(From the Diary of a Reporter)

---

ISN’T IT TERRIBLE?

(FROM THE DIARY OF A REPORTER)

I

“Be in N-sk on the twentieth. Session of district court. Details in letter. Editor.”

I looked at my watch and then went to inquire about the trains. I hoped that I could not catch the night train at the station, which was some ten versts from the city where I had just finished another piece of reporting. I saw already the laconic and business-like answer: “Telegram delayed, cannot arrive on twentieth.” Unfortunately the time-table and my watch decided differently. I had three hours to pack and get to the station. That was time enough.

About 11 o’clock on a warm summer evening a coachman landed me at the station; the lights could be seen for a great distance. I got there just in time; the train was waiting.

Directly opposite the entrance there was a car with the windows open. It was not filled and some intelligent-appearing men were playing cards. I imagined that they were members of the court going to the session, and I decided to look for a place elsewhere. This was no easy task but I finally succeeded. The train was just starting when, with my bag in my hand, I entered a second-class compartment in which there were three passengers.

I sat down by the window, through which entered the freshness of the summer night, and soon there were flying past me ends of sleepers, hills, roaring bridges, buildings, fields bathed in the moonlight,—all as if carried by a high wind. I was tired and sad. I thought how my life was flying in the same way, from bridge to bridge, from station to station, from city to city, from fire to law court.... And that I could never write for any paper what the editor wanted. And all that I would write the next day would be dry and uninteresting.

These were not cheerful thoughts. I tore myself away from them and began to listen to the conversation of my fellow travelers.

II

My nearest neighbor was sleeping contentedly, letting me stretch out as I could. Opposite me one passenger was lying down and another was sitting by the window. They kept on with the conversation they had already commenced.

“Let’s imagine,” said the one who was lying down, “that I am a man who is not superstitious.... But yet” (he yawned pleasantly and slowly) “it cannot be denied that there is much, so to speak, unknown,—isn’t that so?... Let’s suppose, the peasants ... country naÏvete and superstition. But take a paper....”

“Well, a paper. Superstition is for peasants, but this is for the papers. A peasant, simple fellow, sees a primitive devil with horns and breathing fire. He’s frightened.... A reporter sees a figure from the ballet....”

The gentleman who admitted that there was “much unknown” yawned again.

“Yes,” he said with a somewhat scientific air, “that is true; fears disappear with the development of culture and education....”

His companion did not reply, but later said thoughtfully:

“Disappear?... Do you remember in Tolstoy: Anna Karenina and Vronsky have the identical dream: a peasant, an ordinary laborer ‘works in steel’ and speaks French.... Both wake up in terror.... What’s so terrible there? Of course, it’s a little strange for a peasant to speak French. But, granted.... Nevertheless, in a given combination of circumstances, a picture which is not frightful will terrify you.... Take the Brothers Karamazov of Dostoyevsky.... We’ve got there an urban devil.... You remember, of course....”

“No, I don’t.... You know, Pavel Semenovich, I’m an instructor of mathematics....”

“Oh, excuse me.... I thought.... Yes, I remember: he was a certain man, or, better yet, a certain type of Russian gentleman, quite well along in years, with his hair and pointed beard rather gray.... His linen and necktie, you know, were like those of any other stylish gentleman, but his linen was rather dirty and his necktie frayed. To sum up, ‘He looked like a man of taste with slender financial resources....’”

“That’s a fine devil! A mere sharper, and they’re common enough,” remarked the mathematician.

“Yes, I know there’s a lot of them.... But it’s frightful and it’s that, just because it’s so common; that same poor necktie, linen, and coat.... If it were only frayed, it would be like yours or mine....”

“All right, Pavel Semenovich.... Excuse me, but you have a strange philosophy.”

The mathematician seemed rather insulted. Pavel Semenovich turned towards the light, and I had a good view of his broad face, straight brows and gray, thoughtful eyes hidden under his stern forehead.

Both paused. For a little while you could hear only the hurried roar of the train. Then Pavel Semenovich began again in his even voice.

“At the station of N-sk I happened, you know, to walk up toward the engine. I’m a little acquainted with the engineer.... A chronically sleepy individual with swollen eyes.”

“Yes?” asked his companion indifferently, and not trying to conceal his feelings.

“Certainly.... A natural condition. He hadn’t slept for thirty-six hours.”

“M-n, yes.... That is a long while.”

“I thought so too: we fall asleep.... The train is flying at full speed.... And it’s run by a man who is almost stupefied....”

His companion fidgeted a little.

“What an idea!... Really, damnation.... You should have told the chief of the station....”

“What for?... He’d laugh! A common thing. You might almost call it the system. In Petersburg there’s a gentleman sitting in some office.... He’s got a board in front of him with numbers on it. Arrival.... Departure.... And the engineers are listed too.... Pay—so much. Versts—so many. Versts—that’s the length of the run,—a useful number, profitable, steady, that can be increased. The pay for the men is minus.... And this fellow just cracks his head, thinking how to run the largest number of miles on the smallest number of engineers. Or even make the distance larger than ever.... It’s a sort of silent game with numbers, so to speak.... And a most ordinary chap bothers with it.... He wears a poor coat and necktie, and he looks respectable.... A good friend and a fine husband.... He loves his child and gives presents to his wife on holidays.... His job is harmless, and he merely decides simple questions. The result is that sleep kills people.... And across the fields and through the ravines of our beloved country on such moonlight nights as this trains tear along like this, and the watch is kept by the sleepy, swollen eyes of the man who is responsible for hundreds of lives.... A moment’s slumber....”

The legs of the mathematician in their checkered trousers stirred: he got up from his seat in the shadow and sat down on a bench.... His fat, expressionless face, with its thick, clipped mustache, made you uneasy.

“Stop your croaking, for heaven’s sake,” he said angrily. “However you argue, the result is the same, devil take it.... I wanted to fall asleep....”

Pavel Semenovich looked at him in surprise.

“What’s the matter?” he said. “Are you crazy? We’ll get there all right, if God wills. I merely want to point out how the terrible and the usual are combined.... Economy is the most ordinary idea of life.... But sometimes it involves death.... It is even measurable by the law of probability....”

The mathematician, still more angry, took out his cigar case and said, as he began to smoke:

“No, you’re right: the devil knows: the rascal’ll fall asleep, and all at once.... These beasts of railroad men.... O, let’s talk of something else. The devil take these fears.... Are you still vegetating in Tikhodol?... You’ve stuck there a long time....”

“Yes,” answered Pavel Semenovich, a little embarrassed. “It’s such a wretched place. It’s just like living in a yoke.... A teacher, prosecutor, excise official.... When you once land there, you’re forgotten, and removed from the lists of the living....”

“Yes.... It is an awful place.... It’s deadening.... Why, there’s not even a club there. And the mud is unendurable.”

“There’s a club now, at least that’s what we call it.... And there are a few stretches of pavement.... Lighting, especially in the centre of the town.... But, I’ll confess, I live on the edge, and don’t make much use of these conveniences.”

“Where do you live?”

“With Budnikov, in the suburbs.”

“Budnikov? Semen Nikolayevich? Just think, I lived in that section myself: with Father Polidorov.... Of course, I met Budnikov! A fine man, well educated, but rather—filled with ideas?”

“Yes, with a few notions....”

“No, not that.... I said ideas. But notions. What? None special, I think.”

“No, nothing special, but just the same: he used to keep valuable papers in a mattress....”

“Why, I never knew that. But when I met him he made a queer impression on me. He was so fresh and original.... A house owner, and all of a sudden he went to living in two rooms without servants.... No, I remember, he had a kind of porter....”

“Yes, Gavrilo....”

“That’s right, that’s right. Gavrilo, a little fellow with white eyebrows? Yes? That’s right.... I remember I liked to look at his face: such a good-natured snout. I almost thought the master was part workman.... Who is he? Is he always that way?”

Pavel Semenovich said nothing for a few minutes. He then looked at his companion with some embarrassment and replied:

“Y-yes, you’re right.... That actually happened.... Semen Nikolayevich ... and Gavrilo.... Both together....”

“Yes, I remember....”

“He was a fine man for our city.... Educated, independent, with ideas.... He went to the university but never finished because of some escapade.... He once spoke of it as if he had made an unfortunate venture into love. ‘My heart was broken,’ he said. On the other hand I know that he corresponded with a friend in some outlandish place. That shows there was something behind it.... His father, he said, was a usurer, but not a malicious one. This caused a row between father and son. The young student didn’t approve of it and wouldn’t touch the money, but lived by teaching.... When the father died, Semen Nikolayevich came and inherited the property. He said to some one: ‘I don’t want it.... This is owed to society.’ Then I don’t know what happened.... The house, land, long-term leases, a lawsuit.... He carried it on one, two, three years, and then got to like it. Many still remember how he said: ‘I’ll finish the lawsuit with these curs and settle up.... I won’t stay a day longer in this confounded hole.’ ... But it’s the usual story.... We had a teacher once, a zoÖlogist, who came to our gymnasium and said bluntly: ‘As soon as I write my dissertation, I’ll get out of the swamp!’”

“That’s Kallistov, isn’t it?” asked the mathematician, with great interest. The narrator waved assent.

“He’s still writing it. He married; had three children.... That’s just the way with Semen Nikolayevich Budnikov. He’s been making a dissertation of his life, so to speak. He began to enjoy this lawsuit. Challenges, protests, cassation, the whole game.... And he kept writing himself without consulting lawyers.... Then, after a while, he commenced to build a new house. When I got to know him, he was already a lucky, middle-aged bachelor, with a reddish face, and such a pleasant, quiet, substantial and sleepy voice. Then he had a few peculiarities. He sometimes used to come to see me, especially when it was time to pay my rent.... This was due on the twentieth. That meant that on the twentieth he used to come at eight o’clock in the evening and drink two cups of tea with rum in it. No more, no less! In each cup two spoonfuls of rum and one of sugar. I got to look at this as an addition to my rent. He did the same with all his lodgers,—only some with and some without rum. The rents were all different, about twenty in his four houses (one in the city was quite large).... That made forty cups of tea.... He seemed as if he had included that in his budget and marked it down.... Sometimes, ‘I didn’t find so and so at home, but he brought the money the next day. Still owing, two cups of tea.’”

“Really?” laughed Petr Petrovich. “He never reasoned that way! Why do you think so?”

“For this reason. At first this was an unexpected characteristic, but it got to be believed, although in your time maybe it didn’t exist. The tenants began to say: you know M. Budnikov is an economical man. That was meant well and even as a sign of approval. But it suddenly reacted on Budnikov.... You understand? The unintelligible man began to develop a special intelligible trait.... It became clearer and clearer. All believed, for example, that M. Budnikov kept no servants. Gavrilo was the porter of the house where I lived; he used to clean the clothes of the different people, fix the samovars, and run errands. Sometimes the master and servant used to sit side by side and clean shoes, the porter for the tenants, Budnikov for himself. Then M. Budnikov got a horse. No special need for him to do it. As a luxury, he’d ride twice a week to a farm near the city. The rest of the time the horse was free. Gavrilo wasn’t busy all the time either.... The result was—the horse was put at Gavrilo’s disposal, and he used to ride down town. Gavrilo had nothing against this arrangement, because he considered incessant work his special duty. You know there’s a sort of talent for everything, and I thought once that Gavrilo was a kind of genius in the field of muscular labor.... Easy motioned,—unwearied freshness. Sometimes at night he wouldn’t sleep. Look out of the window and you’d see Gavrilo sweeping the street or cleaning the ditches. It meant—he’d gone to bed and then remembered he hadn’t swept all the pavement the last thing. So he’d go and clean it. And this was really beautiful.”

“Yes,” said the mathematician, “that’s a good description of the man. I remember I liked to look at him,—he seemed rather attractive.”

“Spiritual poise is always beautiful, and he did his duty without speculating about his relation to his master.... And that was a fine thing, you know,—their mutual relations. One used his muscles admirably. The other gave reason and rational meaning to it.... He saw that the time was not all filled ... and he found a new occupation.... There was a sort of balancing of interests, almost an idyl.... Almost before dawn Gavrilo was at work. M. Budnikov also got up early. They said good morning with a manifestly pleasant feeling. Then M. Budnikov either went to work in his garden or went around his ‘estate’ scattered through the city. Poverty gets up early, and he went mornings to poverty’s quarters.... Then he’d come back and say:

“‘Now harness up, Gavrilo, and I’ll finish cleaning up.... The officials are just going to their offices. You may meet some one....’

“At this time he considered himself neither a Tolstoyan nor a deliberate simplifier.... He often spoke of the abnormality of our lives, of the necessity of paying our debt to the laboring man, of the advantages of physical labor. ‘See, I’m working,’ he’d say to any one who caught him busied with axe or spade. ‘I’m helping my neighbor, my porter, with his work.’ It was hard to tell whether he was talking ironically or seriously.... At noon Gavrilo’d come back and put his horse in the stable, and M. Budnikov would go of on business and make polite remarks to his tenants about a broken fence or a piece of plaster knocked down by children’s balls.... He often came back with one or two beggars. They had asked him for alms on the street and he’d offered ‘assistance through toil.’ ... Of course, the rogues ran off shamefully, but M. Budnikov took especial pleasure in working, either alone or with Gavrilo. All the beggars in the city soon got to know him and bowed with a friendly smile, but did not ask for money. ‘Why can’t you see what’s good for you, my friends?’ he’d say meaningly. I must say that a ‘life of toil’ did bring him manifest personal benefits; his ruddy color was absolutely evident, even, and healthy. His face was always quiet and placid, and almost like Gavrilo’s.... It had nothing malicious or strange in it.”

“I see, you’re back on your old theme!” said the mathematician, standing up and striking his companion’s shoulder. “Of course, nothing terrible.... I’m going out here.... Eight minutes’ wait.”

The train slowed down and stopped.

III

Pavel Semenovich, thus left without an audience, looked around in despair. Soon his gray eyes met mine. In his gaze I noticed an obstinate idea like that of a maniac....

“You ... understand?” he said frankly, wholly undisturbed by the fact that he was talking to a stranger.

“I think so,” I answered.

“Good,” he said, with evident satisfaction, and then he went on, as if he were talking to the same person.

“I had, you know, a school friend named Kalugin, Petr Petrovich. As a young man he was infected with the tendencies of his age, but he was a rare type. He said little. He preferred to listen, and he watched how others failed, and he tried, as is said, to turn the wheel of history.... But you could feel his rapture and his devotion in his silence.... He finally came to the conclusion: ‘Everything is good and extraordinarily fine, but there is no lever. Money is the lever. And you can’t do a thing without a hundred thousand.’ You know, he succeeded in convincing several of his friends of this and they formed a small savings association. Of course, nothing came of it: one simply got tired; fate placed another too far from the source of gain. But Petr Petrovich held on and won. He wasn’t brilliant, but he was of a good character, and that kind of men get along well in business. He first went into some sort of an institution along the Volga. It wasn’t a bank nor a loan association. To get ahead, he didn’t despise even this, and all of a sudden he put new life into it, as they say. In three years’ time, he was making about six thousand a year.... He put the question this way: ‘Five twenties make a hundred! I’ll keep one thousand a year and put five thousand away for the cause. In twenty years my lever’ll be ready.’ More than that, he did it. Of course he had to have a self-sacrificing character. And system! First, to avoid all foolish accidents, he left his old friends ‘for a time,’—those who tried to catch the wheel of history in their bare hands. ‘I’ve got my problem.... Ingratitude ... accidental notes ... do me the favor, it’s not necessary.’ ... And he held out. He mastered his life and counted every detail. Nothing—except making money! He got up every day, not like Budnikov at seven o’clock, but at thirteen minutes to seven. Second by second! He gave up his personal life.... Up to that time he had had only one pleasure: he got intimate with a girl, but on a free basis. They gave each other their word ‘not to bind each other.’ What a stupid phrase! A child gave its word to no one.... It just appeared and demanded its rights.... She was glad.... He was angry. This unpleasant event might be repeated, he thought, and, with an eye on his great cause, he determined to enjoy his freedom. ‘I’ll give the child a certain sum,’ he said, ‘even though it interferes with my great cause.’ ... The woman also had character. She never touched a cent of the money, but snatched up the child,—and away forever.... How he felt afterwards, no one knows, but he worked harder than ever to save money.... After various successes and failures, after twenty years, during which he regularly got up at thirteen minutes to seven, he congratulated himself on his success. He had a hundred thousand. He went to his work at the usual time, walked into the office of his superior and said: ‘I’ll leave in two months.’ They opened their mouths in amazement. ‘Are you crazy? Why? Can we raise your salary? Give you a share of the profits?’ No! He told why, and in two months he went to Moscow to take up his old life. And he had a hundred thousand in his pocket.”

“Oh, ho!” said Petr Petrovich, who just then came back from the restaurant.... “Still talking about Budnikov?”

“No,” answered Pavel Semenovich. “I was talking about some one else.”

“Some one else! Go on, I don’t care.... Go on with the hundred thousand. I hope that’s not terrible....”

His voice sounded as if it were mocking. Pavel Semenovich looked at him in mild surprise and turned to me.

“Yes, it’s like this.... He went to Moscow,—to his past, you see.... He thought life would wait, till he got rich.... He’d go to the same newspaper corner, find the same arguments and the same people, and they’d be grabbing at the wheel of history with their hands as ever.... He’d show his lever.... ‘Permit me! You have fine ideas.... Here’s my money to carry them out.’ But there wasn’t a soul to offer it to; there were other people in the corner, and they talked differently. The others had perished under the wheel of history, or had given up.... Life is like a train.... If you leave the station for a time, when you come back the train’s gone. Sometimes you can’t even find the station. You understand this tragedy, my friend?”

“But, excuse me,” said Petr Petrovich. “A hundred thousand! Free! Many a man will be willing to have this tragedy....”

“Yes? But this man, I tell you, was sincere.”

“What of it?”

“Just this.... He wandered around among his old and new friends and kept looking for the train.... He disgusted every one.... The thing for which he had given his own life and another’s was unintelligible; it’s just like losing a finger when you don’t know what for. You understand,—various, respectable affairs like a ‘people’s home’ or a paper or an ‘ideal book store’ don’t satisfy a seventy-year-old man.... He’s ready then to give up interest and capital....”

“But at six per cent you can live modestly.... You can live!”

“Of course.... But if you want to do something.... This was an act of heroism.... He gave his life as others do theirs.... And not only his.... Would you do that for a little miserly interest?... And there was no reason for his heroism.... To sum up, one fine day they found him in a lonely room in a hotel with a bullet in his head.... And he had gotten rid of his money somehow, quickly and quietly.... I saw him the day before at a meeting of some society. No one noticed him especially. They greeted him and passed on; he was but a respectable man. Of a strong character and the best of intentions. But unusually dull!”

“H-m, yes!” said the mathematician. “There are such cranks.” And he lay down to sleep. His face, with its fat, clipped mustache, again disappeared in the shadow, and you could see only his feet and his checkered trousers. “I think,” he growled from his corner, “that Budnikov is more interesting. You’re not through with him....”

“Yes.... I ... excuse me,—it was all due to chance.... I sat up all night recently.... I was reading Budnikov’s correspondence with his ‘distant’ friend. Believe me, I could not tear myself away, and you never would think that it was written by that same Semen Nikolayevich Budnikov, who drank tea and rum in my rooms, sent Gavrilo downtown, and whose soul imperceptibly, but almost before my eyes, dried up and grew barren in our little house.... And it remained, so to speak, without reverence for anything.”

IV

He stopped and looked at me bashfully and questioningly, as if he felt that he had said something which was not proper for a railroad conversation. He was somewhat startled when the mathematician exhaled a thick cloud of smoke from his dark corner and said:

“Pavel Semenovich, I see you really are a crank. Isn’t that so?... Wonderful!... A man has a hundred thousand and shoots himself! Another lives as he likes, so to speak, healthy and ruddy.... A quiet soul.... Safe.... Is that strange?... By heavens, it’s impossible.... Good night.... It’s time to go to sleep. Nothing, nothing!... You won’t disturb me by talking.... I won’t listen....”

He turned to the wall.

Pavel Semenovich modestly and questioningly looked at me with his naÏve gray eyes, and began in a lower tone:

“There’s a street in Tikhodol called Bolotnaya (Swamp Street). They built a house on it near me.... New and of fresh wood.... The first year it shone so, and then it lost its freshness. It got covered with that especial dirt and weathering and rubbish. Then it got the same color as the old stables and sheds and you couldn’t tell it from them. Now they say it’s haunted.... The people suddenly said that Budnikov had robbed a woman.”

“That’s absolute nonsense,” called the mathematician. “I’ll never believe that Budnikov was a robber. That’s some stupid rumor.”

Pavel Semenovich smiled sadly and rather distractedly:

“That’s what he was. A robber!... A robber is the word, ... precisely! But it was just a little personal ... tangle with rather vague outlines.... You see.... I must tell you that since your time a mother and daughter moved in.... The women were simple and very poor and M. Budnikov was their protector and friend. They ran in debt for a long time, and he—always so strict in affairs of this kind—stood it, and even gave them money. For the doctor or for better food, when one was sick. Finally the old woman died and Yelena became an orphan. M. Budnikov became very sympathetic, gave her a pleasant little home, and got her work; she sewed,—got along somehow.... Then she became a sort of housekeeper for M. Budnikov, and then,—people began to say that their relations became more intimate....”

“Oh, oh!” yawned the mathematician. “They didn’t need me for that.... Was she pretty?”

“Yes, rather pretty; fat, with flowing graceful movements and mild eyes. They said she was stupid. But, if she was, a woman’s stupidity is often very peculiar.... A naÏve and sleeping innocence of soul. She felt her situation very keenly. As is said in Uspensky, she was all shame.... M. Budnikov tried to teach her and lift her up, so to speak, to his level. She seemed incapable of it. She sat usually with a book, spelled it out with her fingers, and her face was interested like a child’s. She seemed to become dull and stupid when Budnikov was around. He got sick of her actions and then of Yelena, especially as other things took up his attention. But there was a time when he almost loved her. At least there were indications of it. In a word, the breach was not easy for him,—his conscience troubled him and he wanted to silence it. He finally decided to give her a ticket of the domestic lottery.... He called her, took out three tickets, put them on the table, placed his hand on them, and said:

“‘Look here, Yelena. One of these tickets may win you two hundred thousand. Do you understand?’

“Of course she didn’t understand well. She couldn’t imagine so large a sum, but he went on:

“‘Now, I’ll give you one. This paper is worth 365 rubles, but don’t sell it.... Take it and may you be lucky....’

“She didn’t take it, but huddled up, as if she were afraid. ‘All right,’ said M. Budnikov. ‘Give me your hand and take this paper.’ He took one of the tickets and guided her hand in making two pencil strokes sharply and heavily. His mind was clearly made up.... He gave it outright with all the results, we may say. ‘You see,’ he said, ‘this is yours, and if you win two hundred thousand, they’ll be yours too.’ He placed it back on the table. She reached out her hand and put in her bosom a paper with the number of the ticket.”

“Really?” asked the mathematician.

“Yes.... It had to happen so.... That machine was working in Petersburg, throwing out one number after another.... Children’s hands pick them up.... And one of these tickets won.”

“Two hundred thousand?” asked the mathematician, with great interest; apparently he had forgotten about sleeping.

“Not two hundred, but seventy-five.... During March, M. Budnikov looked at the list of drawings and saw that his number had won a large prize. Zero, again zero ... 318 and 32. Suddenly he remembered that he had given one ticket to Yelena.... He also remembered that there were two lines on the first. He had three in a row: 317, 318 and 319. That means 317.... He got out the tickets and looked: there were two lines on 317. Yelena had won....”

“The devil,” exclaimed the mathematician, raising himself a little. “That’s luck!”

“Yes, it was. And she was so stupid. The lines were on that number, when he thought that he would give her another.... A mistake, a mechanical wave of the hand, mere chance.... And, because of this chance, Yelena, a stupid woman who understood nothing and did not know what to do with money, would take from him ... him, M. Budnikov, take away, so to speak, a large sum of money. That was foolish, wasn’t it? He was educated, had an aim in his life, or had had.... He might again. He would perhaps have used the money for some good cause. He would write again to his friend and ask his advice.... But she ... she? A beast with a round form and beautiful eyes, which didn’t even show clearly what was in them: the stupidity of a calf or the innocence of a youth who had not yet grown to conscious life.... Do you understand?... It was so natural.... Any one in Budnikov’s place, you ... I ... even Petr Petrovich, would have felt the same way....”

Petr Petrovich made some sort of an indistinct sound, which was susceptible of different interpretations.

“No?” said Pavel Semenovich. “Excuse me.... I’m speaking about myself.... My thoughts or rather my inclinations would have been the same, perhaps in the subconscious realm.... Because ... knowledge and all restraining influences are a sort of bark, a thin cover under which purely egoistic, primal and animal desires live and move.... If they find a weak spot....”

“Fine, fine,” laughed Petr Petrovich condescendingly, and I thought that he winked at me from his dark corner. “Let’s get back to Budnikov.... What did he do? Pay it ... and that’s all.”

“Apparently, yes; because he wanted to settle the question and was a little afraid, he called Yelena and congratulated her on winning. Then, apparently wishing to make use of a favorable opportunity, he hinted: ‘When we separate, you’ll be all right.’ Then he got angry....”

“What for?”

“I think, because she was such a fool. If she’d chosen then, she probably wouldn’t have taken that number. But now it happened because of her folly. An orderly and wise man lost that money. That’s what I imagine from Yelena’s story.... ‘He ran from one corner to another and found fault with me.’ ...”

“What of her? Glad, of course?”

“N-no.... She was frightened and began to weep. He got angry and she cried and he became still more angry.”

“Really? What a fool!”

“Y-yes.... I’ve already explained: I don’t call her wise, but weeping.... No, it wasn’t foolishness.... When she told it to me afterwards ... she got to this point, looked at me with her clear, bird-like eyes, and burst into tears. Even now I can’t forget those eyes.... Foolishness, perhaps, but there’s foolishness and foolishness. It wasn’t clear knowledge and calculation about the situation. But in those blue eyes there was something very deep,—just as if a true instinct shone in them.... Those foolish tears, perhaps, were the only correct thing at that time.... I dare to say,—the wisest thing in the whole confused story.... Somewhere, not far off, was hidden the solution, like a secret door....”

“Fine, fine.... Go on!”

“Next, ... M. Budnikov looked a long time intently at the foolish woman. Then he sat down beside her, put his arms around her, and, for the first time after the perceptible cooling of their relations, he asked her not to go to her rooms, but to spend the night with him....

“So things went on for some time. Yelena bloomed.... Her love was ‘foolish’; it was very direct. At first,—she told me herself,—M. Budnikov was repugnant to her. Later, after he had taken her, he dried her up, as she said. Such direct feminine natures do not separate feelings and facts, so to speak. Wherever you touch it, the whole complex reacts together.... He came back to her; therefore, he loved her.... For two weeks she was so joyful and beautiful that every one looked at her,—glad of her limitless joy.... But in two weeks M. Budnikov again cooled off.... A cold storm was raging in our yard.... Yelena’s eyes showed that she had been weeping.... The neighbors grumbled and pitied. M. Budnikov was sullen.... Those two lines had sunk deep into the hearts of both and a third felt them.... The porter Gavrilo....”

“H-m! The whole story!” said Petr Petrovich, again getting up and sitting down beside Pavel Semenovich. “Was he there? Did he learn she’d won?”

“He knew nothing about it. I’ve spoken of him. A less clever person you could hardly imagine,—absolutely heavenly directness.... Sometimes he didn’t seem to be a man, but ... what shall I say?... a simple collection of muscles, partially conscious of their existence. He was constructed properly, harmoniously, rightly, and always in motion. And, in addition, two good human eyes looked at the whole world from the point of view of physical and moral indifference, so to speak.... Sometimes these eyes really gleamed with curiosity and such unconscious excellence that you actually felt jealous. Sometimes it seemed to me that if it wasn’t Gavrilo himself, there was something in him which understood M. Budinov, Yelena, and me.... He understood and smiled at us, just because he did understand.... Suddenly the man became confused.... It began when Budnikov made up with Yelena and dropped her again.... To him she was an abandoned ‘master’s lady,’ a creature which inspired in him no special respect, and very probably his first advances seemed rather simple and rustic. She met these advances with deep hostility and anger. Then Gavrilo ‘began to think,’ that is, began to eat little, become slack in his work, grow thin, and generally to dry up.

“This lasted during the fall and winter. Budnikov finally grew cold to Yelena; she felt insulted and believed that he was ‘laughing’ at her.... Gavrilo’s character was rather spoiled and the old harmony between him and Budnikov disappeared.... And the ticket with the two lines on it lay in the table drawer and seemed forgotten by every one....

“Spring came with everything in this condition.... For a while I lost sight of the little drama which was being enacted before my eyes.... My examinations were coming on; I was very tired and could not sleep. If you do fall asleep, you awake with a start and can’t get to sleep again. You light a candle,—your books are on the table,—you begin to study.... And it’s sunrise.... You go out on the steps, look at the sleeping street, the trees in the garden.... A sleepy coachman is going along the street; the trees are rustling faintly, as if they were shivering in the morning chill.... You envy the coachman, and even the trees.... You want rest and this concentrated unconscious life.... Then you go out in the garden.... Sit down on a bench and just get to sleep, when the sun shines in your eyes. There was just such a bench in a quiet corner by the stable wall. When the sunlight fell on it at seven o’clock you’d wake up, drink your tea, and go to your classes.

“I went out one day at dawn and fell asleep on this bench. Suddenly I woke up as if some one had called me. The sun had scarcely risen very high and the bench was still in the shadow. What’s the matter, I wondered.... What woke me up? Suddenly I heard Yelena’s voice in Gavrilo’s stable. I wanted to get up and leave.... I don’t like to be an eavesdropper and it was rather unpleasant to hear the simple solution of Yelena’s drama. But, while I was getting ready to leave, the conversation continued and finally I didn’t go.... I just listened.

“‘You see I’ve come,’ said Yelena.... ‘What do you want?’

“Suddenly, with such a deep and simple grief, she added:

“‘You’ve been torturing me....’

“She said this ... with such a sincere and heartfelt groan. Before, yes, and after, she always spoke formally to him, but that time ... a woman’s heart, sick with shame and love, used the form of affection,—frankly, unconditionally, freely....

“‘You’ve tortured me, too, Yelena Petrovna,’ answered Gavrilo. ‘I’ve lost my strength. I’ve dried up. I can’t work and I can’t eat....’

“‘What are you going to do now?’ asked Yelena.

“‘What?’ he said. ‘Marry you, of course.’

“For a few minutes neither spoke. Yelena seemed to be weeping softly. And yet that silence was wonderfully clear, simple, frank. ‘You see the situation: you’re no match for me; I would have worked for Budnikov as well as I could, gone to the village, gotten a place, married and taken some good girl.... But that’s past; willy nilly I want you as you are....’

“‘I’m lost,’ said Yelena softly.

“‘Why, Yelena Petrovna,’ answered Gavrilo, with a grim tenderness.... ‘I don’t see that you’re lost.... It’s just the same.... I can’t live.... Like a corpse.... I can’t eat.... I’ve got no strength....’

“Yelena wept more loudly.... She was having a good cry. It seemed painful but healing. Gavrilo said sternly:

“‘Come, what are you going to do?... Are you coming?’

“Yelena apparently exerted herself, stopped weeping, and answered the repeated question:

“‘Do you fear God, Gavrilo Stepanich?’

“‘Why?’ asked Gavrilo.

“‘You won’t find fault with me?’

“‘No,’ he said, ‘I won’t find fault with you. And I won’t let any one else. If you’re serious in throwing this overboard forever.... Forever.... I’ll trust you....’

“Silence. I didn’t hear Yelena’s answer. I only imagined that she must have turned to the east, and perhaps there was an ikon in the room.... She crossed herself.... Then she suddenly took his head in her arms and I heard them kiss. That same instant Yelena ran out, rushed almost to the house, but she suddenly stopped, opened the gate, and came into the garden.

“Then she caught sight of me.... But it didn’t embarrass her. She walked up, stopped, and looked at me out of her happy eyes, and said:

“‘Do you always take a walk mornings?... Friend....’

“Suddenly, overcome by her emotions, she came nearer, took hold of my shoulders, shook me unceremoniously, looked into my eyes, and laughed.... It was so naÏve. She felt that I had been listening and saw nothing bad in it.... When Gavrilo came out with his broom and also entered the garden, she blushed and ran past him. Gavrilo looked after her with quiet joy, and then his gaze fell on me. He bowed with his habitual quiet politeness and commenced to sweep the path. He again showed that same beautiful and effortless play of healthy, free muscles.... And I remember how the monastery bell sounded for early matins,—it was Sunday. Gavrilo stopped in a broad bay of the alley, took off his cap, held the broom in his left hand, and crossed himself with his right. The whole seemed to me so extraordinarily bright and beautiful. The man stood in the centre of a world of light, where everything was very good, that is, all his relations to earth and heaven.... In a word, it was so soothing a sight that I went to my room and fell fast asleep after so many sleepless nights. There’s something healing and calming in honest human happiness. You know it sometimes occurs to me that we are all bound to be well and happy, because ... you see ... happiness is the highest possible condition of spiritual health. And health is contagious like disease.... We are so to speak open on all sides: to the sun, wind, and other things. Others enter us, and we them, without noticing it.... And that’s why——”

Pavel Semenovich suddenly stopped as he felt the fixed and cynical gaze of Petr Petrovich.

“Yes, yes!... Excuse me,” he said, “this is really a little unclear....”

“It is a little. You’d better go on. Without philosophy....”

“ ... M. Budnikov woke me up. It happened to be the twentieth. He came as usual, and as usual he drank two cups of tea with rum, but I saw that M. Budnikov was out of humor, and even nervous.... And I involuntarily connected it with the incident of the morning.

“For some time he kept out of sorts and every one around noticed that something secret and hidden had gone wrong between master and servant. Gavrilo wanted to leave.... Budnikov would not let him go, although he often told me that he was disappointed in Gavrilo. As I was walking one day through the garden, I saw them both standing by the gate and talking. Budnikov was excited; Gavrilo, calm. He was standing in an easy position and kept looking at his spade, which was stuck in the ground. He was evidently insisting on something which enraged Budnikov.... But I thought that the subject of conversation created between them a strange equality....

“‘Yes, friend, of course, it’s your business,’ said M. Budnikov. He caught sight of me but did not think it necessary to change the subject. He spoke spitefully and angrily.... ‘Yes.... You’re a free man.... But just remember, Gavrilo Stepanich, if you have any utilitarian object, ... I, of course, can give only a very small sum....’

“M. Budnikov was unable to speak simply, and used foreign words, even when talking to Gavrilo.... Gavrilo looked at him calmly and answered:

“‘We don’t want anything.... We have enough....’

“M. Budnikov glanced cautiously at him and answered:

“‘Fine! Remember! Afterwards.... I’ll go to Petersburg on business.... Do what you want to.’

“Gavrilo bowed and said:

“‘I thank you....’

“‘Excuse me,’ replied M. Budnikov, with a shadow of ironical melancholy, ‘I don’t expect gratitude.’

“He slammed the gate and left the garden.

“He stopped and waited for me in the yard, took my arm, and came up to my rooms. On the way, and in my apartments, he kept talking confusedly and incoherently. He did not conceal the fact that he had had some affection for a certain woman. This might be still ‘alive under the ashes.’ ... On the other hand he was dreaming of union and the possibility of friendship with his humblest brother. Although both of these feelings had led to his disillusionment, he could show something, so that every one would feel it.... But in general, magnanimity and the finer feelings belong only to highly cultured people....

“He was nervous and under his rather artificial pathos, I could see his real exasperation and anger.

“I later had a chance to see his diary. These were separate pages, written like letters to his distant friend.... Apparently he hadn’t sent any letters for a long time, but these pages were like lights in the darkness. Under the approximate day of the conversation with Gavrilo was a passionate note. He told the whole story of Yelena, and wrote that he had made a mistake, and that he now loved her.... And that he would try once more.... This ended with a sudden burst of poetry: ‘My distant friend, you, of course, do not doubt that I will do what I consider the duty of magnanimity....’

“Then, sending Gavrilo one day with the horse somewhere outside the city, M. Budnikov went to the wing where Yelena still lived.

“‘Yelena! You should come to me. You must fix up something....’

“A few days before this he had been thoughtful and solemn, but now he dressed in style, went to the wing, and entered Yelena’s room, without heeding the inquisitive looks of his tenants.

“No one knew what happened in that room, but a half-hour later M. Budnikov came out, stubborn, affected, but apparently dazed. Every one began to say that he had formally proposed to Yelena and—she had rejected him.

“After this he left for Petersburg, where he had a lawsuit before the Senate. He lost it, and when he returned, Gavrilo and Yelena were already married.

V

“This made a great impression upon him, like some great spiritual conversion. One apparently insignificant circumstance especially surprised him. Every spring flowers grew by the wall under M. Budnikov’s windows. This Yelena did regularly, and it was put down as an annual source of expense: seed, a watering pot, to a blacksmith for mending the spade.... In the early spring Yelena used to set to work at it, gladly and merrily, and M. Budnikov took a delighted interest in it. Now that wing was neglected, the flower bed languished, M. Budnikov’s windows seemed blind.... But the other wing, where Gavrilo and his wife lived, bloomed and flourished. A symbol. When M. Budnikov came back from the station and took one look at this unexpected contrast his face changed, and for a short time he lost his usual aristocratic air. I suddenly felt sorry for him. I went out and invited him into my room. He sat with me a long time and gave me his impressions of the capital,—verbose, rambling, insincere. I kept feeling that M. Budnikov’s soul was thinking of something very far removed from his impressions of the capital.

“Gradually everything drifted back into the old channels. M. Budnikov still went twice a week to his farm, still visited his tenants on certain days, still prepared his dinner on an oil stove. But there were more trifles in his diary; for example, he began to note down how many steps he took each day, and apparently counted thereby the use and value of various things.

“In a short time another change took place: M. Budnikov felt attracted to religion.

“I remember one fall evening.... It was one of those evenings when nature touches your soul especially. The stars seem to be waving and whispering in the heavens, and the earth is covered with light and shade.... Our little city, as you know, is quiet and filled with foliage. You go out in the evening and sit down on your steps. And so with the other houses along the street; here’s one person on a bench by the gate, another on the dirt bank, another on the grass.... People are whispering about themselves, the trees about themselves,—and there’s a hardly perceptible hum. Yes, and something’s whispering in your soul. You unconsciously review your whole life. What was and what is left, where you came from, what’s going to happen? Then, everything ... the meaning of your life in the general economy of nature, so to speak, ... nature, where all the stars sink, unnumbered, unlimited, ... they gleam and shine.... And speak to your soul. Sometimes it’s sad and deep and quiet.... You feel you’re going to the wrong place. You begin to think what’s there above.... You want to run away from this reproving beauty, this exalted calm, with your load of confusion, and you want to melt away in it.... You’ve no place to go.... You enter your office, look at all your things in the lamp-light ... text-books, copy-books with answers written by your pupils.... And you ask: where’s there anything alive?...”

Petr Petrovich muttered something and the narrator stopped again.

“Well ... that was the way I felt and I was sitting on my steps and thinking: here’s the people coming from vespers.... What of it? That’s the way they find their relations to the infinite.... Or else it’s nothing but habit, mere automatic motion. I prefer it to be real. Suddenly I saw one man leave the crowd and come towards me. It turned out to be M. Budnikov. He had been to vespers. He sat down beside me.

“I felt that M. Budnikov was waiting, you know, for me to ask him why he went to church. He never had gone and was always sarcastic about religion, but now he had suddenly commenced to go. I was really interested and the evening led me to be frank.... Why not say, I thought, that there’s a cloud on my soul....

“Yes, Semen Nikolayevich, ...” I said ... “I look at the sky and think....

“He nodded and commenced:

“‘That tortured me, too ... and I suffered.... And like you, I saw no solution. But the solution is so plain....’

“He pointed toward the church, a white spot showing through the trees.

“‘We, intelligent people,’” he said, “‘are frightened, so to speak, by the beaten path, banality. But,—we must drop our pride and fuse ... or as Tolstoy once said,—partake of the common cup, search with the humble faith of humanity ... cease examining the foundations of life.... Like Antaeus, so to speak, we must touch our common mother....’

“He spoke rather nicely. His voice was so sleepy and murmured like the bass in the episcopal choir. I’ll tell you the truth: I felt envious.... Really you could feel the quiet and blessing.... As M. Budnikov said, it was worth while to fuse, and all these searchings of the heart are healed as by the holy oil. Suddenly I found the lost meaning. I asked myself: what’s the use of these books? Why all these notes, all this quiet life?... Why is this bootmaker solemn and satisfied? Mikhailo looks for no special meaning, but he floats along with the general current of life, that is, he agrees with its general significance and meaning. People go maybe once a week into this little white building which looks out so attractive through the trees; they spend a little time in communion with some mystery—and see, for a week they are supplied with the idea of meaning.... And many live a harder life than I do....

“There’s M. Budnikov.... Had he really found this for himself and solved his troubles? I almost asked, but our priest went by just then. M. Budnikov bowed and he returned it pleasantly. And he looked at me with questioning kindness.... Budnikov has been converted and may bring back another wanderer. I answered the bow rather warmly and gratefully, and again felt like asking M. Budnikov, but another person of an entirely different character put in an appearance....”

VI

Pavel Semenovich thought for a moment and then asked Petr Petrovich:

“Did Rogov ever study with you?”

“Rogov ... I don’t remember ... I’ve had so many....”

“He was remarkable and our council often discussed him.... His fate was peculiar.... You see, the boy’s father was a rascal of the old school, a slanderer, drunkard and a quarrelsome fellow, and as much bothered by modern times as a wolf is by hunters. He came too late. Rough manners unfitted for the present times. He spent his last days in trouble, poverty, and drunkenness. He always thought that fate did not treat him fairly; people got along well, but he, as he thought,—a model of activity,—was dirty, hungry and oppressed.... And imagine,—this man had a family ... a wife and son....

“The wife was irresponsible; her whole being had been crushed in the full sense of the word, except one corner of her soul. When anything concerned her son, a door seemed to open into her completely stupefied soul, which was like a citadel uncaptured in the midst of a fallen city, and so much wifely heroism came out through this gate that at times the old ruffian and drunkard put his tail between his legs. God knows what this cost her, but she succeeded just the same in giving her son an education. When I went to teach in Tikhodol, I found this fellow in the last class. He was a bashful, apparently modest boy and behaved quietly; but his eyes had such an expression, strange, restrained; I confess it made you uneasy: a curious fire, like the flame of a restless, internal conflagration. His thin, drawn face was always pale and a crop of brown hair fell over his rough forehead. He learned easily, made few friends among his schoolmates, seemed to hate his father and loved his mother almost abnormally.

“Now ... excuse me.... I must say a few words about myself. Otherwise you won’t understand a lot of what’s coming.... I’d only been teaching a very few years and had the usual idea.... I looked at my calling as noble, so to speak, from the ideal point of view. My companions seemed a holy regiment, yes ... the gymnasium almost a temple.... You know, young people feel that way and value it highly.... You run to this light with every trouble and every question.... It’s the living soul of our business.... What shall I say, when he comes to you, a fellow with his young soul under his uniform with all its buttons sewed on.... I, the teacher, need him with his questions and errors.... And he needs me to search and study.... Honestly you want to guide them....”

The narrator paused and continued in a low voice:

“That’s the way it was with me.... I got intimate with several boys from my classes, among them Rogov.... Gave them books, and they visited me. You understand, over a samovar, simply, heart to heart. I remember this as the finest time of my life.... Every time you open a new journal, you find conversation, discussion, argument. I listened, without interfering at first, to the way they wandered and argued, and then I explained,—carefully but pleasantly. You see, you get one thought and then another, and again it comes so sharp that it scratches you.... And you feel how you need to restrain yourself and think and study. And you grow with them.... And live....

“It didn’t last long. One day my director called me in for a confidential conversation.... Well, you know the rest.... This ‘extracurricular’ influence of the leaders of youth does not enjoy protection. Journals already!... The director, you know him,—Nikolay Platonovich Popov,—is a fastidious man.... He merely hinted and afterwards acted as if he really knew nothing.... I almost got angry; at first I even refused to obey, and appealed to the highest understanding of my obligations. Then ... I saw that it was no use. The main point was that I wasn’t the only one getting talked about: the boys were getting a bad reputation.... That was hard and difficult enough but what could I say to my young disputants? How could I explain it? I obeyed the evidently senseless and humiliating order! This was the first blow that life had dealt me and I did not notice at the time that I had received a mortal wound.

“I obeyed and stopped my evening discussions. I can conscientiously say that I thought even more about them. But youths, you know, don’t obey so easily and can’t understand the whole meaning. One evening this Rogov came to me with a companion. Secretly. Flushed faces, blazing eyes, and a peculiar look.... I stopped this kind of fellowship. ‘No,’ I said, ‘gentlemen, we’d better stop it.’ I saw that both boys were getting worked up. Rogov began to say something, but he had a convulsion of the throat and his eyes suddenly took on an evil expression.... I found a way to justify myself: I was afraid for them, especially for Rogov and his mother.... You see, if our conspiracies were discovered, his whole career—and his mother’s heroism—would have gone for nothing. So I yielded ... for the first time....

“In place of this I tried to make my lessons as interesting as possible. My evenings were free.... It was boring. I’d begun to get accustomed to my young circle. And now—nothing. I went for my books. Worked like a dog and kept thinking: this must be interesting to them; it will be new and it answers such and such questions.... I read and dug in my books, collected everything interesting, attractive, that pushed apart the official walls and the official lessons.... I kept thinking of those conversations.... And I thought I was getting results.... I remember the whole class almost died from zeal.... Suddenly the director began to attend the lessons. He’d come in, sit down, and listen without saying a word.... You know what happened next. You act as if it were nothing, but both you and the class feel it’s not a lesson but a sort of investigation.... Again delicate questions on the side: ‘Really, excuse me, but where did you get this? Out of what official text book? How do you think this agrees with the courses of study?’

“I’ll be brief.... In a word, the enthusiasm finally died out of me.... The class became merely a class: the living people began to retire further and further; they disappeared in a sort of fog.... I lost intellectual contact. Remarks ... plan ... the enumeration of the stylistic beauties of a live work. In this there are twelve beauties. First ... second ... and so on.... It fitted the program.... That is, you understand, I didn’t notice how I dried up just like Budnikov.

“Anyway this young fellow finished his course and went to the capital.... He didn’t get into the university right away. It was the time of secret denunciations.... Perhaps my lectures were suspicious. To sum up,—he lost a year. He wrote his mother that he had entered and had a fellowship, but he really beat his way along, was poor and probably got disgusted. Then he began to tramp. Suddenly he had a great sorrow: his mother died before he could get home. As soon as her son left home, she began to waste away.... The guiding star of her life, so to speak, disappeared from the horizon—and she lost the power of resistance. Died of consumption, you know, quickly, almost gladly. ‘Vanya doesn’t need me any more,’ she’d say. ‘I got him on the right track, thank God. He’ll get along now.’ She said the Nunc Dimittis and died. Soon after they found the honored father in a ditch. And my Rogov was an orphan....

“The old woman was really in too much of a hurry; her son really needed her more than ever. He learned well and eagerly, so to speak, without wasting his time, as if he were hurrying somewhere. When he heard of his mother’s death, something broke in his soul.... In turn she seemed to have been the only ideal in his life. ‘I’ll finish, get on my feet, revive my shattered truth: even though she’s ready to die, mother’ll know that there is divine blessing, love, and gratitude.... For a year, a month, even a week.... An instant even, for her heart to be filled and melted with joy.’ Suddenly, in place of everything, the grave.... A crash ... and it’s all over! There’s no need of gratitude, nothing to go back to, to correct.... You’ve got to have strength to stand such a temptation without being shattered.... You need faith in the general meaning of life.... It mustn’t seem to you but blind chance....

“He didn’t hold on. He had no support.... He changed, got rough, and began to drink in with his wine a poisonous feeling of insult and of the injustice of fate.... So it went. He threw up his examinations—what was the use of getting a diploma? He drifted along like an empty boat on a river.... He came back to our city.... Perhaps he wanted to tie up by his mother’s grave.... But how could that help him?... If he’d tried to find some meaning, that would have been another thing.... And so ... he got in court a certificate, ‘to travel’ on business, and followed his father’s footsteps. He lived a dissolute life, spent his time in saloons, with worthless people, and engaged in business of the most shady character. One year of this life,—and he’d become a drunken, impudent bum, the enfant terrible of our peaceful city, a menace to the citizens. The devil knows how, but the bashful boy became insolent and diabolically clever: every one in the city was afraid of him.... It’s strange, but there isn’t a city in Russia without its Rogov. A sort of a state character. It was quiet everywhere, peaceful slumber, idyllic calm, M. Budnikov walking along the streets, obstinate, conceited, counting his steps.... Evenings, especially on holidays, these poetic murmurs, and there’s a lot of noise from some saloon like our ‘On the Crags,’ and some misshapen, sick and desperate soul carousing.... Satellites around, of course. This is a natural and necessary detail to fill up the provincial corners, so to speak....

“Rogov met me soon after he turned up.... He bowed shyly and went to one side, especially when he was drunk. One time I met him, spoke to him, and asked him in.... He came ... sober, serious, even bashful ... from old habit, of course.... But we didn’t stick together. Memories parted us: I was a young teacher with a lively faith in my calling, with lively feelings and words: He was a young man, still pure and respecting my moral authority.... Now he was Vanka Rogov, a Tikhodol bum, engaged in shady business.... And I.... In a word, we seemed to be parted by a solid wall: the main reason of all I won’t mention. I felt that I had to shatter the barrier, tell him something that would reach his soul and control it as I used to.... He seemed to be waiting for this in terror: waiting for the cruel blow.... His eyes showed his pain and expectation.... I didn’t have the strength. It was gone, ... lost probably when for the first time we parted in shame....

“I had to watch like a sympathetic witness, so to speak, how this young fellow degraded himself, grew fast, drank, and defiled himself.... He got insolent, lost all sense of shame. Then I heard that Rogov was an extortioner and begging. Business was poor; he was on the border between the merely offensive and the criminal. He was as clever as an acrobat and laughed at everything. In two or three years he was absolutely transformed. He had become a menacing, dirty, and very unpleasant figure.

“Sometimes he’d come when he was drunk.... It’s strange: but I seemed to feel more at home when he was that way.... It simplified matters, his fault was evident, and it was easier to draw a moral. I remember after one of his descents into the loathsome, I said to him:

“‘This and that’s not right, Rogov.’

“He shrugged his shoulders, turned away his eyes, as if he was afraid of a moral beating; then he shook his hair, looked me straight in the eye, obviously relying on his impudence:

“‘What’s wrong, Pavel Semenovich?’

“‘It’s disgraceful,’ I said.

“‘You know,’ he said, ‘I’ve changed one quarrelsome goal for another not less quarrelsome. That was wrong and now it’s disgraceful. My theory works out all right for me,’ he said. ‘Honor and everything like that is nothing but dessert. You know it comes after dinner. If there’s no dinner, what’s the use of dessert?...’

“‘But, remember, Rogov,’ I said, ‘why you have no dinner.... You studied well, had a good start, and then suddenly went wrong....’

“That moment I thought my statement was not only convincing but incontrovertible.... And he looked at me, laughed, and said:

“‘You’ve sometimes played billiards a little, haven’t you?’

“‘Yes,’ I said, ‘I play for relaxation....’

“‘You know the downward stroke?’

“‘Yes.’ You know that’s a peculiar and paradoxical shot. The ball first goes forward and then it suddenly and apparently of its own accord rolls back.... At first sight it seems incomprehensible and a violation of the laws of motion, but it’s really simple.

“‘Well, what do you think?’ he asked. ‘Has the ball a will of its own? No.... It’s merely a contest between two different motions.... One rules in the beginning, the other later.... Now you see,’ he said, ‘all her life my mother went straight but father, as you know, spun around like a top. That’s why I went straight at first, as long as my mother’s impulse lasted.... I hadn’t gotten my bearings, when I swung round to father’s pattern.... There’s my whole story....’

“He spoke frankly and hopelessly. He dropped his head, shook his hair down over his face, and then, when he looked at me again, I felt uneasy. His eyes showed his pain. Did you ever see a sick animal?... A dog,—usually an affectionate brute, is willing then to bite its master.

“‘Now,’ he said, ‘whom do you think’s to blame?’

“‘I don’t know, Rogov. I’m not your judge.... It’s not a question of blame....’

“‘Not of blame, what then? I think he’s to blame who started me off with that shot.... That means to condemn no one. I’m a case of downward stroke in life.... I do the will of Him that sent me.... So there you are, my dear Pavel Semenovich.... Have you got two grivens of silver? I want to drown my sorrow....’

“This was the first time that he had asked me for two grivens and I instantly felt that the old barrier between us had been broken. Now he could insult me as he would any one else.

“I wanted to defend myself.

“‘No, Rogov. I won’t give you two grivens. Come any time you feel like.... I’m glad to see you.... But this is impossible....’

“He dropped his shaggy head, sat down, and said dully:

“‘Yes, Pavel Semenovich. Excuse me. I’ll come without begging. Yet to sit down with you, I feel easier and free from my usual load.’

“He sat still. A long, strained silence ensued. Then he said:

“‘There was a time ... when I hoped to receive something from you.... You don’t know what you meant to me. Even now I sometimes feel I must see you. You’re waiting for something.... No.... It’s hopeless.... A downward stroke and it’s all over....’

“‘Excuse me, Rogov,’ I said. ‘You’re really misusing that example from billiards. You’re not an ivory ball but a living man.’

“‘And for that reason, I feel.... As for a ball,—wherever you send it,—into a pocket or a hole, that ivory ball doesn’t care.... But a man, most esteemed Pavel Semenovich, finds it hard to be pocketed.... Do you think that any one willingly and voluntarily refuses dessert?... I wouldn’t.... I’m a man with reflexes, as they say. I see and examine my trajectory clear to the end.... I’ll become a pig of pigs and I can’t reform. At times I think ... perhaps ... somehow ... somewhere ... there may be some ... point of support.... Sometimes you get irritated ... really.... Where is truth ... reality?... Is there such a thing, Pavel Semenovich?’

“‘Of course there is,’ I answered.

“‘How sincerely you spoke. There must be, of course ... there is.... But where? Excuse me, I don’t want to catch you.... You don’t know yourself. You looked once and stopped. That’s why I’ll only ask you for two grivens. Sometimes I may be sitting by a fire.... You’re a man with a soul.... Another time, perhaps, I’ll be able to get more out of you....’

“‘Listen here,’ I said to him. ‘Think now, can I really help you in any way?’ I felt that there was something to him.... He was rather touched, was not insolent.... He became thoughtful and dropped his head.

“‘No,’ he replied, ‘it can’t be done. You’re not to blame, friend. Because ... I, and every one like me, is very greedy. Like swine we wallow in the mire, and we want any one who helps us to be whiter than snow.... You need a lot of strength, friend. You haven’t enough.... A storm is necessary.... To breathe fire.... There are miracles.... But you.... You’re not angry at me?...’

“‘Angry? Why?’

“We both stopped talking. I had nothing to say to him, he began again to walk around, but he gradually recovered his former manner. He came and sat down and he showed his brandy. The next Saturday he came in the same condition and sat down beside me on the steps. Just then the bell rang for vespers. In a short time M. Budnikov came out of the gate. Dandy, you know how he is, stubborn as ever, perfectly self-satisfied.... He breathes forth the consciousness of duty well done.

“I remember what an unpleasant effect he produced upon me. Rogov’s face suddenly changed. He jumped up, adopted a theatrical pose, took off his cap, and said:

“‘To M. Budnikov, Semen Nikolayevich, on his way to vespers is extended the most respectful greeting of Vanka Rogov.

“Then with a sweeping wave of his cap, he began to sing—from a well-known romance:

“This buffoonery was too much.... I felt that I disliked Budnikov, but yet.... He was insulting a man on a point which from every angle and in any case should have won his respect. Yelena soon came out of the gate and also started for church. He sang to me:

“This made me really angry. Yelena quailed before the impudent stare and insolent, even if unintelligible words. She dropped her head and quickly walked to church.

“‘Listen, Rogov,’ I said. ‘You ought to be ashamed of yourself! I must tell you ... if you want to come here, I humbly beg you to act more decently....’

“He turned and I saw in his eyes a peculiar expression—of evil pain. He felt like biting me....

“I tried to soften the bitterness of my words and said:

“‘Rogov, you don’t know these people, nor their relations, and yet you venture to insult them....’

“He smiled at me and replied:

“‘You’re thinking of the idyl? The kindly M. Budnikov made two hearts happy. Why, here’s Gavryushenka.’

“In truth, Gavrilo had just come out of the gate. Rogov beckoned to him rather hostilely....

“‘I congratulate you, Gavryushenka, ... on your master’s leavings.... Wise fellow! You knew where the crabs winter.... In case of necessity, you may depend upon my legal knowledge....’

“Surprising how these cynics find things out. Evidently Rogov knew the whole story and suspected Gavrilo of having mercenary motives....

“He walked up and patted him on the shoulder.... Gavrilo got angry and pushed Rogov away violently. Rogov almost fell down, laughed, and, with pretended indifference, started along the path. He came up to me, stopped and said:

“‘Most esteemed Pavel Semenovich.... I want to ask you a question: haven’t you read ... it’s in Xenophon ... the conversation between Alcibiades and Pericles?... If you haven’t, I recommend it most highly. Although it’s in a dead language, it’s instructive.’

“He went off singing an indecent song. A little while after I hunted up this dialogue. I wondered what he meant....

“You know it’s a hard but a powerful piece. The subject’s about like this: Young Alcibiades went one day to Pericles.... Remember, Pericles was already a famous man and enjoyed the confidence of every one ... because of past services and a certain air of benevolence.... Anyway his position was secure. Alcibiades was a rascal, worthless, drunkard, in all sorts of scandals with Athenian girls, cut off dogs’ tails, as you know ... A man of no reputation for well-doing. Well, one day, this rogue of a young fellow went up to Pericles and said: ‘Listen, Pericles, you’re a man chock full of benefactions clear to the top of your head, you may say. I’m wandering off the road and twisting up everything, for I have nothing to do. Every one’s angry at me. I want you to explain everything to me.’ Pericles, of course, was willing and thought it was a good idea to talk to the young man. He might bring him to his senses. So he said: ‘Go ahead and ask what you want.’ Then came the question: ‘What is doing well? How do you learn it?’ Pericles, of course, laughed: ‘Honor the gods, obey the laws, and do your duty. To obey the laws is the first duty of a citizen and a man.’ ‘Fine,’ answered the young fellow. ‘Tell me, please, which laws am I to obey: the bad or the good ones?’ Pericles was almost insulted. ‘If a law’s a law, it’s good. What are you talking about?’ ‘No,’ said Alcibiades, ‘wait and don’t get angry.’ ... You know at this time in Athens all these principles were mixed up ... parties, struggle, some robbing others, ostracism, a sort of banishment by administrative order ... usurpers ... favorites ... there really was confusion,—a man jumped forward and drew up his own laws for his own advantage or for his relatives and friends. Then old gods were all mixed up, the oracles answered anything, provided it didn’t apply to the subject. In a word, everything that was clear in life had become unclear: there was no equilibrium, no generally acknowledged truth.... A new system was necessary. Clouds covered the sky and there were no stars to steer by.... That was why Alcibiades asked what laws should be obeyed; those which prescribe good or bad. Of course, Pericles answered the good. ‘How can I tell which are good? What is the mark, so to speak?’ ‘Obey all! That’s what laws are for!...’ ‘That means laws passed by the power of tyrants?’ ‘No, you don’t need to obey those....’ ‘I see, only lawful laws, so to speak. Fine! But suppose the minority coerces the majority to its own advantage, don’t I need to obey those laws?’ ‘Of course not.’ ‘But if the majority coerce the minority, is that contrary to right?...’ You see what the young fellow was driving at: he didn’t need external signs, but he showed that he needed to feel in his soul universal truth, the highest truth, so to speak, the truth of life, sanctity.... Pericles, you see, hadn’t understood this.... Not merely Pericles, the whole country rested on slavery, on past wrong.... Religion had dried up, the old sanctity which had consecrated every step, every motion, the whole order, all human relationships,—people had ceased to feel it.... But Pericles argued around.... He didn’t want to confess that their laws had died.... He patted the dissolute young fellow on the shoulder with a great deal of condescension and said: ‘Yes, yes.... I see you’ve got a head on your shoulders. Years ago we used to settle such hard questions.’ ... Well, Alcibiades saw that Pericles was, so to speak, a recognized authority, was quibbling over trifles, didn’t treat these conflicts as anything alive,—and waved his hand. ‘I’m sorry, my dear sir, that I didn’t know you then.... Now I’m bored; I’m going to fool along.’

“And that’s what he recommended to me, his former teacher....”

VII

The narrator stopped. The train, which was approaching another station, began to slow down. Petr Petrovich reached out his hand and said, as he took his blue cap with a cockade from the hook:

“I’m going again to get something to eat.... I confess, my dear Pavel Semenovich, I don’t see what you’re driving at.... Excuse me, it’s not philosophy, and God only knows what you are after. We began with Budnikov. All right, we know him.... Now the devil knows who this Rogov is, a worn-out rogue, and now I don’t know whether you’re talking of Xenophon or Alcibiades.... Cutting off dogs’ tails.... The devil knows what you mean.... Kindly allow me to ask how all this concerns me.... Just as you wish.... I’d better go and get some more vodka....”

He put on his cap, and, holding on to the wall because of the jolting of the train, he went out of the compartment. Just at that moment the fourth passenger on the other upper bench stirred. He had been lying in the shadow, smoking now and then, and he seemed to be interested in the story. He got down, took a seat beside us and said:

“Excuse me, I haven’t the honor of being acquainted, but I couldn’t help hearing your story and it interested me. So, if you have no objections.”

Pavel Semenovich looked at him. He was a cultured man, carefully dressed, with intelligent eyes which looked steadily through a pair of gold glasses which he was constantly adjusting.

“Yes?” said Pavel Semenovich. “I see, you heard this....”

“Yes. It interested me.... Your point of view, I confess, I don’t understand fully....”

“Really, it wasn’t any too clear.... I meant ... that in reality everything is so related.... And this mutual relationship....”

“Presupposes mutual responsibility?”

Pavel Semenovich’s face suddenly beamed with joy.

“There! You understand it?... Yes, general.... Not before Ivan or Petr.... Everything is connected, so to speak.... One man carelessly throws away a brandy cork and another slips on it and breaks his leg.”

The new acquaintance listened attentively. Just then Petr Petrovich came back. He had been mistaken as to the place and with an ironical glance at both, he said, as he hung up his cap:

“Well, now,—what do you want with a cork?”

“No, Petr Petrovich,” said Pavel Semenovich seriously, “you’re wrong.... The question is, so to speak——”

“You find questions everywhere in the simplest things,” said Petr Petrovich. “Don’t bother about me. You’ve got a large enough audience.”

“Go on, please,” said the gentleman with the gold glasses.

“If you wish.... I’ll be more than glad, for I’ve got to get it off my mind. I stopped——”

“You stopped,” said Petr Petrovich laughingly, “with Alcibiades.... A story, so to speak, from the Ancient Times. Now for the Middle Ages....”

Pavel Semenovich paid no attention to this sally and turned to the new member of the group:

“You see how it was. The thing was this way: Gavrilo was married and living by himself.... In M. Budnikov’s table still lay the ticket with the two lines.... There were ugly rumors about it and, of course, they were exaggerated. Gavrilo was the only one who didn’t know of them. He kept on working as before, did all he could, and tried.... He was a muscular symphony in performance, with his eyes full of general satisfaction and good humor....

“And then Rogov suddenly turned up. He was walking along the path by the yard; he stopped, thought a moment, and called Gavrilo.

“He was a good-hearted Russian.... He had pushed Rogov away a little while before, but afterwards he thought no more of it. ‘What do you want?’ he asked. ‘Come here, it’s something that concerns you. You’ll thank me for it.’

“I’ll confess, something warned me. I felt like calling to Rogov and stopping him, for I was sure he was up to some mischief. But it was after the Alcibiades episode ... and I had no hope in my influence. I stayed at the window. I saw Gavrilo leave his shovel, go up and listen. At first his face showed that he did not comprehend and almost did not care. Then, with the same air of uncertainty, he took off his apron, went into the house, put on his cap and rejoined Rogov. Both walked down the street and turned down the hill toward the river. A moment later Yelena came out to the gate, stood and looked after the two men.... Her eyes looked sad and frightened....

“From that day on Gavrilo’s character changed sharply. He came back apparently rather drunk.... Perhaps from vodka, perhaps from the weight of an unbearable burden which Rogov had suddenly put on his shoulders.... In the first place, the amount was absolutely staggering: a mountain of money more than he could count. Then the source of the wealth reminded him of Yelena’s past. Finally he couldn’t understand why she had never mentioned it and this may have given rise to evil suspicions.... You see it was like an explosion in his mind.... Those two lines which M. Budnikov had made on the ticket kept sinking deeper and deeper into Gavrilo’s soul.... The simple-hearted man was absolutely upset. The whole symphony of directness and labor was suddenly interrupted.... Gavrilo wandered around in confusion, as if he had been poisoned....

“It began to break him down.... At first he walked about grimly with his face clouded. His work began to fall from his hands: he threw down his axe and broke his spade.... Just like a well-built machine into which some one has hurled a bolt.... When Budnikov in surprise began to administer mild rebukes, that shovels cost money and he would have to take it out of Gavrilo’s wages, that easy-going man answered with unintelligible and unreasonable rudeness.... And Yelena wept more and more....

“Then Gavrilo began to drink and carouse and his usual abode became the dirty den, the ‘Crags’ on the bank, on the sand near the wharf.... This was a small wooden house with a second floor, dark, tilting to one side and propped up with beams. You could see it from the bank; evenings there were usually two lighted windows and the open door, cymbals clashed, and there was a lot of fiddling to amuse the guests.... From time to time, you could hear confused shouts—both songs and quarrels and calls for the police. It was an eternally restless place and rather threatening. The very antithesis of the drowsy country life.... Bargemen from our modest and usually idle wharf, workmen from the brickyards like moles which had burrowed in the damp clay, professional beggars ... in a word, the homeless, unfortunate, dissipated, and evil. Even the decent members of the proletariat shunned this place. And that’s where Rogov took Gavrilo. And Yelena was the next to learn the road to the ‘Crags’ so as to bring her husband home....

“She did this surprisingly modestly, quietly, yes, even beautifully. Once I was coming home from my lessons and as I entered the gate I saw Yelena running toward me and fastening a kerchief on her head.

“‘Where are you going, Yelena?’

“A moment’s hesitation.

“‘You haven’t seen Gavrilo Stepanich go this way, have you?’ she asked.

“‘He must have.... But you shouldn’t go there, Yelena.’

“I wanted to stop her.... But she swept past me angrily and with some apparent pride went to look for Gavrilo Stepanich, her husband, and she was his lawful wife.... In a half-hour I saw her bringing Gavrilo Stepanich by the arm. He was leaning on her but walking and looking straight ahead with dull, faded and perplexed eyes. But he was walking. By the gate he suddenly straightened up, pushed away her hand and stared at her.... His face was dark, but his faded eye had a decided look....

“‘Who are you? Tell me who you are?... Oh?’

“She stopped and dropped her hand in despair. I thought of that spring morning and their mutual oaths: ‘Remember God, Gavrilo Stepanich!’ I was terrified: he’ll forget right now, this very minute, I thought.... Suddenly a spark of knowledge flickered up in his foolish face and he swallowed hard. He didn’t say a word but went to his rooms silently.... She followed him in terror, respectfully and humbly....

“So it went on: Rogov would beckon to Gavrilo, and he’d go off and begin to carouse. This man got enormous power over Gavrilo, and Yelena objected, humbly, respectfully, timidly, but constantly. She probably looked upon all this as a punishment sent to her as an atonement for her ‘sin.’ She grew thin, her nice plumpness disappeared, her eyes sank deeper in her head.... But when I looked at them I never could decide to call them stupid. Her suffering was always wonderfully intelligent like that of a bird.... She’d go to the saloons after her drunken husband, every one would laugh at her on the street, and make rough jokes about her.... She felt no shame for herself.... Only once she whispered: ‘That’s not right, Gavrilo Stepanich, people are looking at you....’

“One time when she was taking him back from the ‘Crags,’ he broke away from her, ran up to Budnikov’s door and began to kick it wildly. Yelena almost dropped, and, as if she did not have the strength to go after him, she watched him like a man with the nightmare, who sees coming at him something terrible which he has been expecting but he can’t struggle against it.... The door suddenly opened and M. Budnikov appeared.... Calm and haughty with an air of absolute superiority. To tell you the truth, I was somewhat surprised.... Anyway, it was a delicate situation. I didn’t know the details at the time, but I felt there was something wrong and mistaken.... Suddenly clearness of vision, quiet, calm. And it wasn’t put on. No,—that was easy to see.... It was merely absolute imperturbability.

“‘What do you want, Gavrilo?’ he said. ‘What are you kicking for? Don’t you know how to ring?... You see, here’s the bell....’

“He pointed to the bell handle. Gavrilo looked at it and became confused. Yes, there was a knob and there was really no reason to kick.... M. Budnikov continued from the top step:

“‘Anyway, what are you thinking about and what do you want of me, you r-rascal? Have I insulted you, dealt unjustly with you, held up your pay for even one day? Yet you kicked.... All right, here I am.... What do you want?’

“Gavrilo didn’t say a word....

“‘Well, then, I’ll tell you a thing or two myself: the shovel’s broken again, the walk isn’t swept, the horse hasn’t been watered.... The horse is a dumb animal and can’t talk ... but just the same it’s alive and feels.... Hear it whinney?...’

“This argument so overwhelmed Gavrilo that he turned, thoroughly and definitely crushed, and went straight to the stable. In a minute, just as if he were sober, he took the horse to the trough.... M. Budnikov quietly locked his door and came out. As he came past my wall he guessed that I had seen the whole affair, stopped, and with a sad shake of his head, remarked:

“‘Yes, every one’s talking of the people, the people.... How do they fall in love with them?...’”

VIII

“The scandal began to attract attention. It was talked about in the city. Various opinions were held. Some defended Budnikov. Was it worth while to believe mere rumors? Really no one knew anything. Some were stupid stories; others, evident scandals and an unseemly breaking of the general quiet.... But there was another side. People of the lower classes sympathized with Gavrilo. They thought that the wise and strong M. Budnikov must have filched from Gavrilo some sort of a talisman and was now committing sorcery so that the talisman would lose its power.... So dozens of eyes were turned to the windows of M. Budnikov and looked at him as he passed, stubbornly and calmly, apparently unaware of the cloud of misunderstanding, suspicion, condemnation, question, ... yes, sin, which trailed after him. Every look expressed an evil thought and every heart was heating with an evil feeling.... It was a peculiar sort of dark cloud.... Hundreds of individual spiritual movements, confused, unclear, but evil.... And all aimed at one centre....

“I must say Budnikov had been rather popular and enjoyed the respect of all.... Even Rogov, when he happened to pass our yard and saw M. Budnikov with a shovel or rake, always stopped and said:

“‘M. Budnikov, Semen Nikolayevich, is working.... He who works shall eat.’

“Or:

“‘M. Budnikov is helping his neighbor, the porter, with the work of his hands. Most laudable!’

“Then he passed on as by an object to which he was indifferent or at which he was pleasantly amused.

“Now, that was all changed.... It gave me a physical sensation ... like a nightmare. As if those two lines ... or something in the character of M. Budnikov had polluted the atmosphere.... It was almost an hallucination.... You’re going to or from the gymnasium ... thinking out your remarks.... You suddenly feel that M. Budnikov is following you with his measured tread and his self-satisfaction that comes from a consciousness of duty performed.... Or you’re giving a lesson or reading necessary notices and you absolutely hear Budnikov’s accents in your own voice ... when he lays down to a beggar rules for work or preaches a moral to Gavrilo over the broken shovel or advises me: ‘Lay aside pride and be humble.’ ...

“In this ordinary thing, this humble and apparently quiet life of peaceful corners, there’s something terrible, ... specific, so to speak, not easily noticeable, gray.... Really where are the rascals, sacrifices, the right, the wrong?... You so want the fog to be pierced by even one ray of living, absolute truth, which will not be founded on pencil lines, but will be actually able to solve the riddle absolutely and completely ... the real truth, which even Rogov will acknowledge.... Do you understand?

“‘I think I do,’ said the gentleman in the glasses seriously.

“Apparently M. Budnikov began to feel that something was wrong. He cleaned up but, as often happens, he didn’t find the real question.... He came to me once on the usual day, the twentieth. You understand I gave him tea as usual.... He drank it as usual, but his expression was different. Sad and solemn. He finished his business, carefully put away the money in his pocketbook, marked it down, but didn’t leave.... He began to talk round the bush ... about the abnormality of his life, ... in particular about his loneliness, some mistake caused by prejudice and pride.... Then he got talking of Yelena and Gavrilo. Gavrilo had turned out to be utterly worthless and Yelena had made a mistake and was very unhappy.... He felt responsible for letting her marry, but it was hard to correct it.... It was harder still to fix it up with money.... What good is money in the hands of a drunkard? And so on. All these subterfuges showed me that M. Budnikov wanted to solve the whole riddle by recreating the original situation, so to speak,—that is, to divorce Yelena from Gavrilo and marry her himself.... That meant those two lines would be wiped out and disappear.... Apparently ... he had already talked of this with several people, among them Father Nikolay.... Now he wanted my advice....

“‘Have you spoken to Yelena about this?’ I asked.

“‘No, not yet.... I, perhaps, you may notice, don’t even go to see her, so as not to make trouble.... But I know what she needs.... I have no reason to doubt....’

“I tried to advance certain points, but M. Budnikov wouldn’t listen.... He soon said good-by and left.... As if he feared for the integrity of his whole plan of action....

“A little while after, when Gavrilo was away, some women of the parish began to bob up at Yelena’s and Budnikov received members of the consistory. Twice, toward evening, I saw Rogov leave Budnikov’s.... Then I thought: so that’s what my young fellow is after; I see now why he’s ruining Gavrilo; he’s fixing it so M. Budnikov can arrange the divorce....

“The whole situation seemed to me so disgraceful and hopeless that I began to think of moving and simply getting away from the whole thing.... I couldn’t sleep.... Again I began to walk around the garden. Once I found Yelena in it.... She was lying on that same bench where I sat that spring morning.... It was fall now.... Everything was dying and growing bare.... Autumn, you know, is a terrible cynic. The wind breaks off the leaves and laughs. They were lying on the muddy, damp earth. And a woman was lying on the damp bench with her face down and crying. Yes, she was crying bitterly.... Later I found out why: the arrangement of M. Budnikov was absolutely impersonal. When she heard this proposition she merely clasped her hands: ‘Let the earth swallow me up, let me dry up like a chip.’ ... And so on.... ‘You’d better bury me alive with Gavrilo Stepanich.’ ... And Gavrilo Stepanich didn’t spend the night at home. That former pure happiness had perished and she didn’t know what to do. A ticket ... two lines ... friends from the church, Budnikov, Rogov. She was stupid and obedient and afraid that something would be done against her will....

“I walked up to her ... wanted to comfort her. When I touched her and felt her body tremble beneath my touch ... it seemed to me such a stupid performance that I trembled, as if from impotent pity....

“I went away.... I forgot the whole thing and wanted to drop it and leave. If M. Budnikov passed ... let him pass.... If Rogov was engaged in dirty business, let him! If stupid Yelena wanted a drunken husband, let her have one.... What did I care? What difference did it make who got the ticket with the two lines, to whom those stupid lines gave rights?... Everything was incomplete, accidental, disconnected, senseless and disgusting....”

IX

Pavel Semenovich stopped and looked out of the window as if he had forgotten the story....

“Well, how did it end?” asked our new companion cautiously.

“End?” The narrator woke up. “Of course, everything on the earth ends some way. This ended stupidly and simply. One night ... my bell rang. Sharply, anxiously, nervously.... I jumped up in fright, put on my slippers ... went out on the steps ... there was no one there. But it occurred to me that Rogov was around the corner. I thought he must have been passing drunk and ugly and wanted to annoy me by coming at this time.... He remembered that I was asleep and he, Vanichka Rogov, my favorite pupil, was drunk on the street and wanted to inform me of it. I closed the door, went back to bed, and fell asleep. The bell rang again. I didn’t get up. Let him ring.... It rang again and again.... No, this must be something else. I put on my overcoat.... Opened the door. There stood the night watchman. His beard was covered with frost. ‘Please,’ he said.

“‘Where do you want me to go, brother?’ I asked.

“‘To Semen Nikolayevich, M. Budnikov.... They’ve had ... trouble....’

“Without understanding anything, I dressed mechanically and went. A clear cold night, and late.... There were lights in the windows of M. Budnikov, whistles along the street.... What a stir for night.... I went up the steps and entered. The first thing that caught my eye was the face of Semen Nikolayevich, M. Budnikov.... Absolutely different, not at all like what he was before. He was lying on his pillow and looking somewhere into space.... That was so strange.... I stopped at the door and thought: ‘What’s this? I used to know him but he’s suddenly changed.... This isn’t the man who came once a month and drank two glasses of tea. Who worried over Yelena’s divorce, but it’s some one with other thoughts. He lay immovable, important, but he didn’t look at us or any one, and he seemed so different.... He was afraid of no one and judged every one; himself, that is, the old Semen Nikolayevich, and Gavrilo, Yelena, Rogov, and ... yes, me too.... I suddenly understood....

“Then I saw Gavrilo. By the window, in a corner, grieved but quiet.... As I suddenly understood, I walked up to him and said:

“‘Did you do this?’

“‘Of course, Pavel Semenovich, I did.’

“‘Why?’

“‘I don’t know, Pavel Semenovich....’

“Then the doctor attracted my attention. He told me that there was no help.... People kept walking and driving up, coming in, sitting down, and writing statements.... It seemed so strange that the young prosecutor, such a careful and reliable man, should give orders not to let Gavrilo and Yelena go and to hold some sort of an investigation.... I remember his smile when I asked him the reason for it.... I’ll admit it was a strange question but I thought that this procedure was unnecessary.... When they started to take Gavrilo and Yelena away I involuntarily got up and asked if they were going to take me.... I later heard rumors that something was wrong with me. That was false. My head was never so clear.... The prosecutor was surprised. ‘If I may give you advice, you need to drink some water and go to bed.’ ‘But Yelena?’ I asked; ‘why her?’ ‘We will hope,’ he answered, ‘that everything will turn out in a way that’s best for her, but now ... at the first inquiry ... it is my painful duty.’ ... I still thought he was acting wrongly....

“The two were taken away. I went back to my rooms and sat down on the steps. It was cold.... A clear, autumn, quiet night with a clear, white frost.... The stars were sparkling and whispering in the sky. They had such a special expression and meaning.... You could hear their mysterious whisper, though you couldn’t make out what they said.... It was both a distant tremor of alarm and also quiet and neighborly sympathy.

“I really wasn’t surprised when Rogov came up quietly and timidly sat down beside me on the steps. He sat a long time without saying a word.... I don’t remember whether he did say anything, but I knew the whole story.... He had no thoughts of murder. He wanted ‘to win Yelena’s case with M. Budnikov’ for himself. He had to get hold of the ticket, on which, as he supposed, was an endorsement.... This clever scheme pleased him: to get hold by illegal means of the proof of a legal right. He saw something humorous in it. The illegal procuring of legal proof in the form of a hypothetical endorsement.... That’s why he worked his way into Budnikov’s confidence through the business of the divorce.... He found out everything about the place and sent one of his obedient clients from the ‘Crags’ to take the proper box. Gavrilo was to open the door of M. Budnikov’s apartment with a second key, which Budnikov, through strange oversight, had failed to take back from him. Instead of waiting at the door, Gavrilo had gone upstairs. I could have sworn I had seen him walk along with his heavy tread, his dark head, and the deep hatred in his soul.... And how he reached the door and how M. Budnikov awoke and apparently was not even frightened but suddenly understood the whole situation.

“I still saw that moment in the past, when two students ran into my rooms on just such a bright night, and I faced them in my shame and weakness.... What a fire ... evil and sarcastic ... was blazing in the eyes of one....

“It seemed to me that I had discovered that which was the bond of union among all things: these lofty, flashing stars, the living murmur of the wind among the branches, my memories, and this deed.... When I was young I had often had this sensation.... When my fresh mind was trying to solve all questions and gain a larger truth. Another time you will seem to be right at the threshold and everything is about to be cleared up, when it all vanishes.

“We sat a long time. Finally Rogov got up.

“‘Where are you going now?’ I asked.

“‘I don’t know,’ was the answer, ‘what I must do.... I think I’ll have to join Gavrilo and Yelena....’

“There he stood. I understood so much more clearly than usual, and I suddenly realized that he was waiting for me to shake hands. I held out my hand and he suddenly seized it, and it was a long time before he let it go....

“He broke away and left ... straight down the street. I looked after him, as long as I could make out the slender figure of my former pupil....”

---

For some time the silence in the compartment was interrupted only by the rattling of the train and a long whistle. The door slammed, and a conductor walked along the corridor and called out:

“Station of N-sk. Ten minutes’ wait.”

Pavel Semenovich hurriedly got up, picked up a small valise, and, with a sad smile at his audience, he got out of the train. I began to make preparations to leave and so did the gentleman in the gold glasses. Petr Petrovich remained alone. He looked after Pavel Semenovich and, when the door was shut behind him, he smiled at the gentleman in the gold glasses, shook his head, and, running his finger around his forehead, he said:

“He always was a crank.... Now I think he’s not all there. I’ve heard that he threw up his position and now goes around and gives private lessons.”

The gentleman in the gold glasses looked steadily at him but said nothing.

We got out of the train.

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From the point of view of a reporter the case was uninteresting. The jurors acquitted Gavrilo (Yelena was not tried); Rogov was convicted of being the instigator, but mercy was recommended. The judge several times had to stop the witness Pavel Semenovich Padorin, former teacher, who constantly wandered away from facts, in order to express opinions which were irrelevant and had nothing to do with the case....

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