassily Gavrilovitsch Poluektov, the younger."

After a moment or two, terrified at his own fear, he opened his eyes quickly, and looked suspiciously round about him. No one was there, only far off a burial service was being conducted. Through the stillness rang a thin tenor voice singing:

"Let us pray."

A deep, rather unpleasant voice answered, "Have mercy," and the clinking of the censers was just audible.

Lunev stood with his back against a maple-tree, his head thrown back, staring at the grave of the man he had murdered. He had pushed his cap off his brow, and it was pressed against the tree by the back of his head. His eyebrows were dark, his upper lip twitched, showing his teeth; his hands were deep in his jacket pockets, and his feet braced against the ground.

Poluektov's monument represented a coffin, and carved on it an open book, and a skull and crossbones. Beside it in the same enclosure was another smaller stone with an inscription that beneath it rested Eupraxia Poluektov, twenty-two years old.

"The first wife," thought Lunev. The thought came from only a small part of his brain, that remained free from the straining labour of his memory. He was gripped by the recollections of Poluektov; the first meeting, the murder, the feeling of the old man's saliva on his hands. But while all this stirred to life in his memory, he felt no trouble, no remorse, he looked at the gravestone with hate and bitterness and deep ill-will; and under his breath, with hot anger in his heart, and a real conviction of the truth of his words, he addressed the merchant:

"It's for you, damn you, that I ruined all my life, for you! You devil. What life is it I lead, through you! I have smirched myself for ever through you."

The words "for you" thumped in him like hammer strokes. He longed to cry with all his might these words for every one to hear, and he could hardly restrain the fierce desire. He pressed his teeth together till they ached, and stared before him while the thought of his life took hold of his soul like fire. Before him appeared the little, spiteful face, and near it somehow the wicked, bald head of Strogany with the red eyebrows, the self-satisfied face of Petrusha, the stupid Kirik, the grey head of Ehrenov, snub-nosed and pig-eyed—a whole crowd of familiar faces. There was a roaring in his ears, and it seemed as though all these men surrounded him, pressed on him, crowded him obstinately. He stepped away from the tree; his cap fell down behind him; as he bent to pick it up, he could not help stealing a sidelong glance at the money-changer's gravestone. He felt hot and sick, his face was full of blood, his eyes were strained with the tenseness of their gaze. With great difficulty he tore them away, walked straight up to the enclosure, grasped the railings in his hands and trembling with hate, spat on the grave; as he went away he stamped his feet on the ground as though to free them from a pain.

He could not go home; his soul was heavy and a sense of sick, cold weariness grew suffocatingly upon him. He walked with slow steps without looking at any one, without caring for anything, without thinking. In this way he walked along one street, turned mechanically into a second at the corner, went on a little further, and then found himself close to Petrusha Filimonov's tavern; the thought of Jakov came into his mind. As he passed by the door he felt that he must go in, though he had no wish to do so. As he went up the steps he heard Perfishka's voice.

"Oh! good people, be tender with your hands and spare my sides."

Lunev stood still in the open door; he saw Jakov behind the counter through the clouds of dust and tobacco smoke. His hair plastered down, in a coat with short sleeves, he was hurrying about, putting tea in teapots, counting lumps of sugar, pouring out brandy, and drawing the drawer of the till noisily in and out. The waiters hurried up and called, throwing the counters on the table: "Half a bottle, two beers, roast meat, ten kopecks' worth."

"He's grown handier," thought Lunev with an almost malicious pleasure, as he saw how quickly his friend's red hands moved.

"Ah! I'll remember that half-rouble against him," growled the loud harsh voice of a customer.

"Ah!" cried Jakov in delight, as Ilya came up to the counter, then looked nervously at the door behind him. His forehead was wet with perspiration, his cheeks yellow, with red patches. He grasped Ilya's hand and shook it, coughing at the same time, a harsh, dry cough.

"How are you?" asked Lunev, forcing a smile.

"Pretty well. I help in the business."

"Brought into the yoke at last?"

"What's a fellow to do?"

Jakov's shoulders were bowed, and he looked as if he had grown smaller.

"What ages it is since we met," he said, and looked in Ilya's face with his loving mournful eyes. "I'd like a bit of a talk with you. Father isn't there as it happens. See here, come in, and I'll ask the step-mother to let me away for a little."

He opened the door of his father's room slightly, and called respectfully:

"Mamma, can I speak to you a minute?"

Ilya entered the room that he had shared with his uncle, and looked round with interest. It was hardly altered; the wall-paper was darker, and instead of two beds there was only one, and above it a shelf of books. On the spot where he used to sleep stood a high, stout chest.

"There, I've got off for an hour," said Jakov cheerfully as he came in, and then shut and bolted the door. "But would you like some tea? All right. Ivan, tea," he called loudly, then began to cough and coughed for a long time; he supported himself with a hand against the wall, bowed his head and bent his back as though he would force something from his chest.

"That's a pretty noise to make," said Lunev,

"It's consumption, but I am glad to see you again, and my word, how you look! so swell, quite splendid! Well and how are you getting on?"

"I? What?" answered Lunev hesitatingly.

"Oh! I get along, but you, tell me, that's much more interesting."

Lunev felt absolutely disinclined to give information about himself; he hardly wanted to speak at all. He looked at Jakov and seeing him suffering, pitied him, but it was a cold pity, almost an empty, unmeaning feeling.

"I, brother? I endure my life as well as I can," answered Jakov, half aloud.

"Your father sucks your blood."

"Oh, he's in a tight place himself."

"Serves him right!"

"Step-mother's the chief person in the house now; if she says a thing, that's the law."

"Child, what use is money to you? Give me a kiss, I'll give you two,"

sang Perfishka in a piping voice in the next room, and played on his harmonica.

"What kind of a chest is that?" asked Ilya.

"That? That's a harmonium. Father bought it for me for four roubles. 'Learn to play it,' he said, 'then I'll buy you a good one at three hundred roubles,' he said, 'and we'll put it in the restaurant, and you can play to the guests and be some use, anyhow.' It was smart of him; they have organs in all the taverns now except ours, and I like playing."

"He's a mean wretch!" cried Lunev.

"Not at all! Why? Let him alone. It's quite true, I'm no use to him."

Ilya looked darkly at his friend, and said bitterly:

"Here's a good idea for him! Tell him when you die to make a show of you in the bar, and charge to see it, five kopecks a head. Then you'll be worth something to him."

Jakov laughed in an embarrassed way, and began to cough again, holding his hand first against his chest, then against his throat.

And Perfishka went on cheerfully:

"He kept the fast days as 'tis fit, He did not eat or drink a bit, His empty stomach felt the pain, But oh! his soul was clean again!"

"So, ho—holiness!" And his harmonica drowned the words with a confused medley of sounds.

"How do you get on with your step-brother?" asked Ilya when Jakov ceased coughing. His friend raised his face, quite blue with the exertion of coughing, and said, struggling to get his breath:

"He doesn't live here. His superiors won't let him—because of—the business. He—is bearable—a little uppish—plays the gentleman. Comes often for money to his mother. He's always wanting money."

Jakov lowered his voice, and went on in a troubled way:

"Do you remember that book? You know? Yes—he took it away from me—it was rare he said—that it was worth a lot—and so he took it away. I begged him—leave it to me—but no!—he would have it." Ilya laughed aloud. Then the two friends began their tea. Through the chinks in the wooden partition all kinds of noises and different odours made their way into the little room. One angry voice, towering above the rest, shouted:

"Mitry Nikolayitch—don't you throw my words back at me!"

"I'm reading a story now, brother," Jakov went on again; "it's called 'Julia, or the Subterranean Vault of the Muzzini Castle'—most interesting. And you? What are you doing that way?"

"Go to the devil with your subterranean vaults. I don't live so very high above ground myself," was Lunev's sulky answer.

Jakov looked at him sympathetically, and asked:

"Is there anything gone wrong with you?"

Lunev did not reply. He was wondering whether to tell Jakov of Masha or not; but Jakov began again gently:

"Ilya, you're so touchy and bitter—about nothing, as far as I can see. Because you see—after all—it isn't anybody's fault. It's all settled. They haven't any hand in it—it was all arranged and ordered long before them."

Lunev drank his tea and said nothing.

"And you know—every man shall be rewarded according to his deeds—that is certain. There's my father—to tell the truth. What is he? Why, a tyrant! And then comes along Thekla Timofeyevna and—crock! She has him under the harrow. He leads a life of it now—ah! ah! He's begun to drink out of worry—and how long is it since they were married? And so for every man there's a Thekla Timofeyevna somewhere for his evil deeds."

Ilya was weary and uninterested; he pushed away his teacup and said suddenly:

"And what are you looking for now?"

"How do you mean? From whom?" replied Jakov in a low voice with eyes wide open.

"Why—in the future—what are you looking for?" Ilya repeated his question sharply.

Jakov hung his head and became thoughtful.

"Well?" said Ilya half aloud, feeling a burning restlessness at his heart and a wish to get away as soon as possible.

"What could I look for?" Jakov began at last softly and without looking at his friend.

"To look for? There's no more of that for me. I shall die—that's all—and soon—that's certain."

He held up his head and went on with a gentle happy smile on his wasted face.

"I always see things blue in my dreams—d'you know? as if everything were sky-blue—not only the sky, but the ground and the trees and the flowers and the grass. Everything! And so quiet—quite, quite peaceful! As if nothing at all existed—everything seems so still—and all bright blue. I feel so light—as though I could go anywhere, without feeling tired—go right on and never stop—and you can't tell whether it's really you or not—so light, so light. Dreams like that—that's a sign of death."

"Good-bye!" said Lunev, and got up.

"Where are you going so soon? Stay a little."

"No. Good-bye!"

Jakov got up also. "Very well then—go!"

Lunev pressed his hot hand and looked at him silently, finding no words to bid his comrade farewell; he wanted to say something, wanted so strongly and so much that his heart pained him.

"Why do you look at me like that?" asked Jakov, smiling.

"Forgive me, brother," said Lunev slowly and heavily, lowering his eyes.

"What then?"

"Just that—forgive."

"Am I a priest then?" said Jakov, smiling gently. "But wait, wait a minute. I forgot what I wanted to say to you. Mashutka—you know?"

"What?"

"She too—have you heard? She has a bad time too."

"Yes. I heard."

"You see, we all have the same fate. You too. I feel sure. Your heart is sad—isn't it?"

He spoke with a dull smile. The tone of his voice, and every word of his conversation, everything about him seemed bloodless, colourless; Lunev let go his hand—and it fell slackly down.

"Well, Jasha—forgive me, anyway."

"God forgives! You'll come again?"

Ilya went out without replying. Once in the street his heart felt lighter and less weary. He saw that Jakov must soon die, and the knowledge irritated him vaguely. He did not exactly pity Jakov, because he could not imagine how this gentle, quiet youth could live in this world. Long ago he had come to regard his friend as one who was ordained to depart from the riot of life. But what irritated him was the thought—Why do people torture this harmless man? Why do they drive him out of the world before his time? And from this thought his hostile feeling against life now became almost the most deeply rooted of his sensations, grew and strengthened. That night he could not sleep. In spite of the open window the room was close.

He went out into the courtyard and lay down on the ground under the elm-tree by the fence. Lying on his back, he looked up into the clear sky, and the more intently he gazed the more stars he could see. The Milky Way stretched across the heavens from one end to the other, like a silver tissue, and to look up at it through the branches of the tree was at once pleasant and saddening. The sky where no one lives glitters with stars, and the earth—What is there to adorn it? Ilya blinked his eyes, the branches seemed to mount up higher and higher; against the blue velvet of the arch of heaven sown with sparkling stars, the black outlines of the leaves looked like hands stretched up in the attempt to scale the heights. Ilya thought involuntarily of his friend's "blue dreams," and before his mind appeared the image of Jakov—blue, light, and transparent, his kind eyes shining like stars. There—that was a man, and he was martyred because he lived peaceably. But the tormentors live on as their hearts desire, and will live long.

XXIII.

From henceforth there was a new and rather disturbing feature in Ilya's life. Gavrik's sister began to visit his shop almost every day. She appeared always anxious over one thing or another, greeted Ilya with a hearty handshake, and vanished again after exchanging a few words with him. But always she left something new in Ilya's mind. Once she asked him:

"Do you like a business like this?"

"Not so very much," answered Ilya, shrugging his shoulders; "but a man must earn his living some way or other."

She looked at him attentively with her serious eyes, and her face looked even more tense than usual.

"A man must live!" repeated Ilya with a sigh.

"Have you never tried to make your living by work?"

Ilya did not understand.

"How?"

"Have you ever worked?"

"Always. All my life. I—sell things," answered Ilya doubtfully.

She smiled, and Ilya felt a little hurt at her smile.

"You think—selling things—is work?"

"Yes, surely. It often makes me tired." Looking in her face he felt that she was not joking, but speaking earnestly.

"Oh, no"—the girl went on with a condescending smile. "To work means to make something by the exercise of one's strength—to create something. Thread or ribbons or chairs or chests—d'you see?" Lunev nodded and blushed; he was ashamed to say that he did not understand.

"But trade—what's the good of it? it makes nothing," she said with conviction, and looked challengingly at Ilya.

"Yes," he answered slowly and carefully. "You're right there—it isn't difficult when you're used to it. But still trade must be some use, or else there wouldn't be any, would there?"

She did not reply to this, but turned away and began to speak to her brother. Soon after she took her leave, only nodding to Ilya as she went. Her expression was cold and proud, even as it was before the encounter with Masha. Ilya pondered on this; could he by any chance have hurt her feelings by a careless word? He thought over everything he had said, and could find nothing in it to wound her. Then he began to consider her words, and the more he thought the more they occupied him. What sort of difference could she see between trade and work?

She interested him more and more; but he could not understand why her features looked cross and irritable when she herself was so kind, and could not only sympathise with people, but also help them. Pavel had visited her at home, and was full of enthusiastic praises for her and all the mode of life in her family.

"The minute you come in—at once, they say, 'Welcome.' If they're at table, then—'Sit down with us.' If they're having tea—'Have a cup of tea with us.' It's so simple—and the people, there—my word!—and so happy—they drink tea and talk all at once and quarrel over books; and the books all lie about as if it were a book-shop. It's often crowded, you knock into your neighbour, and he laughs. All educated people—one is an advocate, another will soon be a doctor, and students and that sort. You forget altogether who you are, and laugh as if you were in your own set, and smoke and so on. It's splendid—so jolly, and so sensible."

"Ah—they'll never ask me," said Lunev, gloomily, "that proud young lady."

"Proud?—she?" cried Pavel. "I tell you, she's simplicity itself. Don't wait for an invitation—meet her by accident at the house door—and there you are. All people are equal, there—like in an inn, my boy. You feel so free. I tell you—what am I compared to you? But after two visits—like a child of the house!—and interesting—the noise, the row—the words start up—it's like a game."

"Well, and how's Mashutka?" asked Ilya.

"Pretty well, she's picked up a bit—sits and smiles now and then. They look after her—give her lots of milk—as for Ehrenov, he'll catch it! The advocate said the old devil would get it properly. Masha will be taken to the Judge of Inquiry—and as for my girl, they're taking a lot of trouble to bring the case on soon. Ah—it's good to be near them—the little house—people there like wood in the stove—they glow."

"But she, she herself?" asked Ilya.

Of "her" Pavel began to talk, as once he had talked of the prisoners who taught him to read and write. Every nerve was tense, and he talked emphatically, his speech full of interjections.

"She, brother? Oh—ho! Where did she learn it? She orders them all about, and if any one says anything unfair, or else—she, frrr—like a cat."

"I know that," said Ilya, and smiled involuntarily.

Yet he envied Pavel; he longed to visit the house, but his self-conceit forbade him to take the straight way there.

Standing behind the counter he thought obstinately:

"All the men there are, every one looks out for a chance to get something somehow from the rest. But she, what good does it do her to take up Mashutka and Vyera? She's poor; perhaps everything in the house has to be reckoned. That means she must be very good. And yet she talks to me that way, how am I worse than Pavel?"

These thoughts troubled him so, that he began to feel almost indifferent to everything else. A chink seemed to have opened in the darkness of his life, and through it he felt, rather than saw, something glimmer that he had never perceived before.

"My friend," said Tatiana Vlassyevna to him, coldly but impressively: "The stock of narrow tape wants renewing; the trimming, too, is almost used up, and there's very little black thread number fifty. A firm offers us pearl buttons at—the traveller came to me. I sent him on here. Has he been?"

"No," answered Ilya shortly.

This woman became more repugnant to him daily. He had a suspicion that she had taken Karsakov, recently named District Chief of Police, for a lover. She appointed meetings with Ilya more and more seldom, although she had just the same tender, gay manner with him as before. He did his best to avoid even these rarer meetings on one pretext or another, and finding that she was not at all annoyed, he called her in his heart fickle and shameless.

She was especially irksome to him when she came to the shop to inspect the stock. She turned about like a top, jumped on the counter, hauled out the cardboard boxes from the highest shelves, sneezing in the dust she raised, shook her head, and worried the life out of Gavrik.

"An apprentice in business must be quick and ready, he isn't fed to sit in the door all day and rub his nose; and when he's spoken to he ought to listen attentively, and not stare like a scarecrow."

But Gavrik had a character quite his own. While he listened to her flood of comments he preserved a complete indifference. Especially when she was rummaging about among the upper shelves, and holding up her skirts, Gavrik would look mischievously at his master. When he addressed her it was roughly and without any sign of respect, and when she departed he would remark: "There goes the plover at last."

"You mustn't speak of your mistress like that," said Ilya, trying to hide a smile.

"What sort of a mistress is she?" answered Gavrik. "She comes here and chatters, and hops off again! You—are the master."

"She is, too," said Ilya feebly, for he liked the honourable, high-spirited lad.

"Ah; she's a plover," insisted Gavrik.

"You teach that youngster nothing," said Madame Avtonomov to Ilya on another occasion. "And I must say, frankly, that lately everything seems carried on without enthusiasm, with no love for the work."

Lunev said nothing, but in his soul he hated her so that he thought:

"I wish to goodness, you she-devil, you'd break your leg; coming skipping about here."

One day he received a letter from his uncle, and learnt that Terenti had not only been to Kiev, but also the Sergius Monastery and in Valvam. He had nearly gone to Solovky, on the Dvina, but had abandoned that pilgrimage, and expected soon to reach home again.

"Another joy," thought Ilya bitterly. "He'll come here to live for certain."

He considered eagerly how to arrange that his uncle should live alone. But he had little time for thought; customers came in, and while he was busy with them, Gavrik's sister appeared. She seemed tired and out of breath, greeted him, and asked, nodding at the door of the room behind:

"Is there any water there?"

"I'll get it," said Ilya.

"No, I'll go."

She went into the room and stayed there till Lunev had finished with his customers, and followed her. He found her standing before the "Steps of Man's Life." Turning her head towards him, she said, indicating the picture:

"What awful taste!"

Confused by the remark, Ilya smiled, and felt somewhat guilty.

"Burr! What middle-class sentiment!" she repeated with disgust, and before he could ask for an explanation she was gone. A few days later she brought her brother some new linen, and reproved him for being careless with his clothes, tearing and soiling them.

"Well," said Gavrik, crossly. "That's enough. That woman's always on at me, and now you're beginning."

"What's the matter with him? Is he very rude?" she asked Ilya at this.

"N—no. He doesn't mean to be," answered Ilya kindly.

"I—I always keep quite quiet!" said the boy.

"His tongue goes a little fast!" said Ilya.

"Do you hear?" asked his sister, knitting her brows.

"Oh, yes, I hear!" cried Gavrik crossly.

"It doesn't matter much," said Ilya good-humouredly. "A man who can show his teeth has always an advantage over the rest. A man who bears blows silently gets beaten to his grave by the stupid people."

She listened and a smile of pleasure came over her face. Ilya noticed it.

"I wanted to ask you——" he began, in some confusion.

"Well?"

The girl came closer and looked right into his eyes. He could not meet her glance, but hung his head and went on:

"As far as I can make out, you don't care for tradesmen?"

"Not much."

"Why?"

"Because they live on the work of others," she explained, speaking very distinctly.

Ilya threw up his head, and his brows contracted. The words did not only astonish him, but pained him; and she said them so simply, so much as if it were a matter of course.

"But—excuse me—that isn't true!" he said loudly, after a pause.

Her face twitched and she blushed.

"How much does this ribbon cost you?" she asked coldly and sternly.

"Ribbon?—this ribbon?—Seventeen kopecks the arshin."

"And how do you sell it?"

"At twenty"

"Very well. The three kopecks that you make don't really belong to you, but to the one who made the ribbon. Do you see?"

"No," confessed Lunev frankly.

A flame shot from her eyes. Ilya saw it, and was afraid, yet angered with himself because of his fear.

"Yes. I thought it wouldn't be easy for you to understand such a simple idea," she said, and turned away towards the door. "But see, now—imagine you are a worker, that you've made all this yourself,"—she swept her hand round with a big gesture, and went on to explain to him how labour enriches all except the labourer. At first she spoke in her ordinary manner, coldly, distinctly, and her ugly face was unmoved; but presently her eyebrows quivered and contracted, her nostrils dilated, and, standing close to Ilya, with head erect, she hurled mighty words at him, nerved by her youthful, unshakeable confidence in their truth.

"The retailer stands between the worker and the purchaser. He does nothing himself, he only increases the cost of the goods. Trading! It's only legal, permissible robbery."

Ilya felt deeply hurt, but he could find no words to answer this bold girl, who told him to his face he was a loafer and a robber. He clenched his teeth and listened silently, but did not believe, he could not believe; and while he ransacked his brain for the word to controvert her argument, to silence her forthwith, while he marvelled at her boldness, the contemptuous phrases, so amazing to his ears, stirred in his mind the question: "Why—what have I done to her?"

"All that is just not true," he interrupted her finally in a loud voice, feeling that he could not listen any longer without contradicting. "No—I can't agree with you."

"Then disprove it!" the young girl replied quietly. She sat down on a stool, drew the long plait of her hair over her shoulder, and began to play with it. Lunev turned away to avoid her challenging glance.

"I'll disprove it!" he cried, no longer able to contain himself. "I'll disprove it by my whole life. I—perhaps I did commit a great sin once before I came to this."

"So much the worse—but this is no argument," answered the girl; and her words fell on Ilya like a cold douche. He supported himself with both hands on the counter, and bent forward as though he were going to spring over, and gazed at her for some seconds in silence, cut to the heart, and astonished at her quietness. Her glance and her unmoved countenance, full of profound conviction, restrained his anger and confused him; he felt something fearless, impregnable in her, and the words he needed to refute her died on his tongue.

"Well? What then?" she asked with a cool challenge, then laughed, and said triumphantly:

"It's impossible to disprove it, because I spoke the truth."

"Impossible?" repeated Ilya in a dull voice.

"Yes, impossible. What can you say against it?"

She laughed again condescendingly.

"Good-bye!" and she went out, her head even higher than usual.

"That's all nonsense! It isn't true, excuse me"—Lunev shouted after her. But she did not turn round. Ilya sat down on the stool. Gavrik stood at the door and looked at him, evidently well pleased with his sister's behaviour; his face had an important triumphant expression.

"What are you staring at?" cried Lunev crossly, feeling annoyed by the boy's expression.

"Nothing."

"Oh! oh!" cried Lunev threateningly; then after a short pause he added: "You can go, take a holiday."

He felt the necessity for solitude, but even when alone he could not collect his thoughts. He could not grasp the sense of the girl's words; they pained him before everything. Leaning his elbows on the counter, he thought in irritation:

"Why did she abuse me? What have I done to her? And she's kind, too. Comes here, condemns me, and goes away—without any justice; without even finding out anything. She is very clever; but wait till you come back here—I'll answer you."

But even while he threatened his mind was searching for the fault wherefore she had so attacked him. He remembered what Pavel had said of her intelligence and simplicity.

"Pashka—no fear—she wouldn't hurt him."

Raising his head he saw his reflection in the mirror, and as he looked he seemed to question his image. The black moustache moved on his lip, the big eyes looked weary, and a red flush burned on his cheek-bones; but yet, in spite of its look of annoyance over his defeat, the face was handsome, with a coarse, peasant's beauty; certainly more handsome than Pavel's yellow, bony countenance.

"Does she really like Pashka better than me?" he thought, and at once answered his thought:

"What good's my face? I'm no man for her. She'll marry some doctor or advocate, or official. Whatever interest could she take in us?"

He smiled bitterly, and began to question again:

"But why has she asked Pashka to go and see her? Why does she despise me? A tradesman—is he a thief? He doesn't work—think. I live on the work of others? And who is it stands here stiff and tired all day long, and never gets away?"

Now he began to oppose her, and found many words to justify his life; but now she was not there, and his fine words did not console him, but only increased the feeling of exasperation that glowed within him. He got up, went into his room, swallowed a mouthful of water, and looked round him. It was close and stuffy in the low room, with the iron railings in front of the window; the picture caught his eye with its bright colours; standing in the doorway, he raised his eyes to the "Steps of Life," so accurately measured out, and thought:

"All a lie! As if life were like that!" He looked long at the picture, comparing in his mind his own life with this sample, set out in such glowing colours.

"Is that life?" he repeated to himself, and suddenly added, hopelessly: "Yes, even if it were really, it's dreary and monotonous—clean enough, but not jolly!"

He stepped slowly up to the wall, tore the picture down, and carried it into the shop. There he laid it on the counter, and began again to observe the development of man as it was here depicted. Now he regarded it with scorn, but while he looked, he thought only of Gavrik's sister.

"As if she knew that I strangled the old man! However little she likes me, why need she say such things?"

His thoughts circled in his brain slowly and heavily, and the picture wavered before his eyes. Then he crumpled it up and threw it under the counter, but it rolled out again under his feet. Still more exasperated, he crushed it into a tighter ball, and flung it out into the street. The street was full of noise. On the other side some one was walking with a stick. The stick did not strike the pavement regularly, so that it sounded as though the man had three feet. The doves cooed; the clank of metal sounded somewhere, probably a chimney-sweep going over a roof. A droshky went by; the driver was drowsy and his head nodded to and fro. Everything seemed to sway round Ilya. Half asleep he took his reckoning frame and counted off twenty kopecks. From them he took seventeen—three were left. He flipped the little balls with his finger-nail, and they slid along the wire with a slight noise, separated out and stopped. Ilya sighed, laid the frame aside, threw himself on the counter, and lay so, listening to the beating of his heart. Next day Gavrik's sister came back. She looked just the same, in the same old dress, with the same expression.

"There!" thought Lunev angrily, looking at her from his room. He bowed ungraciously as she greeted him, but she laughed suddenly and said in a friendly way:

"Why are you so pale? Aren't you well?"

"Quite well!" answered Ilya shortly, and tried to conceal from her the feeling that her friendly observation of him had roused. It was a warm, happy feeling. Her smile and her words touched his heart, but he resolved to show her he felt hurt, hoping she would give him another smile or friendly word. He resolved, and waited therefore sulkily without looking at her.

"I'm afraid—you feel hurt!" her usual firm voice said. The tone was so different from that of her earlier words that Ilya looked at her in surprise. But she was as proud as ever, and in her dark eyes lay something disdainful, angry.

"I'm used to being hurt," said Lunev now, and smiled at her in challenge, but with the coldness of disillusion in his heart.

"Ah, you're playing with me!" was his thought. "First you'll stroke me, and then strike? Well, you shan't!"

"I didn't mean to hurt you!" Her words sounded to Ilya hard, even condescending.

"It would be hard for you to hurt me, really," he began loudly and boldly. "I think I know now the kind of lady you are. You're a bird that doesn't fly very high."

At these words she drew herself up, astonished, with eyes wide open. But Ilya noticed nothing now, the hot desire to pay her back for what she had done to him burned in him like a flame, and he used hard, harsh words, slowly and carefully.

"Your superiority—this pride—they don't cost much. Any one who has the chance of education can get them. If it wasn't for your education, you'd be a tailoress or a housemaid. As poor as you are, you couldn't be anything else!"

"What's that you say?" she exclaimed.

Ilya looked at her and was glad to see how her nostrils quivered and her cheeks reddened.

"I say what I think; and I do think it. All your cheap airs of superiority aren't worth a button."

"I've no airs of superiority!" the girl cried in a ringing voice. Her brother hurried to her, took her hand and said loudly, looking angrily at his master, "Come away, Sonyka."

Lunev glanced at the pair and answered, with aversion, but coldly:

"Please do go! I am nothing to you, nor you to me."

Both gave one strange lightning glance at him, and then disappeared. He laughed as they went. Then he stood alone in the shop for several minutes, motionless, intoxicated with the bitter sweetness of complete revenge. The angry face of the girl, half astonished, half frightened, was stamped on his memory, and he was pleased with himself.

"But that rascal—he——" a sudden thought buzzed in his brain. Gavrik's behaviour annoyed him and disturbed his self-satisfied mood.

"Another of the conceited lot!" he thought. "Now, if only Tanitshka were to come, I'd talk to her too—now's the time."

He experienced the desire to thrust all mankind away from him, harshly and contemptuously, and felt the strength in him now to do it.

But Tanitshka did not come; he was alone all day, and the time hung very heavily on his hands. When he lay down to sleep he felt isolated, and his sense of injury at his isolation was greater even than at the girl's words. He remembered Olympiada, and thought now that she had been kinder to him than any one. Closing his eyes, he listened in the stillness of the night; but at every sound he started, raised his head from the pillow, and stared into the darkness with eyes wide open. All night he could not get to sleep, because of his terrified expectation of something unknown—a feeling as though he were imprisoned in a cellar, gasping in a damp, close air, full of helpless, disconnected thoughts. He got up with an aching head, tried to get the samovar going, but gave it up. He washed, drank some water, and opened the shop.

About midday Pavel appeared, his forehead wrinkled in anger. Without any greeting, he asked:

"What on earth's the matter with you?"

Ilya understood the drift of the question, and shook his head hopelessly. He was silent awhile, thinking: "He's against me, too."

"Why have you insulted Sophie Nikonovna?" said Pavel sternly, standing very straight.

Ilya read his condemnation in Gratschev's angry face and reproachful eyes, but he bore that with indifference. He said slowly, in a tired voice:

"You might say 'good day' when you come in, don't you think? and take off your cap. There's an eikon here."

Pavel simply clutched his cap and drew it on more firmly, while his lips twitched with anger. Then he began, speaking fast and bitterly, with a trembling voice:

"Go on! Got lots of money, haven't you? and plenty to eat? You'd better think how you once said: 'There's no one to care about us,' and then you find one, and you turn her out. Ah, you—you pedlar, you!"

A dull feeling of slackness prevented Lunev from replying. With an unmoved, indifferent look he regarded Pavel's angry contemptuous features, feeling that the reproaches could not bite into his soul. On Pavel's chin and upper lip lay a thin yellow down, and Lunev found himself looking at this as he thought, indifferently:

"Now he's beginning. She must have complained of me to him. Did I really insult her? I might have said far worse things."

"She, who understands everything and can explain everything; and it's to her—you——Ah!" said Pavel, his talk full of interjections as usual: "All of them—there, are good—clever—they know everything you can think of by heart. Yes!—you ought to have held to her—and you——"

"That'll do anyhow, Pashka," said Lunev slowly. "What are you trying to teach me? I do what I like.'

"Yes, but what do you do? It's a shame!"

"Whatever I like I'll do. I've had enough of all of you! Only get away and chatter what you like." Lunev leaned heavily against the boxes of goods, and went on thoughtfully, as though questioning himself:

"And what could you tell me that I don't know?"

"She can do anything," cried Pavel, with deep conviction, holding up his hand as though prepared to take an oath. "They know everything."

"Then go to them!" cried Ilya, with complete unconcern. Pavel's words and his excitement were distasteful to him, but he felt no wish to contradict his friend. A dull, blank weariness hindered him from speaking or thinking or even moving. He wanted to be alone, to hear nothing and see nothing and nobody.

"And I'll leave you, once and for all," said Pavel threateningly. "I'll go because I understand one thing—I can only live near them, near them I can find all I need—I—they know right and truth! Life to me was never before what it is now, worthy of a man! Who ever respected me before?"

"Don't shout so!" said Lunev half aloud.

"You wooden idol you!" screamed Pavel.

At this moment a little girl came into the shop for a dozen shirt-buttons. Ilya served her politely, took her twenty kopeck piece, twirled it a moment in his fingers, and then gave it back, saying:

"I've no change. You can bring it by-and-bye." He had change in his till, but the key was in his room, and he had no inclination to fetch it. When the child had gone Pavel made no show of renewing the quarrel. He stood by the counter, striking his knee with his cap, and looked at his friend as though he expected something from him; but Lunev, who had turned half away, only whistled softly through his teeth. The groaning sound of heavy waggons in the street and the noise of hasty footsteps of passers-by came into the shop, the dust drifted in.

"Well—what?" asked Pavel.

"Nothing!"

"Oh, very well, then—nothing!"

"For God's sake, let me alone!" said Ilya impatiently.

Gratschev threw on his cap and walked quickly out without another word. Ilya followed him slowly with his eyes, but did not move his head.

"Am I ill, I wonder?" he thought.

A big, fox-coloured dog looked in at the door, wagged his tail, and made off again. Then an old beggar-woman, quite grey, with a big nose, she begged in a half-whisper:

"Please, give me something, kind gentleman."

Lunev shook his head. The noise of the busy day swept by outside. It was as though a huge stove were kindled, where wood crackled in the flames, and glowing heat poured out. A cart, loaded with long iron bars, goes by; the ends of the elastic bars reached the ground and struck, clanking, on the pavement. A knife-grinder sharpens a knife; an evil, hissing sound cuts the air.

"Cherries from Vladimir!" shouts a fruit-seller in a sing-song voice. Every moment brings forth something new and unexpected; life amazes our ears with the multiplicity of its noises, the unwearied persistence of its movement, the strength of its restless creative might. But in Lunev's soul everything there was calm and dead. Everything there was still together. There was there no thought, no wish, only a dull weariness. He spent the whole day in this state, and was tortured all night by nightmare and wild dreams—and many days and nights thereafter passed in the same way. People came, bought what they needed, and went again; his only thought was:

"I don't need them, and they don't need me. That's only strange at first; I shall get used to it! I will just live alone. I will live!"

Instead of Gavrik, the former cook of the owner of the house saw to his samovar and brought him his midday meal. She was a lean, sinister woman, with a red face and eyes that were colourless and staring. Sometimes when he looked at her Ilya felt fear deep down in his soul. "Shall I, then, never see anything beautiful in my life?" And darkly, despairingly, he said to himself: "See how life goes." There had been a time when he had grown accustomed to the manifold impressions of life, and although they irritated him and angered him, he yet felt—it is better to live among men. But now men had disappeared from the world, and there were only customers left. His sense of a common humanity and the longing for a better life vanished together in his indifference towards all and everything, and again the days slipped slowly by in a suffocating stupor.

One evening, when he had closed the shop, he went out into the courtyard, lay down under the elm-tree, and listened to the noise on the further side of the fence. Some one clicked with the tongue, and said softly:

"O—Oh! Good dog! Good little dog!"

Through a chink between the planks Ilya saw a fat old woman, with a long face, sitting on a bench; a big yellow dog had laid one of his fore-paws on her knee, and raising his muzzle, tried to lick her face. The woman turned her face away, and stroked the dog, smiling.

"People caress dogs, then, if there's no one else," Ilya mused. With deep pain in his heart, he thought of Gavrik and his stern sister; then of Pashka, Masha. "If they wanted me they'd come. They can go to the devil. To-morrow I'll go and see Jakov."

"My good dog!" murmured the woman beyond the fence.

"If even Tanyka would come!" thought Ilya, sadly. But Tatiana Vlassyevna was living in a country house a good way from the town, and never appeared in the shop.

XXIV.

Ilya did not succeed in visiting Jakov next day, because his uncle Terenti arrived in the town. It was early morning.

Ilya was just awoke, and sat on his bed saying to himself that another day was here that must be lived through somehow.

"It's a life—like travelling through a swamp in autumn, cold and muddy—and you get more and more tired, and hardly get on at all."

There came a knocking at the door of the yard, repeated, single knocks. Ilya got up, thinking the cook had come for the samovar, opened the door, and found himself face to face with the hunchback.

"Ha! ha!" laughed Terenti, shaking his head playfully: "Close on nine, Mr. Shopman, and your shop still shut up!"

Ilya stood, blocking the entrance, and smiled at his uncle. Terenti's face was sunburnt and looked younger; his eyes were cheerful and happy; his bags and bundles lay at his feet, and amid them he himself looked almost like another bundle.

"How goes it, my dear nephew? Will you let me into your house?"

Ilya stood aside, and began to collect the bundles without speaking. Terenti's eyes sought the eikon, he crossed himself, and said, bending reverently: "Thanks be to thee, oh Lord! I am home again. Well, Ilya!"

As Ilya embraced his uncle he felt that the body of the hunchback had grown stronger and stouter.

"If I could have a wash," said Terenti, standing and looking round the room. He stood less bent than of old. Wandering with a knapsack on his back seemed to have drawn down his hump. He held himself straighter, and his head higher.

"And how are you?" he asked his nephew, as he washed his face.

Ilya was glad to see his uncle looking so much younger. He made him sit down at the table, and prepared tea, and answered questions pleasantly, though a little hesitatingly.

"And you?"

"I? Splendid!" Terenti closed his eyes and moved his head with a happy smile. "I have made a good pilgrimage; couldn't have done better. I've drunk of the Water of Life, in one word."

He settled himself at the table, twisted a finger in his beard, put his head on one side, and began to relate his experiences.

"I went to St. Athanasius and the other holy miracle workers, to Mithrophanes at Voronesh, and the holy Tichon on the Don. And I went to the island of Valaam too. I've travelled a great way round. I've prayed to many Saints and Holy ones, and I've now come from the last—St. Peter and the holy Febroma in Murom."

Evidently it delighted him to tell of all the Saints and places; his face was mild, his eyes moist and confident. He spoke in the half singing way that experienced storytellers adopt in their tales and legends of Saints.

Outside it began to rain; at first the rain drops struck the window as it were carefully and without hurry, then by degrees harder and faster till the glass rang under the shower.

"In the depths of the sacred monasteries there's an unbroken stillness; the darkness is over everything; but through it the lamps before the shrines shine like the eyes of children, and there's a perfume of holy oil of unction." The rain increased; a sound as of weeping and sighing came from outside the window; the galvanised iron on the roof rattled and groaned, the water pouring off it splashed, sobbing, and a network of strong steel threads seemed to quiver in the air.

"This oil of unction, the Chrism, comes from the heads of the Saints."

"O—oh!" said Ilya, slowly. "Well, did you find peace for your soul?"

Terenti was silent for a moment, then straightened himself in his chair, bent forward to Ilya and said, lowering his voice:

"See, it's like this, my unwilling sin crushed my heart like a wooden boot. I say unwilling because if I had not obeyed Petrusha—bang! he would have kicked me out! He would have thrown me on the streets, wouldn't he?"

"Yes," Ilya agreed.

"Well, then, as soon as I began my pilgrimage, my heart was lighter at once, and as I went I prayed. 'Oh, Lord, see, I am going to Thy holy Saints. I know I am a sinner.'"

"That's to say, you bargained with Him?" asked Ilya, with a smile.

"His will be done! How He received my prayer I do not know," said the hunchback, looking upwards.

"But your conscience?"

"How do you mean?"

"Is it at peace?"

Terenti considered for a moment, as if he were listening, then said:

"It is silent."

Lunev smiled.

"Prayer, if it comes from a clean heart, always brings relief," said the hunchback, softly but emphatically.

Ilya got up and went to the window. Wide streams of dirty water flowed down the gutters; little pools were formed between the stones of the pavement; they trembled under the descending shower, so that it looked as though all the pavement quivered. The house over the way was quite wet and gloomy, its window-panes were dim and the flowers behind them invisible. The streets were deserted and quiet; only the rain hissed and all the little gutters splashed along. A solitary pigeon was sheltering under the eaves by the gable-window, and a damp, heavy dreariness invaded the town from all sides.

"Autumn is here!" The thought shot through Lunev's brain.

"How else can a man set himself right with God except through prayer?" asked Terenti, as he began to open one of his bags.

"It's very simple," remarked Ilya gloomily, without turning round. "You sin as you please; then you pray hard, and it's all right! All settled, begin again, sin some more!"

"But why? On the contrary, live honestly!"

"Why?"

"How d'you mean?"

"What I say. Why should you?"

"To have a clear conscience."

"What's the good of that?"

"Oh—oh!" said Terenti, slowly and reproachfully, "How can you say that?"

"I do say it, though," said Ilya obstinately and firmly, turning his back.

"That is wicked!"

"Tcha! Wicked!"

"Punishment will follow."

"No!"

At this he turned away from the window and looked Terenti in the face. The hunchback, in his turn looked searchingly at his nephew's strong face, moving his lips, he tried to find a word in reply, and at last he said, emphatically:

"'No' you say; but it does come! There—I fell into sin, and have been punished for it."

"How?" asked Ilya, darkly.

"Is anxiety nothing? I lived in fear and trembling. Any moment it might be found out, and I should——"

"Well. I fell into sin, and I'm not afraid at all," said Ilya, with an insolent laugh.

"Don't jest!" said Terenti warningly.

"It's a fact! I'm not afraid! Life is hard for me, but——"

"Aha!" cried Terenti, and stood up in triumph. "Hard, you say?"

"Yes! Every one keeps away from me as if I were a mangey dog."

"That's your punishment! D'you see?"

"But why?" screamed Ilya, almost in fury; his jaw quivered, and he tore at the wall behind his back with his fingers. Terenti looked at him in terror, and flourished in the air with a piece of string.

"Don't shout—don't shout so!" he said, half aloud.

But Ilya went on unheeding. It was so long since he had spoken to any one, and now he hurled from his soul all that had accumulated there in these last days of loneliness; he spoke passionately and furiously.

"You've been on a pilgrimage for nothing—nothing—nothing! It's all the same. Nothing would have happened to you. It's not only stealing; you can kill if you like. Nothing will come of it. There's no one to punish you! The stupid get punished; but the clever man—he can do anything, everything!"

"Ilya," answered Terenti, approaching him anxiously, "Wait, wait. Don't get so excited! Sit down. We can talk of it quite quietly."

Suddenly from the other side of the door came the noise of something breaking; there was a rolling and a cracking, and finally whatever it was came to a stop close to the door. The two men startled and were silent for a moment. All was still again; only the rain poured down.

"What was that?" asked the hunchback, softly and timidly.

Ilya went silently to the door, opened it, and looked through.

"Some card-board boxes have fallen down," he said, closed the door and returned to his old place by the window. Terenti still stood up arranging his belongings. After a short silence he began again.

"No—no, think a moment! You say such things! Such Godlessness does not anger God, but it destroys you yourself. Try to understand that; they are wise words. I heard them on my pilgrimage. Ah! how many wise sayings I heard!"

He began again to tell of his travels, looking sideways at Ilya from time to time. But his nephew listened, as he listened to the patter of the rain, and wondered all the time how he should live with his uncle.

Things adjusted themselves fairly well.

Terenti knocked a bed together out of some old boxes, placed it in the corner between the stove and the door, where the darkness was thickest at night. He observed the course of Ilya's life and took upon himself the duties Gavrik had formerly fulfilled; he set out the samovar, swept the shop and the room, went to the tavern to fetch the mid-day meal, humming all the time his pious hymns. In the evening he related to his nephew how the wife of Alliluevov had saved Christ from his enemies by throwing her own infant into the glowing fire and taking the child Jesus in her arms. Or he told of the monk who had listened to the bird's song for three hundred years; or of Kirik and Ulit and of many others. Lunev listened and followed the course of his own thoughts. At this time he made a point of taking a walk every evening, and was always overjoyed to leave the town behind him. There in the open fields, at night, it was still and dark and desolate, as in his own soul.

A week after his return Terenti went to the house of Petrusha Filimonov, and came away sad and grieved. But when Ilya asked him what was wrong, he answered: "Nothing—nothing at all. I went. I mean I saw them all, and we had a talk—h'm—yes!"

"What's Jakov doing?" asked Ilya.

"Jakov? Jakov is dying; he spoke of you; so yellow, and coughs."

Terenti was silent and looked at one corner of the room, sad and melancholy, gnawing his lips.

Life went on uniformly and monotonously every day as like the rest as copper pennies of the same year. Dark misery hid in the depths of Ilya's soul like a huge snake, that swallowed the sensations of the days. None of his old acquaintances visited him; Pavel and Masha seemed to have found for themselves another road in life; Matiza was run over by a horse and died in hospital; Perfishka had disappeared as if the earth had swallowed him. Lunev determined from time to time to go and see Jakov, and could not carry out his determination; he felt only too well that he had nothing to say to his dying comrade.

In the morning he read the newspaper, all day he sat in the shop and watched the yellow withered leaves whirl down the street before the autumn wind. Sometimes a leaf would drift into the shop.

"Holy Father Tichon intercede for us in Heaven," murmured Terenti in a voice that seemed to resemble the dry leaves, while he busied himself about the room.

One Sunday, when Ilya opened the newspaper, he saw a poem on the first page: "Then and Now," and the signature at the end was P. Gratschev.

"Once my heart like a strife-weary warrior Torn by black thoughts as by fierce birds of prey, All hope seemed dead and for evermore buried, Torment and pain were my portion each day."

So Pavel wrote. Lunev read the verse and before his eyes he seemed to see the lively face of his comrade; now restless, with bright bold eyes, now sad and darkened, concentrated on one thought. In his verses Pavel told again how he wandered poor and alone in a foreign town, receiving no greeting or friendly word. But when he was at the point of death from longing and want, then he found kind people, who bade him welcome to their hearth, where he drank new life: "Drank from their words that were radiant with love," words that fell upon his heart like sparks of fire:

"Hope flamed again in the heart of the hopeless, Songs of rejoicing resound through his soul."

Lunev read to the end, and then pushed the paper impatiently aside.

"Always rhyming, always with some crank in your head! Wait a little! these kind people of yours will handle you presently! kind people!" A scornful smile drew his mouth awry. Then suddenly he thought as though with a new soul. "Suppose I went there? Just went and said: 'Here I am, forgive me?'"

"Why?" he asked himself the next moment, and he ended with the gloomy words: "They'll turn me out."

He read the verses again with sorrow and envy, and fell into a new meditation on the girl. "She's proud. She'll just look at me, and well; I should go away the way I'd come."

In the same newspaper among the official information, he found that the case against Vyera Kapitanovna for robbery would be tried in court on September 23rd.

A malicious feeling flared up in him, and in his thought he addressed Pavel: "Make verses do you? and she—she's in prison!"

"Lord be merciful to me a sinner," murmured Terenti with a sigh, and shook his head sadly. Then he looked at his nephew who was turning over his paper and called to him: "Ilya!"

"Well?"

"Petrusha——" the hunchback smiled sadly and stopped.

"Well—what?"

"He has robbed me!" Terenti explained in a slow, conscience-stricken voice, and smiled again in a melancholy way.

"Serves you right!"

"He's done me fairly!"

"How much did you steal altogether?" asked Ilya quietly. His uncle pushed his chair back from the table, and with his hands on his knees began to twist his fingers.

"Say, ten thousand?" asked Lunev again.

The hunchback turned his head quickly, and said in a long-drawn tone of astonishment.

"T—e—n?"

Then he waved his hand and added:

"Whatever's got into your head? good Lord! Altogether it was three thousand seven hundred and a little over, and you think ten thousand—ten; you've fine ideas!"

"Jeremy had more than ten thousand," said Ilya, laughing mockingly.

"That's a lie!"

"Not a bit; he told me himself."

"Why, could he reckon money?"

"As well as you and Petrusha."

Terenti fell into deep thought, and his head sank again on his breast.

"How much has Petrusha to pay you still?"

"About seven hundred," answered Terenti, with a sigh. "Well, well, more than ten."

Lunev was silent; he hated the sight of his uncle's troubled, disappointed face.

"Where on earth did he hide it all?" asked the hunchback thoughtfully and wonderingly. "I thought we had taken the lot; but perhaps Petrusha had been there already, eh?"

"I wish you'd stop talking of it!" said Lunev harshly.

"Yes, it's no good now; what's the good of talking?" agreed Terenti with another deep sigh.

Lunev could not keep his mind off the greed of mankind, and the evil and miserable meanness practised for money. Then he began to think; if he possessed all this money, ten thousand, a hundred thousand then he'd show the world! How they should creep on all fours before him! Carried away with revengeful feelings, he smashed on the table with his fist; at the blow he started, glanced at his uncle, and saw that he was staring with terrified eyes and mouth half open.

"I was thinking of something," he said moodily, and stood up.

"Yes, of course," said his uncle suspiciously, as Ilya passed into the shop he looked searchingly at Terenti, and saw his lips moving silently; he felt the suspicious look behind his back, though he could not see; he had noticed for some time that his uncle followed his every movement and seemed anxious to find out something, or to ask something. But this only made Lunev anxious to avoid all conversation; every day he felt more plainly that his hunchbacked guest troubled the course of his life, and more and more often he asked himself:

"Will it go on much longer?"

It was as though a cancer were gnawing at his soul; life became daily more wearisome, and worst of all was the sense that he had no longer any desire to do anything. Days passed aimlessly, and often his feeling was that he sank slowly, but every hour deeper, into a bottomless abyss. Convinced that mankind had deeply injured him, he concentrated all the strength of his soul on one point—the bitter sense of injury; he stirred the flames by constant brooding and found therein the exculpation for every fault he had himself committed.

Shortly after Terenti's arrival, Tatiana Vlassyevna appeared, after a holiday spent some distance from the town. When she saw the hunchbacked peasant in brown fustian, she pinched her lips together in disgust and asked Ilya:

"Is that your uncle?"

"Yes"

"Is he going to live with you?"

"Naturally."

Tatiana perceived dislike and challenge in her partner's answers and ceased to take any notice of Terenti. But he, who had Gavrik's old place by the door, twisted his yellow beard and followed the small, slender woman in grey clothes with eager curious eyes.

Lunev noticed how she hopped about the shop like a sparrow, and waited silently for further questions, fully prepared to hurl at her rough ill-tempered words. But she spoke no more, after stealing a glance at his grim, cold face, standing at the desk, turning over the leaves of the book of daily sales. She remarked how pleasant it was to spend a couple of weeks in the country, and live in a village; how cheap it was, and how good for the health.

"There was a little stream, so quiet and still, and pleasant company, a telegraph official, for instance, who played the violin beautifully. I learned to row, but the peasant children! a perfect plague! like flies, they worry, and beg and whine—give—give! they learn it from their parents; it's disgusting!"

"No one teaches them anything!" replied Ilya coldly. "Their parents work, and the children live as they can—it's not true what you say."

Tatiana looked at him in astonishment and opened her mouth to speak; but at that moment Terenti smiled propitiatingly and remarked:

"When ladies come to the villages nowadays, that's quite a wonder to the people. Formerly the owner used to live there all his life, and now they only come for a holiday."

Madame Avtonomov looked at him, then at Ilya, and without saying anything fixed her eyes on the book. Terenti was confused, and began to pull at his shirt. For a minute no one spoke in the shop, only the rustling leaves of the book and a kind of purring as Terenti rubbed his hump against the door posts.

"But you," said Ilya's calm, cold voice suddenly, "before you address a lady, say, 'Excuse me, or allow me, and bow.'"

The book fell from Tatiana's hand and slipped over the desk; but she caught it, slapped her hand on it and began to laugh. Terenti went out, hanging his head. Tatiana looked up smiling into Ilya's gloomy face, and asked softly: "You're cross, is it with me? Why?"

Her face was roguish, tender; her eyes shone teasingly. Lunev stretched out his arm and caught her by the shoulder.

All at once his hate against her flared up, a wild tigerish desire to embrace her, to hug her till he heard her bones crack. He drew her towards him, showing his teeth; she caught his hand, tried to loosen his grasp, and whispered:

"Let go, you hurt me, are you mad? you can't kiss me here. And listen: I don't like your uncle being here, he's a hunchback, and people will be afraid of him; let go, I say. We must get rid of him somehow, d'you hear?"

But he held her in his arms and bent his head down to her, with wide-open eyes.

"What are you doing, it's impossible here. Let go!"

Suddenly she let herself sink to the ground and slipped out of his hands like a fish. Through a hot mist he saw her standing in the street door, straightening her jacket with trembling hands: she said:

"Oh, you're brutal! can't you wait, then?"

In his head was a noise of running waters; standing motionless, with fingers intertwined, he looked at her from behind the counter as if in her alone he saw all the evil and sorrow of his life.

"I like you to be passionate, but, my dear, you must be able to control yourself."

"Go!" said Ilya.

"I'm going. I can't see you to-day, but the day after to-morrow, the twenty-third, it's my birthday, will you come?"

As she spoke she fingered her brooch without looking at Ilya.

"Go away!" he repeated, trembling with desire to clutch and torture her.

She went. Almost immediately, Terenti reappeared and asked politely:

"Is that your partner?"

Ilya sighed with relief and nodded.

"A fine lady! isn't she? Small but——"

"She's a beast!" said Ilya.

"H'm—h'm," growled Terenti suspiciously. Ilya felt the searching look on his face, and asked angrily, "Well what are you looking at?"

"I? good Lord! nothing."

"I know what I'm saying. I said a beast, and that's all about it. And if I said worse things it'd be just as true!"

"A—ha! Is that it? O—Oh!" said the hunchback slowly, with an air of condolence.

"What? cried Ilya roughly.

"Only that."

"Only what?"

Terenti stood shifting from one foot to the other, frightened and hurt at being shouted at; his face was sorrowful and he blinked his eyes rapidly.

"Only, you know best, of course," he said at last.

"And that's enough," cried Ilya. "I know them; these people that are so clean and tidy outside!"

"I talked with the boot boy once," said the hunchback gently, as he sat down, "about his brother, the magistrate sentenced him to seven days, think! The lad said he was such a peaceable fellow, never drunk, and yet all at once he broke out as if he were mad. He got drunk and smashed up everything; hit his master on the nose, and the shopman, and before, think! his master had often struck him and he kept quite quiet, never did anything."

Lunev listened and thought.

"I'll have to drop all this and get away. This beautiful life can go to the devil! There's no life left for me! I'll give it all up and go. I'll get away—here, I'm just going to pieces."

"He bore it, bore everything and then at last bang, like a bombshell!" Terenti went on.

"Who?"

"Why, the boy's brother. He got seven days for assault."

"Ah!"

"Seven days! I say, the fellow had borne it, stood everything, but it had all piled up in his soul like the soot in the chimney, and then all of a sudden it catches fire, and the flames flare up."

"Uncle, look after the shop for a bit! I'm going out," answered Lunev.

His uncle's monotonous, well-meant words rang in his ears as mournfully as the sound of bells in Lent, and it was cold in the shop and there seemed no room to move, but it was hardly more cheerful in the street. It had been raining now for several days steadily. The clean, grey pavement stones stared unwinkingly back at the grey sky, and seemed weary like the faces of men. The dirt in the spaces between the stones, showed up clearly against the cold, clean surface. The air was heavy with damp, and the houses seemed oppressed with it. The yellow leaves still left on the trees seemed to shudder with the knowledge of approaching death.

At the end of the street behind the roofs clouds, bluish-grey or white, rose up to the height of the sky. They shouldered over one another higher and higher, constantly changing their shapes, now like the reek of a bonfire, now like mountains, or waves of a turbid river. They seemed to mount to the summit only to fall the heavier on houses and trees and ground. Lunev grew weary of the moving wall and turned back to the shop, shivering from dreariness and cold.

"I must give it up, the shop and all, uncle can see to it with Tanyka, but I, I'll go away."

In his mind he had a vision of a wet, boundless plain, arched by grey clouds; there was a broad road set with birch-trees; he himself walked forward, his knapsack on his back; his feet stuck fast in the mud, a cold rain drove in his face, and on the plain and on the road no living soul, not even crows on the branches.

"I'll hang myself," he thought, without emotion, when he saw that he had no place to go to, nowhere in all the world.

XXV.

When he awoke on the morning of the next day but one, he saw on his calendar the black figure 23, and remembered that this was the day that Vyera would appear for trial. He rejoiced at the excuse to get away from the shop, and felt keen curiosity over the girl's fate. He dressed hastily, drank his tea, almost ran to the court, and reached it too early. No one was admitted yet—a little crowd of people pressed about the steps, waiting for the doors to open; Lunev took his place with the rest and leant his back against the wall. There was an open space before the court-house, with a big church in the middle of it. Shadows swept over the ground. The sun's disc, dim and pale, now appeared, now vanished behind the clouds. Almost every moment a shadow fell widely over the square, gliding over the stones, climbing the trees, so that the branches seemed to bend under its weight; then it wrapped the church from base to cross, covered it entirely, then noiselessly moved further to the court of justice and the waiting crowd.

The people all looked strangely grey, with hungry faces; they looked at one another with tired eyes and spoke slowly. One—a long-haired man in a light overcoat buttoned to his chin and a crushed hat, twisted his pointed red beard with cold red fingers, and stamped the ground impatiently with his worn out shoes. Another in a patched waistcoat, and cap pulled down over his brows, stood with bent head, one hand in his bosom, the other in his pocket. He seemed asleep. A little swarthy man in an overcoat and high boots looking like a cockchafer, moved about restlessly. He looked up to the sky showing a pale pointed little nose, whistled, wrinkled his brows, ran his tongue over the edge of his moustache and spoke more than all the others.

"Are they opening?" he called, listening with his head on one side.

"No—h'm. Time is cheap! Been to the library yet, my boy?"

"No—too early," answered the long-haired man briefly.

"The Devil! it is cold!"

The other growled agreement and said thoughtfully:

"Where should we warm ourselves if it weren't for the law courts and the libraries?"

The dark man shrugged his shoulders. Ilya looked at them more carefully and listened. He saw they were loafers—people who passed their lives in various "shady" businesses either cheating the peasants, for whom they drew up petitions or papers of different kinds, or going from house to house with begging letters. Once he had feared them, now they roused his curiosity.

"What's the good of these people? Yet, they live."

A pair of pigeons settled on the pavement near the steps. The man with the bent head swayed from one foot to the other and began to circle round the birds, making a loud cooing noise.

"Pfui!" whistled the dark little man sharply. The man in the waistcoat started and looked up; his face was blue and swollen, and his eyes glassy.

"I can't stand pigeons," cried the little man watching them as they flew away. "Fat—as rich tradesmen—and their beastly cooing! Are you summoned?" he asked Ilya, unexpectedly.

"No."

"You're not called?"

"No."

The dark man looked Ilya up and down and growled: "That's strange."

"What is strange?" asked Ilya, laughing.

"You have the kind of face," answered the little man speaking quickly. "Ah, they're opening."

He was one of the first to enter the building. Struck by his remark Ilya followed him and in the doorway pushed the long-haired man with his shoulder.

"Don't shove so, you clown!" said the man half aloud, and giving Ilya a push in his turn passed in first. The push did not anger Ilya, but only astonished him.

"Odd!" he thought. "He pushes in as if he were a great lord and must go in first, and he's only just a poor wretch."

In the court of justice it was dark and quiet. The long table covered with a green cloth, the high-backed chairs, the gold frames round the big full-length portraits, the mulberry coloured chairs for the jury, the big wooden bench behind the railing—all this inspired respect and a sense of gravity. The windows were set deep in gray walls; curtains of canvas hung in heavy folds in front of them, and the window panes looked dim. The heavy doors opened without noise, and people in uniform walked here and there with rapid silent steps. Everything in the big room seemed to bid the spectators to remain quiet and still. Lunev looked round him, and a painful sensation caught at his heart; when an official announced—"The Court," he started and sprang up before any one else, though he did not know that he was expected to rise. One of the four men who entered was Gromov, who lived in the house opposite Ilya's shop. He took the middle chair, ran both his hands over his hair, rumpling it a little and settled the gold-trimmed collar of his uniform. The sight of his face had a calming effect on Ilya; it was just as jolly and red-cheeked as ever, only the ends of the moustache were turned up. On his right sat a good-natured looking old man with a little, grey beard, a blunt nose, and spectacles—on the left a bald-headed man with a divided foxy beard, and a yellow, expressionless face. Besides these a young judge stood at a desk, with a round head, smoothly plastered hair, and black prominent eyes. They were all silent for a few moments, looking through the papers on the table. Lunev looked at them full of respect and waited for one of them to rise and say something loudly and importantly. But suddenly, turning his head to the left Ilya saw the well-known fat face of Petrusha Filimonov shining as if it were lacquered. Petrusha sat in the front row of the jury, with his head against the back of the chair looking placidly at the public. Twice his glance passed over Ilya, and both times Ilya felt a wish to stand up and say something to Petrusha or to Gromov or to all the people.

"Thief, who killed his son!" flamed through his brain, and there was a feeling in his throat like heartburn.

"You are therefore accused," said Gromov in a friendly voice, but Ilya did not see who was addressed; he looked at Petrusha's face, oppressed with doubt and could not reconcile himself to the thought that Filimonov should be a dispenser of justice.

"Now, tell us," asked the president, rubbing his forehead. "You said to the tradesman Anissimov, you wait! I'll pay you for this!"

A ventilator squeaked somewhere, "ee—oo, ee—oo."

Among the jury Ilya saw two other faces he knew. Behind Petrusha and above him sat a worker in stucco—Silatschev, a big peasant's figure with long arms and little ill-tempered face, a friend of Filimonov and his constant companion at cards. It was told of Silatschev, that once in a quarrel he had pushed his master from a scaffolding, with fatal result. And in the front row, two places from Petrusha sat Dodonov, the proprietor of a big fancy-ware shop. Ilya bought from him and knew him for hard and grasping and a man who had been twice bankrupt, and paid his creditors only ten per cent.

"Witness! when did you see that Anissimov's house was on fire?"

The ventilator lamented steadily, seeming to echo the sadness in Lunev's breast.

"Fool!" said the man next him in a whisper. Ilya looked round, it was the little dark man who now sat with his lips contemptuously drawn.

"A fool," he repeated, nodding to Ilya.

"Who?" whispered Ilya stupidly.

"The accused—he had a fine chance to upset the witness and lets it go. If I—ah."

Ilya looked at the prisoner. He was a tall, bony peasant with an angular head. His face was terrified and gloomy; he showed his teeth like a tired, beaten dog, crowded into a corner by its foes and without strength to defend itself. Stupid, animal fear was impressed on every feature; and Petrusha, Silatschev and Dodonov looked at him quietly with the eyes of the well fed. To Lunev it seemed as though they thought: "He's been caught—that is, he is guilty."

"Dull!" whispered his neighbour. "Nothing interesting. The accused—a fool, the Public Prosecutor a gaping idiot, the witnesses blockheads as usual. If I were Prosecutor I'd settle his job in ten minutes."

"Guilty?" asked Lunev in a whisper, shivering as if with cold.

"Probably not. But easy to condemn him. He doesn't know how to defend himself. These peasants never do. A poor lot! Bones and muscles—but intelligence, quickness—not a glimmer!"

"That is true. Ye—es."

"Have you by any chance twenty kopecks about you?" asked the little man suddenly.

"Oh, yes."

"Give it to me."

Ilya had taken out his purse and handed over the piece of money, before he could make up his mind whether to give it or no. When he had parted with it he thought with an involuntary respect as he looked sideways at his neighbour:

"He's quick, but that's the way to live; just take——"

"A stupid ass, that's all," whispered the dark man again, and indicated the accused with his eyes.

"Sh!—sh!" said the usher.

"Gentlemen of the jury," began the Prosecutor with a low but emphatic voice, "look at the face of this man—it is more eloquent than any testimony of the witnesses who have given their evidence without contradiction—er—er—it must be so—it must convince you that a typical criminal stands before you, an enemy of law and order, an enemy of society—stands before you."

The enemy of society was sitting down; but as it evidently troubled him to sit while he was being spoken of, he stood up slowly with bent head. His arms hung feebly by his sides, and the long gray figure bowed as though before the vengeance of justice.

Lunev let his head fall also. His heart was sick, almost to death; helpless thoughts circled slowly and heavily in his head—he could find no words for them, and they fought him and strangled him. Petrusha's red, uneasy face drifted through his thoughts, as the moon through clouds.

When Gromov announced the adjournment of the sitting Ilya went out into the corridor with the little man who took a damaged cigarette from his coat pocket, pressed it into shape and began:

"The silly fellow stands there and swears he has not kindled the fire. Oaths are no good here. It's a serious business—some shopkeeper's been injured—you have done it or another—that doesn't matter. What does matter is to have it punished—you walk into the net. Very well, you shall be punished."

"Do you think he's guilty, that fellow?" asked Ilya thoughtfully.

"Of course he's guilty, because he's stupid; clever people don't get condemned," said the little man calmly and quickly, and smoked his cigarette vigorously. He had little black eyes like a mouse, and his teeth were also small-pointed and mouse-like.

"In that jury," began Ilya slowly and with emphasis, "there are men."

"Not men, tradesmen," the dark-headed man improved the phrase. Ilya looked at him and repeated:

"Tradesmen. I know some of them."

"Aha!"

"A fine sort—not to put it too finely."

"Thieves—eh?" his companion helped him out. He spoke loudly, but in an ordinary way, then threw away his cigarette end, pinched up his lips in a loud whistle and looked at Ilya with eyes bold almost to insolence; all these movements followed one another in eager restlessness.

"Of course; anyway, justice so-called is mostly a pretty good farce," he said shrugging. "The fat people improve the criminal tendencies of the hungry people. I often come to the courts, but I never saw a hungry man sit in judgment on the well fed—if the well fed do it among themselves—it happens generally from extra greed and means—don't take everything, leave me some!"

"It also means—the well fed can't understand the hungry," said Ilya.

"Oh, nonsense!" answered his companion. "They understand all right—that's what makes them so severe."

"Well—well fed and honourable—that might pass!" Ilya went on half aloud. "But well fed scoundrels, how can they judge other men?"

"The scoundrels are the severest judges," the black-haired man announced quietly.

"Now, sir, we'll hear a case of robbery."

"It's some one I know," said Lunev softly.

"Ah!" cried the little man and shot a glance at him. "Let us have a look at your acquaintance!"

In Ilya's head all was confusion. He wanted to question this clever little man about many things, but the words rattled in his brain like peas in a basket. There was in the man something unpleasant, dangerous, that frightened Ilya, but at once the persistent thought of Petrusha in the seat of justice, swamped every other idea. The thought forged an iron ring round his heart and kept out every other.

As he drew near to the door of the hall he saw in the crowd in front of him the thick neck and small ears of Pavel Gratschev. Overjoyed, he twitched Pavel by the sleeve and smiled in his face; Pavel smiled too, but feebly, with evident effort.

"How are you?"

"How are you?"

They stood for a few moments in silence, and the thought of each was expressed almost simultaneously.

"Come to see?" asked Pavel with a wry smile.

"She—is she here?" asked Ilya.

"Who?"

"Why—your Sophie Nik——"

"She isn't mine," answered Pavel, interrupting coldly.

Both went into the hall without further speech. "Sit near me!" asked Lunev.

Pavel stammered. "You see—I—I'm with some people."

"Oh, very well."

"I say—d'you know," added Pavel quickly. "Listen to what her advocate says."

"I'll listen," said Ilya quietly, and added in a lower voice: "So—good-bye—brother."

"Good-bye—we'll meet presently."

Gratschev turned away and walked quickly to one side. Ilya looked at him with the sensation that Pavel had rubbed an open wound. Burning sorrow possessed him, and an envious, evil feeling to see his friend in a good new overcoat, looking, too, healthier, clearer in the face. Gavrik's sister sat on the same bench with Pavel; he said something to her, and she turned her head quickly to Lunev. When he saw her expressive, eager face, he turned away and his soul was wrapped more firmly and densely in dark feelings of injury, enmity and inability to understand. His thoughts stormed giddily in his head like a whirlwind, one tangled in another; suddenly they stopped—vanished; he felt a void in his brain, and everything outside seemed to move against him malevolently—and he ceased to follow the course of events.

Vyera had already been brought in. She stood behind the railing in a grey dress, reaching to her heels like a night-gown, with a white kerchief. A strand of yellow hair lay against her left temple, her cheeks were pale, her lips compressed, and her eyes, widely opened, rested earnestly and immovably on Gromov.

"Yes—yes—no—yes," her voice rang in Ilya's ears, as though muffled.

Gromov looked at her kindly, and spoke in a subdued low voice like a cat purring.

"And do you plead guilty, Kapitanovna, that on that night——" his insinuating voice glided on.

Lunev looked at Pavel; he sat bent forward, his head down, twisting his fur cap in his hands. His neighbour, however, sat straight and upright, and looked as though she were sitting in judgment on every one there, Vyera and the judges and the public. Her head turned often from side to side, her lips were compressed scornfully, and her proud eyes glanced coldly and sternly from under her wrinkled brows.

"I plead guilty," said Vyera. Her voice broke and the sound was like the ring of a cup that is cracked.

Two of the jury, Dodonov and his neighbour, a red-haired, clean-shaven man, bent their heads together, moved their lips silently, and their eyes, that rested on the girl, smiled. Petrusha, holding with both hands to his chair, bent his whole body forward; his face was even redder than usual and the ends of his moustache twitched; others of the jury looked at Vyera, all with the same definite attentiveness, which Lunev understood but hated furiously.

"They sit in judgment, and every one of them looks at her lustfully!" he thought, and clenched his teeth; he longed to call out to Petrusha:

"You rascal! what are you thinking? Where are you? What is your duty?"

Something stuck in his throat, like a heavy ball, and hampered his breath.

"Tell me, Kapitanovna," said Gromov lazily, while his eyes stood out like those of a lustful he-goat, "have you-ah—practised prostitution long?"

Vyera passed her hand over her face as though the question stuck fast to her fiery red cheeks.

"A long time."

She answered firmly. A whisper ran among the people like a snake. Gratschev bowed lower as though he would hide, and twisted his cap ceaselessly.

"About how long?"

Vyera said nothing, but looked earnestly, seriously at Gromov out of her wide-open eyes:

"One year? Two? Five?" persisted the president.

She was still silent; her grey figure stood as though hewn from stone, only the ends of her kerchief quivered on her breast.

"You have the right not to reply, if you wish," said Gromov, stroking his beard.

Now an advocate sprang up, a thin man with a small pointed beard and long eyes. His nose was long and thin, and the nape of his neck wide so that his face looked like a hatchet.

"Say, what compelled you to adopt this, this profession!" he said loudly and clearly.

"Nothing compelled me," answered Vyera, her eyes fixed on the judge's.

"H'm, that's not altogether correct; you see, I know, you told me."

"You know nothing!" answered Vyera.

She turned her head towards him, and looking at him sternly, went on angrily:

"I told you nothing, you yourself have made it all up!"

Her eyes glanced quickly over the audience, then she turned back to the judges and asked with a movement of her head towards her defender:

"Need I answer him?"

A new hissing whisper crawled through the room, but louder and plainer. Ilya shivered with the tension and looked at Gratschev. He expected something from him, awaited it with confidence. But Pavel, looking out from behind the shoulders of the people in front of him, sat silent and motionless. Gromov smiled and said, his words were smooth and oily; then Vyera began not loudly but quite firmly: