CHAPTER I.

Even to this day, after a lapse of ten years, the erstwhile inhabitants of the Yamkas recall that year, abounding in unhappy, foul, bloody events, which began with a series of trifling, small affrays, but terminated in the administration's, one fine day, taking and destroying completely the ancient, long-warmed nest of legalized prostitution, which nest it had itself created—scattering its remains over the hospitals, jails and streets of the big city. Even to this day a few of the former proprietresses who have remained alive and have reached the limit of decrepitude, and quondam housekeepers, fat and hoarse, like pug-dogs grown old, recall this common destruction with sorrow, horror, and stolid perplexity.

Just like potatoes out of a sack, brawls, robberies, diseases, murders and suicides began to pour down, and, it seemed, no one was to blame for this. All these misfortunes just simply began to be more frequent of their own accord, to pile one upon the other, to expand and grow; just as a small lump of snow, pushed by the feet of urchins, becomes constantly bigger and bigger by itself from the thawing snow sticking to it, grows bigger than the stature of a man, and, finally, with one last, small effort is precipitated into a ravine and rolls down as an enormous avalanche. The old proprietresses and housekeepers, of course, had never heard of fatality; but inwardly, with the soul, they sensed its mysterious presence in the inevitable calamities of that terrible year.

And, truly, everywhere in life where people are bound by common interests, blood relationship, or the benefits of a profession into close, individualized groups—there inevitably can be observed this mysterious law of sudden accumulation, of a piling up, of events; their epidemicity, their strange succession and connectedness, their incomprehensible lingering. This occurs, as popular wisdom has long ago noted, in isolated families, where disease or death suddenly falls upon the near ones in an inevitable, enigmatic order. "Misfortune does not come alone." "Misfortune without waits—open wide the gates." This is to be noticed also in monasteries, banks, governmental departments, regiments, places of learning and other public institutions, where for a long time, almost for decades, life flows evenly, like a marshy river; and, suddenly, and after some altogether insignificant incident or other, there begin transfers, changes in positions, expulsions from service, losses, sicknesses. The members of society, just as though they had conspired, die, go insane, are caught thieving, shoot or hang themselves; vacancy after vacancy is freed; promotions follow promotions, new elements flow in, and, behold, after two years there is not a one of the previous people on the spot; everything is new, if only the institution has not fallen into pieces completely, has not crept apart. And is it not the same astounding destiny which overtakes enormous social, universal organizations—cities, empires, nations, countries, and, who knows, perhaps whole planetary worlds?

Something resembling this incomprehensible fatality swept over the Yamaskya Borough as well, bringing it to a rapid and scandalous destruction. Now in place of the boisterous Yamkas is left a peaceful, humdrum outskirt, in which live truck-farmers, cat's-meat men, Tartars, swineherds and butchers from the near-by slaughterhouses. At the petition of these worthy people even the designation of Yamaskya Borough itself, as disgracing the inhabitants with its past, has been named over into Golubovka, in honour of the merchant Golubov, owner of a shop dealing in groceries and delicacies, and warden of the local church.

The first subterranean shocks of this catastrophe began in the heat of summer, at the time of the annual summer fair, which this year was unbelievably brilliant. Many circumstances contributed to its extraordinary success, multitudes, and the stupendousness of the deals concluded during it: the building in the vicinity of three new sugar refineries, and the unusually abundant crop of wheat, and, in particular, of sugar beets; the commencement of work in the laying of an electric trolley and of canalization; the building of a new road to the distance of 750 versts; but mainly, the fever of building which seized the whole town, all the banks and financial institutions, and all the houseowners. Factories for making brick sprang up on the outskirts of the town like mushrooms. A grandiose agricultural exposition opened. Two new steamer lines came into being, and they, together with the previously established ones, frenziedly competed with each other, transporting freight and pilgrims. In competition they reached such a state, that they lowered their passenger rates for the third class from seventy-five kopecks to five, three, two, and even one kopeck. In the end, ready to fall from exhaustion in the unequal struggle, one of the steamship companies offered a free passage to all the third-class passengers. Then its competitor at once added to the free passage half a loaf of white bread as well. But the biggest and most significant enterprise of this city was the engineering of the extensive river port, which had attracted to it hundreds of thousands of labourers and which cost God knows what money.

It must also be added, that the city was at this time celebrating the millennial anniversary of its famous abbey, the most honoured and the richest among all the monasteries of Russia. From all the ends of Russia, out of Siberia, from the shores of the Frozen Ocean, from the extreme south—the Black and Caspian Seas—countless pilgrims had gathered for the worship of the local sanctities: the abbey's saints, reposing deep underground in calcareous caverns. Suffice it to say, that the monastery gave shelter, and food of a sort, to forty thousand people daily; while those for whom there was not enough room lay, at night, side by side, like logs, in the extensive yards and lanes of the abbey.

This was a summer out of some fairy-tale. The population of the city increased well-nigh fourfold through every sort of newly-come people. Stone-masons, carpenters, painters, engineers, technicians, foreigners, agriculturists, brokers, shady business men, river navigators, unoccupied knaves, tourists, thieves, card sharpers—they all overflowed the city, and not in a single hotel, the most dirty and dubious one, was there a vacant room. Insane prices were paid for quarters. The stock exchange gambled on a grand scale, as never before or since that summer. Money in millions simply flowed from hands to hands, and thence to a third pair. In one hour colossal riches were created, but then many former firms burst, and yesterday's men of wealth turned into beggars. The commonest of labourers bathed and warmed themselves in this golden flood. Stevedores, draymen, street porters, roustabouts, hod carriers and ditch diggers still remember to this day what money they earned by the day during this mad summer. Any tramp received no less than four of five roubles a day at the unloading of barges laden with watermelons. And all this noisy, foreign band, locoed by the easy money, intoxicated with the sensual beauty of the ancient, seductive city, enchanted by the delightful warmth of the southern nights, made drunk by the insidious fragrance of the white acacias—these hundreds of thousands of insatiable, dissolute beasts in the image of men, with all their massed will clamoured: "Give us woman!"

In a single month new amusement enterprises—chic Tivolis, CHATEAUX DES FLEURES, Olympias, Alcazars, etc., with a chorus and an operetta; many restaurants and beerhouses, with little summer gardens, and common little taverns—sprang up by the score in the city, in the vicinity of the building port. On every crossing new "violet-wine" houses were opened every day—little booths of boards, in each of which, under the pretext of selling bread-cider, old wenches trafficked in themselves by twos and threes, right alongside behind a partition of deal, and to many mothers and fathers is this summer painful and memorable through the degrading diseases of their sons—schoolboys and military cadets. For the casual arrivals servants were demanded, and thousands of peasant girls started out from the surrounding villages toward the city. It was inevitable that the demand on prostitution should become unusually high. And so, from Warsaw, from Lodz, from Odessa, from Moscow, and even from St. Petersburg, even from abroad, flocked together an innumerable multitude of foreign women; cocottes of Russian fabrication, the most ordinary prostitutes of the rank and file, and chic Frenchwomen and Viennese. Imperiously told the corrupting influence of the hundreds of millions of easy money. It was as though this cascade of gold had lashed down upon, had set to whirling and deluged within it, the whole city. The number of thefts and murders increased with astounding rapidity. The police, collected in augmented proportions, lost its head and was swept off its feet. But it must also be said that, having gorged itself with plentiful bribes, it resembled a sated python, willy-nilly drowsy and listless. People were killed for anything and nothing, just so. It happened that men would walk up to a person in broad daylight somewhere on an unfrequented street and ask: "What's your name?" "Fedorov." "Aha, Federov? Then take this!" and they would slit his belly with a knife. They nicknamed these blades just that in the city—"rippers"; and there were among them names of which the city news seemed actually proud: the two brothers Polishchuk (Mitka and Dundas), Volodka the Greek, Fedor Miller, Captain Dmitriev, Sivocho, Dobrovolski, Shpachek, and many others.

Both day and night on the main streets of the frenzied city stood, moved, and yelled the mob, as though at a fire. It would be almost impossible to describe what went on in the Yamkas then. Despite the fact that the madams had increased the staff of their patients to more than double and increased their prices trebly, their poor demented girls could not catch up in satisfying the demands of the drunken, crazed public, which threw money around like chips. It happened that in the drawing room, filled to overflowing with people, each girl would be awaited for by some seven, eight, at times even ten, men. It was, truly, some kind of a mad, intoxicated, convulsive time!

And from that very time began all the misfortunes of the Yamkas, which brought them to ruin. And together with the Yamkas perished also the house, familiar to us, of the stout, old, pale-eyed Anna Markovna.

CHAPTER II.

The passenger train sped merrily from the south to the north, traversing golden fields of wheat and beautiful groves of oak, careering with rumbling upon iron bridges over bright rivers, leaving behind it whirling clouds of smoke.

In the COUPE of the second class, even with open windows, there was a fearful stuffiness, and it was hot. The smell of sulphurous smoke irritated the throat. The rocking and the heat had completely tired out the passengers, save one, a merry, energetic, mobile Hebrew, splendidly dressed, accommodating, sociable and talkative. He was travelling with a young woman, and it was at once apparent, especially through her, that they were newly-weds; so often did her face flare up with an unexpected colour at every tenderness of her husband, even the least. And when she raised her eyelashes to look upon him, her eyes would shine like stars, and grow humid. And her face was as beautiful as only the faces of young Hebrew maidens in love can be beautiful—all tenderly rosy, with rosy lips, rounded out in beautiful innocence, and with eyes so black that their pupils could not be distinguished from the irises.

Unabashed by the presence of three strange people, he showered his caresses upon his companion every minute, and, it must be said, sufficiently coarse ones. With the unceremoniousness of an owner, with that especial egoism of one in love, who, it would seem, is saying to the whole universe: "See, how happy we are—this makes you happy also, isn't that so?"—he would now pass his hand over her leg, which resiliently and in relief stood out beneath her dress, now pinch her on the cheek, now tickle her neck with his stiff, black, turned-up moustache ... But, even though he did sparkle with delight, there was still something rapacious, wary, uneasy to be glimpsed in his frequently winking eyes, in the twitching of the upper lip, and in the harsh outline of his shaved, square chin, jutting out, with a scarcely noticeable dent in the middle.

Opposite this infatuated couple were placed three passengers—a retired general, a spare, neat little old man, with pomade on his hair, with curls combed forward to the temples; a stout land-owner, who had taken off his starched collar, but was still gasping from the heat and mopping his face every minute with a wet handkerchief; and a young infantry officer. The endless talkativeness of Simon Yakovlevich (the young man had already managed to inform his neighbours that he was called Simon Yakovlevich Horizon) tired and irritated the passengers a trifle, just like the buzzing of a fly, that on a sultry summer day rhythmically beats against a window pane of a closed, stuffy room. But still, he knew how to raise their spirits: he showed tricks of magic; told Hebrew anecdotes, full of a fine humour of their own. When his wife would go out on the platform to refresh herself, he would tell such things that the general would melt into a beatific smile, the land-owner would neigh, rocking his black-loam stomach, while the sub-lieutenant, a smooth-faced boy, only a year out of school, scarcely controlling his laughter and curiosity, would turn away to one side, that his neighbours might not see him turning red.

His wife tended Horizon with a touching, naive attention; she wiped his face with a handkerchief, waved upon him with a fan, adjusted his cravat every minute. And his face at these times became laughably supercilious and stupidly self-conceited.

"But allow me to ask," asked the spare little general, coughing politely, "allow me to ask, my dear sir, what occupation might you pursue?"

"Ah, my God!" with a charming frankness retorted Simon Yakovlevich. "Well, what can a poor Jew do in our time? It's a bit of a travelling salesman and a commission broker by me. At the present time I'm far from business. You—he! he! he!—understand yourselves, gentlemen. A honeymoon—don't turn red, Sarochka—it don't repeat itself three times in a year. But afterwards I'll have to travel and work a great deal. Here we'll come with Sarochka to town, will pay the visits to her relatives, and then again on the road. On my first trip I'm thinking of taking my wife. You know, sort of a wedding journey. I'm a representative from Sidris and two English firms. Wouldn't you like to have a look? Here are the samples with me ..."

He very rapidly took out of a small, elegant case of yellow leather a few long cardboard folding books, and with the dexterity of a tailor began to unfold them, holding one end, from which their folds fell downward with a light crackling.

"Look, what splendid samples: they don't give in to foreign ones at all. Please notice. Here, for instance, is Russian and here English tricot, or here, cangan and cheviot. Compare, feel it, and you'll be convinced that the Russian samples almost don't give in to the foreign. Why, that speaks of progress, of the growth of culture. So it's absolutely for nothing that Europe counts us Russians such barbarians.

"And so we'll pay our family visits, will look at the fair, pay a visit to the CHATEAU DES FLEURS, enjoy ourselves a little, stroll a bit, and then to the Volga down to Tzaritzin, to the Black Sea, and then again home to our native Odessa."

"That's a fine journey," said the sub-lieutenant modestly.

"I should say it's fine," agreed Simon Yakovlevich; "but there are no roses without thorns. The work of a travelling salesman is exceedingly difficult and requires many kinds of knowledge, and not so much the knowledge of business as the knowledge of—how shall I say it?—the knowledge of the human soul. Another man may not even want to give an order, but you must work like an elephant to convince him, and argue until he feels the clearness and justice of your words. Because I take only absolutely clean lines exclusively, of which there can be no doubts. A fake or a bad line I will not take, although they should offer me millions for it. Ask wherever you like, in any store which deals in cloths or suspenders GLOIRE—I'm also a representative from this firm—or buttons HELIOS—you just ask who Simon Yakovlevich Horizon is, and everyone will answer you: 'Simon Yakovlevich is not a man, but gold; this is a disinterested man, as honest as a diamond.'" And Horizon was already unpacking long boxes with patented suspenders, and was showing the glistening leaves of cardboard, covered with regular rows of vari-coloured buttons.

"There happen great unpleasantnesses, when the place has been worked out, when a lot of travelling salesmen have appeared before you. Here you can't do anything; they absolutely won't listen to you, only wave their arms. But that's only for others. I am Horizon! I can talk him over, the same like a camel from a menagerie. But it happens still more unpleasant, when two competitors in one and the same line come together in the same town. And it happens even worse when it's some chimney sweep and can't do business himself and spoils business for you too. Here you go to all sorts of tricks: let him drink till he's drunk or let him go off somewhere on a false track. Not an easy trade! Besides that, I have one more line—that's false eyes and teeth. But it ain't a profitable line. I want to drop it. And besides I'm thinking of leaving all this business. I understand, it's all right for a young man, in the bloom of his powers, to flutter around like a moth, but once you have a wife, and may be a whole family even ..." he playfully patted the woman on the knee, from which she became scarlet and looked uncommonly better. "For the Lord has blessed us Jews with fecundity for all our misfortunes ... Then you want to have some business of your own, you want, you understand, to become settled in one place, so's there should be a shack of your own, and your own furniture, and your own bedroom, and kitchen ... Isn't that so, your excellency?"

"Yes ... Yes ... eh—eh ... Yes, of course, of course," condescendingly responded the general.

"And so I took with Sarochka a little dowry. What do I mean, a little dowry? Such money that Rothschild would not even want to look at it are in my hands a whole capital already. But it must be said that there are some savings by me, too. The firms I know will give me credit. If God grant it, we shall still eat a piece of bread and a little butter—and on the Sabbaths the tasty GEFILTEH FISCH."

"That's fine fish: pike the way the sheenies make it!" said the gasping land-owner.

"We shall open up for ourselves the firm of 'Horizon and Son.' Isn't that true, Sarochka—'and Son?' And you, I hope, will honour me with your esteemed orders? When you see the sign, 'Horizon and Son,' then straight off recollect that you once rode in a car together with a young man, who had grown as foolish as hell from love and from happiness."

"Ab-solutely!" said the land-owner.

And Simon Yakovlevich at once turned to him:

"But I also work by commission broking. To sell an estate, to buy an estate, to arrange a second mortgage—you won't find a better specialist than me, and such a cheap one at that. I can be of service to you, should the need arise," and he extended his visiting card to the land-owner with a bow, and, by the way, handed a card each to his two neighbours as well.

The land-owner dived into a side pocket and also dragged out a card.

"Joseph Ivanovich Vengjenovski," Simon Yakovlevich read out loud. "Very, very pleased! And so, should you need me ..."

"Why not? It's possible ..." said the land-owner meditatively. "Why, yes: perhaps, indeed, a favourable chance has brought us together! Why, I'm just journeying to K——about the sale of a certain forest country house. Suppose you do that, then,—drop in to see me. I always stop at the Grand Hotel. Perhaps we may be able to strike up a deal."

"Oh, I'm already almost sure, my dearest Joseph Ivanovich!" exclaimed the rejoicing Horizon, and slightly, with the very tips of his fingers, patted Vengjenovski's kneecap carefully. "You just rest assured; if Horizon has undertaken anything, then you'll be thanking him like your own father, no more, no less."

Half an hour later Simon Yakovlevich and the smooth-faced sub-lieutenant were standing on the platform of the car and smoking.

"Do you often visit K——, mister sub-lieutenant?" asked Horizon.

"Only for the first time—just imagine! Our regiment is stationed at Chernobob. I was born in Moscow, myself."

"AI, AI, AI! How'd you come to get into such a faraway place?"

"Well, it just fell out so. There was no other vacancy when I was let out."

"But then—Chernobob is a hole! The worst little town in all Podolia."

"That's true, but it just fell out so."

"That means, then, that the young officer gent is going to K——to divert himself a little?"

"Yes. I'm thinking of stopping there for two or three days. I'm travelling to Moscow, really. I have received a two months' leave, but it would be interesting to look over the city on the way. It's very beautiful, they say."

"Oh, what are you trying to tell me? A remarkable city! Well, absolutely a European city. If you only knew, what streets, electricity, trolleys, theatres! And if you only knew what cabarets! You'll lick your own fingers. Positively, positively, I advise you, young man, to pay a visit to the CHATEAU DES FLEURS, to the Tivoli, and also to ride out to the island. That's something special. What women, wha-a-at women!"

The lieutenant turned red, took his eyes away, and asked in a voice that quavered:

"Yes, I've happened to hear that. Is it possible that they're really so handsome?"

"Oi! Strike me God! Believe me, there are no handsome women there at all."

"But—how's that?"

"Why, this way: there are only raving beauties there. You understand—what a happy blending of bloods! Polish, Little Russian, and Hebrew. How I envy you, young man, that you're free and alone. In my time I sure would have shown myself! And what's most remarkable of all, they're unusually passionate women! Well, just like fire! And do you know something else?" he asked in a whisper of great significance.

"What?" asked the sub-lieutenant in a fright.

"It's remarkable, that nowheres, neither in Paris, nor in London—believe me, this was told me by people who had seen the whole wide world—never, nowhere, will you meet with such exquisite ways of making love as in this town. That's something especial, as us little Jews say. They think up such things that no imagination can picture to itself. It's enough to drive you crazy!"

"But is that possible?" quietly spoke the sub-lieutenant, whose breath had been cut off.

"Well, strike me God! But permit me, young man, by the way! You understand yourself. I was single, and of course, every man is liable to sin ... It's different now, of course. I've had myself written in with the invalids. But from the former days a remarkable collection has remained to me. Just wait, I'll show it to you right away. Only, please, be as careful as possible in looking at it."

Horizon with trepidation looked around to the right and left and extracted from his pocket a long, narrow little box of morocco, in the style of those in which playing cards are usually kept, and extended it to the sub-lieutenant.

"Here you are, have a look. Only, I beg of you, be very careful."

The sub-lieutenant applied himself to picking out, one after the other, the cards of plain and coloured photography, in which in all possible aspects was depicted in the most beastly ways, in the most impossible positions, the external side of love which at times makes man immeasurably lower and viler than a baboon. Horizon would look over his shoulder, nudge him with his elbow, and whisper:

"Tell me, ain't that swell, now? Why, this is genuine Parisian and Viennese chic!"

The sub-lieutenant looked through the whole collection from the beginning to the end. When he was giving back the little box, his hand was shaking, his temples and forehead were moist, his eyes had dimmed, and over his cheeks had mantled a blush, mottled like marble.

"But do you know what?" Horizon exclaimed gaily, all of a sudden. "It's all the same to me—the Indian sign has been put upon me. I, as they used to say in the olden times, have burned my ships ... I have burned all that I used to adore before. For a long time already I've been looking for an opportunity to pass these cards on to some one. I ain't especially chasing after a price. You wish to acquire them, mister officer?"

"Well, now ... I,—that is ... Why not? ... Let's ..."

"That's fine! On account of such a pleasant acquaintanceship, I'll take fifty kopecks apiece. What, is that expensive? Well, what's the difference, God be with you! I see you're a travelling man, I don't want to rob you; let it go at thirty, then. What? That ain't cheap either? Well, shake hands on it! Twenty-five kopecks apiece. OI! What an intractable fellow you are! At twenty! You'll thank me yourself later! And then, do you know what else? When I come to K—, I always stop at the Hotel Hermitage. You can very easily find me there either very early in the morning, or about eight o'clock in the evening. I know an awful lot of the finest little ladies. So I'll introduce you. And, you understand, not for money. Oh, no. It's just simply nice and gay for them to pass the time with a young, healthy, handsome man of your sort. There's absolutely no money of any kind necessary. And for that matter—they themselves will willingly pay for wine, for a bottle of champagne! So remember then; The Hermitage, Horizon. And if it isn't that, remember it anyway! Maybe I can be of use to you. And the cards are such a thing, such a thing, that it will never lay on the shelf by you. Those who like that sort of thing give three roubles for each specimen. But these, of course, are rich people, little old men. And then, you know"—Horizon bent over to the officer's very ear, winked one eye, and pronounced in a sly whisper—"you know, many ladies adore these cards. Why, you're a young man, and handsome; how many romances you will have yet!"

Having received the money and counted it over painstakingly, Horizon had the brazenness to extend his hand in addition, and to shake the hand of the sub-lieutenant, who did not dare to lift up his eyes to him; and, having left him on the platform, went back into the passageway of the car, as though nothing had happened.

This was an unusually communicative man. On the way to his COUPE he came to a stop before a beautiful little girl of three years, with whom he had for some time been flirting at a distance and making all sorts of funny grimaces at. He squatted down on his heels before her, began to imitate a nanny goat for her, and questioned her in a lisping voice:

"May I athk where the young lady ith going? OI, OI, OI! Thuch a big girl! Travelling alone, without mamma? Bought a ticket all by herthelf and travelth alone! AI! What a howwid girl! And where ith the girl'th mamma?" At this moment a tall, handsome, self-assured woman appeared from the COUPE and said calmly:

"Get away from the child. What a despicable thing to annoy strange children!"

Horizon jumped up on his feet and began to bustle:

"Madam! I could not restrain myself ... Such a wonderful, such a magnificent and swell child! A regular cupid! You must understand, madam, I am a father myself—I have children of my own ... I could not restrain myself from delight! ..."

But the lady turned her back upon him, took the girl by the hand and went with her into the COUPE, leaving Horizon shuffling his feet and muttering his compliments and apologies.

Several times during the twenty-four hours Horizon would go into the third class, of two cars, separated from each other by almost the entire train. In one care were sitting three handsome women, in the society of a black-bearded, taciturn, morose man. Horizon and he would exchange strange phrases in some special jargon. The women looked at him uneasily, as though wishing, yet not daring, to ask him about something. Only once, toward noon, did one of them allow herself to utter:

"Then that's the truth? That which you said about the place? ... You understand—I'm somewhat uneasy at heart!"

"Ah, what do you mean, Margarita Ivanovna? If I said it, then it's right, just like by the National Bank. Listen, Lazer," he turned to him of the beard. "There will be a station right away. Buy the girls all sorts of sandwiches, whichever they may desire. The train stops here for twenty-five minutes."

"I'd like to have bouillon," hesitatingly uttered a little blonde, with hair like ripened rye, and with eyes like corn-flowers.

"My dear Bella, anything you please! At the station I'll go and see that they bring you bouillon with meat and even stuffed dumplings. Don't you trouble yourself, Lazer, I'll do all that myself."

In another car he had a whole nursery garden of women, twelve or fifteen people, under the leadership of an old, stout woman, with enormous, awesome, black eyebrows. She spoke in a bass, while her fat chins, breasts, and stomachs swayed under a broad morning dress in time to the shaking of the car, just like apple jelly. Neither the old woman nor the young women left the least doubts as to their profession.

The women were lolling on the benches, smoking, playing cards—at "sixty-six,"—drinking beer. Frequently the male public of the car provoked them, and they swore back in unceremonious language, in hoarse voices. The young people treated them with wine and cigarettes.

Horizon was here altogether unrecognizable; he was majestically negligent and condescendingly jocose. On the other hand, cringing ingratiation sounded in every word addressed to him by his female clients. But he, having looked over all of them—this strange mixture of Roumanians, Jewesses, Poles and Russians—and having assured himself that all was in order, gave orders about the sandwiches and majestically withdrew. At these moments he very much resembled a drover, who is transporting by railroad cattle for slaughter, and at a station drops in to look it over and to feed it. After that he would return to his COUPE and again begin to toy with his wife, and Hebrew anecdotes just poured from his mouth.

At the long stops he would go out to the buffet only to see about his lady clients. But he himself said to his neighbours:

"You know, it's all the same to me if it's TREIF or KOSHER. I don't recognize any difference. But what can I do with my stomach! The devil knows what stuff they'll feed you sometimes at these stations. You'll pay some three or four roubles, and then you'll spend a hundred roubles on the doctors curing yourself. But maybe you, now, Sarochka"—he would turn to his wife—"maybe you'll get off at the station to eat something? Or shall I send it up to you here?"

Sarochka, happy over his attention, would turn red, beam upon him with grateful eyes, and refuse.

"You're very kind, Senya, only I don't want to. I'm full."

Then Horizon would reach out of a travelling hamper a chicken, boiled meat, cucumbers, and a bottle of Palestine wine; have a snack, without hurrying, with appetite; regale his wife, who ate very genteelly, sticking out the little fingers of her magnificent white hands; then painstakingly wrap up the remnants in paper and, without hurrying, lay them away accurately in the hamper.

In the distance, far ahead of the locomotive, the cupolas and belfries were already beginning to sparkle with fires of gold. Through the COUPE passed the conductor and made some imperceptible sign to Horizon. He immediately followed the conductor out to the platform.

"The inspector will pass through right away," said the conductor, "so you'll please be so kind as to stand for a while here on the platform of the third class with your spouse."

"NU, NU, NU!" concurred Horizon.

"And the money as agreed, if you please."

"How much is coming to you, then?"

"Well, just as we agreed; half the extra charge, two roubles eighty kopecks."

"What?" Horizon suddenly boiled over. "Two roubles eighty kopecks? You think you got it a crazy one in me, what? Here's a rouble for you and thank God for that!"

"Pardon me, sir. This is even absurd—didn't you and I agree?"

"Agree, agree! ... Here's a half more, and not a thing besides. What impudence! I'll tell the inspector yet that you carry people without tickets. Don't you think it, brother—you ain't found one of that sort here!"

The conductor's eyes suddenly widened, became blood-shot.

"O-oh! You sheeny!" he began to roar. "I ought to take a skunk like you and under the train with you!"

But Horizon at once flew at him like a cock.

"What? Under the train? But do you know what's done for words like that? A threat by action! Here, I'll go right away and will yell 'help!' and will turn the signal handle," and he seized the door-knob with such an air of resolution that the conductor just made a gesture of despair with his hand and spat.

"May you choke with my money, you mangy sheeny!"

Horizon called his wife out of the COUPE:

"Sarochka! Let's go out on the platform for a look; one can see better there. Well, it's so beautiful—just like on a picture!"

Sarah obediently went after him, holding up with an unskilled hand the new dress, in all probability put on for the first time, bending out and as though afraid of touching the door or the wall.

In the distance, in the rosy gala haze of the evening glow, shone the golden cupolas and crosses. High up on the hill the white, graceful churches seemed to float in this flowery, magic mirage. Curly woods and coppices had run down from above and had pushed on over the very ravine. And the sheer, white precipice which bathed its foot in the blue river, was all furrowed over with occasional young woods, just like green little veins and warts. Beautiful as in a fairy tale, the ancient town appeared as though it were itself coming to meet the train.

When the train stopped, Horizon ordered three porters to carry the things into the first class, and told his wife to follow him. But he himself lingered at the exit in order to let through both his parties. To the old woman looking after the dozen women he threw briefly in passing:

"So remember, madam Berman! Hotel America, Ivanukovskaya, twenty-two!"

While to the black-bearded man he said:

"Don't forget, Lazer, to feed the girls at dinner and to bring them somewhere to a movie show. About eleven o'clock at night wait for me. I'll come for a talk. But if some one will be calling for me extra, then you know my address—The Hermitage. Ring me up. But if I'm not there for some reason, then run into Reiman's cafe, or opposite, into the Hebrew dining room. I'll be eating GEFILTEH FISCH there. Well, a lucky journey!"

All the stories of Horizon about his commercial travelling were simply brazen and glib lying. All the samples of drapers' goods, suspenders gloire and buttons helios, the artificial teeth and insertible eyes, served only as a shield, screening his real activity—to wit, the traffic in the body of woman. True, at one time, some ten years ago, he had travelled over Russia as the representative for the dubious wines of some unknown firm; and this activity had imparted to his tongue that free-and-easy unconstraint for which, in general, travelling salesmen are distinguished. This former activity had, as well, brought him up against his real profession. In some way, while going to Rostov-on-the-Don, he had contrived to make a very young sempstress fall in love with him. This girl had not as yet succeeded in getting on the official lists of the police, but upon love and her body she looked without any lofty prejudices. Horizon, at that time altogether a green youth, amorous and light-minded, dragged the sempstress after him on his wanderings, full of adventures and unexpected things. After half a year she palled upon him dreadfully. She, just like a heavy burden, like a millstone, hung around the neck of this man of energy, motion and aggressiveness. In addition to that, there were the eternal scenes of jealousy, mistrust, the constant control and tears ... the inevitable consequences of long living together ... Then he began little by little to beat his mate. At the first time she was amazed, but from the second time quieted down, became tractable. It is known, that "women of love" never know a mean in love relations. They are either hysterical liars, deceivers, dissemblers, with a coolly-perverted mind and a sinuous dark soul; or else unboundedly self-denying, blindly devoted, foolish, naive animals, who know no bounds either in concessions or loss of self-esteem. The sempstress belonged to the second category, and Horizon was soon successful, without great effort, in persuading her to go out on the street to traffic in herself. And from that very evening, when his mistress submitted to him and brought home the first five roubles earned, Horizon experienced an unbounded loathing toward her. It is remarkable, that no matter how many women Horizon met after this—and several hundred of them had passed through his hands—this feeling of loathing and masculine contempt toward them would never forsake him. He derided the poor woman in every way, and tortured her morally, seeking out the most painful spots. She would only keep silent, sigh, weep, and getting down on her knees before him, kiss his hands. And this wordless submission irritated Horizon still more. He drove her away from him. She would not go away. He would push her out into the street; but she, after an hour or two, would come back shivering from cold, in a soaked hat, in the turned-up brims of which the rain-water splashed as in waterspouts. Finally, some shady friend gave Simon Yakovlevich the harsh and crafty counsel which laid a mark on all the rest of his life activity—to sell his mistress into a brothel. To tell the truth, in going into this enterprise, Horizon almost disbelieved at soul in its success. But contrary to his expectation, the business could not have adjusted itself better. The proprietress of an establishment (this was in Kharkov) willingly met his proposition half-way. She had known long and well Simon Yakovlevich, who played amusingly on the piano, danced splendidly, and set the whole drawing room laughing with his pranks; but chiefly, could, with unusually unabashed dexterity, make any carousing party "shell out the coin." It only remained to convince the mate of his life, and this proved the most difficult of all. She did not want to detach herself from her beloved for anything; threatened suicide, swore that she would burn his eyes out with sulphuric acid, promised to go and complain to the chief of police—and she really did know a few dirty little transactions of Simon Yakovlevich's that smacked of capital punishment. Thereupon Horizon changed his tactics. He suddenly became a tender, attentive friend, an indefatigable lover. Then suddenly he fell into black melancholy. The uneasy questionings of the woman he let pass in silence; at first let drop a word as though by chance; hinted in passing at some mistake of his life; and then began to lie desperately and with inspiration. He said that the police were watching him; that he could not get by the jail, and, perhaps, even hard labour and the gallows; that it was necessary for him to disappear abroad for several months. But mainly, what he persisted in especially strongly, was some tremendous fantastic business, in which he stood to make several hundred thousands of roubles. The sempstress believed and became alarmed with that disinterested, womanly, almost holy alarm, in which, with every woman, there is so much of something maternal. It was not at all difficult now to convince her that for Horizon to travel together with her presented a great danger for him; and that it would be better for her to remain here and to bide the time until the affairs of her lover would adjust themselves fortuitously. After that to talk her into hiding, as in the most trustworthy retreat, in a brothel, where she would be in full safety from the police and the detectives, was a mere nothing. One morning Horizon ordered her to dress a little better, curl her hair, powder herself, put a little rouge on her cheeks, and carried her off to a den, to his acquaintance. The girl made a favourable impression there, and that same day her passport was changed by the police to a so-called yellow ticket. Having parted with her, after long embraces and tears, Horizon went into the room of the proprietress and received his payment, fifty roubles (although he had asked for two hundred). But he did not grieve especially over the low price; the main thing was, that he had found his calling at last, all by himself, and had laid the cornerstone of his future welfare.

Of course, the woman sold by him just remained forever so in the tenacious hands of the brothel. Horizon forgot her so thoroughly that after only a year he could not even recall her face. But who knows ... perhaps he merely pretended?

Now he was one of the chief speculators in the body of woman in all the south of Russia. He had transactions with Constantinople and with Argentine; he transported, in whole parties, girls from the brothels of Odessa into Kiev; those from Kiev he brought over into Kharkov; and those from Kharkov into Odessa. He it was also who stuck away over second rate capital cities, and those districts which were somewhat richer, the goods which had been rejected or had grown too noticeable in the big cities. He had struck up an enormous clientele, and in the number of his consumers Horizon could have counted not a few people with a prominent social position: lieutenant governors, colonels of the gendarmerie, eminent advocates, well-known doctors, rich land-owners, carousing merchants. All the shady world—the proprietresses of brothels, cocottes solitaires, go-betweens, madams of houses of assignation, souteneurs, touring actresses and chorus girls—was as familiar to him as the starry sky to an astronomer. His amazing memory, which permitted him prudently to avoid notebooks, held in mind thousands of names, family names, nicknames, addresses, characteristics. He knew to perfection the tastes of all his highly placed consumers: some of them liked unusually odd depravity, others paid mad sums for innocent girls, for others still it was necessary to seek out girls below age. He had to satisfy both the sadistic and the masochistic inclinations of his clients, and at times to cater to altogether unnatural sexual perversions, although it must be said that the last he undertook only in rare instances which promised a large, undoubted profit. Two or three times he had to sit in jail, but these sessions went to his benefit; he not only did not lose his rapacious high-handedness and springy energy in his transactions, but with every year became more daring, inventive, and enterprising. With the years to his brazen impetuousness was joined a tremendous worldly business wisdom.

Fifteen times, during this period, he had managed to marry and every time had contrived to take a decent dowry. Having possessed himself of his wife's money, he, one fine day, would suddenly vanish without a trace, and, if there was a possibility, he would sell his wife profitably into a secret house of depravity or into a chic public establishment. It would happen that the parents of the deluded victim would search for him through the police. But while inquiries would be carried on everywhere about him as Shperling, he would already be travelling from town to town under the name of Rosenblum. During the time of his activity, in despite of an enviable memory, he had changed so many names that he had not only forgotten what year he had been Nathanielson, and during what Bakalyar, but even his own name was beginning to seem to him one of his pseudonyms.

It was remarkable, that he did not find in his profession anything criminal or reprehensible. He regarded it just as though he were trading in herrings, lime, flour, beef or lumber. In his own fashion he was pious. If time permitted, he would with assiduity visit the synagogue of Fridays. The Day of Atonement, Passover, and the Feast of the Tabernacles were invariably and reverently observed by him everywhere wherever fate might have cast him. His mother, a little old woman, and a hunch-backed sister, were left to him in Odessa, and he undeviatingly sent them now large, now small sums of money, not regularly but pretty frequently, from all towns from Kursk to Odessa and from Warsaw to Samara. Considerable savings of money had already accumulated to him in the Credit Lyonnaise, and he gradually increased them, never touching the interest. But to greed or avarice he was almost a stranger. He was attracted to the business rather by its tang, risk and a professional self-conceit. To the women he was perfectly indifferent, although he understood and could value them, and in this respect resembled a good chef, who together with a fine understanding of the business, suffers from a chronic absence of appetite. To induce, to entice a woman, to compel her to do all that he wanted, did not require any efforts on his part; they came of themselves to his call and became in his hands passive, obedient and yielding. In his treatment of them a certain firm, unshakable, self-assured aplomb had been worked out, to which they submitted just as a refractory horse submits instinctively to the voice, glance, stroking of an experienced horseman.

He drank very moderately, and without company never drank. Toward eating he was altogether indifferent. But, of course, as with every man, he had a little weakness of his own: he was inordinately fond of dress and spent no little money on his toilet. Modish collars of all possible fashions, cravats, diamond cuff links, watch charms, the underwear of a dandy, and chic footwear constituted his main distractions.

From the depot he went straight to The Hermitage. The hotel porters, in blue blouses and uniform caps, carried his things into the vestibule. Following them, he too entered, arm in arm with his wife; both smartly attired, imposing, but he just simply magnificent, in his wide, bell-shaped English overcoat, in a new broad-brimmed panama, holding negligently in his hand a small cane with a silver handle in the form of a naked woman.

"You ain't supposed to be here without a permit for your residence," said an enormous, stout doorkeeper, looking down upon him from above and preserving on his face a sleepy and immovably-frigid expression.

"Ach, Zachar! Again 'you ain't supposed to!'" merrily exclaimed Horizon, and patted the giant on his shoulder. "What does it mean, 'you ain't supposed to'? Every time you shove this same 'you ain't supposed to' at me. I must be here for three days in all. Soon as I conclude the rent agreement with Count Ipatiev, right away I go away. God be with you! Live even all by yourself in all your rooms. But you just give a look, Zachar, what a toy I brought you from Odessa! You'll be just tickled with it!"

With a careful, deft, accustomed movement he thrust a gold piece into the doorkeeper's hand, who was already holding it behind his back, ready and folded in the form of a little boat.

The first thing that Horizon did upon installing himself in the large, spacious room with an alcove, was to put out into the corridor at the door of the room six pairs of magnificent shoes, saying to the bell-hop who ran up in answer to the bell:

"Immediately all should be cleaned! So it should shine like a mirror! They call you Timothy, I think? Then you should know me—if you work by me it will never go for nothing. So it should shine like a mirror!"

CHAPTER IV.

Horizon lived at the Hotel Hermitage for not more than three days and nights, and during this time he managed to see some three hundred people. His arrival seemed to enliven the big, gay port city. To him came the keepers of employment offices for servants, the proprietresses of cheap hotels, and old, experienced go-betweens, grown gray in the trade in women. Not so much out of an interest in booty as out of professional pride, Horizon tried, at all costs, to bargain for as much profit as possible, to buy a woman as cheaply as possible. Of course, to receive ten, fifteen roubles more was not the reason for him, but the mere thought that competitor Yampolsky would receive at the sale more than he brought him into a frenzy.

After his arrival, the next day, he set off to Mezer the photographer, taking with him the straw-like girl Bella, and had pictures taken in various poses together with her; at which for every negative he received three roubles, while he gave the woman a rouble. After that he rode off to Barsukova.

This was a woman, or, speaking more correctly, a retired wench, whose like can be found only in the south of Russia; neither a Pole nor a Little Russian; already sufficiently old and rich in order to allow herself the luxury of maintaining a husband (and together with him a cabaret), a handsome and kindly little Pole. Horizon and Barsukova met like old friends. They had, it seemed, no fear, no shame, no conscience when they conversed with each other.

"Madam Barsukova! I can offer you something special! Three women: one a large brunette, very modest; another a little one, a blonde, but who, you understand, is ready for everything; the third is a woman of mystery, who merely smiles and doesn't say anything, but promises much and is a beauty!"

Madam Barsukova was gazing at him with mistrust, shaking her head.

"Mister Horizon! What are you trying to fill my head with? Do you want to do the same with me that you did last time?"

"By God, I should live so, how I want to deceive you! But that's not the main thing. I'm also offering you a perfectly educated woman. Do with her what you like. In all probability you'll find a connoisseur."

Barsukova smiled artfully and asked:

"Again a wife?"

"No. But she's of the nobility."

"Then that means unpleasantnesses with the police again?"

"Ach! My God! I don't take big money from you; all the three for a lousy thousand roubles."

"Well, let's talk frankly; five hundred. I don't want to buy a cat in a bag."

"It seems, Madam Barsukova, that it isn't the first time you and I have done business together, I won't deceive you and will bring her here right away. Only I beg you not to forget that you're my aunt, and please work in that direction. I won't be more than three days here in the city."

Madam Barsukova, with all her breasts, bellies and chins, began to sway merrily.

"We won't dicker over trifles. All the more so since you don't deceive me, nor I you. There's a great demand for women now. What would you say, Mister Horizon, if I offered you some red wine?"

"Thank you, Madam Barsukova, with pleasure."

"Let's talk a while like old friends. Tell me, how much do you make a year?"

"Ach, madam, what shall I say? Twelve, twenty thousand, approximately. But think what tremendous expenses there are in constantly travelling."

"Do you put away a little?"

"Well, that's trifles; some two or three thousand a year."

"I thought ten, twenty ..."

Horizon grew wary. He sensed that he was beginning to be drawn out and asked insidiously:

"But why does this interest you?"

Anna Michailovna pressed the button of an electric bell and ordered the dressy maid to bring coffee with steamed cream and a bottle of Chambertaine. She knew the tastes of Horizon. Then she asked:

"Do you know Mr. Shepsherovich?"

Horizon simply pounced upon her.

"My God! Who don't know Shepsherovich! This is a god, this is a genius!"

And, having become animated, forgetting that he was being dragged into a trap, he began speaking exaltedly:

"Just imagine what Shepsherovich did last year! He carried to Argentine thirty women from Kovno, Vilno, Zhitomir. Each one of them he sold at a thousand roubles—a total, madam—count it—of thirty thousand! Do you think Shepsherovich calmed down with this? For this money, in order to repay his expenses on the steamer, he bought several negresses and stuck them about in Moscow, Petersburg, Kiev, Odessa, and Kharkov. But, you know, madam, this isn't a man, but an eagle. There's a man who can do business!"

Barsukova caressingly laid her hand on his knee. She had been waiting for this moment and said to him amicably:

"And so I propose to you, Mr.——however, I don't know how you are called now..."

"Horizon, let's say..."

"So I propose to you, Mr. Horizon—could you find some innocent girls among yours? There's an enormous demand for them now. I'm playing an open hand with you. We won't stop at money. Now it's in fashion. Notice, Horizon, your lady clients will be returned to you in exactly the same state in which they were. This, you understand, is a little depravity, which I can in no way make out..."

Horizon cast down his eyes, rubbed his head, and said:

"You see, I've a wife ... You've almost guessed it."

"So. But why almost?"

"I'm ashamed to confess, that she—how shall I say it ... she is my bride ..."

Barsukova gaily burst into laughter.

"You know, Horizon, I couldn't at all expect that you're such a nasty villain! Let's have your wife, it's all the same. But is it possible that you've really refrained?"

"A thousand?" asked Horizon seriously.

"Ah! What trifles; a thousand let's say. But tell me, will I be able to manage her?"

"Nonsense!" said Horizon self-assuredly. "Let's again suppose that you're my aunt, and I leave my wife with you. Just imagine, Madam Barsukova, that this woman is in love with me like a cat. And if you'll tell her, that for my good she must do so and so and thus and thus—then there won't be no arguments!"

Apparently, there was nothing more for them to talk over. Madam Barsukova brought out a promissory note, whereon she with difficulty wrote her name, her father's name, and her last name. The promissory note, of course, was fantastic; but there is a tie, a welding, an honour among thieves. In such deals people do not deceive. Death threatens otherwise. It is all the same, whether in prison, or on the street, or in a brothel.

Right after that, just like an apparition out of a trapdoor, appeared the friend of her heart, the master of the cabaret, a young little Pole, with moustaches twirled high. They drank some wine, talked a bit about the fair, about the exposition, complained a little about bad business. After that Horizon telephoned to his room in the hotel, and called out his wife. He introduced her to his aunt and his aunt's second cousin, and said that mysterious political reasons were calling him out of town. He tenderly kissed Sarah, shed a tear, and rode away.

CHAPTER V.

With the arrival of Horizon (however, God knows how he was called: Gogolevich, Gidalevich, Okunev, Rosmitalsky), in a word, with the arrival of this man everything changed on Yamskaya Street. Enormous shufflings commenced. From Treppel girls were transferred to Anna Markovna, from Anna Markovna into a rouble establishment, and from the rouble establishment into a half-rouble one. There were no promotions: only demotions. At each change of place Horizon earned from five to a hundred roubles. Verily, he was possessed of an energy equal, approximately, to the waterfall of Imatra! Sitting in the daytime at Anna Markovna's, he was saying, squinting from the smoke of the cigarette, and swinging one leg crossed over the other:

"The question is ... What do you need this same Sonka for? It's no place for her in a decent establishment. If we'll float her down the stream, then you'll make a hundred roubles for yourself, I twenty-five for myself. Tell me frankly, she isn't in demand, is she, now?"

"Ah, Mr. Shatzky! You can always talk a person over! But just imagine, I'm sorry for her. Such a nice girl ..."

Horizon pondered for a moment. He was seeking an appropriate citation and suddenly let out:

"'Give the falling a shove!'[11] And I'm convinced, Madam Shaibes, that there's no demand of any sort for her."

[11] Horizon is quoting a Nietzscheism of Gorky's.—TRANS.

Isaiah Savvich, a little, sickly, touchy old man, but in moments of need very determined, supported Horizon:

"And that's very simple. There is really no demand of any sort for her. Think it over for yourself, Annechka; her outfit costs fifty roubles, Mr. Shatzky will receive twenty-five roubles, fifty roubles will be left for you and me. And, glory be to God, we have done with her! At least, she won't be compromising our establishment."

In such a way Sonka the Rudder, avoiding a rouble establishment, was transferred into a half-rouble one, where all kinds of riff-raff made sport of the girls at their own sweet will, whole nights through. There tremendous health and great nervous force were requisite. Sonka once began shivering from terror, in the night, when Thekla, a mountain of a woman of some two hundred pounds, jumped out into the yard to fulfill a need of nature, and cried out to the housekeeper who was passing by her:

"Housekeeper, dear! Listen—the thirty-sixth man! ... Don't forget!"

Fortunately, Sonka was not disturbed much; even in this establishment she was too homely. No one paid any attention to her splendid eyes, and they took her only in those instances when there was no other at hand. The pharmacist sought her out and came every evening to her. But cowardice, or a special Hebrew fastidiousness, or, perhaps, even physical aversion, would not permit him to take the girl and carry her away with him from the house. He would sit whole nights through near her, and, as of yore, patiently waited until she would return from a chance guest; created scenes of jealousy for her and yet loved her still, and, sticking in the daytime behind the counter in his drug store and rolling some stinking pills or other, ceaselessly thought of her and yearned.

CHAPTER VI.

Immediately at the entrance to a suburban cabaret an artificial flower bed shone with vari-colored lights, with electric bulbs instead of flowers; and just such another fiery alley of wide, half-round arches, narrowing toward the end, led away from it into the depths of the garden. Further on was a broad, small square, strewn with yellow sand; to the left an open stage, a theatre, and a shooting gallery; straight ahead a stand for the military band (in the form of a seashell) and little booths with flowers and beer; to the right the long terrace of the restaurant. Electric globes from their high masts illuminated the small square with a pale, dead-white brightness. Against their frosted glass, with wire nets stretched over them, beat clouds of night moths, whose shadows—confused and large—hovered below, on the ground. Hungry women, too lightly, dressily, and fancifully attired, preserving on their faces an expression of care-free merriment or haughty, offended unapproachability, strolled back and forth in pairs, with a walk already tired and dragging.

All the tables in the restaurant were taken—and over them floated the continuous noise of knives upon plates and a motley babel, galloping in waves. It smelt of rich and pungent kitchen fumes. In the middle of the restaurant, upon a stand, Roumanians in red frocks were playing; all swarthy, white-toothed, with the faces of whiskered, pomaded apes, with their hair licked down. The director of the orchestra, bending forward and affectedly swaying, was playing upon a violin and making unseemly sweet eyes at the public—the eyes of a man-prostitute. And everything together—this abundance of tiresome electric lights, the exaggeratedly bright toilettes of the ladies, the odours of modish, spicy perfumes, this ringing music, with willful slowings up of the tempo, with voluptuous swoonings in the transitions, with the tempestuous passages screwed up—everything fitted the one to the other, forming a general picture of insane and stupid luxury, a setting for an imitation of a gay, unseemly carouse.

Above, around the entire hall, ran open galleries, upon which, as upon little balconies, opened the doors of the private cabinets. In one of these cabinets four were sitting—two ladies and two men; an artiste known to all Russia, the cantatrice Rovinskaya, a large, handsome woman, with long, green, Egyptian eyes, and a long, red, sensuous mouth, the lips of which were rapaciously drooping at the corners; the baroness Tefting, little, exquisite, pale—she was everywhere seen with the artiste; the famous lawyer Ryazanov; and Volodya Chaplinsky, a rich young man of the world, a composer-dilettante, the author of several darling little ballads and many witticisms upon the topics of the day, which circulated all over town.

The walls of the cabinet were red, with a gold design. On the table, among the lighted candelabra, two white, tarred necks of bottles stuck up out of an electroplated vase, which had sweated from the cold, and the light in a tenuous gold played in the shallow goblets of wine. Outside, near the doors, a waiter was on duty, leaning against the wall; while the stout, tall, important maitre d'hotel, on whose right little finger, always sticking out, sparkled a huge diamond, would frequently stop at these doors, and attentively listen with one ear to what was going on in the cabinet.

The baroness, with a bored, pale face, was listlessly gazing through a lorgnette down at the droning, chewing, swarming crowd. Among the red, white, blue and straw-coloured feminine dresses the uniform figures of the men resembled large, squat, black beetles. Rovinskaya negligently, yet at the same time intently as well, was looking down upon the stand and the spectators, and her face expressed fatigue, ennui, and perhaps also that satiation with all spectacles, which are such matters of course to celebrities. The splendid, long, slender fingers of her left hand were lying upon the crimson velvet of the box-seat. Emeralds of a rare beauty hung upon them so negligently that it seemed as though they would fall off at any second, and suddenly she began laughing.

"Look" she said; "what a funny figure, or, to put it more correctly, what a funny profession! There, there, that one who's playing on a 'syrinx of seven reeds.'"

Everyone looked in the direction of her hand. And really, the picture was funny enough. Behind the Roumanian orchestra was sitting a stout, whiskered man, probably the father, and perhaps even the grandfather, of a numerous family, and with all his might was whistling into seven little pipes glued together. As it was difficult for him, probably, to move this instrument between his lips, he therefore, with an unusual rapidity, turned his head now to the left, now to the right.

"An amazing occupation," said Rovinskaya. "Well now, Chaplinsky, you try to toss your head about like that."

Volodya Chaplinsky, secretly and hopelessly in love with the artiste, immediately began obediently and zealously to do this, but after half a minute desisted.

"It's impossible," he said, "either long training, or, perhaps, hereditary abilities, are necessary for this."

The baroness during this time was tearing away the petals of her rose and throwing them into a goblet; then, with difficulty suppressing a yawn, she said, making just the least bit of a wry face:

"But, my God, how drearily they divert themselves in our K—! Look: no laughter, no singing, no dances. Just like some herd that's been driven here, in order to be gay on purpose!"

Ryazanov listlessly took his goblet, sipped it a little, and answered apathetically in his enchanting voice:

"Well, and is it any gayer in your Paris, or Nice? Why, it must be confessed—mirth, youth and laughter have vanished forever out of human life, and it is scarcely possible that they will ever return. One must regard people with more patience, it seems to me. Who knows, perhaps for all those sitting here, below, the present evening is a rest, a holiday?"

"The speech for the defense," put in Chaplinsky in his calm manner.

But Rovinskaya quickly turned around to the men, and her long emerald eyes narrowed. And this with her served as a sign of wrath, from which even crowned personages committed follies at times. However, she immediately restrained herself and continued languidly:

"I don't understand what you are talking about. I don't understand even what we came here for. For there are no longer any spectacles in the world. Now I, for instance, have seen bull-fights in Seville, Madrid and Marseilles—an exhibition which does not evoke anything save loathing. I have also seen boxing and wrestling nastiness and brutality. I also happened to participate in a tiger hunt, at which I sat under a baldachin on the back of a big, wise white elephant ... in a word, you all know this well yourselves. And out of all my great, chequered, noisy life, from which I have grown old ..."

"Oh, what are you saying, Ellena Victorovna!" said Chaplinsky with a tender reproach.

"Abandon compliments, Volodya! I know myself that I'm still young and beautiful of body, but, really, it seems to me at times that I am ninety. So worn out has my soul become. I continue. I say, that during all my life only three strong impressions have sunk into my soul. The first, while still a girl, when I saw a cat stealing upon a cock-sparrow, and I with horror and with interest watched its movements and the vigilant gaze of the bird. Up to this time I don't know myself which I sympathized with more: the skill of the cat or the slipperiness of the sparrow. The cock-sparrow proved the quicker. In a moment he flew up on a tree and began from there to pour down upon the cat such sparrow swearing that I would have turned red for shame if I had understood even one word. While the cat, as though it had been wronged, stuck up its tail like a chimney and tried to pretend to itself that nothing out of the way had taken place. Another time I had to sing in an opera a duet with a certain great artist ..."

"With whom?" asked the baroness quickly.

"Isn't it all the same? Of what need names? And so, when he and I were singing, I felt all of me in the sway of genius. How wonderfully, into what a marvelous harmony, did our voices blend! Ah! It is impossible to describe this impression. Probably, it happens but once in a lifetime. According to the role, I had to weep, and I wept with sincere, genuine tears. And when, after the curtain, he walked up to me and patted my hair with his big warm hand and with his enchanting, radiant smile said, 'Splendid! for the first time in my life have I sung so' ... and so I—and I am a very proud being—I kissed his hand. And the tears were still standing in my eyes ..."

"And the third?" asked the baroness, and her eyes lit up with the evil sparks of jealousy.

"Ah, the third," answered the artiste sadly, "the third is as simple as simple can be. During the last season I lived at Nice, and so I saw Carmen on the open stage at Frejus with the anticipation of Cecile Ketten, who is now," the artiste earnestly made the sign of the cross, "dead—I don't really know, fortunately or unfortunately for herself?"

Suddenly, in a moment, her magnificent eyes filled with tears and began to shine with a magic green light, such as the evening star gives forth, on warm summer twilights. She turned her face around to the stage, and for some time her long, nervous fingers convulsively squeezed the upholstery of the barrier of the box. But when she again turned around to her friends, her eyes were already dry, and the enigmatic, vicious and wilful lips were resplendent with an unconstrained smile.

Then Ryazanov asked her politely, in a tender but purposely calm tone:

"But then, Ellena Victorovna, your tremendous fame, admirers, the roar of the mob ... finally, that delight which you afford to your spectators. Is it possible that even this does not titillate your nerves?"

"No, Ryazanov," she answered in a tired voice. "You know no less than myself what this is worth. A brazen interviewer, who needs passes for his friends, and, by the way, twenty-five roubles in an envelope. High school boys and girls, students and young ladies attending courses, who beg you for autographed photographs. Some old blockhead with a general's rank, who hums loudly with me during my aria. The eternal whisper behind you, when you pass by: 'there she is, that same famous one!' Anonymous letters, the brazenness of back-stage habitues ... why, you can't enumerate everything! But surely, you yourself are often beset by female psychopathics of the court-room?"

"Yes," said Ryazanov decisively.

"That's all there is to it. But add to that the most terrible thing, that every time I have come to feel a genuine inspiration, I tormentingly feel on the spot the consciousness that I'm pretending and grimacing before people ... And the fear of the success of your rival? And the eternal dread of losing your voice, of straining it or catching a cold? The eternal tormenting bother of throat bandages? No, really, it is heavy to bear renown on one's shoulders."

"But the artistic fame?" retorted the lawyer. "The might of genius! This, verily, is a true moral might, which is above the might of any king on earth!"

"Yes, yes, of course you're right, my dear. But fame, celebrity, are sweet only at a distance, when you only dream about them. But when you have attained them you feel only their thorns. But then, with what anguish you feel every dram of their decrease. And I have forgotten to say something else. Why, we artists undergo a sentence at hard labour. In the morning, exercises; in the daytime, rehearsals; and then there's scarcely time for dinner and you're due for the performance. An hour or so for reading or such diversion as you and I are having now, may be snatched only by a miracle. And even so... the diversion is altogether of the mediocre..."

She negligently and wearily made a slight gesture with the fingers of the hand lying on the barrier.

Volodya Chaplinsky, agitated by this conversation, suddenly asked:

"Yes, but tell me, Ellena Victorovna, what would you want to distract your imagination and ennui?"

She looked at him with her enigmatic eyes and answered quietly, even a trifle shyly, it seemed:

"Formerly, people lived more gaily and did not know prejudices of any sort. Well, it seems to me that then I would have been in my place and would have lived with a full life. O, ancient Rome!"

No one understood her, save Ryazanov, who, without looking at her, slowly pronounced in his velvety voice, like that of an actor, the classical, universally familiar, Latin phrase:

"Ave, Caesar, morituri te salutant!"

"Precisely! I love you very much, Ryazanov, because you are a clever child. You will always catch a thought in its flight; although, I must say, that this isn't an especially high property of the mind. And really, two beings come together, the friends of yesterday, who had conversed with each other and eaten at the same table, and this day one of them must perish. You understand depart from life forever. But they have neither malice nor fear. There is the most real, magnificent spectacle, which I can only picture to myself!"

"How much cruelty there is in you," said the baroness meditatively.

"Well, nothing can be done about it now! My ancestors were cavaliers and robbers. However, shan't we go away now?"

They all went out of the garden. Volodya Chaplinsky ordered his automobile called. Ellena Victorovna was leaning upon his arm. And suddenly she asked:

"Tell me, Volodya, where do you usually go when you take leave of so-called decent women?"

Volodya hemmed and hawed. However, he knew positively that he could not lie to Rovinskaya.

"M-m-m ... I'm afraid of offending your hearing. To the Tzigani, for instance ... to night cabarets ..."

"And somewhere else? Worse?"

"Really, you put me in an awkward position. From the time that I've become so madly in love with you ..."

"Leave out the romancing!"

"Well, how shall I say it?" murmured Volodya, feeling that he was turning red, not only in the face, but with his body, his back. "Well, of course, to the women. Now, of course, this does not occur with me personally ..."

Rovinskaya maliciously pressed Chaplinsky's elbow to her side.

"To a brothel?"

Volodya did not answer anything. Then she said:

"And so, you'll carry us at once over there in the automobile and acquaint us with this existence, which is foreign to me. But remember, that I rely upon your protection."

The remaining two agreed to this, unwillingly, in all probability; but there was no possibility of opposing Ellena Victorovna. She always did everything that she wanted to. And then they had all heard and knew that in Petersburg carousing worldly ladies, and even girls, permit themselves, out of a modish snobbism, pranks far worse than the one which Rovinskaya had proposed.

CHAPTER VII.

On the way to Yamskaya Street Rovinskaya said to Chaplinsky:

"You'll bring me at first into the most luxurious place, then into a medium one, and then into the filthiest."

"My dear Ellena Victorovna," warmly retorted Chaplinsky, "I'm ready to do everything for you. It is without false boasting when I say that I would give my life away at your order, ruin my career and position at a mere sign of yours ... But I dare not bring you to these houses. Russian manners are coarse, and often simply inhuman manners. I'm afraid that you will be insulted by some pungent, unseemly word, or that a chance visitor will play some senseless prank before you ..."

"Ah, my God," impatiently interrupted Rovinskaya; "when I was singing in London, there were many at that time paying court to me, and I did not hesitate to go and see the filthiest dens of Whitechapel in a choice company. I will say, that I was treated there very carefully and anticipatingly. I will also say, that there were with me at that time two English aristocrats; lords, both sportsmen, both people unusually strong physically and morally, who, of course, would never have allowed a woman to be offended. However, perhaps you, Volodya, are of the race of cowards?"

Chaplinsky flared up:

"Oh, no, no, Ellena Victorovna. I forewarned you only out of love for you. But if you command, then I'm ready to go where you will. Not only on this dubious undertaking, but even very death itself."

By this time they had already driven up to the most luxurious establishment in the Yamkas—Treppel's. Ryazanov the lawyer said, smiling with his usual ironic smile:

"And so, the inspection of the menagerie begins."

They were led into a cabinet with crimson wall paper, and on the wall paper was repeated, in the "empire" style, a golden design in the form of small laurel wreaths. And at once Rovinskaya recognized, with the keen memory of an artiste, that exactly the same paper had also been in that cabinet in which they had just been sitting.

Four German women from the Baltic provinces came out. All of them stout, full-breasted, blonde, powdered, very important and respectful. The conversation did not catch on at first. The girls sat immovable, like carvings of stone, in order to pretend with all their might that they were respectable ladies. Even the champagne, which Ryazanov called for, did not improve the mood. Rovinskaya was the first to come to the aid of the party. Turning to the stoutest, fairest German of all, who resembled a loaf, she asked politely in German:

"Tell me, where were you born? Germany, in all probability?"

"No, gnadige Frau, I am from Riga."

"What compels you to serve here, then? Not poverty, I hope?"

"Of course not, gnadige Frau. But, you understand, my bridegroom, Hans, works as a kellner in a restaurant-automat, and we are too poor to be married now. I bring my savings to a bank, and he does the same. When we have saved the ten thousand roubles we need, we will open our own beer-hall, and, if God will bless us, then we shall allow ourselves the luxury of having children. Two children. A boy and a girl."

"But, listen to me, mein Fraulein!" Rovinskaya was amazed. "You are young, handsome, know two languages ..."

"Three, madam," proudly put in the German. "I know Esthonian as well. I finished the municipal school and three classes of high school."

"Well, then, you see, you see ..." Rovinskaya became heated. "With such an education you could always find a place with everything found, and about thirty roubles. Well, in the capacity of a housekeeper, bonne, senior clerk in a good store, a cashier, let's say ... And if your future bridegroom ... Fritz ..."

"Hans, madam ..."

"If Hans proved to be an industrious and thrifty man, then it would not be at all hard for you to get up on your feet altogether, after three or four years. What do you think?"

"Ah, madam, you are a little mistaken. You have overlooked that, in the very best of positions, I, even denying myself in everything, will not be able to put aside more than fifteen, twenty roubles a month; whereas here, with a prudent economy, I gain up to a hundred roubles and at once carry them away with a book into the savings bank. And besides that, just imagine, gnadige Frau, what a humiliating position to be the servant in a house! Always to depend on the caprice or the disposition of the spirits of the masters! And the master always pesters you with foolishness. Pfui! .. And the mistress is jealous, picks, and scolds."

"No ... I don't understand ..." meditatively drawled Rovinskaya, without looking the German in the eyes, but casting hers on the floor. "I've heard a great deal of your life here, in these ... what do you call them? .. these houses. They say it is something horrible. That you're forced to love the most repulsive, old and hideous men, that you are plucked and exploited in the most cruel manner ..."

"Oh, never, madam ... Each one of us has an account book, wherein is written accurately the income and expense. During last month I earned a little more than five hundred roubles. As always, two-thirds went to the proprietress for board, quarters, fuel, light, linen ... There remains to me more than a hundred and fifty, it is not so? Fifty I spent on costumes and all sorts of trifles. A hundred I save. What exploitation is it, then, madam, I ask you? And if I do not like a man at all—true, there are some who are exceedingly nasty—I can always say I am sick, and instead of me will go one of the newest girls ..."

"But then ... pardon me, I do not know your name ..."

"Elsa."

"They say, that you're treated very roughly ... beaten at times ... compelled to do that which you don't want to and which is repulsive to you?"

"Never, madam!" dropped Elsa haughtily. "We all live here as a friendly family of our own. We are all natives of the same land or relatives, and God grant that many should live so in their own families as we live here. True, on Yamskaya Street there happen various scandals and fights and misunderstandings. But that's there ... in these ... in the rouble establishments. The Russian girls drink a lot and always have one lover. And they do not think at all of their future."

"You are prudent, Elsa," said Rovinskaya in an oppressed tone. "All this is well. But, what of the chance disease? Infection? Why, that is death? And how can you guess?"

"And again—no, madam. I won't let a man into my bed before I make a detailed medical inspection of him ... I am guaranteed, at the least, against seventy-five per cent."

"The devil!" suddenly exclaimed Rovinskaya with heat and hit the table with her fist. "But, then, what of your Albert ..."

"Hans," the German corrected her meekly.

"Pardon me ... Your Hans surely does not rejoice greatly over the fact that you are living here, and that you betray him every day?"

Elsa looked at her with sincere, lively amazement.

"But gnadige Frau ... I have never yet betrayed him! It is other lost wenches, especially Russian, who have lovers for themselves, on whom they spend their hard-earned money. But that I should ever let myself go as far as that? Pfui!"

"A greater fall I have not imagined!" said Rovinskaya loudly and with aversion, getting up. "Pay gentlemen, and let's go on from here."

When they had gone out into the street, Volodya took her arm and said in an imploring voice:

"For God's sake, isn't one experiment enough for you?"

"Oh, what vulgarity! What vulgarity!"

"That's why I'm saying, let's drop this experiment."

"No, in any case I am going through with it to the finish. Show me something simpler, more of the medium."

Volodya Chaplinsky, who was all the time in a torment over Ellena Victorovna, offered the most likely thing—to drop into the establishment of Anna Markovna, which was only ten steps away.

But it was just here that strong impressions awaited them. Simeon did not want to let them in, and only several gold pieces, which Ryazanov gave him, softened him. They took up a cabinet, almost the same as at Treppel's, only somewhat shabbier and more faded. At the command of Emma Edwardovna, the girls were herded into the cabinet. But it was the same as letting a goat into a truck-garden or mixing soda and acid. The main mistake, however, was that they let Jennka in there as well—wrathful, irritated, with impudent fires in her eyes. The modest, quiet Tamara was the last to walk in, with her shy and depraved smile of a Monna Lisa. In the end, almost the entire personnel of the establishment gathered in the cabinet. Rovinskaya no longer risked asking "How did you come to this life?" But it must be said, that the inmates of the house met her with an outward hospitality. Ellena Victorovna asked them to sing their usual canonical songs, and they willingly sang:

Monday now is come again,
They're supposed to get me out;
Doctor Krassov won't let me out,
Well, the devil take him then.

And further:

Poor little, poor little, poor little me,
The public house is closed,
My head's aching me...

The love of a loafer
Is spice, is spice;
But the prostitute
Is as cold as ice.
Ha-ha-ha!

They came together
Matched as well as might be,
She is a prostitute,
A pickpocket he.
Ha-ha-ha!

Now morning has come,
He is planning a theft;
While she lies in her bed
And laughs like she's daft.
Ha-ha-ha!

Comes morning, the laddie
Is led to the pen;
But for the prostitute
His pals await then.
Ha-ha-ha! ...

[12] While there can be but little doubt that these four stanzas are an actual transcript from life, Heinrich Heine's "Ein Weib" is such a striking parallel that it may be reproduced here as a matter of interest. The translation is by Mr. Louis Untermeyer.—Trans.

A WOMAN

They loved each other beyond belief—
She was a strumpet, he was a thief;
Whenever she thought of his tricks, thereafter
She'd throw herself on the bed with laughter.

The day was spent with a reckless zest;
At night she lay upon his breast.
So when they took him, a while thereafter
She watched at the window—with laughter.

He sent word pleading "Oh come to me,
I need you, need you bitterly,
Yes, here and in the hereafter."
Her little head shook with laughter.

At six in the morning they swung him high;
At seven the turf on his grave was dry;
At eight, however, she quaffed her
Red wine and sang with laughter!

And still further a convict song:

I'm a ruined laddie,
Ruined for alway;
While year after year
The days go away.

And also:

Don't you cry, my Mary,
You'll belong to me;
When I've served the army
I will marry thee.

But here suddenly, to the general amazement, the stout Kitty, usually taciturn, burst into laughter. She was a native of Odessa.

"Let me sing one song, too. It's sung by thieves and badger queens in the drink shops on our Moldavanka and Peresip."

And in a horrible bass, in a rusty and unyielding voice, she began to sing, making the most incongruous gestures, but, evidently, imitating some cabaret cantatrice of the third calibre that she had sometime seen:

"Ah, I'll go to Dukovka,
Sit down at the table,
Now I throw my hat off,
Toss it under table.
Then I athk my dearie,
'What will you drink, sweet?'
But all the answer that she makes:
'My head aches fit to split.'
'I ain't a-athking you
What your ache may be,
But I am a-athking you
What your drink may be:
Will it be beer, or for wine shall I call,
Or for violet wine, or nothing else at all?'"

And all would have turned out well, if suddenly Little White Manka, in only her chemise and in white lace drawers, had not burst into the cabinet. Some merchant, who the night before had arranged a paradisaical night, was carousing with her, and the ill-fated Benedictine, which always acted upon the girl with the rapidity of dynamite, had brought her into the usual quarrelsome condition. She was no longer "Little Manka" and "Little White Manka," but she was "Manka the Scandaliste." Having run into the cabinet, she suddenly, from unexpectedness, fell down on the floor, and, lying on her back, burst into such sincere laughter that all the rest burst out laughing as well. Yes. But this laughter was not prolonged ... Manka suddenly sat up on the floor and began to shout:

"Hurrah! new wenches have joined our place!"

This was altogether an unexpected thing. The baroness did a still greater tactlessness. She said:

"I am a patroness of a convent for fallen girls, and therefore, as a part of my duty, I must gather information about you."

But here Jennka instantly flared up:

"Get out of here right away, you old fool! You rag! You floor mop! ... Your Magdalene asylums—they're worse than a prison. Your secretaries use us, like dogs carrion. Your fathers, husbands, and brothers come to us, and we infect them with all sorts of diseases ... Purposely ... And they in their turn infect you. Your female superintendents live with the drivers, janitors and policemen, while we are put in a cell if we happen to laugh or joke a little among ourselves. And so, if you've come here as to a theatre, then you must hear the truth out, straight to your face."

But Tamara calmly stopped her:

"Stop, Jennie, I will tell them myself ... Can it be that you really think, baroness, that we are worse than the so-called respectable women? A man comes to me, pays me two roubles for a visit or five roubles for a night, and I don't in the least conceal this, from any one in the world ... But tell me, baroness, do you possibly know even one married lady with a family who isn't in secret giving herself up either for the sake of passion to a young man, or for the sake of money to an old one? I know very well that fifty percent of you are kept by lovers, while the remaining fifty, of those who are older, keep young lads. I also know that many—ah, how many!—of you cohabit with your fathers, brothers, and even sons, but these secrets you hide in some sort of a hidden casket. And that's all the difference between us. We are fallen, but we don't lie and don't pretend, but you all fall, and lie to boot. Think it over for yourself; now—in whose favour is this difference?"

"Bravo, Tamarochka, that's the way to serve them!" shouted Manka, without getting up from the floor; dishevelled, fair, curly, resembling at this moment a thirteen-year-old girl.

"Now, now!" urged Jennka as well, flashing with her flaming eyes.

"Why not, Jennechka? I'll go further than that. Out of us scarcely, scarcely one in a thousand has committed abortion. But all of you several times over. What? Or isn't that the truth? And those of you who've done this, did it not out of desperation or cruel poverty, but you simply were afraid of spoiling your figure and beauty—that's your sole capital! Or else you've been seeking only beastly carnal pleasure, while pregnancy and feeding interfered with your giving yourself up to it!"

Rovinskaya became confused and uttered in a quick whisper:

"Faites attention, baronne, que dans sa position cette demoiselle est instruite."[13]

[13] "Pay attention, baroness, the girl is rather educated for one of her position."

"Figurez-vous, que moi, j'ai aussi remarque cet etrange visage. Comme si je l'ai deja vu ... est-ce en reve? ... en demi-delire? Ou dans sa petite enfance?"[14]

[14] "Just imagine, I, too, have remarked this strange face. But where have I seen it ... was it in a dream? ... in semi-delirium? Or in her early infancy?"

"Ne vous donnez pas la peine de chercher dans vos souvenirs, baronne," Tamara suddenly interposed insolently. "Je puis de suite vous venir aide. Rappelez-vous seulement Kharkoff, et la chambre d'hotel de Koniakine, l'entrepreneur Solovieitschik, et le tenor di grazzia ... A ce moment vous n'etiez pas encore m-me la baronne de ... [15] However, let's drop the French tongue ... You were a common chorus girl and served together with me."

[15] "Don't trouble to strain your memory, baroness. I will come to your aid at once. Just recall Kharkov, a room in Koniakine's hotel, the theatrical manager, Solovieitschik, and a certain lyrical tenor ... At that time you were not yet baroness de ..."

"Mais, dites-moi, au nom de dieu, comment vous trouvez vous ici, Mademoiselle Marguerite."[16]

[16] "But tell me, in God's name, how you have come to be here, Mademoiselle Marguerite?"

"Oh, they ask us about that every day. I just up and came to be here ..."

And with an inimitable cynicism she asked:

"I trust you will pay for the time which we have passed with you?"

"No, may the devil take you!" suddenly shouted out Little White Manka, quickly getting up from the rug.

And suddenly, pulling two gold pieces out of her stocking, she flung them upon the table.

"There, you! .. I'm giving you that for a cab. Go away right now, otherwise I'll break up all the mirrors and bottles here..."

Rovinskaya got up and said with sincere, warm tears in her eyes:

"Of course, we'll go away, and the lesson of Mlle. Marguerite will prove of benefit to us. Your time will be paid for—take care of it, Volodya. Still, you sang so much for us, that you must allow me to sing for you as well."

Rovinskaya went up to the piano, took a few chords, and suddenly began to sing the splendid ballad of Dargomyzhsky:

"We parted then with pride—
Neither with sighs nor words
Proffered I thee reproach of jealousy ...
We went apart for aye,
Yet only if with thee
I might but chance to meet! ..
Ah, that with thee I might but chance to meet!

"I weep not nor complain—
To fate I bend my knee...
I know not, if you loved,
So greatly wronging me?
Yet only if with thee
I might but chance to meet! ...
Ah, that with thee I might but chance to meet!"

This tender and passionate ballad, executed by a great artiste, suddenly reminded all these women of their first love; of their first fall; of a late leave-taking at a dawn in the spring, in the chill of the morning, when the grass is gray from the dew, while the red sky paints the tips of the birches a rosy colour; of last embraces, so closely entwined, and of the unerring heart's mournful whispers: "No, this will not be repeated, this will not be repeated!" And the lips were then cold and dry, while the damp mist of the morning lay upon the hair.

Silence seized Tamara; silence seized Manka the Scandaliste; and suddenly Jennka, the most untamable of all the girls, ran up to the artiste, fell down on her knees, and began to sob at her feet.

And Rovinskaya, touched herself, put her arms around her head and said:

"My sister, let me kiss you!"

Jennka whispered something into her ear.

"Why, that's a silly trifle," said Rovinskaya. "A few months of treatment and it will all go away."

"No, no, no ... I want to make all of them diseased. Let them all rot and croak."

"Ah, my dear," said Rovinskaya, "I would not do that in your place."

And now Jennka, the proud Jennka began kissing the knees and hands of the artiste and was saying:

"Then why have people wronged me so? ... Why have they wronged me so? Why? Why? Why?"

Such is the might of genius!

The only might which takes into its beautiful hands not the abject reason, but the warm soul of man! The self-respecting Jennka was hiding her face in Rovinskaya's dress; Little White Manka was sitting meekly on a chair, her face covered with a handkerchief; Tamara, with elbow propped on her knee and head bowed on the palm of her hand, was intently looking down, while Simeon the porter, who had been looking in against any emergency, only opened his eyes wide in amazement.

Rovinskaya was quietly whispering into Jennka's very ear:

"Never despair. Sometimes things fall out so badly that there's nothing for it but to hang one's self—but, just look, to-morrow life has changed abruptly. My dear, my sister, I am now a world celebrity. But if you only knew what seas of humiliation and vileness I have had to wade through! Be well, then, my dear, and believe in your star."

She bent down to Jennka and kissed her on the forehead. And never afterwards could Volodya Chaplinsky, who had been watching this scene with a painful tension, forget those warm and beautiful rays, which at this moment kindled in the green, long, Egyptian eyes of the artiste.

The party departed gloomily, but Ryazanov lingered behind for a minute.

He walked up to Jennka, respectfully and gently kissed her hand, and said:

"If possible, forgive our prank ... This, of course, will not be repeated. But if you ever have need of me, I am always at your service. Here is my visiting card. Don't stick it out on your bureau; but remember, that from this evening on I am your friend."

And, having kissed Jennka's hand once more, he was the last to go down the stairs.

CHAPTER VIII.

On Thursday, since very morning, a ceaseless, fine drizzle had begun to fall, and so the leaves of the chestnuts, acacias, and poplars had at once turned green. And, suddenly, it became somehow dreamily quiet and protractedly tedious. Pensive and monotonous.

During this all the girls had gathered, as usual, in Jennka's room. But something strange was going on within her. She did not utter witticisms, did not laugh, did not read, as always, her usual yellow-back novel which was now lying aimlessly either on her breast or stomach; but was vicious, wrapped up in sadness, and in her eyes blazed a yellow fire that spoke of hatred. In vain did Little White Manka, Manka the Scandaliste, who adored her, try to turn her attention to herself—Jennka seemed not to notice her, and the conversation did not at all get on. It was depressing. But it may have been that the August drizzle, which had steadily set in for several weeks running, reacted upon all of them. Tamara sat down on Jennka's bed, gently embraced her, and, having put her mouth near her very ear, said in a whisper:

"What's the matter, Jennechka? I've seen for a long time that something strange is going on in you. And Manka feels that too. Just see, how she's wasted without your caressing. Tell me. Perhaps I'll be able to help you in some way?"

Jennka closed her eyes and shook her head in negation. Tamara moved away from her a little, but continued to stroke her shoulder gently.

"It's your affair, Jennechka. I daren't butt into your soul. I only asked because you're the only being who..."

Jennka with decision suddenly jumped out of bed, seized Tamara by the hand and said abruptly and commandingly:

"All right! Let's get out of here for a minute. I'll tell you everything. Girls, wait for us a little while."

In the light corridor Jennka laid her hands on the shoulders of her mate and with a distorted, suddenly blanched face, said:

"Well, then, listen here: some one has infected me with syphilis."

"Oh, my poor darling. Long?"

"Long. Do you remember, when the students were here? The same ones who started a row with Platonov? I found out about it for the first time then. I found out in the daytime."

"Do you know," quietly remarked Tamara, "I almost guessed about this, and particularly then, when you went down on your knees before the singer and talked quietly about something with her. But still, my dear Jennechka, you must attend to yourself."

Jennka wrathfully stamped her foot and tore in half the batiste handkerchief which she had been nervously crumpling in her hands.

"No! Not for anything! I won't infect any one of you. You may have noticed yourself, that during the last weeks I don't dine at the common table, and that I wash and wipe the dishes myself. That's why I'm trying to break Manka away from me, whom, you know, I love sincerely, in the real way. But these two-legged skunks I infect purposely, infect every evening, ten, fifteen of them. Let them rot, let them carry the syphilis on to their wives, mistresses, mothers—yes, yes, their mothers also, and their fathers, and their governesses, and even their grand-grandmothers. Let them all perish, the honest skunks!"

Tamara carefully and tenderly stroked Jennka's head. "Can it be that you'll go the limit, Jennechka?"

"Yes. And without any mercy. All of you, however, don't have to be afraid of me. I choose the man myself. The stupidest, the handsomest, the richest and the most important, but not to one of you will I let them go afterward. Oh! I make believe I'm so passionate before them, that you'd burst out laughing if you saw. I bite them, I scratch, I cry and shiver like an insane woman. They believe it, the pack of fools."

"It's your affair, it's your affair, Jennechka," meditatively uttered Tamara, looking down. "Perhaps you're right, at that. Who knows? But tell me, how did you get away from the doctor?"

Jennka suddenly turned away from her, pressed her face against the angle of the window frame and suddenly burst into bitter, searing tears—the tears of wrath and vengefulness—and at the same time she spoke, gasping and quivering:

"Because ... because ... Because God has sent me especial luck: I am sick there where, in all probability, no doctor can see. And ours, besides that, is old and stupid..."

And suddenly, with some unusual effort of the will Jennka stopped her tears just as unexpectedly as she had started crying.

"Come to me, Tamarochka," she said. "Of course, you won't chatter too much?"

"Of course not."

And they returned into Jennka's room, both of them calm and restrained.

Simeon walked into the room. He, contrary to his usual brazenness, always bore himself with a shade of respect toward Jennka. Simeon said:

"Well, now, Jennechka, their Excellency has come to Vanda. Allow her to go away for ten minutes."

Vanda, a blue-eyed, light blonde, with a large red mouth, with the typical face of a Lithuanian, looked imploringly at Jennka. If Jennka had said "No" she would have remained in the room, but Jennka did not say anything and even shut her eyes deliberately. Vanda obediently went out of the room.

This general came accurately twice a month, every two weeks (just as to Zoe, another girl, came daily another honoured guest, nicknamed the Director in the house).

Jennka suddenly threw the old, tattered book behind her. Her brown eyes flared up with a real golden fire.

"You're wrong in despising this general," said she. "I've known worse Ethiopians. I had a certain guest once—a real blockhead. He couldn't make love to me otherwise than ... otherwise than ... well, let's say it plainly: he pricked me with pins in the breast ... While in Vilno a Polish Catholic priest used to come to me. He would dress me all in white, compel me to powder myself, lay me down on the bed. He'd light three candles near me. And then, when I seemed to him altogether like a dead woman, he'd throw himself upon me."

Little White Manka suddenly exclaimed:

"It's the truth you're telling, Jennka! I had a certain old bugger, too. He made me pretend all the time that I was an innocent girl, so's I'd cry and scream. But, Jennechka, though you're the smartest one of us, yet I'll bet you won't guess who he was ..."

"The warden of a prison?"

"A fire chief."

Suddenly Katie burst into laughter in her bass:

"Well, now, I had a certain teacher. He taught some kind of arithmetic, I disremember which. He always made me believe, that I was the man, and he the woman, and that I should do it to him ... by force ... And what a fool! Just imagine, girls, he'd yell all the time: 'I'm your woman! I'm all yours! Take me! Take me!'"

"Loony!" said the blue-eyed, spry Verka in a positive and unexpectedly contralto voice: "Loony."

"No, why?" suddenly retorted the kindly and modest Tamara. "Not crazy at all, but simply, like all men, a libertine. At home it's tiresome for him, while here for his money he can receive whatever pleasure he desires. That's plain, it seems?"

Jennka, who had been silent up to now, suddenly, with one quick movement sat up in bed.

"You're all fools!" she cried. "Why do you forgive them all this? Before I used to be foolish myself, too, but now I compel them to walk before me on all fours, compel them to kiss my soles, and they do this with delight ... You all know, girlies, that I don't love money, but I pluck the men in whatever way I can. They, the nasty beasts, present me with the portraits of their wives, brides, mothers, daughters ... However, you've seen, I think, the photographs in our water-closet? But now, just think of it, my children ... A woman loves only once, but for always, while a man loves like a he-greyhound... That he's unfaithful is nothing; but he never has even the commonest feeling of gratitude left either for the old, or the new, mistress. I've heard it said, that now there are many clean boys among the young people. I believe this, though I haven't seen, haven't met them, myself. But all those I have seen are all vagabonds, nasty brutes and skunks. Not so long ago I read some novel of our miserable life. It's almost the same thing as I'm telling you now."

Vanda came back. She slowly, carefully, sat down on the edge of Jennka's bed; there, where the shadow of the lamp fell. Out of that deep, though deformed psychical delicacy, which is peculiar to people sentenced to death, prisoners at hard labour, and prostitutes, none had the courage to ask her how she had passed this hour and a half. Suddenly she threw upon the table twenty-five roubles and said:

"Bring me white wine and a watermelon."

And, burying her face in her arms, which had sunk on the table, she began to sob inaudibly. And again no one took the liberty of putting any question to her. Only Jennka grew pale from wrath and bit her lower lip so that a row of white spots was left upon it.

"Yes," she said; "here, now, I understand Tamara. You hear, Tamara, I apologize before you. I've often laughed over your being in love with your thief Senka. But here, now, I'll say that of all the men the most decent is a thief or a murderer. He doesn't hide the fact that he loves a girlie, and, if need be, will commit a crime for her—a theft or a murder. But these—the rest of them! All lying, falsehood, petty cunning, depravity on the sly. The nasty beast has three families, a wife and five children. A governess and two children abroad. The eldest daughter from the first marriage, and a child by her. And this everybody, everybody in town knows, save his little children. And even they, perhaps, guess it and whisper among themselves. And, just imagine, he's a respected person, honoured by the whole world ... My children, it seems we've never had occasion to enter into confidences with each other, and yet I'll tell you, that I when I was ten and a half, was sold by my own mother in the city of Zhitomir to Doctor Tarabukin. I kissed his hands, implored him to spare me, I cried out to him: 'I'm little!' But he'd answer me: 'That's nothing, that's nothing: you'll grow up.' Well, of course, there was pain, aversion, nastiness ... And he afterwards spread it around as a current anecdote. The desperate cry of my soul."

"Well, as long as we do speak, let's speak to the end," suddenly and calmly said Zoe, and smiled negligently and sadly. "I was deprived of innocence by a teacher in the ministerial school, Ivan Petrovich Sus. He simply called me over to his rooms, and his wife at that time had gone to market for a suckling pig—it was Christmas. Treated me with candies, and then said it was going to be one of two things: either I must obey him in everything, or he'd at once expel me out of school for bad conduct. But then you know yourselves, girls, how we feared the teachers. Here they aren't terrible to us, because we do with them whatever we want—but at that time! For then he seemed to us greater than Czar and God."

"And me a stewdent. He was teaching the master's boys in our place. There, where I was a servant ..."

"No, but I ..." exclaimed Niura, but, turning around unexpectedly, remained as she was with her mouth open. Looking in the direction of her gaze, Jennka had to wring her hands. In the doorway stood Liubka, grown thin, with dark rings under her eyes, and, just like a somnambulist, was searching with her hand for the door-knob, as a point of support.

"Liubka, you fool, what's the matter with you?" yelled Jennka loudly. "What is it?"

"Well, of course, what: he took and chased me out."

No one said a word. Jennka hid her eyes with her hands and started breathing hard, and it could be seen how under the skin of her cheeks the taut muscles of the jaws were working.

"Jennechka, all my hope is only in you," said Liubka with a deep expression of weary helplessness. "Everybody respects you so. Talk it over, dearie, with Anna Markovna or with Simeon ... Let them take me back."

Jennka straightened up on the bed, fixed Liubka with her dry, burning, yet seemingly weeping eyes, and asked brokenly:

"Have you eaten anything to-day?"

"No. Neither yesterday, nor to-day. Nothing."

"Listen, Jennechka," asked Vanda quietly, "suppose I give her some white wine? And Verka meanwhile will run to the kitchen for meat? What?"

"Do as you know best. Of course, that's all right. And give a look, girlies, why, she's all wet. Oh, what a booby! Well! Lively! Undress yourself! Little White Manka, or you, Tamarochka, give her dry drawers, warm stockings and slippers. Well, now," she turned to Liubka, "tell us, you idiot, all that happened to you!"

CHAPTER IX.

On that early morning when Lichonin so suddenly, and, perhaps, unexpectedly even to himself, had carried off Liubka from the gay establishment of Anna Markovna it was the height of summer. The trees still remained green, but in the scent of the air, the leaves, and the grass there was already to be felt, as though from afar, the tender, melancholy, and at the same time bewitching scent of the nearing autumn. With wonder the student gazed at the trees, so clean, innocent and quiet, as though God, imperceptibly to men, had planted them about here at night; and the trees themselves were looking around with wonder upon the calm blue water, that still seemed slumbering in the pools and ditches and under the wooden bridge thrown across the shallow river; upon the lofty, as though newly washed sky, which had just awakened, and, in the glow of dawn, half asleep, was smiling with a rosy, lazy, happy smile in greeting to the kindling sun.

The heart of the student expanded and quivered; both from the beauty of the beatific morning, and from the joy of existence, and from the sweet air, refreshing his lungs after the night, passed without sleep, in a crowded and smoke-filled compartment. But the beauty and loftiness of his own action moved him still more.

Yes, he had acted like a man, like a real man, in the highest sense of that word! Even now he is not repenting of what he had done. It's all right for them (to whom this "them" applied, Lichonin did not properly understand even himself), it's all right for them to talk about the horrors of prostitution; to talk, sitting at tea, with rolls and sausage, in the presence of pure and cultured girls. But had any one of his colleagues taken some actual step toward liberating a woman from perdition? Eh, now? And then there is also—the sort that will come to this same Sonechka Marmeladova, will tell her all sorts of taradiddles, describe all kinds of horrors to her, butt into her soul, until he brings her to tears; and right off will start in crying himself and begin to console her, embrace her, pat her on the head, kiss her at first on the cheek, then on the lips; well, and everybody knows what happens next! Faugh! But with him, with Lichonin, the word and the deed were never at odds.

He clasped Liubka around the waist, and looked at her with kindly, almost loving, eyes; although, the very same minute, he himself thought that he was regarding her as a father or a brother.

Sleep was fearfully besetting Liubka; her eyes would close, and she with an effort would open them wide, so as not to fall asleep again; while on her lips lay the same naive, childish, tired smile, which Lichonin had noticed still there, in the cabinet. And out of one corner of her mouth ran a thin trickle of saliva.

"Liubka, my dear! My darling, much-suffering woman! Behold how fine it is all around! Lord! Here it's five years that I haven't seen the sunrise. Now play at cards, now drinking, now I had to hurry to the university. Behold, my dearest, over there the dawn has burst into bloom. The sun is near! This is your dawn, Liubochka! This is your new life beginning. You will fearlessly lean upon my strong arm. I shall lead you out upon the road of honest toil, on the way to a brave combat with life, face to face with it!"

Liubka eyed him askance. "There, the fumes are still playing in his head," she thought kindly. "But that's nothing—he's kind and a good sort. Only a trifle homely." And, having smiled with a half-sleepy smile, she said in a tone of capricious reproach:

"Ye—es! You'll fool me, never fear. All of you men are like that. You just gain yours at first, to get your pleasure, and then—no attention whatsoever!"

"I? Oh? That I should do this!" Lichonin exclaimed warmly and even smote himself on the chest with his free hand. "Then you know me very badly! I'm too honest a man to be deceiving a defenseless girl. No! I'll exert all my powers and all my soul to educate your mind, to widen your outlook, to compel your poor heart, which has suffered so, to forget all the wounds and wrongs which life has inflicted upon it. I will be a father and a brother to you! I shall safeguard your every step! And if you will come to love somebody with a truly pure, holy love, then I shall bless that day and hour when I had snatched you out of this Dantean hell!"

During the continuation of this flaming tirade the old cabby with great significance, although silently, began laughing, and from this inaudible laughter his back shook. Old cabbies hear very many things, because to the cabby, sitting in front, everything is readily audible, which is not at all suspected by the conversing fares; and many things do the old cabbies know of that which takes place among people. Who knows, perhaps he had heard more than once even more disordered, more lofty speeches?

It seemed to Liubka for some reason that Lichonin had grown angry at her, or that he was growing jealous beforehand of some imaginary rival. He was declaiming with entirely too much noise and agitation. She became perfectly awake, turned her face to Lichonin with wide open, uncomprehending, and at the same time submissive eyes, and slightly touched his right hand, lying on her waist, with her fingers.

"Don't get angry, my sweetie. I'll never exchange you for another. Here's my word of honour, honest to God! My word of honour, that I never will! Don't you think I feel you're wanting to take care of me? Do you think I don't understand? Why, you're such an attractive, nice little young fellow. There, now, if you were an old man and homely..."

"Ah! You haven't got the right idea!" shouted Lichonin, and again in high-flown style began to tell her about the equal rights of women, about the sacredness of toil, about human justice, about freedom, about the struggle against reigning evil.

Of all his words Liubka understood exactly not a one. She still felt herself guilty of something and somehow shrank all up, grew sad, bowed her head and became quiet. A little more and she, in all probability, would have burst out crying in the middle of the street; but fortunately, they by this time had driven up to the house where Lichonin was staying.

"Well, here we are at home," said the student. "Stop, driver!"

And when he had paid him, he could not refrain from declaiming with pathos, his hand extended theatrically straight before him:

"And into my house, calm and fearless,
As its full mistress walk thou in!"

And again the unfathomable, prophetic smile wrinkled the aged brown face of the cabby.

CHAPTER X.

The room in which Lichonin lived was situated on the fifth story and a half. And a half, because there are such five, six, and seven-story profitable houses, packed to overflowing and cheap, on top of which are erected still other sorry bug-breeders of roof iron, something in the nature of mansards; or more exactly, bird-houses, in which it is fearfully cold in winter, while in the summer time it is just as torrid as in the tropics. Liubka with difficulty clambered upward. It seemed to her that now, now, two steps more, and she would drop straight down on the steps and fall into a sleep from which nothing would be able to wake her. But Lichonin was saying all the time:

"My dear! I can see you are tired. But that's nothing. Lean upon me. We are going upwards all the time! Always higher and higher! Is this not a symbol of all human aspirations? My comrade, my sister, lean upon my arm!"

Here it became still worse for poor Liubka. As it was, she could barely go up alone, but here she also had to drag in tow Lichonin, who had grown extremely heavy. And his weight would not really have mattered; his wordiness, however, was beginning to irritate her little by little. So irritates at times the ceaseless, wearisome crying, like a toothache, of an infant at breast; the piercing whimpering of a canary; or someone whistling without pause and out of tune in an adjoining room.

Finally, they reached Lichonin's room. There was no key in the door. And, as a rule, it was never even locked with a key. Lichonin pushed the door and they entered. It was dark in the room, because the window curtains were lowered. It smelt of mice, kerosene, yesterday's vegetable soup, long-.used bed linen, stale tobacco smoke. In the half-dusk some one who could not be seen was snoring deafeningly and with variations.

Lichonin raised the shade. There were the usual furnishings of a poor student: a sagging, unmade bed with a crumpled blanket; a lame table, and on it a candlestick without a candle; several books on the floor and on the table; cigarette stubs everywhere; and opposite the bed, along the other wall, an old, old divan, upon which at the present moment was sleeping and snoring, with mouth wide open, some young man with black hair and moustache. The collar of his shirt was unbuttoned and through its opening could be seen the chest and black hair, the like of which for thickness and curliness could be found only on Persian lambs.

"Nijeradze! Hey, Nijeradze, get up!" cried Lichonin and prodded the sleeper in the ribs. "Prince!"

"M-m-m..."

"May your race be even accursed in the person of your ancestors and descendants! May they even be exiled from the heights of the beauteous Caucasus! May they even never behold the blessed Georgia! Get up, you skunk! Get up you Aravian dromedary! Kintoshka! ..."

But suddenly, unexpectedly for Lichonin, Liubka intervened. She took him by the arm and said timidly:

"Darling, why torture him? Maybe he wants to sleep, maybe he's tired? Let him sleep a bit. I'd better go home. Will you give me a half for a cabby? To-morrow you'll come to me again. Isn't that so, sweetie?"

Lichonin was abashed. So strange did the intervention of this silent, apparently sleepy girl, appear to him. Of course, he did not grasp that she was actuated by an instinctive, unconscious pity for a man who had not had enough sleep; or, perhaps, a professional regard for the sleep of other people. But the astonishment was only momentary. For some reason he became offended. He raised the hand of the recumbent man, which hung down to the floor, with the extinguished cigarette still remaining between its fingers, and, shaking it hard, he said in a serious, almost severe voice:

"Listen, now, Nijeradze, I'm asking you seriously. Understand, now, may the devil take you that I'm not alone, but with a woman. Swine!"

It was as though a miracle had happened: the lying man suddenly jumped up, as though some spring of unusual force had instantaneously unwound under him. He sat down on the divan, rapidly rubbed with his palms his eyes, forehead, temples; saw the woman, became confused at once, and muttered, hastily buttoning his blouse:

"Is that you, Lichonin? And here I was waiting and waiting for you and fell asleep. Request the unknown comrade to turn away for just a minute."

He hastily pulled on his gray, everyday student's coat, and rumpled up with all the fingers of both his hands his luxuriant black curls. Liubka, with the coquetry natural to all women, no matter in what years or situation they find themselves, walked up to the sliver of a mirror hanging on the wall, to fix her hair-dress. Nijeradze askance, questioningly, only with the movement of his eyes, indicated her to Lichonin.

"Never mind. Don't pay any attention," answered the other aloud. "But let's get out of here, however. I'll tell you everything right away. Excuse me, Liubochka, it's only for a minute. I'll come back at once, fix you up, and then evaporate, like smoke."

"But don't trouble yourself," replied Liubka: "it'll be all right for me here, right on this divan. And you fix yourself up on the bed."

"No, that's no longer like a model, my angel! I have a colleague here. And so I'll go to him to sleep. I'll return in just a minute."

Both students went out into the corridor.

"What meaneth this dream?" asked Nijeradze, opening wide his oriental, somewhat sheepish eyes. "Whence this beauteous child, this comrade in a petticoat?"

Lichonin shook his head with great significance and made a wry face. Now, when the ride, the fresh air, the morning, and the business-like, everyday, accustomed setting had entirely sobered him, he was beginning to experience within his soul an indistinct feeling of a certain awkwardness, needlessness of this sudden action; and at the same time something in the nature of an unconscious irritation both against himself and the woman he had carried off. He already had a presentiment of the onerousness of living together, of a multiplicity of cares, unpleasantnesses and expenses; of the equivocal smiles or even simply the unceremonious questionings of comrades; finally, of the serious hindrance during the time of government examinations. But, having scarcely begun speaking with Nijeradze, he at once became ashamed of his pusillanimity, and having started off listlessly, towards the end he again began to prance on his heroic steed.

"Do you see, prince," he said, in his confusion twisting a button of his comrade's coat and without looking in his eyes, "you've made a mistake. This isn't a comrade in a petticoat, but ... simply, I was just now with my colleagues ... that is, I wasn't, but just dropped in for a minute with my friends into the Yamkas, to Anna Markovna ..."

"With whom?" asked Nijeradze, becoming animated.

"Well, isn't it all the same to you, prince? There was Tolpygin, Ramses, a certain sub-professor—Yarchenko—Borya Sobashnikov, and others ... I don't recall. We had been boat-riding the whole evening, then dived into a publican's, and only after that, like swine, started for the Yamkas. I, you know, am a very abstemious man. I only sat and soaked up cognac, like a sponge, with a certain reporter I know. Well, all the others fell from grace however. And so, toward morning, for some reason or other, I went all to pieces. I got so sad and full of pity from looking at these unhappy women. I also thought, now, of how our sisters enjoy our regard, love, protection; how our mothers are surrounded with reverent adoration. Just let some one say one rude word to them, shove them, offend them; we are ready to chew his throat off! Isn't that the truth?"

"M-m? ..." drawled out the Georgian, half questioningly, half expectantly, and squinted his eyes to one side.

"Well, then I thought: why, now, any blackguard, any whippersnapper, any shattered ancient can take any one of these women to himself for a minute or for a night, as a momentary whim; and indifferently, one superfluous time more—the thousand and first—profane and defile in her that which is the most precious in a human being—love... Do you understand—revile, trample it underfoot, pay for the visit and walk away in peace, his hands in his pockets, whistling. But the most horrible of all is that all this has come to be a habit with them; it's all one to her, and it's all one to him. The feelings have dulled, the soul has dimmed. That's so, isn't it? And yet, in every one of them perishes both a splendid sister and a sainted mother. Eh? Isn't that the truth?"

"N-na? ...." mumbled Nijeradze and again shifted his eyes to one side.

"And so I thought: wherefore words and superfluous exclamations! To the devil with hypocritical speeches during conventions. To the devil with abolition, regulation (suddenly, involuntarily, the recent words of the reporter came to his mind), Magdalene asylums and all these distributions of holy books in the establishments! Here, I'll up and act as a really honest man, snatch a girl out of this slough, implant her in real firm soil, calm her, encourage her, treat her kindly."

"H-hm!" grunted Nijeradze with a grin.

"Eh, prince! You always have salacious things on your mind. For you understand that I'm not talking about a woman, but about a human being; not about flesh, but about a soul."

"All right, all right, me soul, go on!"

"Futhermore, as I thought, so did I act. I took her to-day from Anna Markovna's and brought her for the present to me. And later—whatever God may grant. I'll teach her in the beginning to read, and write; then open up for her a little cook-shop, or a grocery store, let's say. I think that the comrades won't refuse to help me. The human heart, prince, my brother—every heart—is in need of cordiality, of warmth. And lo and behold! in a year, in two, I will return to society a good, industrious, worthy member, with a virgin soul, open to all sorts of great possibilities... For she has given only her body, while her soul is pure and innocent."

"Tse, tse, tse," the prince smacked his tongue.

"What does this mean, you Tifflissian he-mule?"

"And will you buy her a sewing machine?"

"Why a sewing machine, in particular? I don't understand."

"It's always that way in the novels, me soul. Just as soon as the hero has saved the poor, but lost, creature, he at once sets up a sewing machine for her."

"Stop talking nonsense," Lichonin waved him away angrily with his hand. "Clown!"

The Georgian suddenly grew heated, his black eyes began to sparkle, and immediately Caucasian intonations could be heard in his voice.

"No, not nonsense, me soul. It's one of two things here, and it'll all end in one and the same result. Either you'll get together with her and after five months chuck her out on the street; and she'll return to the brothel or take to walking the street. That's a fact! Or else you won't get together with her, but will begin to load her up with manual or mental labours and will try to develop her ignorant, dark mind; and she from tedium will run away from you, and will again find herself either walking the street, or in a brothel. That's a fact, too! However, there is still a third combination. You'll be vexing yourself about her like a brother, like the knight Lancelot, but she, secretly from you, will fall in love with another. Me soul, believe me, that wooman, when she is a wooman, is always—a wooman. And the other will play a bit with her body, and after three months chuck her out into the street or into a brothel."

Lichonin sighed deeply. Somewhere deep—not in his mind, but in the hidden, almost unseizable secret recesses of his consciousness—something resembling the thought that Nijeradze was right flashed through him. But he quickly gained control of himself, shook his head, and, stretching out his hand to the prince, uttered triumphantly:

"I promise you, that after half a year you'll take your words back, and as a mark of apology, you Erivanian billy goat, you Armavirian egg-plant, you'll stand me to a dozen of Cakhetine wine."

"Va! That's a go!" the prince struck Lichonin's hand with his palm with all his might. "With pleasure. But if it comes out as I say—then you do it."

"Then I do it. However, AU REVOIR, prince. Whom are you lodging with?"

"Right here, in this corridor, at Soloviev's. But you, of course, like a mediaeval knight, will lay a two-edged sword between yourself and the beauteous Rosamond? Yes?"

"Nonsense! I did want to pass the night at Soloviev's myself. But now I'll go and wander about the streets a bit and turn in into somebody's; to Zaitzevich or Strump. Farewell, prince!"

"Wait, wait!" Nijeradze called him, when he had gone a few steps. "I have forgotten to tell you the main thing: Partzan has tripped up!"

"So that's how?" wondered Lichonin, and at once yawned long, deeply and with enjoyment.

"Yes. But there's nothing dreadful; only the possession of some illegal brochures and stuff. He won't have to sit for more than a year."

"That's nothing; he's a husky lad, he can stand it."

"He's husky, all right" confirmed the prince.

"Farewell!"

"AU REVOIR, knight Grunwaldus!"

"AU REVOIR, you Carbidinian stallion."

CHAPTER XI.

Lichonin was left alone. In the half-dark corridor it smelt of kerosene fumes from the guttering little tin lamp, and of the odour of stagnant bad tobacco. The daylight dully penetrated only near the top, from two small glass frames, let in the roof at both ends of the corridor.

Lichonin found himself in that simultaneously weakened and elevated mood which is so familiar to every man who has happened to be thoroughly sleepless for a long time. It was as though he had gone out of the limitations of everyday human life, and this life had become to him distant and of indifference; but at the same time his thoughts and emotions obtained a certain peaceful clarity and apathetic distinctness, and there was a tedious and languishing allurement in this crystal Nirvanah.

He stood near his room, leaning against the wall, and seemed to see, feel, and hear how near him and below him were sleeping several score of people; sleeping with the last, fast morning sleep, with open mouths, with measured deep breathing, with a wilted pallor on their faces, glistening from sleep; and through his head flashed the thought, remote yet familiar since childhood, of how horrible sleeping people are—far more horrible than dead people. Then he remembered about Liubka. His subterranean, submerged, mysterious "I" rapidly, rapidly whispered that he ought to drop into the room, and see if the girl were all right, as well as make certain dispositions about tea in the morning; but he made believe to himself that he was not at all even thinking of this, and walked out into the street.

He walked, looking closely at everything that met his eyes, with an idle and exact curiosity new to him; and every feature was drawn for him in relief to such a degree that it seemed to him as though he were feeling it with his fingers... There a peasant woman passed by. Over her shoulder is a yoke staff, while at each end of the yoke is a large pail of milk; her face is not young, with a net of fine wrinkles on the temples and with two deep furrows from the nostrils to the corners of the mouth; but her cheeks are rosy, and, probably, hard to the touch, while her hazel eyes radiate a sprightly peasant smile. From the movement of the heavy yoke and from the smooth walk her hips sway rhythmically now to the left, now to the right, and in their wave-like movements there is a coarse, sensual beauty.

"A mischievous dame, and she's lived through a checkered life," reflected Lichonin. And suddenly, unexpectedly to himself, he had a feeling for, and irresistibly desired, this woman, altogether unknown to him, homely and not young; in all probability dirty and vulgar, but still resembling, as it seemed to him, a large Antonovka[17] apple which had fallen to the ground-somewhat bored by a worm, and which had lain just a wee bit too long, but which has still preserved its bright colour and its fragrant, winey aroma.

[17] Somewhat like a Spitzbergen, but a trifle rounder.—Trans.

Getting ahead of her, an empty, black, funereal catafalque whirled by; with two horses in harness, and two tied behind to the little rear columns. The torch-bearers and grave-diggers, already drunk since morning, with red, brutish faces, with rusty opera hats on their heads, were sitting in a disorderly heap on their uniform liveries, on the reticular horse-blankets, on the mourning lanterns; and with rusty, hoarse voices were roaring out some incoherent song. "They must be hurrying to a funeral procession; or, perhaps, have even finished it already," reflected Lichonin; "merry fellows!" On the boulevard he came to a stop and sat down on a small wooden bench, painted green. Two rows of mighty centenarian chestnuts went away into the distance, merging together somewhere afar into one straight green arrow. The prickly large nuts were already hanging on the trees. Lichonin suddenly recalled that at the very beginning of the spring he had been sitting on this very boulevard, and at this very same spot. Then it had been a calm, gentle evening of smoky purple, soundlessly falling into slumber, just like a smiling, tired maiden. Then the stalwart chestnuts, with their foliage—broad at the bottom and narrow toward the top—had been strewn all over with clusters of blossoms, growing with bright, rosy, thin cones straight to the sky; just as though some one by mistake had taken and fastened upon all the chestnuts, as upon lustres, pink Christmas-tree candles. And suddenly, with extraordinary poignancy—every man sooner or later passes through this zone of inner emotion—Lichonin felt, that here are the nuts ripening already, while then there had been little pink blossoming candles, and that there would be many more springs and many blossoms, but the one which had passed no one and nothing had the power to bring back. Sadly gazing into the depths of the retreating dense alley, he suddenly noticed that sentimental tears were making his eyes smart.

He got up and went on farther, looking closely at everything that he met with an incessant, sharpened, and at the same time calm attention, just as though he were looking at the God-created world for the first time. A gang of stone masons went past him on the pavement, and all of them were reflected in his inner vision with an exaggerated vividness and brilliance of colour, just as though on the frosted glass of a camera obscura. The foreman, with a red beard, matted to one side, and with blue austere eyes; and a tremendous young fellow, whose left eye was swollen, and who had a spot of a dark-blue colour spreading from the forehead to the cheekbone and from the nose to the temple; and a young boy with a naive, country face, with a gaping mouth like a fledgling's, weak, moist; and an old man who, having come late, was running after the gang at a funny, goat-like trot; and their clothes, soiled with lime, their aprons and their chisels—all this flickered before him in an inanimate file—a colourful, motley, but dead cinematographic film.

He had to cut across the New Kishenevsky Market. Suddenly the savoury, greasy odour of something roasted compelled him to distend his nostrils. Lichonin recalled that he had not eaten anything since noon yesterday, and at once felt hunger. He turned to the right, into the centre of the market.

In the days of his starvings—and he had had to experience them more than once—he would come here to the market, and for the pitiful coppers, gotten with difficulty, would buy himself bread and fried sausage. This was in winter, oftenest of all. The huckstress, wrapped up in a multiplicity of clothes, usually sat upon a pot of coals for warmth; while before her, on the iron dripping-pan, hissed and crackled the thick, home-made sausage, cut into pieces a quarter of a yard in length, plentifully seasoned with garlic. A piece of sausage usually cost ten kopecks, the bread two kopecks.

There were very many folk at market to-day. Even at a distance, edging his way to the familiar, loved stall, Lichonin heard the sounds of music. Having made his way through the crowd, which in a solid ring surrounded one of the stalls, he saw a naive and endearing sight, which may be seen only in the blessed south of Russia. Ten or fifteen huckstresses, during ordinary times gossips of evil tongue and addicted to unrestrainable swearing, inexhaustible in its verbal diversity, but now, evidently, flattering and tender cronies, had started celebrating even since last evening; had caroused the whole night through and now had carried their noisy merrymaking out to the market. The hired musicians—two fiddles, a first and a second, and a tambourine—were strumming a monotonous but a lively, bold, daring and cunning tune. Some of the wives were clinking glasses and kissing each other, pouring vodka over one another; others poured it out into glasses and over the tables; others still, clapping their palms in time with the music, oh'd, squealed, and danced, squatting in one place. And in the middle of the ring, upon the cobbles of the pavement, a stout woman of about forty-five, but still handsome, with red, fleshy lips, with humid, intoxicated, seemingly unctuous eyes, merrily sparkling from under the high bows of black, regular, Little Russian eyebrows, was whirling around and stamping out a tattoo on one spot. All the beauty and all the art of her dance consisted in that she would now bow her little head and look out provokingly from under her eyebrows, then suddenly toss it back and let her eyelashes down and spread her hands out at her sides; and also in that in measure with the dance her enormous breasts swayed and quivered under her red calico waist. During the dance she was singing, now shuffling her heels, now the toes, of her goat-skin shoes:

"The fiddle's playing on the street,
You can hear its bass so sweet;
My mother has me locked up neat,
My waitin' dearie I can't meet."

That was the very country-wife whom Lichonin knew; the self-same who not only had had him for a client during hard times, but had even extended him credit. She suddenly recognized Lichonin, darted to him, embraced him, squeezed him to her bosom and kissed him straight on his lips with her moist, warm, thick lips. Then she spread her arms out wide, smote one palm against the other, intertwined her fingers, and sweetly, as only Podolian wives can do it, began to coo:

"My little master, my little silver gold trove, my lovie! You forgive a drunken wife like me, now. Well, what of it? I've gone op a spree!" She then darted at him in an attempt to kiss his hand. "But then, I know you ain't proud, like other gentry. Well, give me your hand, dearie-dear; why, I want to kiss your little hand! No, no, no! I athk, I athk you! ..." "Well, now, that's nonsense, Aunt Glycera!" Linchonin interrupted her, unexpectedly becoming animated. "Let's best kiss just so, now. Your lips are just too sweet!"

"Ah, my little sweetheart! My little bright sun, my little apple of paradise, you," Glycera waxed tender, "give me your lips, then! Give me your little lips to buss, then! ..."

She pressed him warmly to her gigantean bosom and again slavered over him with her moist, warm, Hottentot lips. After that, she seized him by his sleeve, brought him out into the middle of the ring, and began to walk around him with a stately, mincing step, having bent her waist coquettishly and vociferating:

"Oh, each to his taste, I want Paraska more,
For I've a divel in my pants
Her skirt holds somethin' for!"

And then suddenly she passed on, sustained by the musicians, to a most rollicking, Little Russian, thumping GOPAK dance:

"Oh, Chook, that is too much,
You have soiled your apron too much.
Well, Prisko, don't you fret,
Wipe it off, then, if you're wet!
TRALALA, TRALALA ...

Sleeps, Khima, and won't stir
That a Kossack sleeps with her,
You feel all, Khima—why deceive?
Just to yourself you make believe.
TAI, TAI, TRALALAI..."'

Lichonin, completely grown merry, suddenly began jumping like a goat about her, just like a satellite around a whirling planet—long-legged, long-armed, stooping and altogether incongruous. His entrance was greeted by a general but pretty friendly neighing. He was made to sit down at the table, was helped to vodka and sausage. He, for his part, sent a tramp he knew after beer, and, glass in hand, delivered three absurd speeches: one about the self-determination of Ukraine; another about the goodness of Little Russian sausage, in connection with the beauty and domesticity of the women of Little Russia; and the third, for some reason, about trade and industry in the south of Russia. Sitting alongside of Lukeriya, he was all the time trying to embrace her around the waist, and she did not oppose this. But even his long arms could not encompass her amazing waist. However, she clasped his hand powerfully under the table, until it hurt, with her enormous, soft hand, as hot as fire.

At this moment among the huckstresses, who up to now had been tenderly kissing, certain old, unsettled quarrels and grievances flickered up. Two of the wives, bending toward each other just like roosters ready to enter battle, their arms akimbo, were pouring upon each other the most choice, out-of-the-way oaths:

"Fool, stiff, daughter of a dog!" one was yelling. "Youse ain't fit to kiss me right here." And, turning her back around to her foe, she loudly slapped herself below the spine. "Right here! Here!"

While the other, infuriated, squealed in answer:

"You lie, you slut, for I am fit, I am fit!"

Lichonin utilized the minute. As though he had just recalled something, he hurriedly jumped up from the bench and called out:

"Wait for me, Aunty Luckeriya, I'll come in three minutes!" and dived through the living ring of spectators.

"Master! Master!" his neighbour cried after him: "Come back the quickest you can, now! I've one little word to say to you."

Having turned the corner, he for some time racked his head trying to recall what it was that he absolutely had to do, now, this very minute. And again, in the very depths of his soul, he knew just what he had to do, but he procrastinated confessing this to his own self. It was already a clear, bright day, about nine or ten o'clock. Janitors were watering the streets with rubber hose. Flower girls were sitting on the squares and near the gates of the boulevards, with roses, stock-gillyflowers and narcissi. The radiant, gay, rich southern town was beginning to get animated. Over the pavement jolted an iron cage filled with dogs of every possible colour, breed, and age. On the coach box were sitting two dog-catchers, or, as they deferentially style themselves, "the king's dog-catchers"—i. e., hunters of stray dogs—returning home with this morning's catch.

"She must be awake by now," Lichonin's secret thought finally took form; "but if she isn't yet awake, then I'll quietly lie down on the divan and sleep a little."

In the corridor the dying kerosene lamp emitted a dim light and smoked as before, and the watery, murky half-light penetrated into the narrow, long box. The door of the room had remained unlocked, after all. Lichonin opened it without a sound and entered.

The faint, blue half-light poured in through the interstices between the blinds and the windows. Lichonin stopped in the middle of the room and with an intensified avidity heard the quiet, sleeping breathing of Liubka. His lips became so hot and dry that he had to lick them incessantly. His knees began to tremble.

"Ask if she needs anything," suddenly darted through his head.

Like a drunkard, breathing hard, with mouth open, staggering on his shaking legs, he walked up to the bed.

Liubka was sleeping on her back, with one bare arm stretched out along the body, and the other on her breast. Lichonin bent nearer, to her very face. She was breathing evenly and deeply. This breathing of her young, healthy body was, despite sleep, pure and almost aromatic. He cautiously ran his fingers over her bare arm and stroked her breast a little below the clavicle. "What am I doing?" his reason suddenly cried out within him in terror; but some one else answered for Lichonin: "But I'm not doing anything. I only want to ask if she's sleeping comfortably, and whether she doesn't want some tea."

But Liubka suddenly awoke, opened her eyes, blinked them for a moment and opened them again. She gave a long, long stretch, and with a kindly, not yet fully reasoning smile, encircled Lichonin's neck with her warm, strong arm.

"Sweetie! Darling!" caressingly uttered the woman in a crooning voice, somewhat hoarse from sleep. "Why, I was waiting for you and waiting, and even became angry. And after that I fell asleep and all night long saw you in my sleep. Come to me, my baby, my lil' precious!" She drew him to her, breast against breast.

Lichonin almost did not resist; he was all atremble, as from a chill, and meaninglessly repeating in a galloping whisper with chattering teeth:

"No, now, Liuba, don't ... Really, don't do that, Liuba ... Ah, let's drop this, Liuba ... Don't torture me. I won't vouch for myself ... Let me alone, now, Liuba, for God's sake! ..."

"My-y little silly!" she exclaimed in a laughing, joyous voice. "Come to me, my joy!"—and, overcoming the last, altogether insignificant opposition, she pressed his mouth to hers and kissed him hard and warmly—kissed him sincerely, perhaps for the first and last time in her life.

"Oh, you scoundrel! What am I doing?" declaimed some honest, prudent, and false body in Lichonin.

"Well, now? Are you eased up a bit?" asked Liubka kindly, kissing Lichonin's lips for the last time. "Oh, you, my little student! ..."

CHAPTER XII.

With pain at soul, with malice and repulsion toward himself and Liubka, and, it would seem, toward all the world, Lichonin without undressing flung himself upon the wooden, lopsided, sagging divan and even gnashed his teeth from the smarting shame. Sleep would not come to him, while his thoughts revolved around this fool action—as he himself called the carrying off of Liubka,—in which an atrocious vaudeville had been so disgustingly intertwined with a deep drama. "It's all one," he stubbornly repeated to himself. "Once I have given my promise, I'll see the business through to the end. And, of course, that which has occurred just now will never, never be repeated! My God, who hasn't fallen, giving in to a momentary laxity of the nerves? Some philosopher or other has expressed a deep, remarkable truth, when he affirmed that the value of the human soul may be known by the depth of its fall and the height of its flight. But still, the devil take the whole of this idiotical day and that equivocal reasoner—the reporter Platonov, and his own—Lichonin's—absurd outburst of chivalry! Just as though, in reality, this had not taken place in real life, but in Chernishevski's novel, What's to be done? And how, devil take it, with what eyes will I look upon her tomorrow?"

His head was on fire; his eyelids were smarting, his lips dry. He was nervously smoking a cigarette and frequently got up from the divan to take the decanter of water off the table, and avidly, straight from its mouth, drink several big draughts. Then, by some accidental effort of the will, he succeeded in tearing his thoughts away from the past night, and at once a heavy sleep, without any visions and images, enveloped him as though in black cotton.

He awoke long past noon, at two or three o'clock; at first could not come to himself for a long while; smacked his lips and looked around the room with glazed, heavy eyes. All that had happened during the night seemed to have flown out of his memory. But when he saw Liubka, who was quietly and motionlessly sitting on the bed, with head lowered and hands crossed on her knees, he began to groan and grunt from vexation and confusion. Now he recalled everything. And at that minute he experienced in his own person how heavy it is to see in the morning, with one's own eyes, the results of folly committed the night before.

"Are you awake, sweetie?" asked Liubka kindly.

She got up from the bed, walked up to the divan, sat down at Lichonin's feet, and cautiously patted his blanket-covered leg.

"Why, I woke up long ago and was sitting all the while; I was afraid to wake you up. You were sleeping so very soundly!"

She stretched toward him and kissed him on the cheek. Lichonin made a wry face and gently pushed her away from him.

"Wait, Liubochka! Wait; that's not necessary. Do you understand—absolutely, never necessary. That which took place yesterday—well, that's an accident. My weakness, let's say. Even more, a momentary baseness, perhaps. But, by God, believe me, I didn't at all want to make a mistress out of you. I want to see you my friend, my sister, my comrade ... Well, that's nothing, then; everything will adjust itself, grow customary. Only one mustn't fall in spirit. And in the meanwhile, my dear, go to the window and look out of it a bit; I just want to put myself in order."

Liubka slightly pouted her lips and walked off to the window, turning her back on Lichonin. All these words about friendship, brotherhood and comradeship she could not understand with her brain of a hen and her simple peasant soul. That a student—after all, not just anybody, but an educated man, who could learn to be a doctor, or a lawyer, or a judge—had taken her for maintenance flattered her imagination far more ... And here, now, it turned out that he had just fulfilled his caprice, had gotten what he wanted, and was now trying to back out. They are all like that, the men!

Lichonin hastily got up, splashed a few handfuls of water in his face, and dried himself with an old napkin. Then he raised the blinds and threw open both window shutters. The golden sunlight, the azure sky, the rumble of the city, the foliage of the thick linden trees and the chestnuts, the bells of the horse trams, the dry smell of the hot, dusty street—all this at once burst into the tiny garret room. Lichonin walked up to Liubka and amicably patted her on the shoulder.

"Never mind, my joy ... What's done can't be undone, but it's a lesson for the future. You haven't yet asked tea for yourself, Liubochka?"

"No, I was waiting for you all the while. Besides, I didn't know who to ask. And you're all right, too. Why, I heard you, after you went off with your friend, come back and stand a while near the door. But you never even said good-bye to me. Is that right?"

"The first family quarrel," thought Lichonin, but thought it without malice, in jest.

The wash-up, the beauty of the gold and blue southern sky, and the naive, partly submissive, partly displeased face of Liubka, as well as the consciousness that after all he was a man, and that he and not she had to answer for the porridge he had cooked—all this together braced up his nerves and compelled him to take himself in hand. He opened the door and roared into the darkness of the stinking corridor:

"Al-lexa-andra! A samova-ar! Two lo-oaves, bu-utter, and sausage! And a small bottle of vo-odka!"

The patter of slippers was heard in the corridor, and an aged voice, even from afar, began to speak thickly:

"What are you bawling for? What are you bawling for, eh? Ho, ho, ho! Like a stallion in a stall. You ain't little, to look at you; you're grown up already, yet you carry on like a street boy! Well, what do you want?"

Into the room walked a little old woman, with red-lidded eyes, like little narrow cracks, and with a face amazingly like parchment, upon which a long, sharp nose stuck downward, morosely and ominously. This was Alexandra, the servant of old of the student bird-houses; the friend and creditor of all the students; a woman of sixty-five, argumentative, and a grumbler.

Lichonin repeated his order to her and gave her a rouble note. But the old woman would not go away; shuffled in one place, snorted, chewed with her lips and looked inimically at the girl sitting—with her back to the light.

"What's the matter with you now, Alexandra, that you seem ossified?" asked Lichonin, laughing. "Or are you lost in admiration? Well, then, know: this is my cousin, my first cousin, that is—Liubov..."[18] he was confused for only a second, but immediately fired away: "Liubov Vasilievna, but for me—simply Liubochka. I've known her when she was only that high," he showed a quarter of a yard off the table. "And I pulled her ears and slapped her for her caprices over the place where the legs grow from. And then ... I caught all sorts of bugs for her ... But, however ... However, you go on, go on, you Egyptian mummy, you fragment of former ages! Let one leg be here and the other there!"

[18] Love.—Trans.

But the old woman lingered. Stamping all around herself, she barely, barely turned to the door and kept a keen, spiteful, sidelong glance on Liubka. And at the same time she muttered with her sunken mouth:

"First cousin! We know these first cousins! There's lots of them walking around Kashtanovaya Street. There, these he-dogs can never get enough!"

"Well, you old barque! Lively and don't growl!" Lichonin shouted after her. "Or else, like your friend, the student Triassov, I'll take and lock you up in the dressing room for twenty-four hours!"

Alexandra went away, and for a long time her aged, flapping steps and indistinct muttering could be heard in the corridor. She was inclined, in her austere, grumbling kindliness, to forgive a great deal to the studying youths, whom she had served for nigh unto forty years. She forgave drunkenness, card playing, scandals, loud singing, debts; but, alas! she was a virgin, and there was only one thing her continent soul could not abide—libertinage.

CHAPTER XIII.

"And that's splendid ... And fine and charming," Lichonin was saying, bustling about the lame table and without need shifting the tea things from one place to another. "For a long time, like an old crocodile, I haven't drunk tea as it should be drunk, in a Christian manner, in a domestic setting. Sit down, Liuba, sit down, my dear, right here on the divan, and keep house. Vodka, in all probability, you don't drink of a morning, but I, with your permission, will drink some ... This braces up the nerves right off. Make mine a little stronger, please, with a piece of lemon. Ah, what can taste better than a glass of hot tea, poured out by charming feminine hands?"

Liubka listened to his chatter, a trifle too noisy to seem fully natural; and her smile, in the beginning mistrusting, wary, was softening and brightening. But she did not get on with the tea especially well. At home, in the backwoods village, where this beverage was still held a rarity, the dainty luxury of well-to-do families, to be brewed only for honored guests and on great holidays—there over the pouring of the tea officiated the eldest man of the family. Later, when Liubka served with "all found" in the little provincial capital city, in the beginning at a priest's, and later with an insurance agent (who had been the first to put her on the road of prostitution)—she was usually left some strained, tepid tea, which had already been drunk off, with a bit of gnawn sugar, by the mistress herself—the thin, jaundiced, malicious wife of the priest; or the wife of the agent, a fat, old, wrinkled, malignant, greasy, jealous and stingy common woman. Therefore, the simple business of preparing the tea was now as difficult for her as it is difficult for all of us in childhood to distinguish the left hand from the right, or to tie a rope in a small noose. The bustling Lichonin only hindered her and threw her into confusion.

"My dear, the art of brewing tea is a great art. It ought to be studied at Moscow. At first a dry teapot is slightly warmed up. Then the tea is put into it and is quickly scalded with boiling water. The first liquid must at once be poured off into the slop-bowl—the tea thus becomes purer and more aromatic; and by the way, it's also known that Chinamen are pagans and prepare their herb very filthily. After that the tea-pot must be filled anew, up to a quarter of its volume; left on the tray, covered over with a towel and kept so for three and a half minutes. Afterwards pour in more boiling water almost up to the top, cover it again, let it stay just a bit, and you have ready, my dear, a divine beverage; fragrant, refreshing, and strengthening."

The homely, but pleasant-looking face of Liubka, all spotted from freckles, like a cuckoo's egg, lengthened and paled a little.

"Well, for God's sake, don't you be angry at me ... You're called Vassil Vassilich, isn't that so? Don't get angry, darling Vassil Vassilich. Really, now, I'll learn fast, I'm quick. And why do you say you and you[19] to me all the time? It seems that we aren't strangers now?"

[19] In contradistinction to "thou," as used to familiars and inferiors in Russia.—Trans.

She looked at him kindly. And truly, she had this morning, for the first time in all her brief but distorted life, given her body to a man—even though without enjoyment but more out of gratitude and pity, yet voluntarily—not for money, not under compulsion, not under threat of dismissal and scandal. And her feminine heart, always unwithering, always drawn to love, like a sunflower to the sun, was at this moment pure and inclined to tenderness.

But Lichonin suddenly felt a prickling, shameful awkwardness and something inimical toward this woman, yesterday unknown to him, now—his chance mistress. "The charms of the family hearth have begun," he thought involuntarily; still, he got up from his chair, walked up to Liubka, and having taken her by the hand, drew her to him and patted her on the head.

"My dear, my darling sister," he said touchingly and falsely; "that which has happened to-day must never more be repeated. In everything only I alone am guilty, and, if you desire, I am ready to beg forgiveness of you on my knees. Understand—oh, understand, that all this came about against my will, somehow elementally, suddenly, unexpectedly. And I myself didn't think that it would be like that! You understand, for a very long time ... I have not known woman intimately ... A repulsive, unbridled beast awoke within me ... and ... But, Lord, is my fault so great, then? Holy people, anchorites, recluses, ascetics, stylites, hermits in deserts, are no match for me in fortitude of spirit—yet even they fell in the struggle with the temptation of the diabolical flesh. But then, I swear by whatever you wish, that this won't be repeated any more ... Isn't that so?"

Liubka was stubbornly trying to pull his hand away from hers. Her lips had become a little stuck out and the lowered lids began to wink frequently.

"Ye-es," she drawled, like a child that stubbornly refuses to "make up." "Well, I can see that I don't please you. Well, then, you'd best tell me so straight and give me a little for a cab, and some more, now; as much as you want ... The money for the night is paid anyway, and I only have to ride up to ... there."

Lichonin seized his hair, flung himself about the room and began to declaim:

"Ah, not that, not that, not that! Just understand me, Liuba! To go on with that which happened in the morning—that's ... that's swinishness, bestiality, and unworthy of a man who respects himself. Love! Love—this is a full blending of minds, thoughts, souls, interests, and not of the bodies alone. Love is a tremendous, great emotion, mighty as the universe, and not the sprawling in bed. There's no such love between us, Liubochka. If it'll come, it will be wonderful happiness both for you and for me. But in the meantime—I'm your friend, your faithful comrade, on the path of life. And that's enough, and that will do ... And though I'm no stranger to human frailties, still, I count myself an honest man."

Liubka seemed to wilt. "He thinks I want him to marry me. And I absolutely don't need that," she thought sadly. "It's possible to live just so. There are others, now, living on maintenance. And, they say, far better than if they had twirled around an altar. What's so bad about that? Peaceful, quiet, genteel ... I'd darn socks for him, wash floors, cook ... the plainer dishes. Of course, he'll be in line to get married to a rich girl some time. Well, now, to be sure, he wouldn't throw me out in the street just so, mother-naked. Although he's a little simpleton, and chatters a lot, still it's easy to tell he's a decent man. He'll provide for me with something, somehow. And, perhaps, he'll get to like me, will get used to me? I'm a simple girl, modest, and would never consent to be false to him. For, they say, things do fall out that way ... Only I mustn't let him see anything. But that he'll come again into my bed, and will come this very night—that's as sure as God is holy."

And Lichonin also fell into thought, grew quiet and sad; he was already feeling the weight of a great deed which he had undertaken beyond his powers. That was why he was even glad when some one knocked on the door, and to his answer, "Come in!", two students entered: Soloviev, and Nijeradze, who had slept that night at his place.

Soloviev, well-grown and already obese, with a broad, ruddy Volga face and a light, scandent little beard, belonged to those kindly, merry and simple fellows, of which there are sufficiently many in any university. He divided his leisure—and of leisure he had twenty-four hours in the day—between the beer-shop and rambling over the boulevards; among billiards, whist, the theatre, reading of newspapers and novels, and the spectacles of circus wrestling; while the short intervals in between he used for eating, sleeping, the home repair of his wardrobe, with the aid of thread, cardboard, pins and ink; and for succinct, most realistic love with the chance woman from the kitchen, the anteroom or the street. Like all the youths of his circle, he deemed himself a revolutionary, although he was oppressed by political disputes, dissensions, and mutual reproaches; and not being able to stand the reading of revolutionary brochures and journals, was almost a complete ignoramus in the work For that reason he had not attained even the very least party initiation; although at times there were given him instructions of a sort, not at all of a safe nature, the meaning of which was not made clear to him. And not in vain was his steadfast faithfulness relied upon; he carried out everything rapidly, exactly,—with a courageous faith in the universal importance of the work; with a care-free smile and with a broad contempt of possible destruction. He concealed outlawed comrades, guarded forbidden literature and printing types, transmitted passports and money. He had a great deal of physical strength, black-loam amiability and elemental simple-heartedness. Not infrequently he would receive from home, somewheres in the depth of the Simbirskaya or Ufimskaya province, sums of money sufficiently large for a student; but in two days he scattered and dispersed it everywhere, with the carelessness of a French grandee of the seventeenth century, while he himself remained during winter in only his everyday coat, with boots restored by his own devices.

Beside all these naive, touching, laughable, lofty and shiftless qualities of the old Russian student, passing—and God knows if for the better?—into the realm of historical memories, he possessed still another amazing ability—to invent money and arrange for credit in little restaurants and cook-shops. All the employees of pawnshops and loan offices, secret and manifest usurers, and old-clo'-men were on terms of the closest friendship with him.

But if for certain reasons he could not resort to them, then even here Soloviev remained at the height of his resourcefulness. At the head of a knot of impoverished friends, and weighed down with his usual business responsibility, he would at times be illumined by an inner inspiration; make at a distance, across the street, a mysterious sign to a Tartar passing with his bundle behind his shoulders, and for a few seconds would disappear with him into the nearest gates. He would quickly return without his everyday coat, only in his blouse with the skirts outside, belted with a thin cord; or, in winter, without his overcoat, in the thinnest of small suits; or instead of the new, just purchased uniform cap—in a tiny jockey cap, holding by a miracle on the crown of his head.

Everybody loved him: comrades, servants, women, children. And all were familiar with him. He enjoyed especial good-will from his bosom cronies, the Tartars, who, apparently, deemed him a little innocent. They would sometimes, in the summer, bring as a present the strong, intoxicating KOUMYSS in big quartern bottles, while at Bairam they would invite him to eat a suckling colt with them. No matter how improbable it may seem, still, Soloviev at critical moments gave away for safe-keeping certain books and brochures to the Tartars. He would say at this with the most simple and significant air: "That which I am giving you is a Great Book. It telleth, that Allah Akbar, and that Mahomet is his prophet, that there is much evil and poverty on earth, and that men must be merciful and just to each other."

He also had two other abilities: he read aloud very well; and played at chess amazingly, like a master, like a downright genius, defeating first-class players in jest. His attack was always impetuous and rigorous; his defense wise and cautious, preferably in an oblique direction; his concessions to his opponent full of refined, far-sighted calculation and murderous craftiness. With this, he made moves as though under the influence of some inner instinct, or inspiration; not pondering for more than four or five seconds and resolutely despising the respected traditions.

He was not willingly played with; his manner of play was held barbarous, but still they played, sometimes for large sums of money; which, invariably winning, Soloviev readily laid down upon the altar of his comrades' needs. But he steadfastly declined from participation in competitions, which could have created for him the position of a star in the world of chess: "There is in my nature neither love for this nonsense, nor respect," he would say. "I simply possess some sort of a mechanical ability of the mind, some sort of a psychic deformity. Well, now, just as there are lefties. And for that reason I've no professional self-respect, nor pride at victory, nor spleen at losing."

Such was the generously built student Soloviev. And Nijeradze filled the post of his closest comrade; which did not hinder them both, however, from jeering at each other, disputing, and swearing, from morning till night. God knows, wherewithal and how the Georgian prince existed. He said of himself, that he possessed the ability of a camel, of nourishing himself for the future, for several weeks ahead; and then eating nothing for a month. From home, from his blessed Georgia, he received very little; and then, for the most part, in victuals. At Christmas, at Easter, or on his birthday (in August) he was sent—and inevitably through arriving fellow-countrymen—whole cargoes of hampers with mutton, grapes, goat-flesh, sausages, dried hawthorn berries, RAKHAT LOUKOUM, egg-plants, and very tasty cookies; as well as leathern bottles of excellent home-made wine, strong and aromatic, but giving off just the least bit of sheep-skin. Then the prince would summon together to one of his comrades (he never had quarters of his own) all his near friends and fellow-countrymen; and arranged such a magnificent festival—TOI in Caucasian—that at it were extirpated to the last shreds the gifts of fertile Georgia. Georgian songs were sung, the first place, of course, being given to MRAVOL-DJAMIEM and EVERY GUEST IS SENT DOWN TO US FROM HEAVEN BY GOD, NO MATTER OF WHAT COUNTRY HE BE; the LEZGINKA was danced without tiring, with table knives brandished wildly in the air; and the TULUMBASH (or, perhaps, he is called TOMADA?) spoke his improvisations; for the greater part Nijeradze himself spoke.

He was a great hand at talking and could, when he warmed up, pronounce about three hundred words a minute. His style was distinguished for mettle, pomp, and imagery; and his Caucasian accent with characteristic lisping and throaty sounds, resembling now the hawking of a woodcock, now the clucking of an eagle, not only did not hinder his discourse, but somehow even strangely adorned it. And no matter of what he spoke, he always led up the monologue to the most beautiful, most fertile, the very foremost, most chivalrous, and at the same time the most injured country—Georgia. And invariably he cited lines from THE PANTHER'S SKIN of the Georgian poet Rustavelli; with assurances, that this poem was a thousand times above all of Shakespeare, multiplied by Homer.

Even though he was hot-headed, he was not spiteful; and in his demeanour femininely soft, gentle, engaging, without losing his native pride ... One thing only did his comrades dislike in him—some exaggerated, exotic love of women. He was unshakably, unto sacredness or folly, convinced that he was irresistibly splendid of person; that all men envied him, all women were in love with him, while husbands were jealous ... This self-conceited, obtrusive dangling after women did not forsake him for a minute, probably not even in his sleep. Walking along the street he would every minute nudge Lichonin, Soloviev or some other companion with his elbow, and would say, smacking his lips and jerking his head backward at a woman who had passed by: "TSE, TSE, TSE... VAI-VAI! A ree-markable wooman! What a look she gave me. If I wish it, she'll be mine! ..."

This funny shortcoming about him was known; this trait of his was ridiculed good-naturedly and unceremoniously, but willingly forgiven for the sake of that independent comradely obligingness and faithfulness to his word, given to a man (oaths to women did not count), of which he was so naturally possessed. However, it must be said that he did in reality enjoy great success with women. Sempstresses, modistes, chorus girls, girls in candy stores, and telephone girls melted from the intense gaze of his heavy, soft, and languishing dark-blue eyes.

"Un-to this house and all those righteously, peacefully and without sin inhabiting it ..." Soloviev started in to vociferate like an arch-deacon and suddenly missed fire. "Father-prelates," he began to murmur in astonishment, trying to continue the unsuccessful jest. "Why, but this is ... This is ... ah, the devil ... this is Sonya, no, my mistake, Nadya ... Well, yes! Liubka from Anna Markovna's ..."

Liubka blushed hotly, to the verge of tears, and covered her face with her palms. Lichonin noticed this, understood, sensed the thoroughly agitated soul of the girl, and came to her aid. He sternly, almost rudely, stopped Soloviev.

"Perfectly correct, Soloviev. As in a directory. Liubka from the Yamkas. Formerly a prostitute. Even more, still yesterday a prostitute. But from to-day—my friend, my sister. And so let everyone, who respects me to any extent, regard her. Otherwise..."

The ponderous Soloviev hurriedly, sincerely, and powerfully embraced and rumpled Lichonin.

"Well, dear fellow, well, that's enough ... I committed a stupidity in the flurry. It won't be repeated any more. Hail, my pale-faced sister." He extended his hand with a broad sweep across the table to Liubka, and squeezed her listless, small and short fingers with gnawed, tiny nails. "It's fine—your coming into our modest wigwam. This will refresh us and implant in our midst quiet and decent customs. Alexandra! Be-er!" he began to call loudly. "We've grown wild, coarse; have become mired in foul speech, drunkenness, laziness and other vices. And all because we were deprived of the salutary, pacifying influence of feminine society. Once again I press your hand. Your charming, little hand. Beer!"

"Coming," the displeased voice of Alexandra could be heard on the other side of the door. "I'm coming. What you yelling for? How much do you want?"

Soloviev went out into the corridor to explain. Lichonin smiled after him gratefully; while the Georgian on his way slapped him benignly on the back, between his shoulder blades. Both understood and appreciated the belated, somewhat coarse delicacy of Soloviev.

"Now," said Soloviev, coming back into the room and sitting down cautiously upon an ancient chair, "now let's come to the order of the day. Can I be of service to you in any way? If you'll give me half an hour's time, I'll run down to the coffee house for a minute and lick the guts out of the very best chess player there. In a word—I'm at your disposal!"

"What a funny fellow you are!" said Liubka, ill at ease and laughing. She did not understand the jocose and unusual style of speech of the student, but something drew her simple heart to him.

"Well, that's not at all necessary," Lichonin put in. "I am as yet beastly rich. I think we'll all go together to some little tavern somewhere. I must have your advice about some things. After all, you're the people closest to me; and of course not as stupid and inexperienced as you seem at first glance. After that, I'll go and try to arrange about her ... about Liuba's passport. You wait for me. That won't take long ... In a word, you understand what this whole business consists of, and won't be lavish of any superfluous jokes. I,"—his voice quivered sentimentally and falsely—"I desire that you take upon yourselves a part of my care. Is that a go?"

"VA! It's a go!" exclaimed the prince (it sounded like "idiot," when he said it[20]), and for some reason looked significantly at Liubka and twirled his moustache. Lichonin gave him a sidelong look. As for Soloviev, he said simple-heartedly:

[20] The Russian phrase is "Eedet!"—Trans.

"That's the way. You've begun something big and splendid, Lichonin. The prince told me about it during the night. Well, what of it, that's what youth is for—to commit sacred follies. Give me the bottle, Alexandra, I'll open it myself, or else you'll rupture yourself and burst a vein. To a new life, Liubochka, pardon me ... Liubov ... Liubov ..."

"Nikonovna. But call me just as it comes ... Liuba."

"Well, yes, Liuba. Prince, ALLAHVERDI!"

"YAKSHI-OL," answered Nijeradze and clinked his glass of beer with him.

"And I'll also say, that I rejoice over you, friend Lichonin," continued Soloviev, setting down his glass and licking his moustache. "Rejoice, and bow before you. It's precisely you, only, who are capable of such a genuinely Russian heroism, expressed simply, modestly, without superfluous words."

"Drop it ... Well, where's the heroism?" Lichonin made a wry face.

"That's true, too," confirmed Nijeradze. "You're reproaching me all the time that I chatter a lot, but see what nonsense you're spouting yourself."

"That makes no difference!" retorted Soloviev. "It may be even grandiloquent, but still that makes no difference! As an elder of our garret commune, I declare Liuba an honourable member with full rights!" He got up, made a sweeping gesture with his hand, and uttered with pathos:

"And into our house, free and fearless,
Its charming mistress walk thou in!"

Lichonin recalled vividly, that to-day at dawn he had spoken the very same phrase, like an actor; and even blinked his eyes from shame.

"That's enough of tom-foolery. Let's go, gentlemen. Dress yourself, Liuba."

It was not far to The Sparrows restaurant; some two hundred steps. On the way Liuba, unnoticed, took Lichonin by the sleeve and pulled him toward her. In this wise they lagged a few steps behind Soloviev and Nijeradze, who were walking ahead.

"Then you mean it seriously, my darling Vassil Vassilich?" she asked, looking up at him with her kindly, dark eyes. "You're not playing a joke on me?"

"What jokes can there be here, Liubochka! I'd be the lowest of men if I permitted myself such jokes. I repeat, that to you I am more than a friend, brother, comrade. And let's not talk about it any more. And that which happened to-day toward morning, that, you may be sure, won't be repeated. And I'll rent a separate room for you this very day."

Liubka sighed. Not that she was offended by the chaste resolution of Lichonin, in which, to tell the truth, she believed but badly; but somehow her dark, narrow mind could not even theoretically picture any other attitude of a man toward a woman than the sensual. Besides that, she experienced the ancient discontent of a preferred or rejected female; a feeling strongly intrenched in the house of Anna Markovna, in the form of boastful rivalry, but now dulled; yet still angry and sincere. And for some reason she believed Lichonin but illy, unconsciously seizing much of the assumed, not altogether sincere, in his words. Soloviev, now—although he did speak incomprehensively, like the rest of the majority of the students known to her, when they joked among themselves or with the young ladies in the general room (by themselves, in the room, all the men without an exception—all as one—said and did one and the same thing)—she would rather believe Soloviev, far more readily and willingly. A certain simplicity shone in his merry, sparkling gray eyes, placed widely apart.

At THE SPARROWS Lichonin was esteemed for his sedateness, kind disposition, and accuracy in money matters. Because of that he was at once assigned a little private room—an honour of which but very few students could boast. The gas burned all day in this room, because light penetrated only through the narrow bottom of a window, cut short by the ceiling. Only the boots, shoes, umbrellas and canes of the people walking by on the sidewalk could be seen through this window.

They had to let still another student, Simanovsky (whom they ran against near the coat room), join the party. "What does he mean, by leading me around as though for a show?" thought Liubka: "it looks like he's showing off before them." And, snatching a free moment, she whispered to Lichonin, who had bent over her:

"But why are there so many people, dearie? For I'm so bashful. I can't hold my own in company."

"That's nothing, that's nothing, my dear Liubochka," Lichonin whispered rapidly, tarrying at the door of the cabinet. "That's nothing, my sister; these are all fine people, good comrades. They'll help you, help us both. Don't mind their having fun at times and their silly lying. But their hearts are of gold."

"But it's so very awkward for me; I'm ashamed. All of them already know where you took me from."

"Well, that's nothing, that's nothing! Why, let 'em know!" warmly contradicted Lichonin. "Why be embarrassed with your past, why try to pass it by in silence? In a year you'll look bravely and directly in the eyes of every man and you'll say: 'He who has never fallen, has never gotten up.' Come on, come on, Liubochka!"

While the inelaborate appetizers were being served, and each one was ordering the meal, everybody, save Simanovsky, felt ill at ease and somehow constrained. And Simanovsky himself was partly the reason for this; he was a clean-shaven man, with pince-nez and long hair, with head proudly thrown back and with a contemptuous expression on the tight lips, drooping at the corners. He had no intimate, hearty friends among his comrades; but his opinions and judgments had a considerable authoritativeness among them. It is doubtful whether any one of them could explain to himself whence this influence came; whether from his self-assured appearance, his ability to seize and express in general words the dismembered and indistinct things which are dimly sought and desired by the majority, or because he always saved his conclusions for the most appropriate moment. Among any society there are many of this sort of people: some of them act upon their circle through sophistries; others through adamant, unalterable stead-fastness of convictions; a third group with a loud mouth; a fourth, through a malicious sneer; a fifth, simply by silence, which compels the supposition of profound thought behind it; a sixth, through a chattering, outward erudition; others still through a slashing sneer at everything that is said ... many with the terrible Russian word YERUNDA: "Fiddlesticks!"—"Fiddlesticks!" they say contemptuously in reply to the warm, sincere, probably truthful but clumsily put word. "But why fiddlesticks?" "Because it's twaddle, nonsense," answer they, shrugging their shoulders; and it is as though they did for a man by hitting him with a stone over the head. There are many more sorts of such people, bearing the bell at the head of the meek, the shy, the nobly modest, and often even the big minds; and to their number did Simanovsky belong.

However, toward the middle of the dinner everybody's tongue became loosened—except Liubka's, who kept silent, answered "yes" and "no", and left her food practically untouched. Lichonin, Soloviev, and Nijeradze talked most of all. The first, in a decisive and business-like manner, trying to hide under the solicitous words something real, inward, prickling and inconvenient. Soloviev, with a puerile delight, with the most sweeping of gestures, hitting the table with his fist. Nijeradze, with a slight doubtfulness and with unfinished phrases, as though he knew that which must be said, but concealed it. The queer fate of the girl, however, had seemingly engrossed, interested them all; and each one, in expressing his opinion, for some reason inevitably turned to Simanovsky. But he kept his counsel for the most part, and looked at each one from under the glasses of his pince-nez, raising his head high to do so.

"So, so, so," he said at last, drumming with his fingers upon the table. "What Lichonin has done is splendid and brave. And that the prince and Soloviev are going to meet him half-way is also very good. I, for my part, am ready to co-operate with your beginnings with whatever lies in my power. But will it not be better, if we lead our friend along the path of her natural inclinations and abilities, so to speak? Tell me, my dear," he turned to Liubka, "what do you know, what can you do? Well, now, some kind of work, or something. Sewing, knitting, embroidering or something."

"I don't know anything," said Liubka in a whisper, letting her eyes drop low, all red, squeezing her fingers under the table. "I don't understand anything of this.''

"And really, now," interposed Lichonin; "why, we haven't begun the business from the right end. By talking about her in her presence we merely place her in an awkward position. Just see—even her tongue doesn't move from confusion. Let's go, Liubka, I'll escort you home for just a little while, and return in ten minutes. And in the meanwhile we'll think over ways and means here, without you. All right?"

"As for me, I don't mind," almost inaudibly answered Liubka. "I'll do just as you like, Vassil Vassilich. Only I wouldn't like to go home."

"Why so?"

"It's awkward for me there alone. I'd best wait for you on the boulevard, at the very entrance, on a bench."

"Ah, yes!" Lichonin recollected: "It's Alexandra who has inspired her with such a terror. My, but I'll make it hot for this old lizard! Well, let's go, Liubochka."

She timidly, in some sidelong way, put out her hand to each one, folding it like a little spade; and walked out under the escort of Lichonin.

After several minutes he returned and sat down at his place. He felt that something had been said about him during his absence, and he ran his eyes uneasily over his comrades. Then, putting his hands on the table, he began:

"Gentlemen, I know that you're all good, close friends," he gave a quick and sidelong look at Simanovsky, "and responsive people. I heartily beg of you to come to my aid. The deed was done by me in a hurry—this I must confess—but done through a sincere, pure inclination of the heart."

"And that's the main thing," put in Soloviev.

"It's absolutely all one to me what acquaintances and strangers will begin saying about me; but from my intention to save—pardon the fool word, which slipped out—to encourage, to sustain this girl, I will not decline. Of course, I'm able to rent an inexpensive, small room for her; to give her something for board at first; but what's to be done further—that's what presents difficulties to me. The matter, of course, isn't one of money, which I'd always find for her; but, then, to compel her to eat, drink, and with all that to do nothing—that would mean to condemn her to idleness, indifference, apathy; and you know what the end will be then. Therefore, we must think of some occupation for her. And that's the very matter which we must exert our brains about. Make an effort, gentlemen; advise something."

"We must know what she's fitted for," said Simanovsky. "For she must have been doing something before getting into the house."

Lichonin, with an air of hopelessness, spread out his hands.

"Almost nothing. She can sew just the least bit, just like any country lass. Why, she wasn't fifteen when some government clerk led her astray. She can sweep up a room, wash a little, and, if you will, cook cabbage soup and porridge. Nothing more, it seems."

"Rather little," said Simanovsky, and clacked his tongue.

"And in addition to that, she's illiterate as well."

"But that's not at all important!" warmly defended Soloviev. "If we had to do with a well-educated girl, or, worse still, with a half-educated one, then only nonsense would result out of all that we're preparing to do, a mere soap-bubble; while here before us is maiden ground, untouched virgin soil."

"He-ee!" Nijeradze started neighing equivocally.

Soloviev, now no longer joking, but with real wrath, pounced upon him:

"Listen, prince! Every holy thought, every good deed, can be made disgusting, obscene. There's nothing clever or worthy in that. If you regard that which we're preparing to do so like a stallion, then there's the door and God be with you. Go away from us!"

"Yes, but you yourself just now in the room ..." retorted the prince in confusion.

"Yes, I too," Soloviev at once softened and cooled down. "I popped out with a stupidity and I regret it. But now I willingly admit that Lichonin is a fine fellow and a splendid man; and I'm ready to do everything, for my part. And I repeat, that knowledge of reading and writing is a secondary matter. It is easy to attain it in play. For such an untouched mind to learn reading, writing, counting, and especially without school, of one's free will, is like biting a nut in two. And as far as a manual trade is concerned, through which it would be possible to live and earn one's keep, then there are hundreds of trades, which can be easily mastered in two weeks."

"For instance?" asked the prince.

"Well, for instance ... for instance ... well, now, for instance, making artificial flowers. Yes, and still better, to get a place as a flower clerk. A charming business, clean and nice."

"Taste is necessary," Simanovsky dropped carelessly.

"There are no inborn tastes, as well as abilities. Otherwise talents would be born only in refined, highly educated society; while artists would be born only to artists, and singers to singers; but we don't see this. However, I won't argue. Well, if not a flower girl, then something else. I, for instance, saw not long ago in a store show window a miss sitting, and some sort of a little machine with foot-power before her."

"V-VA! Again a little machine!" said the prince, smiling and looking at Lichonin.

"Stop it, Nijeradze," answered Lichonin, quietly but sternly. "You ought to be ashamed."

"Blockhead!" Soloviev threw at him, and continued.

"So, then, the machine moves back and forth, while upon it, on a square frame, is stretched a thin canvas, and really, I don't know how it's contrived, I didn't grasp it; only the miss guides some metallic thingamajig over the screen, and there comes out a fine drawing in vari-coloured silks. Just imagine, a lake, all grown over with pond-lilies with their white corollas and yellow stamens, and great green leaves all around. And on the water two white swans are floating toward each other, and in the background is a dark park with an alley; and all this shows finely, distinctly, as on a picture from life. And I became so interested that I went in on purpose to find out how much it costs. It proved to be just the least bit dearer than an ordinary sewing machine, and it's sold on terms. And any one who can sew a little on a common machine can learn this art in an hour. And there's a great number of charming original designs. And the main thing is that such work is very readily taken for fire-screens, albums, lamp-shades, curtains and other rubbish, and the pay is decent."

"After all, that's a sort of a trade, too," agreed Lichonin, and stroked his beard in meditation. "But, to confess, here's what I wanted to do. I wanted to open up for her ... to open up a little cook-shop or dining room, the very tiniest to start with, of course, but one in which all the food is cheap, clean and tasty. For it's absolutely all the same to many students where they dine and what they eat. There are almost never enough places to go round in the students' dining room. And so we may succeed, perhaps, in pulling in all our acquaintances and friends, somehow."

"That's true," said the prince, "but impractical as well; we'll begin to board on credit. And you know what accurate payers we are. A practical man, a knave, is needed for such an undertaking; and if a woman, then one with a pike's teeth; and even then a man must absolutely stick right at her back. Really, it's not for Lichonin to stand at the counter and to watch that somebody shouldn't suddenly wine and dine and slip away."

Lichonin looked straight at him, insolently, but only set his jaws and let it pass in silence.

Simanovsky began in his measured, incontrovertible tone, toying with the glasses of his PINCE-NEZ:

"Your intention is splendid, gentlemen, beyond dispute. But have you turned your attention to a certain shady aspect, so to speak? For to open a dining room, to start some business—all this in the beginning demands money, assistance—somebody else's back, so to speak. The money is not grudged—that is true, I agree with Lichonin; but then, does not such a beginning of an industrious life, when every step is provided for—does it not lead to inevitable laxity and negligence, and, in the very end, to an indifferent disdain for business? Even a child does not learn to walk until it has flopped down some fifty times. No; if you really want to help this poor girl, you must give her a chance of getting on her feet at once, like a toiling being, and not like a drone. True, there is a great temptation here—the burden of labour, temporary need; but then, if she will surmount this, she will surmount the rest as well."

"What, then, according to you, is she to become—a dish-washer?" asked Soloviev with unbelief.

"Well, yes," calmly retorted Simanovsky. "A dish-washer, a laundress, a cook. All toil elevates a human being."

Lichonin shook his head.

"Words of gold. Wisdom itself speaks with your lips, Simanovsky. Dish-washer, cook, maid, housekeeper ... but, in the first place, it's doubtful if she's capable for that; in the second place, she has already been a maid and has tasted all the sweets of masters' bawlings out, and masters' pinches behind doors, in the corridor. Tell me, is it possible you don't know that ninety per cent, of prostitution is recruited from the number of female servants? And, therefore, poor Liuba, at the very first injustice, at the first rebuff, will the more easily and readily go just there where I have gotten her out of; if not even worse, because for her that's customary and not so frightful; and, perhaps, it will even seem desirable after the masters' treatment. And besides that, is it worth while for me—that is, I want to say—is it worth while for all of us, to go to so much trouble, to try so hard and put ourselves out so, if, after having saved a being from one slavery, we only plunge her into another?"

"Right," confirmed Soloviev.

"Just as you wish," drawled Simanovsky with a disdainful air.

"But as far as I'm concerned," said the prince, "I'm ready, as a friend and a curious man, to be present at this experiment and to participate in it. But even this morning I warned you, that there have been such experiments before and that they have always ended in ignominious failure, at least those of which we know personally; while those of which we know only by hearsay are dubious as regards authenticity. But you have begun the business—and go on with it. We are your helpers."

Lichonin struck the table with his palm.

"No!" he exclaimed stubbornly. "Simanovsky is partly right concerning the great danger of a person's being led in leading strings. But I don't see any other way out. In the beginning I'll help her with room and board... find some easy work, buy the necessary accessories for her. Let be what may! And let us do everything in order to educate her mind a little; and that her heart and soul are beautiful, of that I am sure. I've no grounds for the faith, but I am sure, I almost know. Nijeradze! Don't clown!" he cried abruptly, growing pale, "I've restrained myself several times already at your fool pranks. I have until now held you as a man of conscience and feeling. One more inappropriate witticism, and I'll change my opinion of you; and know, that it's forever."

"Well, now, I didn't mean anything... Really, I... Why go all up in the air, me soul? You don't like that I'm a gay fellow, well, I'll be quiet. Give me your hand, Lichonin, let's drink!"

"Well, all right, get away from me. Here's to your health! Only don't behave like a little boy, you Ossetean ram. Well, then, I continue, gentlemen. If we find anything which might satisfy the just opinion of Simanovsky about the dignity of independent toil, unsustained by anything, then I shall stick to my system: to teach Liuba whatever is possible, to take her to the theatre, to expositions, to popular lectures, to museums; to read aloud to her, give her the possibility of hearing music—comprehensible music, of course. It's understood, I alone won't be able to manage all this. I expect help from you; and after that, whatever God may will."

"Oh, well," said Simanovsky, "the work is new, not threadbare; and how can we know the unknowable—perhaps you, Lichonin, will become the spiritual father of a good being. I, too, offer my services."

"And I! And I!" the other two seconded; and right there, without getting up from the table, the four students worked out a very broad and very wondrous program of education and enlightenment for Liubka.

Soloviev took upon himself to teach the girl grammar and writing. In order not to tire her with tedious lessons, and as a reward for successes, he would read aloud for her artistic fiction, Russian and foreign, easy of comprehension. Lichonin left for himself the teaching of arithmetic, geography and history.

While the prince said simple-heartedly, without his usual facetiousness this time:

"I, my children, don't know anything; while that which I do know, I know very badly. But I'll read to her the remarkable production of the great Georgian poet Rustavelli, and translate it line by line. I confess to you, that I'm not much of a pedagogue: I tried to be a tutor, but they politely chased me out after only the second lesson. Still, no one can teach better playing on a guitar, mandolin, and the bagpipes!"

Nijeradze was speaking with perfect seriousness, and for that reason Lichonin with Soloviev good-naturedly started laughing; but with entire unexpectedness, to the general amazement of all, Simanovsky sustained him.

"The prince speaks common sense. To have the mastery of an instrument elevates the aesthetic sense, in any case; and is even a help in life. And I, for my part, gentlemen ... I propose to read with the young person the CAPITAL of Marx, and the history of human culture. And to take up chemistry and physics with her, besides."

If it were not for the customary authority of Simanovsky and the importance with which he spoke, the remaining three would have burst into laughter in his face. They only stared at him, with eyes popping out.

"Well, yes," continued Simanovsky imperturbably, "I'll show her a whole series of chemical and physical experiments, which it is possible to carry on at home; which are always amusing and beneficial to the mind; and which eradicate prejudices. Incidentally, I'll explain something of the structure of the world, of the properties of matter. And as far as Karl Marx is concerned, just remember, that great books are equally accessible to the understanding both of a scholar and an unlettered peasant, if only comprehensibly presented. And every great thought is simple."

Lichonin found Liubka at the place agreed upon, on a bench of the boulevard. She went home with him very unwillingly. Just as Lichonin had supposed, meeting the grumbling Alexandra was a fearful thing to her, who had long since grown unused to every-day actuality; harsh, and plentiful with all sorts of unpleasantnesses. And besides that, the fact that Lichonin did not want to conceal her past acted oppressively upon her. But she, who had long ago lost her will in the establishment of Anna Markovna, deprived of her personality, ready to follow after the call of every stranger, did not tell him a word and walked after him.

The crafty Alexandra had already managed during this time to run to the superintendent of the houses and to complain to him, that, now, Lichonin had come with some miss, had passed the night with her in the room; but who she is, that Alexandra don't know; that Lichonin says she is his first cousin, like; but did not present a passport. It was necessary to explain things at great length, diffusedly and tiresomely, to the superintendent, a coarse and insolent man, who bore himself to all the tenants in the house as toward a conquered city; and feared only the students slightly, because they gave him a severe rebuff at times. Lichonin propitiated him only when he rented on the spot another room, several rooms away from his, for Liubka; under the very slope of the roof, so that it represented on the inside a sharply cut-off, low, four-sided pyramid, with one little window.

"But still, Mr. Lichonin, just you present the passport to-morrow without fail," said the superintendent insistently at parting. "Since you're a respectable man, hard-working, and you and I are long acquainted, also you pay punctually, I am willing to do it only for you. You know yourself what hard times these are. If some one tells on me, they'll not only fire me, but they can put me out of town as well. They're strict now."

In the evening Lichonin strolled with Liubka through Prince Park, listened to the music playing in the aristocratic club, and returned home early. He escorted Liubka to the door of her room and at once took leave of her; kissing her, however, tenderly on the brow, like a father. But after ten minutes, when he was already lying in bed undressed and reading the statutes of state, Liubka, having scratched on his door like a cat, suddenly entered his room.

"Darling, sweetie! Excuse me for troubling you. Haven't you a needle and thread? But don't get angry at me; I'll go away at once."

"Liuba! I beg of you to go away not at once, but this second. Finally, I demand it!"

"My dearie, my pretty," Liubka began to intone laughably and piteously, "well, what are you yelling at me for all the time?" and, in a moment, having blown upon the candle, she nestled up to him in the darkness, laughing and crying.

"No, Liuba, this must not be. It's impossible to go on like this," Lichonin was saying ten minutes later, standing at the door, wrapped up in his blanket, like a Spanish hidalgo in a cape. "To-morrow at the latest I'll rent a room for you in another house. And, in general, don't let this occur! God be with you, and good night! Still, you must give me your word of honour that our relations will be merely friendly."

"I give it, dearie, I give it, I give it, I give it!" she began to prattle, smiling; and quickly smacked him first on the lips and then on his hand.

The last action was altogether instinctive; and, perhaps, unexpected even to Liubka herself. Never yet in her life had she kissed any man's hand, save a priest's. Perhaps she wanted to express through this her gratitude to Lichonin, and a prostration before him as before a higher being.

CHAPTER XV.

Among Russian intelligents, as has already been noted by many, there is a decent quantity of wonderful people; true children of the Russian land and culture, who would be able heroically, without the quivering of a single muscle, to look straight in the face of death; who are capable for the sake of an idea of bearing unconceivable privations and sufferings, equal to torture; but then, these people are lost before the haughtiness of a doorman; shrink from the yelling of a laundress; while into a police station they enter in an insufferable and timid distress. And precisely such a one was Lichonin. On the following day (yesterday it had been impossible on account of a holiday and the lateness), having gotten up very early and recollecting that to-day he had to take care of Liubka's passport, he felt just as bad as when in former times, as a high-school boy, he went to an examination, knowing that he would surely fall through. His head ached, while his arms and legs somehow seemed another's; in addition, a drizzling and seemingly dirty rain had been falling on the street since morning. "Always, now, when there's some unpleasantness in store, there is inevitably a rain falling," reflected Lichonin, dressing slowly.

It was not especially far from his street to the Yamskaya, not more than two-thirds of a mile. In general, he was not infrequently in those parts, but he had never had occasion to go there in the daytime; and on the way it seemed to him all the time that every one he met, every cabby and policeman, was looking at him with curiosity, with reproach, or with disdain, as though surmising the destination of his journey. As always on a nasty and muggy morning, all the faces that met his eyes seemed pale, ugly, with monstrously underlined defects. Scores of times he imagined all that he would say in the beginning at the house; and later at the station house; and every time the outcome was different. Angry at himself for this premature rehearsal, he would at times stop himself:

"Ah! You mustn't think, you mustn't presuppose what you're going to say. It always turns out far better when it's done right off..."

And then again imaginary dialogues would run through his head:

"You have no right to hold this girl against her wish."

"Yes, but let her herself give notice about going away."

"I act at her instruction."

"All right; but how can you prove this?" and again he would mentally cut himself short.

The city common began, on which cows were browsing; a board sidewalk along a fence; shaky little bridges over little brooklets and ditches. Then he turned into the Yamskaya. In the house of Anna Markovna all the windows were closed with shutters, with openings, in the form of hearts, cut out in the middle. And all of the remaining houses on the deserted street, desolated as though after a pestilence, were closed as well. With a contracting heart Lichonin pulled the bell-handle.

A maid, barefooted, with skirt caught up, with a wet rag in her hand, with face striped from dirt, answered the bell—she had just been washing the floor.

"I'd like to see Jennka," timidly requested Lichonin.

"Well, now, the young lady is busy with a guest. They haven't waked up yet."

"Well, Tamara then."

The maid looked at him mistrustfully.

"Miss Tamara—I don't know... I think she's busy too. But what you want—to pay a visit, or what?"

"Ah, isn't it all the same! A visit, let's say."

"I don't know. I'll go and look. Wait a while."

She went away, leaving Lichonin in the half-dark drawing room. The blue pillars of dust, coming from the openings in the shutters, pierced the heavy obscurity in all directions. Like hideous spots stood out of the gray murkiness the bepainted furniture and the sweetish oleographs on the walls. It smelt of yesterday's tobacco, of dampness, sourness; and of something else peculiar, indeterminate, uninhabited, of which places that are lived in only temporarily always smell in the morning—such as empty theatres, dance-halls, auditoriums. Far off in the city a droshky rumbled intermittently. The wall-clock monotonously ticked behind the wall. In a strange agitation Lichonin walked back and forth through the drawing room and rubbed and kneaded his trembling hands, and for some reason was stooping and felt cold.

"I shouldn't have started all this false comedy," he thought with irritation. "It goes without saying that I've now become the by-word of the entire university. The devil nudged me! And even during the day yesterday it wasn't too late, when she was saying that she was ready to go back. All I had to do was to give her for a cabby and a little pin money, and she'd have gone, and all would have been fine; and I would be independent now, free, and wouldn't be undergoing this tormenting and ignominious state of spirits. But it's too late to retreat now. To-morrow it'll be still later, and the day after to-morrow—still more. Having pulled off one fool stunt, it must be immediately put a stop to; but on the other hand, if you don't do that in time, it draws two others after it, and they—twenty new ones. Or, perhaps, it's not too late now? Why, she's silly, undeveloped, and, probably, a hysteric, like the rest of them. She's an animal, fit only for stuffing herself and for the bed. Oh! The devil!" Lichonin forcefully squeezed his cheeks and his forehead between his hands and shut his eyes. "And if I had but held out against the common, coarse, physical temptation! There, you see for yourself, this has happened twice already; and then it'll go on and on ..."

But side by side with these ran other thoughts, opposed to them:

"But then, I'm a man. I am master of my word. For that which urged me on to this deed was splendid, noble, lofty. I remember very well that rapture which seized me when my thought transpired into action! That was a pure, tremendous feeling. Or was it simply an extravagance of the mind, whipped up by alcohol; the consequence of a sleepless night, smoking, and long, abstract conversations?"

And immediately Liubka would appear before him, appear at a distance, as though out of the misty depths of time; awkward, timid, with her homely and endearing face, which had at once come to seem of infinitely close kinship; long, long familiar, and at the same time unpleasant—unjustly, without cause.

"Can it be that I'm a coward and a rag?" cried Lichonin inwardly and wrung his hands. "What am I afraid of, before whom am I embarrassed? Have I not always prided myself upon being sole master of my life? Let's suppose, even, that the phantasy, the extravagance, of making a psychological experiment upon a human soul—a rare experiment, unsuccessful in ninety-nine percent—has entered my head. Is it possible that I must render anybody an account in this, or fear anybody's opinion? Lichonin! Look down upon mankind from above!"

Jennie walked into the room, dishevelled, sleepy, in a night jacket on top of a white underskirt.

"A-a!" she yawned, extending her hand to Lichonin. "How d'you do, my dear student! How does your Liubochka feel herself in the new place? Call me in as a guest some time. Or are you spending your honeymoon on the quiet? Without any outside witnesses?"

"Drop the silly stuff, Jennechka. I came about the passport."

"So-o. About the passport," Jennka went into thought. "That is, there's no passport here, but you must take a blank from the housekeeper. You understand, our usual prostitute's blank; and then they'll exchange it for you for a real book at the station house. Only you see, my dear, I will be but ill help to you in this business. They are as like as not to beat me up if I come near a housekeeper or a porter. But here's what you do. You'd best send the maid for the housekeeper; tell her to say that a certain guest, now, a steady one, has come on business; that it's very urgent to see her personally. But you must excuse me—I'm going to back out, and don't you be angry, please. You know yourself—charity begins at home. But why should you hang around by yourself in this here darkness? You'd better go into the cabinet. If you want to, I'll send you beer there. Or, perhaps you want coffee? Or else," and her eyes sparkled slyly, "or else a girlie, perhaps? Tamara is busy, but may be Niura or Verka will do?"

"Stop it, Jennie! I came about a serious and important matter, but you ..."

"Well, well, I won't, I won't! I said it just so. I see that you observe faithfulness. That's very noble on your part. Let's go, then."

She led him into the cabinet, and, opening the inner bolt of the shutter, threw it wide open. The daylight softly and sadly splashed against the red and gold walls, over the candelabra, over the soft red velveteen furniture.

"Right here it began," reflected Lichonin with sad regret.

"I am going," said Jennka. "Don't you knuckle down too much before her, and Simeon too. Abuse them for all you're worth. It's daytime now, and they won't dare do anything to you. If anything happens, tell them straight that, now, you're going to the governor immediately and are going to tell on them. Tell 'em, that they'll be closed up and put out of town in twenty-four hours. Bawl 'em out and they get like silk. Well, now, I wish you success."

She went away. After ten minutes had passed, into the cabinet floated Emma Edwardovna, the housekeeper, in a blue satin PEGNOIR; corpulent, with an important face, broadening from the forehead down to the cheeks, just like a monstrous squash; with all her massive chins and breasts; with small, keen eyes, without eyelashes; with thin, malicious, compressed lips. Lichonin, arising, pressed the puffy hand extended to him, studded with rings, and suddenly thought with aversion:

"The devil take it! If this vermin had a soul, if it were possible to read this soul—then how many direct and indirect murders are lurking hidden within it!"

It must be said, that in starting out for the Yamkas, Lichonin, besides money, had fetched a revolver along with him; and on the road, while walking, he had frequently shoved his hand into his pocket and had there felt the chill contact of the metal. He expected affront, violence, and was prepared to meet them in a suitable manner. But, to his amazement, all that he had presupposed and had feared proved a timorous, fantastic fiction. The business was far more simple, more wearisome and more prosaic, and at the same time more unpleasant.

"JA, MEIN HERR," said the housekeeper indifferently and somewhat loftily, settling into a low chair and lighting a cigarette. "You pay for one night and instead of that took already the girl for one more night and one more day. ALSO, you owe twenty-five more roubles yet. When we let off a girlie for a night we take ten roubles, and for the twenty-four hours twenty-five roubles. That's a tax, like. Don't you want a smoke, young man?" she stretched out her case, and Lichonin, without himself knowing why, took a cigarette.

"I wanted to talk with you about something else entirely."

"O! Don't trouble yourself to speak: I understand everything very well. Probably the young man wants to take these girl, those Liubka, altogether to himself to set her up, or in order to—how do you Russians call it?—in order to safe her? Yes, yes, yes, that happens. Twenty-two years I live in a brothel, and I know, that this happens with very foolish young peoples. But only I assure you, that from this will come nothing out."

"Whether it will come out or whether it won't come out—that is already my affair," answered Lichonin dully, looking down at his fingers, trembling on his knees.

"O, of course, it's your affair, my young student," and the flabby cheeks and majestic chins of Emma Edwardovna began to jump from inaudible laughter. "From my soul I wish for you love and friendship; but only trouble yourself to tell this nasty creature, this Liubka, that she shouldn't dare to show even her nose here, when you throw her out into the street like a little doggie. Let her croak from hunger under a fence, or go into a half-rouble establishment for the soldiers!"

"Believe me, she won't return. I ask you merely to give me her certificate, without delay."

"The certificate? ACH, if you please! Even this very minute. Only I will first trouble you to pay for everything that she took here on credit. Have a look, here is her account book. I took it along with me on purpose. I knew already with what our conversation would end." She took out of the slit of her PEGNOIR—showing Lichonin for just a minute her fat, full-fleshed, yellow, enormous breast—a little book in a black cover, with the heading: ACCOUNT OF MISS IRENE VOSCHHENKOVA IN THE HOUSE OF ILL-FAME, MAINTAINED BY ANNA MARKOVNA SHAIBES, ON YAM-SKAYA STREET, NO. SO-AND-SO, and extended it to him across the table. Lichonin turned over the first page and read through four or five paragraphs of the printed rules. There dryly and briefly it was stated that the account book consists of two copies, of which one is kept by the proprietress while the other remains with the prostitute; that all income and expense were entered into both books; that by agreement the prostitute receives board, quarters, heat, light, bed linen, baths and so forth, and for this pays out to the proprietress in no case more than two-thirds of her earnings; while out of the remaining money she is bound to dress neatly and decently, having no less than two dresses for going out. Further, mention was made of the fact that payment was made with the help of stamps, which the proprietress gives out to the prostitute upon receipt of money from her; while the account is drawn up at the end of every month. And, finally, that the prostitute can at any time leave the house of prostitution, even if there does remain a debt of hers, which, however, she binds herself to cancel on the basis of general civil laws.

Lichonin prodded the last point with his finger, and, having turned the face of the book to the housekeeper, said triumphantly:

"Aha! There, you see: she has the right to leave the house at any time. Consequently, she can at any time quit your abominable dive of violence, baseness, and depravity, in which you ..." Lichonin began rattling off, but the housekeeper calmly cut him short:

"O! I have no doubt of this. Let her go away. Let her only pay the money."

"What about promissory notes? She can give promissory notes."

"Pst! Promissory notes! In the first place, she's illiterate; while in the second, what are her promissory notes worth? A spit and no more. Let her find a surety who would be worthy of trust, and then I have nothing against it."

"But, then, there's nothing said in the rules about sureties."

"There's many a thing not said! In the rules it also does not say that it's permitted to carry a girlie out of the house, without giving warning to the owners."

"But in any case you'll have to give me her blank."

"I will never do such a foolishness! Come here with some respectable person and with the police; and let the police certify that this friend of yours is a man of means; and let this man stand surety for you; and let, besides that, the police certify that you are not taking the girl in order to trade in her, or to sell her over to another stablishment—then as you please! Hand and foot!"

"The devil!" exclaimed Lichonin. "But if that surety will be I, I myself! If I'll sign your promissory notes right away ..."

"Young man! I don't know what you are taught in your different universities, but is it possible that you reckon me such a positive fool? God grant, that you have, besides those which are on you, still some other pants! God grant, that you should even the day after have for dinner the remnants of sausages from the sausage shop, and yet you say—a promissory note! What are you bothering my head for?"

Lichonin grew completely angry. He drew his wallet out of his pocket and slapped it down on the table.

"In that case I pay in cash and immediately!"

"ACH, that's a business of another kind," sweetly, but still with mistrust, the housekeeper intoned. "I will trouble you to turn the page, and see what the bill of your beloved is."

"Keep still, you carrion!"

"I'm still, you fool," calmly responded the housekeeper.

On the small ruled pages on the left side was designated the income, on the right were the expenses.

"Received in stamps, 15th of April," read Lichonin, "10 roubles; 16th—4 roubles; 17th—12 roubles; 18th—sick; 19th—sick; 20th—6 roubles; 21st—24 roubles."

"My God!" with loathing, with horror, reflected Lichonin. "Twelve men in one night!"

At the end of the month stood:

"Total 330 roubles."

"Lord! Why, this is some sort of delirium! One hundred and sixty-five visits," thought Lichonin, having mechanically calculated it, and still continued turning the pages. Then he went over to the columns on the right.

"Made, a red dress of silk with lace 84 roubles Dressmaker Eldokimova. Dressing sack of lace 35 roubles Dressmaker Eldokimova. Silk stockings 6 pair 36 roubles," &c., &c. "Given for cab-fare, given for candy, perfumes bought," &c., &c. "Total 205 roubles." After that from the 330 roubles were deducted 220 roubles—the share of the proprietress for board and lodging. The figure of 110 roubles resulted. The end of the monthly account declared:

"Total after the payment to the dressmaker and for other articles, of 110 roubles, a debt of ninety-five (95) roubles remains for Irene Voschhenkova and with the four hundred and eighteen roubles remaining from last year—five hundred and thirteen (513) roubles."

Lichonin's spirits fell. He did try, at first, to be indignant at the expensiveness of the materials supplied; but the housekeeper retorted with SANG FROID that that did not concern her at all; that the establishment demanded only that the girl dress decently, as becomes a girl from a decent, genteel house; while it did not concern itself with the rest. The establishment merely extended her credit in paying her expenses.

"But this is a vixen, a spider in human shape—this dressmaker of yours!" yelled Lichonin beside himself. "Why, she's in a conspiracy with you, cupping glass that you are, you abominable tortoise! Scuttlefish! Where's your conscience?"

The more agitated he grew, the more calm and jeering Emma Edwardovna became.

"Again I repeat: that is not my business. And you, young man, don't express yourself like that, because I will call the porter, and he will throw you out of the door."

Lichonin was compelled to bargain with the cruel woman long, brutally, till he grew hoarse, before she agreed, in the end, to take two hundred and fifty roubles in cash, and two hundred roubles in promissory notes. And even that only when Lichonin with his half-yearly certificate proved to her that he was finishing this year and would become a lawyer.

The housekeeper went after the ticket, while Lichonin took to pacing the cabinet back and forth. He had already looked over all the pictures on the walls: Leda with the swan, and the bathing on the shore of the sea, and the odalisque in a harem, and the satyr, bearing a naked nymph in his arms; but suddenly a small printed placard, framed and behind glass, half covered by a portiere, attracted his attention. It was the first time that it had come across Lichonin's eyes, and the student with amazement and aversion read these lines, expressed in the dead, official language of police stations. There with shameful, businesslike coldness, were mentioned all possible measures and precautions against infections; the intimacies of feminine toilet; the weekly medical inspections and all the adaptations for them. Lichonin also read that no establishment was to be situated nearer than a hundred steps from churches, places of learning, and court buildings; that only persons of the female sex may maintain houses of prostitution; that only her relatives, and even then of the female sex exclusively, and none older than seven years, may live with the proprietress; and that the proprietors and the owners of the house, as well as the girls, must in their relations among themselves and the guests as well, observe politeness, quiet, civility and decency, by no means allowing themselves drunkenness, swearing and brawls. And also that the prostitute must not allow herself the caresses of love when in an intoxicated condition or with an intoxicated man; and in addition to that, during the time of certain functions. Here also the prostitutes were most strictly forbidden to commit abortions. "What a serious and moral view of things!" reflected Lichonin with a malicious sneer.

Finally the business with Emma Edwarodvna was concluded. Having taken the money and written out a receipt, she stretched it out to Lichonin together with the blank, while he stretched out the money to her; at which, during the time of the operation, they both looked at each other's eyes and hands intently and warily. It was apparent that they both felt no especially great mutual trust. Lichonin put the documents away in his wallet and was preparing to depart. The housekeeper escorted him to the very stoop, and when the student was already standing in the street, she, remaining on the steps, leaned out and called after him:

"Student! Hey! Student!"

He stopped and turned around.

"What now?"

"And here's another thing. Now I must tell you, that your Liubka is trash, a thief, and sick with syphilis! None of our good guests wanted to take her; and anyway, if you had not taken her, then we would have thrown her out to-morrow! I will also tell you, that she had to do with the porter, with policemen, with janitors, and with petty thieves. Congratulations on your lawful marriage!"

"Oo-ooh! Vermin!" Lichonin roared back at her.

"You green blockhead!" called out the housekeeper and banged the door.

Lichonin went to the station house in a cab. On the way he recalled that he had not had time to look at the blank properly, at this renowned "yellow ticket," of which he had heard so much. This was an ordinary small white sheet, no larger than a postal envelope. On one side, in the proper column, were written out the name, father's name, and family name of Liubka, and her profession—"Prostitute"; and on the other side, concise extracts from the paragraphs of that placard which he had just read through—infamous, hypocritical rules about behaviour and external and internal cleanliness. "Every visitor." he read, "has the right to demand from the prostitute the written certificate of the doctor who has inspected her the last time." And again sentimental pity overcame the heart of Lichonin.

"Poor women!" he reflected with grief. "What only don't they do with you, how don't they abuse you, until you grow accustomed to everything, just like blind horses on a treadmill!" In the station house he was received by the district inspector, Kerbesh. He had spent the night on duty, had not slept his fill, and was angry. His luxurious, fan-shaped red beard was crumpled. The right half of the ruddy face was still crimsonly glowing from lying long on the uncomfortable oilcloth pillow. But the amazing, vividly blue eyes, cold and luminous, looked clear and hard, like blue porcelain. Having ended interrogating, recording, and cursing out with obscenities the throng of ragamuffins, taken in during the night for sobering up and now being sent out over their own districts, he threw himself against the back of the divan, put his hands behind his neck, and stretched with all his enormous, heroic body so hard that all his ligaments and joints cracked. He looked at Lichonin just as at a thing, and asked:

"And what will you have, Mr. Student?"

Lichonin stated his business briefly.

"And so I want," he concluded, "to take her to me ... how is this supposed to be done with you? ... in the capacity of a servant, or, if you want, a relative, in a word ... how is it done? ..."

"Well, in the capacity of a kept mistress or a wife, let's say," indifferently retorted Kerbesh and twirled in his hands a silver cigar case with monograms and little figures. "I can do absolutely nothing for you ... at least right now. If you desire to marry her, present a suitable permit from your university authorities. But if you're taking her on maintenance—then just think, where's the logic in that? You're taking a girl out of a house of depravity, in order to live with her in depraved cohabitation."

"A servant, finally," Lichonin put in.

"And even a servant. I'd trouble you to present an affidavit from your landlord—for, I hope, you're not a houseowner? Very well, then, an affidavit from your landlord, as to your being in a position to keep a servant; and besides that, all the documents, testifying that you're that very person you give yourself out to be; an affidavit, for instance, from your district and from the university, and all that sort of thing. For you, I hope, are registered? Or, perhaps, you are now, eh? ... Of the illegal ones?

"No, I am registered!" retorted Lichonin, beginning to lose patience.

"And that's splendid. But the young lady, about whom you're troubling yourself?"

"No, she's not registered as yet. But I have her blank in my possession, which, I hope, you'll exchange for a real passport for me, and then I'll register her at once."

Kerbesh spread his arms out wide, then again began toying with the cigar case.

"Can't do anything for you, Mr. Student, just nothing at all, until you present all the papers required. As far as the girl's concerned, why, she, as one not having the right of residence, will be sent to the police without delay, and there detained; unless she personally desires to go there, where you've taken her from. I've the honour of wishing you good day."

Lichonin abruptly pulled his hat over his eyes and went toward the door. But suddenly an ingenious thought flashed through his head, from which, however, he himself became disgusted. And feeling nausea in the pit of his stomach, with clammy, cold hands, experiencing a sickening pinching in his toes, he again walked up to the table and said as though carelessly, but with a catch in his voice:

"Pardon me, inspector. I've forgotten the most important thing; a certain mutual acquaintance of ours has instructed me to transmit to you a small debt of his."

"Hm! An acquaintance?" asked Kerbesh, opening wide his magnificent azure eyes. "And who may he be?"

"Bar ... Barbarisov."

"Ah, Barbarisov? So, so, so, I recollect, I recollect!"

"So then, won't you please accept these ten roubles?"

Kerbesh shook his head, but did not take the bit of paper.

"Well, but this Barbarisov of yours—that is, ours—is a swine. It isn't ten roubles he owes me at all, but a quarter of a century. What a scoundrel! Twenty-five roubles and some small change besides. Well, the small change, of course, I won't count up to him. God be with him! This, you see, is a billiard debt. I must say that he's a blackguard, plays crookedly ... And so, young man, dig up fifteen more."

"Well, but you are a knave, Mr. Inspector!" said Lichonin, getting out the money.

"Oh, mercy!" by now altogether good-naturedly retorted Kerbesh. "A wife, children ... You know yourself what our salary is ... Receive the little passport, young man. Sign your receipt. Best wishes."

A queer thing! The consciousness that the passport was, finally, in his pocket, for some reason suddenly calmed and again braced up and elevated Lichonin's nerves.

"Oh, well!" he thought, walking quickly along the street, "the very beginning has been laid down, the most difficult part has been done. Hold fast, now, Lichonin, and don't fall in spirit! What you've done is splendid and lofty. Let me be even a victim of this deed—it's all one! It's a shame, having done a good deed, to expect rewards for it right away. I'm not a little circus dog, and not a trained camel, and not the first pupil of a young ladies' genteel institute. Only it was useless for me to let loose yesterday before these bearers of enlightenment. It all turned out to be silly, tactless, and, in any case, premature. But everything in life is reparable. A person will sustain the heaviest, most disgraceful things; but, time passes, and they are recalled as trifles ..."

To his amazement, Liubka was not especially struck, and did not at all become overjoyed when he triumphantly showed her the passport. She was only glad to see Lichonin again. Perhaps, this primitive, naive soul had already contrived to cleave to its protector? She did throw herself upon his neck, but he stopped her, and quietly, almost in her ear, asked her:

"Liubka, tell me ... don't be afraid to tell the truth, no matter what it may be ... They told me just now, there in the house, that you're sick with a certain disease ... you know, that which is called the evil sickness. If you believe in me even to some extent, tell me, my darling, tell me, is that so or not?"

She turned red, covered her face with her hands, fell down on the divan and burst into tears.

"My dearie! Vassil Vassilich! Vasinka! Honest to God! Honest to God, now, there never was anything of the kind! I always was so careful! I was awfully afraid of this. I love you so! I would have told you without fail." She caught his hands, pressed them to her wet face and continued to assure him with the absurd and touching sincerity of an unjustly accused child.

And he at once believed her in his soul.

"I believe you, my child," he said quietly, stroking her hair. "Don't excite yourself, don't cry. Only let us not again give in to our weakness. Well, it has happened—let it have happened; but let us not repeat it any more.'

"As you wish," prattled the girl, kissing now his hands, now the cloth of his coat. "If I displease you so, then, of course, let it be as you wish."

However, this evening also the temptation was again repeated, and kept on repeating until the falls from grace ceased to arouse a burning shame in Lichonin, and turned into a habit, swallowing and extinguishing remorse.

CHAPTER XVI.

Justice must be rendered to Lichonin; he did everything to create for Liubka a quiet and secure existence. Since he knew that they would have to leave their mansard anyway—this bird house, rearing above the whole city—leave it not so much on account of its inconvenience and lack of space as on account of the old woman Alexandra, who with every day became more ferocious, captious and scolding—he resolved to rent a little bit of a flat, consisting of two rooms and a kitchen, on the Borschhagovka, at the edge of the town. He came upon an inexpensive one, for nine roubles a month, without fuel. True, Lichonin had to run very far from there to his pupils, but he relied firmly upon his endurance and health, and would often say:

"My legs are my own. I don't have to be sparing of them."

And, truly, he was a great master at walking. Once, for the sake of a joke, having put a pedometer in his vest pocket, he towards evening counted up twenty versts; which, taking into consideration the unusual length of his legs, equalled some twenty-five versts.[21] And he did have to run about quite a bit, because the fuss about Liubka's passport and the acquisition of household furnishings of a sort had eaten up all his accidental winnings at cards. He did try to take up playing again, on a small scale at first, but was soon convinced that his star at cards had now entered upon a run of fatal ill luck.

[21] A verst is equal to two-thirds of a mile.—Trans.

By now, of course, the real character of his relations with Liubka was a mystery to none of his comrades; but he still continued in their presence to act out the comedy of friendly and brotherly relations with the girl. For some reason he could not, or did not want to, realize that it would have been far wiser and more advantageous for him not to lie, not to be false, and not to pretend. Or, perhaps, although he did know this, he still could not change the established tone. As for the intimate relations, he inevitably played a secondary, passive role. The initiative, in the form of tenderness, caressing, always had to come from Liubka (she had remained Liubka, after all, and Lichonin had somehow entirely forgotten that he himself had read her real name—Irene—in the passport).

She, who had so recently given her body up impassively—or, on the contrary, with an imitation of burning passion—to tens of people in a day, to hundreds in a month, had become attached to Lichonin with all her feminine being, loving and jealous; had grown attached to him with body, feeling, thoughts. The prince was funny and entertaining to her, and the expansive Soloviev interestingly amusing; toward the crushing authoritativeness of Simanovsky she felt a supernatural terror; but Lichonin was for her at the same time a sovereign, and a divinity; and, which is the most horrible of all, her property and bodily joy.

It has long ago been observed, that a man who has lived his fill, has been worn out, gnawed and chewed by the jaws of amatory passions, will never again love with a strong and only love, simultaneously self-denying, pure, and passionate. But for a woman there are neither laws nor limitations in this respect. This observation was especially confirmed in Liubka. She was ready to crawl before Lichonin with delight, to serve him as a slave; but, at the same time, desired that he belong to her more than a table, than a little dog, than a night blouse. And he always proved wanting, always failing before the onslaught of this sudden love, which from a modest little stream had so rapidly turned into a river and had over-flowed its banks. And not infrequently he thought to himself, with bitterness and a sneer:

"Every evening I play the role of the beauteous Joseph; still, he at least managed to tear himself away, leaving his underwear in the hands of the ardent lady; but when will I at last get free of my yoke?"

And a secret enmity for Liubka was already gnawing him. All the more and more frequently various crafty plans of liberation came into his head. And some of them were to such an extent dishonest, that, after a few hours, or the next day, Lichonin squirmed inwardly from shame, recalling them.

"I am falling, morally and mentally!" he would at times think with horror. "It's not in vain that I read somewhere, or heard from some one, that the connection of a cultured man with a woman of little intellect will never elevate her to the level of the man, but, on the contrary, will bow him down and sink him to the mental and moral outlook of the woman."

And after two weeks she ceased to excite his imagination entirely. He gave in, as to violence, to the long-continued caresses, entreaties, and often even to pity.

Yet at the same time Liubka, who had rested and felt living, real soil under her, began to improve in looks with unusual rapidity, just as a flower bud, that but yesterday was almost dying, suddenly unfolds after a plentiful and warm rain. The freckles ran off her soft face, and the uncomprehending, troubled expression, like that of a young jackdaw, had disappeared from the dark eyes, and they had grown brighter and had begun to sparkle. The body grew stronger and filled out; the lips grew red. But Lichonin, seeing Liubka every day, did not notice this and did not believe those compliments which were showered upon her by his friends. "Fool jokes," he reflected, frowning. "The boys are spoofing."

As the lady of the house, Liubka proved to be less than mediocre. True, she could cook fat stews, so thick that the spoon stood upright in them; prepare enormous, unwieldy, formless cutlets; and under the guidance of Lichonin familiarized herself pretty rapidly with the great art of brewing tea (at seventy-five kopecks a pound); but further than that she did not go, probably because for each art and for each being there are extreme limitations of their own, which cannot in any way be surmounted. But then, she loved to wash floors very much; and carried out this occupation so often and with such zeal, that dampness soon set in in the flat and multipedes appeared.

Tempted once by a newspaper advertisement, Lichonin procured a stocking knitting machine for her, on terms. The art, the mastery of this instrument—promising, to judge by the advertisement, three roubles of clear profit a day—proved to be so uncomplicated that Lichonin, Soloviev, and Nijeradze easily mastered it in a few hours; while Lichonin even contrived to knit a whole stocking of uncommon durability, and of such dimensions that it would have proven big even for the feet of Minin and Pozharsky, whose statues are in Moscow, on Krasnaya Square. Only Liubka alone could not master this trade. At every mistake or tangle she was forced to turn to the co-operation of the men. But then, she learned pretty rapidly to make artificial flowers and, despite the opinion of Simanovsky, made them very exquisitely, and with great taste; so that after a month the hat specialty stores began to buy her work. And, what is most amazing, she had taken only two lessons in all from a specialist, while the rest she learned through a self-instructor, guiding herself only by the drawings supplemental to it. She did not contrive to make more than a rouble's worth of flowers in a week; but this money was her pride, and for the very first half-rouble that she made she bought Lichonin a mouthpiece for smoking.

Several years later Lichonin confessed to himself at soul, with regret and with a quiet melancholy, that this period of time was the most quiet, peaceful and comfortable one of all his life in the university and as a lawyer. This unwieldy, clumsy, perhaps even stupid Liubka, possessed some instinctive domesticity, some imperceptible ability of creating a bright and easy quietude around her. It was precisely she who attained the fact that Lichonin's quarters very soon became a charming, quiet centre; where all the comrades of Lichonin, who, as well as the majority of the students of that time, were forced to sustain a bitter struggle with the harsh conditions of life, felt somehow at ease, as though in a family; and rested at soul after heavy tribulations, need, and starvation. Lichonin recalled with grateful sadness her friendly complaisance, her modest and attentive silence, on those evenings around the samovar, when so much had been spoken, argued and dreamt.

In learning, things went with great difficulty. All these self-styled cultivators, collectively and separately, spoke of the fact that the education of the human mind, and the upbringing of the human soul must flow out of individual motives; but in reality they stuffed Liubka with just that which seemed to them the most necessary and indispensable, and tried to overcome together with her those scientific obstacles, which, without any loss, might have been left aside.

Thus, for example, Lichonin did not want, under any conditions, to become reconciled, in teaching her arithmetic, to her queer, barbarous, savage, or, more correctly, childish, primitive method of counting. She counted exclusively in ones, twos, threes and fives. Thus, for example, twelve to her was two times two threes; nineteen—three fives and two twos; and, it must be said, that through her system she with the rapidity of a counting board operated almost up to a hundred. To go further she dared not; and besides she had no practical need of this. In vain did Lichonin try to transfer her to a digital system. Nothing came of this, save that he flew into a rage, yelled at Liubka; while she would look at him in silence, with astonished, widely open and guilty eyes, the lashes of which stuck into long black arrows from tears. Also, through a capricious turn of her mind, she began to master addition and multiplication with comparative ease, but subtraction and division were for her an impenetrable wall. But then, she could, with amazing speed and wit, solve all possible jocose oral head-breaking riddles, and even remembered very many of them herself from the thousand year old usage of the village. Toward geography she was perfectly dull. True, she could orientate herself as to the four cardinal points on the street, in the garden, and in the room; hundreds of times better than Lichonin—the ancient peasant instinct in her asserted itself—but she stubbornly denied the sphericity of the earth and did not recognize the horizon; and when she was told that the terrestrial globe moves in space, she only snorted from laughter. Geographical maps to her were always an incomprehensible daubing in several colours; but separate figures she memorized exactly and quickly. "Where's Italy?" Lichonin would ask her. "Here it is, a boot," Liubka would say and triumphantly jabbed the Apennine Peninsula. "Sweden and Norway?" "This dog, which is jumping off a roof." "The Baltic Sea?" "A widow standing on her knees." "The Black Sea?" "A shoe." "Spain?" "A fatty in a cap" ... &c. With history matters went no better; Lichonin did not take into consideration the fact that she, with her childlike soul thirsting for fiction, would have easily become familiarized with historic events through various funny and heroically touching anecdotes; but he, accustomed to pulling through examinations and tutoring high-school boys of the fourth or fifth grade, starved her on names and dates. Besides that, he was very impatient, unrestrained, irascible; grew fatigued soon, and a secret—usually concealed but constantly growing—hatred for the girl who had so suddenly and incongruously warped all his life, more and more frequently and unjustly broke forth during the time of these lessons.

A far greater success as a pedagogue enjoyed Nijeradze. His guitar and mandolin always hung in the dining room, secured to the nails with ribbons. The guitar, with its soft, warm sounds, drew Liubka more than the irritating, metallic bleating of the mandolin. When Nijeradze would come to them as a guest (three or four times a week, in the evening), she herself would take the guitar down from the wall, painstakingly wipe it off with a handkerchief, and hand it over to him. He, having fussed for some time with the tuning, would clear his throat, put one leg over the other, negligently throw himself against the back of the chair, and begin in a throaty little tenor, a trifle hoarse, but pleasant and true:

"The trea-cha-rous sa-ound av akissing
Resahounds through the quiet night air;
Tuh all fla-ming hearts it is pleasing,
And given tuh each lovin' pair.

For a single mohoment of mee-ting ..."

And at this he would pretend to swoon away from his own singing, shut his eyes, toss his head in the passionate passages or during the pauses, tearing his right hand away from the strings; would suddenly turn to stone, and for a second would pierce Liubka's eyes with his languorous, humid, sheepish eyes. He knew an endless multitude of ballads, catches, and old-fashioned, jocose little pieces. Most of all pleased Liubka the universally familiar Armenian couplets about Karapet:

"Karapet has a buffet,
On the buffet's a confet,
On the confet's a portret—
That's the self-same Karapet."

[22] Anglice, "confet" is a bon-bon; "portret," a portrait.—Trans.

Of these couplets (in the Caucasus they are called kinto-uri—the song of the peddlers) the prince knew an infinite many, but the absurd refrain was always one and the same:

"Bravo, bravo, Katenka,
Katerin Petrovna,
Don't you kiss me on the cheek—a,
Kiss the backs of my head."

These couplets Nijeradze always sang in a diminished voice, preserving on his face an expression of serious astonishment about Karapet; while Liubka laughed until it hurt, until tears came, until she had nervous spasms. Once, carried away, she could not restrain herself and began to chime in with him, and their singing proved to be very harmonious. Little by little, when she had by degrees completely ceased to be embarrassed before the prince, they sang together more and more frequently. Liubka proved to have a very soft and low contralto, even though thin, on which her past life with its colds, drinking, and professional excesses had left absolutely no traces. And mainly—which was already a curious gift of God—she possessed an instinctive, inherent ability very exactly, beautifully, and always originally, to carry on the second voice. There came a time toward the end of their acquaintance, when Liubka did not beg the prince, but the prince Liubka, to sing some one of the beloved songs of the people, of which she knew a multitude. And so, putting her elbow on the table, and propping up her head with her palm, like a peasant woman, she would start off to the cautious, painstaking, quiet accompaniment:

"Oh, the nights have grown tiresome to me, and wearisome;
To be parted from my dearie, from my mate!
Oh, haven't I myself, woman-like, done a foolish thing—
Have stirred up the wrath of my own darling:
When I did call him a bitter drunkard! ..."

"Bitter drunkard!" the prince would repeat the last words together with her, and would forlornly toss his curly head, inclined to one side; and they both tried to end the song so that the scarcely seizable quivering of the guitar strings and the voice might by degrees grow quiet, and that it might not be possible to note when the sound ended and the silence came.

But then, in the matter of THE PANTHER'S SKIN, the work of the famous Georgian poet Rustavelli, prince Nijeradze fell down completely. The beauty of the poem, of course, consisted in the way it sounded in the native tongue; but scarcely would he begin to read in sing-song his throaty, sibilant, hawking phrases, when Liubka would at first shake for a long time from irresistible laughter; then, finally, burst into laughter, filling the whole room with explosive, prolonged peals. Then Nijeradze in wrath would slam shut the little tome of the adored writer, and swear at Liubka, calling her a mule and a camel. However, they soon made up.

There were times when fits of goatish, mischievous merriment would come upon Nijeradze. He would pretend that he wanted to embrace Liubka, would roll exaggeratedly passionate eyes at her, and would utter with a theatrically languishing whisper:

"Me soul! The best rosa in the garden of Allah! Honey and milk are upon thy lips, and thy breath is better than the aroma of kabob. Give me to drink the bliss of Nirvanah from the goblet of thy lips, O thou, my best Tifflissian she-goat!"

But she would laugh, get angry, strike his hands, and threaten to complain to Lichonin.

"V-va!" the prince would spread out his hands. "What is Lichonin? Lichonin is my friend, my brother, and bosom crony. But then, does he know what loffe is? Is it possible that you northern people understand loffe? It's we, Georgians, who are created for loffe. Look, Liubka! I'll show you right away what loffe is!" He would clench his fists, bend his body forward, and would start rolling his eyes so ferociously, gnash his teeth and roar with a lion's voice so, that a childish terror would encompass Liubka, despite the fact that she knew this to be a joke, and she would dash off running into another room.

It must be said, however, that for this lad, in general unrestrained in the matter of light, chance romances, existed special firm moral prohibitions, sucked in with the milk of his mother Georgian; the sacred adates concerning the wife of a friend. And then, probably he understood—and it must be said that these oriental men, despite their seeming naiveness—and, perhaps, even owing to it—possess, when they wish to, a fine psychic intuition—he understood, that having made Liubka his mistress for even one minute, he would be forever deprived of this charming, quiet, domestic evening comfort, to which he had grown so used. For he, who was on terms of thou-ing with almost the whole university, nevertheless felt himself so lonely in a strange city and in a country still strange to him!

These studies afforded the most pleasure of all to Soloviev. This big, strong, and negligent man somehow involuntarily, imperceptibly even to himself, began to submit to that hidden, unseizable, exquisite witchery of femininity; which not infrequently lurks under the coarsest covering, in the harshest, most gnarled environment. The pupil dominated, the teacher obeyed. Through the qualities of a primitive, but on the other hand a fresh, deep, and original soul, Liubka was inclined not to obey the method of another, but to seek out her own peculiar, strange processes. Thus, for example, she—like many children, however,—learned writing before reading. Not she herself, meek and yielding by nature, but some peculiar quality of her mind, obstinately refused in reading to harness a vowel alongside of a consonant, or vice versa; in writing, however, she would manage this. For penmanship along slanted rulings she, despite the general wont of beginners, felt a great inclination; she wrote bending low over the paper; blew on the paper from exertion, as though blowing off imaginary dust; licked her lips and stuck out with the tongue, from the inside, now one cheek, now the other. Soloviev did not thwart her, and followed after, along those ways which her instinct laid down. And it must be said, that during this month and a half he had managed to become attached with all his huge, broad, mighty soul to this chance, weak, transitory being. This was the circumspect, droll, magnanimous, somewhat wondering love, and the careful concern, of a kind elephant for a frail, helpless, yellow-downed chick.

The reading was a delectation for both of them, and here again the choice of works was directed by the taste of Liubka, while Soloviev only followed its current and its sinuosities. Thus, for example, Liubka did not overcome Don Quixote, tired, and, finally, turning away from him, with pleasure heard Robinson Crusoe through, and wept with especial copiousness over the scene of his meeting with his relatives. She liked Dickens, and very easily grasped his radiant humour; but the features of English manners were foreign to her and incomprehensible. They also read Chekhov more than once, and Liubka very freely, without difficulty, penetrated the beauty of his design, his smile and his sadness. Stories for children moved her, touched her to such a degree that it was laughable and joyous to look at her. Once Soloviev read to her Chekhov's story, The Fit, in which, as it is known, a student for the first time finds himself in a brothel; and afterwards, on the next day, writhes about, as in a fit, in the spasms of a keen psychic suffering and the consciousness of common guilt. Soloviev himself did not expect that tremendous impression which this narrative would make upon her. She cried, swore, wrung her hands, and exclaimed all the while:

"Lord! Where does he take all that stuff from, and so skillfully! Why, it's every bit just the way it is with us!"

Once he brought with him a book entitled THE HISTORY OF MANON LESCAUT AND THE CHEVALIER DE GRIEUX, the work of Abbe Prevost. It must be said that Soloviev himself was reading this remarkable book for the first time. But still, Liubka appraised it far more deeply and finely. The absence of a plot, the naiveness of the telling, the surplus of sentimentality, the olden fashion of the style—all this taken together cooled Soloviev; whereas Liubka received the joyous, sad, touching and flippant details of this quaint immortal novel not only through her ears, but as though with her eyes and with all her naively open heart.

"'Our intention of espousal was forgotten at St. Denis,'" Soloviev was reading, bending his tousled, golden-haired head, illuminated by the shade of the lamp, low over the book; "'we transgressed against the laws of the church and, without thinking of it, became espoused.'"

"What are they at? Of their own will, that is? Without a priest? Just so?" asked Liubka in uneasiness, tearing herself away from her artificial flowers.

"Of course. And what of it? Free love, and that's all there is to it. Like you and Lichonin, now."

"Oh, me! That's an entirely different matter. You know yourself where he took me from. But she's an innocent and genteel young lady. That's a low-down thing for him to do. And, believe me, Soloviev, he's sure to leave her later. Ah, the poor girl. Well, well, well, read on."

But already after several pages all the sympathies and commiserations of Liubka went over to the side of the deceived chevalier.

"'However, the visits and departures by thefts of M. de B. threw me into confusion. I also recollected the little purchases of Manon, which exceeded our means. All this smacked of the generosity of a new lover. "But no, no," I repeated, "it is impossible that Manon should deceive me! She is aware, that I live only for her, she is exceedingly well aware that I adore her."'"

"Ah, the little fool, the little fool!" exclaimed Liubka. "Why, can't you see right off that she's being kept by this rich man. Ah, trash that she is!"

And the further the novel unfolded, the more passionate and lively an interest did Liubka take in it. She had nothing against Manon's fleecing her subsequent patrons with the help of her lover and her brother, while de Grieux occupied himself with sharping at the club; but her every new betrayal brought Liubka into a rage, while the sufferings of the gallant chevalier evoked her tears. Once she asked:

"Soloviev, dearie, who was he—this author?"

"He was a certain French priest."

"He wasn't a Russian?"

"No, a Frenchman, I'm telling you. See, he's got everything so—the towns are French and the people have French names."

"Then he was a priest, you say? Where did he know all this from, then?"

"Well, he knew it, that's all. Because he was an ordinary man of the world, a nobleman, and only became a monk afterwards. He had seen a lot in his life. Then he again left the monks. But, however, here's everything about him written in detail in front of this book."

He read the biography of Abbe Prevost to her. Liubka heard it through attentively, shaking her head with great significance; asked over again about that which she did not understand in certain places, and when he had finished she thoughtfully drawled out:

"Then that's what he is! He's written it up awfully good. Only why is she so low down? For he loves her so, with all his life; but she's playing him false all the time."

"Well, Liubochka, what can you do? For she loved him too. Only she's a vain hussy, and frivolous. All she wants is only rags, and her own horses, and diamonds."

Liubka flared up and hit one fist against the other.

"I'd rub her into powder, the low-down creature? So that's called her having loved, too! If you love a man, then all that comes from him must be dear to you. He goes to prison, and you go with him to prison. He's become a thief, well, you help him. He's a beggar, but still you go with him. What is there out of the way, that there's only a crust of black bread, so long as there's love? She's low down, and she's low down, that's what! But I, in his place, would leave her; or, instead of crying, give her such a drubbing that she'd walk around in bruises for a whole month, the varmint!"

The end of the novel she could not manage to hear to the finish for a long time, and always broke out into sincere warm tears, so that it was necessary to interrupt the reading; and the last chapter they overcame only in four doses.

The calamities and misadventures of the lovers in prison, the compulsory despatch of Manon to America and the self-denial of de Grieux in voluntarily following her, so possessed the imagination of Liubka and shook her soul, that she even forgot to make her remarks. Listening to the story of the quiet, beautiful death of Manon in the midst of the desert plain, she, without stirring, with hands clasped on her breast, looked at the light; and the tears ran and ran out of her staring eyes and fell, like a shower, on the table. But when the Chevalier de Grieux, who had lain two days near the corpse of his dear Manon, finally began to dig a grave with the stump of his sword—Liubka burst into sobbing so that Soloviev became scared and dashed after water. But even having calmed down a little, she still sobbed for a long time with her trembling, swollen lips and babbled:

"Ah! Their life was so miserable! What a bitter lot that was! And is it possible that it's always like that, darling Soloviev; that just as soon as a man and a woman fall in love with each other, in just the way they did, then God is sure to punish them? Dearie, but why is that? Why?"

CHAPTER XVII.

But if the Georgian and the kind-souled Soloviev served as a palliating beginning against the sharp thorns of great worldly wisdom, in the curious education of the mind and soul of Liubka; and if Liubka forgave the pedantism of Lichonin for the sake of a first sincere and limitless love for him, and forgave just as willingly as she would have forgiven curses, beatings, or a heavy crime—the lessons of Simanovsky, on the other hand, were a downright torture and a constant, prolonged burden for her. For it must be said that he, as though in spite, was far more accurate and exact in his lessons than any pedagogue working out his weekly stipulated tutorings.

With the incontrovertibility of his opinions, the assurance of his tone and the didacticism of his presentation he took away the will of poor Liubka and paralyzed her soul; in the same way that he sometimes, during university gatherings or at mass meetings, influenced the timid and bashful minds of newcomers. He was an orator at meetings; he was a prominent member in the organization of students' mess halls; he took part in the recording, lithographing and publication of lectures; he was chosen the head of the course; and, finally, took a very great interest in the students' treasury. He was of that number of people who, after they leave the student auditoriums, become the leaders of parties, the unrestrained arbiters of pure and self-denying conscience; serve out their political stage somewhere in Chukhlon, directing the keen attention of all Russia to their heroically woeful situation; and after that, beautifully leaning on their past, make a career for themselves, thanks to a solid advocacy, a deputation, or else a marriage joined with a goodly piece of black loam land and provincial activity. Unnoticeably to themselves and altogether unnoticeably, of course, to the casual glance, they cautiously right themselves; or, more correctly, fade until they grow a belly unto themselves, and acquire podagra and diseases of the liver. Then they grumble at the whole world; say that they were not understood, that their time was the time of sacred ideals. While in the family they are despots and not infrequently give money out at usury.

The path of the education of Liubka's mind and soul was plain to him, as was plain and incontrovertible everything that he conceived; he wanted at the start to interest Liubka in chemistry and physics.

"The virginally feminine mind," he pondered, "will be astounded, then I shall gain possession of her attention, and from trifles, from hocus-pocus, I shall pass on to that which will lead her to the centre of universal knowledge, where there is no superstition, no prejudices; where there is only a broad field for the testing of nature."

It must be said that he was inconsistent in his lessons. He dragged in all that came to his hand for the astonishment of Liubka. Once he brought along for her a large self-made serpent—a long cardboard hose, filled with gunpowder, bent in the form of a harmonica, and tied tightly across with a cord. He lit it, and the serpent for a long time with crackling jumped over the dining room and the bedroom, filling the place with smoke and stench. Liubka was scarcely amazed and said that this was simply fireworks, that she had already seen this, and that you couldn't astonish her with that. She asked, however, permission to open the window. Then he brought a large phial, tinfoil, rosin and a cat's tail, and in this manner contrived a Leyden jar. The discharge, although weak, was produced, however.

"Oh, the unclean one take you, Satan!" Liubka began to cry out, having felt the dry fillip in her little finger.

Then, out of heated peroxide of manganese, mixed with sand, with the help of a druggist's vial, the gutta-percha end of a syringe, a basin filled with water, and a jam jar—oxygen was derived. The red-hot cork, coal and phosphorus burnt in the jar so blindingly that it pained the eyes. Liubka clapped her palms and squealed out in delight:

"Mister Professor, more! Please, more, more! ..."

But when, having united the oxygen with the hydrogen brought in an empty champagne bottle, and having wrapped up the bottle for precaution in a towel, Simanovsky ordered Liubka to direct its neck toward a burning candle, and when the explosion broke out, as though four cannons had been fired off at once—an explosion through which the plastering fell down from the ceiling—then Liubka grew timorous, and, only getting to rights with difficulty, pronounced with trembling lips, but with dignity: "You must excuse me now, but since I have a flat of my own, and I'm not at all a wench any longer, but a decent woman, I'd ask you therefore not to misbehave in my place. I thought you, like a smart and educated man, would do everything nice and genteel, but you busy yourself with silly things. They can even put one in jail for that."

Subsequently, much, much later, she told how she had a student friend, who made dynamite before her.

It must have been, after all, that Simanovsky, this enigmatic man, so influential in his youthful society, where he had to deal with theory for the most part, and so incoherent when a practical experiment with a living soul had come into his hands—was just simply stupid, but could skillfully conceal this sole sincere quality of his.

Having suffered failure in applied sciences, he at once passed on to metaphysics. Once he very self-assuredly, and in a tone such that after it no refutation was possible, announced to Liubka that there is no God, and that he would undertake to prove this during five minutes. Whereupon Liubka jumped up from her place, and told him firmly that she, even though a quondam prostitute, still believed in God and would not allow Him to be offended in her presence; and if he would continue such nonsense, then she would complain to Vassil Vassilich.

"I will also tell him," she added in a weeping voice, "that you, instead of teaching me, only rattle off all kinds of stuff and all that sort of nastiness, while you yourself hold your hand on my knees. And that's even not at all genteel." And for the first time during all their acquaintanceship she, who had formerly been so timorous and constrained, sharply moved away from her teacher.

However, having suffered a few failures, Simanovsky still obstinately continued to act upon the mind and imagination of Liubka. He tried to explain to her the theory of the origin of species, beginning with an amoeba and ending with Napoleon. Liubka listened to him attentively, and during this there was an imploring expression in her eyes: "When will you stop at last?" She yawned into a handkerchief and then guiltily explained: "Excuse me, that's from my nerves." Marx also had no success goods, supplementary value, the manufacturer and the worker, which had become algebraic formulas, were for Liubka merely empty sounds, vibrating the air; and she, very sincere at soul, always jumped up with joy from her place, when hearing that, apparently, the vegetable soup had boiled up, or the samovar was getting ready to boil over.

It cannot be said that Simanovsky did not have success with women. His aplomb and his weighty, decisive tone always acted upon simple souls, especially upon fresh, naive, trusting souls. Out of protracted ties he always got out very easily; either he was dedicated to a tremendously responsible call, before which domestic love relations were nothing; or he pretended to be a superman, to whom all is permitted (O, thou, Nietszche, so long ago and so disgracefully misconstrued for high-school boys!). The passive, almost imperceptible, but firmly evasive resistance of Liubka irritated and excited him. What particularly incensed him was the fact that she, who had formerly been so accessible to all, ready to yield her love in one day to several people in succession, to each one for two roubles, was now all of a sudden playing at some pure and disinterested inamoration!

"Nonsense," he thought. "This can't be. She's making believe, and, probably, I don't strike the right tone with her."

And with every day he became more exacting, captious, and stern. Hardly consciously, more probably through habit, he relied on his usual influence, intimidating the thought and subduing the will, which rarely betrayed him.

Once Liubka complained about him to Lichonin:

"He's too strict with me, now, Vassil Vassilievich; and I don't understand anything he says, and I don't want to take lessons with him any more."

Somehow or other, Lichonin lamely quieted her down; but still he had an explanation with Simanovsky. The other answered him with sang froid:

"Just as you wish, my dear fellow; if my method displeases you or Liubka, then I'm even ready to resign. My problem consists only of bringing in a genuine element of discipline into her education. If she does not understand anything, then I compel her to learn it by heart, aloud. With time this will cease. That is unavoidable. Recall, Lichonin, how difficult the transition from arithmetic to algebra was for us, when we were compelled to replace common numerals with letters, and did not know why this was done. Or why did they teach us grammar, instead of simply advising us to write tales and verses?"

And on the very next day, bending down low under the hanging shade of the lamp over Liubka's body, and sniffing all over her breast and under her arm pits, he was saying to her:

"Draw a triangle... Well, yes, this way and this way. On top I write 'Love.' Write simply the letter L, and below M and W. That will be: the Love of Man and Woman."

With the air of an oracle, unshakable and austere, he spoke all sorts of erotic balderdash and almost unexpectedly concluded:

"And so look, Liuba. The desire to love—it's the same as the desire to eat, to drink, and to breathe the air." He would squeeze her thigh hard, considerably above the knee; and she again, becoming confused and not wishing to offend him, would try almost imperceptibly to move her leg away gradually.

"Tell me, would it be offensive, now, for your sister, mother, or for your husband, that you by chance had not dined at home, but had gone into a restaurant or a cook-shop, and had there satisfied your hunger? And so with love. No more, no less. A physiological enjoyment. Perhaps more powerful, more keen, than all others, but that's all. Thus, for example, now: I want you as a woman. While you ..."

"Oh, drop it, Mister," Liubka cut him short with vexation. "Well, what are you harping on one and the same thing for all the time? Change your act. You've been told: no and no. Don't you think I see what you're trying to get at? But only I'll never agree to unfaithfulness, seeing as how Vasilli Vasillievich is my benefactor, and I adore him with all my soul... And you're even pretty disgusting to me with your nonsense."

Once he caused Liubka a great and scandalous hurt, and all because of his theoretical first principles. As at the university they were already for a long time talking about Lichonin's having saved a girl from such and such a house; and that now he is taken up with her moral regeneration; that rumour, naturally, also reached the studying girls, who frequented the student circles. And so, none other than Simanovsky once brought to Liubka two female medicos, one historian, and one beginning poetess, who, by the way, was already writing critical essays as well. He introduced them in the most serious and fool-like manner.

"Here," he said, stretching out his hand, now in the direction of the guests, now of Liubka, "here, comrades, get acquainted. You, Liuba, will find in them real friends, who will help you on your radiant path; while you—comrades, Liza, Nadya, Sasha and Rachel—you will regard as elder sisters a being who has just struggled out of that horrible darkness into which the social structure places the modern woman."

He spoke not exactly so, perhaps; but in any case, approximately in that manner. Liubka turned red, extended her hand, with all the fingers clumsily folded together, to the young ladies in coloured blouses and in leather belts; regaled them with tea and jam; promptly helped them with lights for cigarettes; but, despite all invitations, did not want to sit down for anything. She would say: "Yes-ss, n-no, as you wish." And when one of the young ladies dropped a handkerchief on the floor, she hurriedly made a dash to pick it up.

One of the maidens, red, stout, and with a bass voice, whose face, all in all, consisted of only a pair of red cheeks, out of which mirth-provokingly peeped out a hint at an upturned nose, and with a pair of little black eyes, like tiny raisins, sparkling out of their depths, was inspecting Liubka from head to feet, as though through an imaginary lorgnette; directing over her a glance which said nothing, but was contemptuous. "Why, I haven't been getting anybody away from her," thought Liubka guiltily. But another was so tactless, that she—perhaps for the first time for her, but the hundredth for Liubka—began a conversation about: how had she happened upon the path of prostitution? This was a bustling young lady, pale, very pretty, ethereal; all in little light curls, with the air of a spoiled kitten and even a little pink cat's bow on her neck.

"But tell me, who was this scoundrel, now ... who was the first to ... well, you understand? ..."

In the mind of Liubka quickly flashed the images of her former mates, Jennka and Tamara, so proud, so brave and resourceful—oh, far brainier than these maidens—and she, almost unexpectedly for herself, suddenly said sharply:

"There was a lot of them. I've already forgotten. Kolka, Mitka, Volodka, Serejka, Jorjik, Troshka, Petka, and also Kuzka and Guska with a party. But why are you interested?"

"Why... no... that is, I ask as a person who fully sympathizes with you."

"But have you a lover?"

"Pardon me, I don't understand what you're saying. People, it's time we were going."

"That is, what don't you understand? Have you ever slept with a man?"

"Comrade Simanovsky, I had not presupposed that you would bring us to such a person. Thank you. It was exceedingly charming of you!"

It was difficult for Liubka to surmount the first step. She was of those natures which endure long, but tear loose rapidly; and she, usually so timorous, was unrecognizable at this moment.

"But I know!" she was screaming in wrath. "I know, that you're the very same as I! But you have a papa, a mamma; you're provided for, and if you have to, then you'll even commit abortion—many do so. But if you were in my place, when there's nothing to stuff your mouth with, and a girlie doesn't understand anything yet, because she can't read or write; while all around the men are shoving like he-dogs—then you'd be in a sporting house too. It's a shame to put on airs before a poor girl—that's what!"

Simanovsky, who had gotten into trouble, said a few general consolatory words in a judicious bass, such as the noble fathers used in olden comedies, and led his ladies off.

But he was fated to play one more very shameful, distressing, and final role in the free life of Liubka. She had already complained to Lichonin for a long time that the presence of Simanovsky was oppressive to her; but Lichonin paid no attention to womanish trifles: the vacuous, fictitious, wordy hypnosis of this man of commands was strong within him. There are influences, to get rid of which is difficult, almost impossible. On the other hand, he was already for a long time feeling the burden of co-habitation with Liubka. Frequently he thought to himself: "She is spoiling my life; I am growing common, foolish; I have become dissolved in fool benevolence; it will end up in my marrying her, entering the excise or the assay office, or getting in among pedagogues; I'll be taking bribes, will gossip, and become an abominable provincial morel. And where are my dreams of the power of thought, the beauty of life, of love and deeds for all humanity?" he would say, at times even aloud, and pull his hair. And for that reason, instead of attentively going into Liubka's complaints, he would lose his temper, yell, stamp his feet, and the patient, meek Liubka would grow quiet and retire into the kitchen, to have a good cry there.

Now more and more frequently, after family quarrels, in the minutes of reconciliation he would say to Liubka:

"My dear Liuba, you and I do not suit each other, comprehend that. Look: here are a hundred roubles for you, ride home. Your relatives will receive you as their own. Live there a while, look around you. I will come for you after half a year; you'll have become rested, and, of course, all that's filthy, nasty, that has been grafted upon you by the city, will go away, will die off. And you'll begin a new life independently, without any assistance, alone and proud!"

But then, can anything be done with a woman who has come to love for the first, and, of course, as it seems to her, for the last time? Can she be convinced of the necessity for parting? Does logic exist for her?

Always reverent before the firmness of the words and decisions of Simanovsky, Lichonin, however, surmised and by instinct understood his real relation to Liubka; and in his desire to free himself, to shake off a chance load beyond his strength, he would catch himself in a nasty little thought: "She pleases Simanovsky; and as for her, isn't it all the same if it's he or I or a third? Guess I'll make a clean breast of it, explain things to him and yield Liubka up to him like a comrade. But then, the fool won't go. Will raise a rumpus."

"Or just to come upon the two of them together, somehow," he would ponder further, "in some decisive pose... to raise a noise, make a row... A noble gesture... a little money and... a getaway."

He now frequently, for several days, would not return home; and afterwards, having come, would undergo torturesome hours of feminine interrogations, scenes, tears, even hysterical fits. Liubka would at times watch him in secret, when he went out of the house; would stop opposite the entrance that he went into, and for hours would await his return in order to reproach him and to cry in the street. Not being able to read, she intercepted his letters and, not daring to turn to the aid of the prince or Soloviev, would save them up in her little cupboard together with sugar, tea, lemon and all sorts of other trash. She had even reached the stage when, in minutes of anger, she threatened him with sulphuric acid.

"May the devil take her," Lichonin would ponder during the minutes of his crafty plans. "It's all one, let there even be nothing between them. But I'll take and make a fearful scene for him, and her."

And he would declaim to himself:

"Ah, so! ... I have warmed you in my bosom, and what do I see now? You are paying me with black ingratitude. ... And you, my best comrade, you have attempted my sole happiness! ... O, no, no, remain together; I go hence with tears in my eyes. I see, that I am one too many! I do not wish to oppose your love, etc., etc."

And precisely these dreams, these hidden plans, such momentary, chance, and, at bottom, vile ones—of those to which people later do not confess to themselves—were suddenly fulfilled. It was the turn of Soloviev's lesson. To his great happiness, Liubka had at last read through almost without faltering: "A good plough has Mikhey, and a good one has Sisoi as well... a swallow... a swing ... the children love God..." And as a reward for this Soloviev read aloud to her Of the Merchant Kalashnikov and of Kiribeievich, Life-guardsman of Czar Ivan the Fourth. Liubka from delight bounced in her armchair, clapped her hands. The beauty of this monumental, heroic work had her in its grasp. But she did not have a chance to express her impressions in full. Soloviev was hurrying to a business appointment. And immediately, coming to meet Soloviev, having barely exchanged greetings with him in the doorway, came Simanovsky. Liubka's face sadly lengthened and her lips pouted. For this pedantic teacher and coarse male had become very repugnant to her of late.

This time he began a lecture on the theme that for man there exist no laws, no rights, no duties, no honour, no vileness; and that man is a quantity self-sufficient, independent of anyone and anything.

"It's possible to be a God, possible to be an intestinal worm, a tape worm—it's all the same."

He already wanted to pass on to the theory of amatory emotions; but, it is to be regretted, he hurried a trifle from impatience: he embraced Liubka, drew her to him and began to squeeze her roughly. "She'll become intoxicated from caressing. She'll give in!" thought the calculating Simanovsky. He sought to touch her mouth with his lips for a kiss, but she screamed and snorted spit at him. All the assumed delicacy had left her.

"Get out, you mangy devil, fool, swine, dirt! I'll smash your snout for you! ..."

All the lexicon of the establishment had come back to her; but Simanovsky, having lost his pince-nez, his face distorted, was looking at her with blurred eyes and jabbering whatever came into his head:

"My dear ... It's all the same ... a second of enjoyment! ... You and I will blend in enjoyment! ... No one will find out! ... Be mine! ..."

It was just at this very minute that Lichonin walked into the room.

Of course, at soul he did not admit to himself that this minute he would commit a vileness; but only somehow from the side, at a distance, reflected that his face was pale, and that his immediate words would be tragic and of great significance.

"Yes!" he said dully, like an actor in the fourth act of a drama; and, letting his hands drop impotently, began to shake his chin, which had fallen upon his breast. "I expected everything, only not this. You I excuse, Liuba—you are a cave being; but you, Simanovsky ... I esteemed you ... however, I still esteem you a decent man. But I know, that passion is at times stronger than the arguments of reason. Right here are fifty roubles—I am leaving them for Liuba; you, of course, will return them to me later, I have no doubt of that. Arrange her destiny ... You are a wise, kind, honest man, while I am ... ("A skunk!" somebody's distinct voice flashed through his head.) I am going away, because I will not be able to bear this torture any more. Be happy."

He snatched out of his pocket and with effect threw his wallet on the table; then seized his hair and ran out of the room.

Still, this was the best way out for him. And the scene had been played out precisely as he had dreamt of it.