Anton Chekov..........................................................................................................................................1

The highroad was dry, a lovely April sun was shining warmly, but the snow was still lying in the ditches and

in the woods. Winter, dark, long, and spiteful, was hardly over; spring had come all of a sudden. But neither

the warmth nor the languid transparent woods, warmed by the breath of spring, nor the black flocks of birds

flying over the huge puddles that were like lakes, nor the marvelous fathomless sky, into which it seemed one

would have gone away so joyfully, presented anything new or interesting to Marya Vassilyevna who was

sitting in the cart. For thirteen years she had been schoolmistress, and there was no reckoning how many

times during all those years she had been to the town for her salary; and whether it were spring as now, or a

rainy autumn evening, or winter, it was all the same to her, and she always invariably longed for one

She felt as though she had been living in that part of the country for ages and ages, for a hundred years, and it

seemed to her that she knew every stone, every tree on the road from the town to her school. Her past was

here, her present was here, and she could imagine no other future than the school, the road to the town and

She had got out of the habit of thinking of her past before she became a schoolmistress, and had almost

forgotten it. She had once had a father and mother; they had lived in Moscow in a big flat near the Red Gate,

but of all that life there was left in her memory only something vague and fluid like a dream. Her father had

died when she was ten years old, and her mother had died soon after. . . . She had a brother, an officer; at first

they used to write to each other, then her brother had given up answering her letters, he had got out of the

way of writing. Of her old belongings, all that was left was a photograph of her mother, but it had grown dim

from the dampness of the school, and now nothing could be seen but the hair and the eyebrows.

When they had driven a couple of miles, old Semyon, who was driving, turned round and said:

"They have caught a government clerk in the town. They have taken him away. The story is that with some

And again they were silent for a long time. Marya Vassilyevna thought of her school, of the examination that

was coming soon, and of the girl and four boys she was sending up for it. And just as she was thinking about

the examination, she was overtaken by a neighboring landowner called Hanov in a carriage with four horses,

the very man who had been examiner in her school the year before. When he came up to her he recognized

This Hanov, a man of forty with a listless expression and a face that showed signs of wear, was beginning to

look old, but was still handsome and admired by women. He lived in his big homestead alone, and was not in

the service; and people used to say of him that he did nothing at home but walk up and down the room

whistling, or play chess with his old footman. People said, too, that he drank heavily. And indeed at the

examination the year before the very papers he brought with him smelt of wine and scent. He had been

dressed all in new clothes on that occasion, and Marya Vassilyevna thought him very attractive, and all the

while she sat beside him she had felt embarrassed. She was accustomed to see frigid and sensible examiners

at the school, while this one did not remember a single prayer, or know what to ask questions about, and was

"I am going to visit Bakvist," he went on, addressing Marya Vassilyevna, "but I am told he is not at home."

They turned off the highroad into a byroad to the village, Hanov leading the way and Semyon following.

The four horses moved at a walking pace, with effort dragging the heavy carriage through the mud. Semyon

tacked from side to side, keeping to the edge of the road, at one time through a snowdrift, at another through

a pool, often jumping out of the cart and helping the horse. Marya Vassilyevna was still thinking about the

school, wondering whether the arithmetic questions at the examination would be difficult or easy. And she

felt annoyed with the Zemstvo board at which she had found no one the day before. How unbusinesslike!

Here she had been asking them for the last two years to dismiss the watchman, who did nothing, was rude to

her, and hit the schoolboys; but no one paid any attention. It was hard to find the president at the office, and

when one did find him he would say with tears in his eyes that he hadn't a moment to spare; the inspector

visited the school at most once in three years, and knew nothing whatever about his work, as he had been in

the Excise Duties Department, and had received the post of school inspector through influence. The School

Council met very rarely, and there was no knowing where it met; the school guardian was an almost illiterate

peasant, the head of a tanning business, unintelligent, rude, and a great friend of the watchman's and

The road grew worse and worse. . . . They drove into the wood. Here there was no room to turn round, the

wheels sank deeply in, water splashed and gurgled through them, and sharp twigs struck them in the face.

The schoolmistress looked at him and could not understand why this queer man lived here. What could his

money, his interesting appearance, his refined bearing do for him here, in this mud, in this Godforsaken,

dreary place? He got no special advantages out of life, and here, like Semyon, was driving at a jogtrot on an

appalling road and enduring the same discomforts. Why live here if one could live in Petersburg or abroad?

And one would have thought it would be nothing for a rich man like him to make a good road instead of this

bad one, to avoid enduring this misery and seeing the despair on the faces of his coachman and Semyon; but

he only laughed, and apparently did not mind, and wanted no better life. He was kind, soft, naive, and he did

not understand this coarse life, just as at the examination he did not know the prayers. He subscribed nothing

to the schools but globes, and genuinely regarded himself as a useful person and a prominent worker in the

The cart lurched violently and was on the point of upsetting; something heavy rolled on to Marya

Vassilyevna's feet it was her parcel of purchases. There was a steep ascent uphill through the clay; here in

the winding ditches rivulets were gurgling. The water seemed to have gnawed away the road; and how could

one get along here! The horses breathed hard. Hanov got out of his carriage and walked at the side of the road

"What a road!" he said, and laughed again. "It would soon smash up one's carriage."

"Nobody obliges you to drive about in such weather," said Semyon surlily. "You should stay at home."

Beside old Semyon he looked graceful and vigorous, but yet in his walk there was something just perceptible

which betrayed in him a being already touched by decay, weak, and on the road to ruin. And all at once there

was a whiff of spirits in the wood. Marya Vassilyevna was filled with dread and pity for this man going to his

ruin for no visible cause or reason, and it came into her mind that if she had been his wife or sister she would

have devoted her wh ole life to saving him from ruin. His wife! Life was so ordered that here he was living in

his great house alone, and she was living in a Godforsaken village alone, and yet for some reason the mere

thought that he and she might be close to one another and equals seemed impossible and absurd. In reality,

life was arranged and human relations were complicated so utterly beyond all understanding that when one

"And it is beyond all understanding," she thought, "why God gives beauty, this graciousness, and sad, sweet

"Here we must turn off to the right," said Hanov, getting into his carriage. "Goodby! I wish you all things

And again she thought of her pupils, of the examination, of the watchman, of the School Council; and when

the wind brought the sound of the retreating carriage these thoughts were mingled with others. She longed to

His wife? It was cold in the morning, there was no one to heat the stove, the watchman disappeared; the

children came in as soon as it was light, bringing in snow and mud and making a noise: it was all so

inconvenient, so comfortless. Her abode consisted of one little room and the kitchen close by. Her head ached

every day after her work, and after dinner she had heartburn. She had to collect money from the

schoolchildren for wood and for the watchman, and to give it to the school guardian, and then to entreat him

that overfed, insolent peasant for God's sake to send her wood. And at night she dreamed of

examinations, peasants, snowdrifts. And this life was making her grow old and coarse, making her ugly,

angular, and awkward, as though she were made of lead. She was always afraid, and she would get up from

her seat and not venture to sit down in the presence of a member of the Zemstvo or the school guardian. And

she used formal, deferential expressions when she spoke of any one of them. And no one thought her

attractive, and life was passing drearily, without affection, without friendly sympathy, without interesting

acquaintances. How awful it would have been in her position if she had fallen in love!

She had become a schoolmistress from necessity, without feeling any vocation for it; and she had never

thought of a vocation, of serving the cause of enlightenment; and it always seemed to her that what was most

important in her work was not the children, nor enlightenment, but the examinations. And what time had she

for thinking of vocation, of serving the cause of enlightenment? Teachers, badly paid doctors, and their

assistants, with their terribly hard work, have not even the comfort of thinking that they are serving an idea or

the people, as their heads are always stuffed with thoughts of their daily bread, of wood for the fire, of bad

roads, of illnesses. It is a hardworking, an uninteresting life, and only silent, patient carthorses like Mary

Vassilyevna could put up with it for long; the lively, nervous, impressionable people who talked about

Semyon kept picking out the driest and shortest way, first by a meadow, then by the backs of the village huts;

but in one place the peasants would not let them pass, in another it was the priest's land and they could not

cross it, in another Ivan Ionov had bought a plot from the landowner and had dug a ditch round it. They kept

They reached Nizhneye Gorodistche. Near the tavern on the dungstrewn earth, where the snow was still

lying, there stood wagons that had brought great bottles of crude sulphuric acid. There were a great many

people in the tavern, all drivers, and there was a smell of vodka, tobacco, and sheepskins. There was a loud

noise of conversation and the banging of the swingdoor. Through the wall, without ceasing for a moment,

came the sound of a concertina being played in the shop. Marya Vassilyevna sat down and drank some tea,

while at the next table peasants were drinking vodka and beer, perspiring from the tea they had just

"I say, Kuzma!" voices kept shouting in confusion. "What there!" "The Lord bless us!" "Ivan Dementyitch, I

A little pockmarked man with a black beard, who was quite drunk, was suddenly surprised by something

"What are you swearing at, you there?" Semyon, who was sitting some way off, responded angrily. "Don't

"We meant nothing . . ." said the little man in confusion. "I beg your pardon. We pay with our money and the

Marya Vassilyevna drank her tea with satisfaction, and she, too, began turning red like the peasants, and fell

"Stay, old man," she heard from the next table, "it's the schoolmistress from Vyazovye. . . . We know her;

The swingdoor was continually banging, some coming in, others going out. Marya Vassilyevna sat on,

thinking all the time of the same things, while the concertina went on playing and playing. The patches of

sunshine had been on the floor, then they passed to the counter, to the wall, and disappeared altogether; so by

the sun it was past midday. The peasants at the next table were getting ready to go. The little man, somewhat

unsteadily, went up to Marya Vassilyevna and held out his hand to her; following his example, the others

shook hands, too, at parting, and went out one after another, and the swingdoor squeaked and slammed nine

"A little while back they were building a school here in their Nizhneye Gorodistche," said Semyon, turning

"They say the president put a thousand in his pocket, and the school guardian another thousand in his, and the

"The whole school only cost a thousand. It's wrong to slander people, grandfather. That's all nonsense."

But it was clear that Semyon did not believe the schoolmistress. The peasants did not believe her. They

always thought she received too large a salary, twentyone roubles a month (five would have been enough),

and that of the money that she collected from the children for the firewood and the watchman the greater part

she kept for herself. The guardian thought the same as the peasants, and he himself made a profit off the

firewood and received payments from the peasants for being a guardian without the knowledge of the

The forest, thank God! was behind them, and now it would be flat, open ground all the way to Vyazovye, and

there was not far to go now. They had to cross the river and then the railway line, and then Vyazovye was in

"Where are you driving?" Marya Vassilyevna asked Semyon. "Take the road to the right to the bridge."

"Look, Hanov is driving to the bridge," said Marya Vassilyevna, seeing the four horses far away to the right.

"It is. So he didn't find Bakvist at home. What a pigheaded fellow he is. Lord have mercy upon us! He's

They reached the river. In the summer it was a little stream easily crossed by wading. It usually dried up in

August, but now, after the spring floods, it was a river forty feet in breadth, rapid, muddy, and cold; on the

bank and right up to the water there were fresh tracks of wheels, so it had been crossed here.

"Go on!" shouted Semyon angrily and anxiously, tugging violently at the reins and jerking his elbows as a

The horse went on into the water up to his belly and stopped, but at once went on again with an effort, and

"Nice mess it is, Lord have mercy upon us!" muttered Semyon, setting straight the harness. "It's a perfect

Her shoes and goloshes were full of water, the lower part of her dress and of her coat and one sleeve were wet

and dripping: the sugar and flour had got wet, and that was worst of all, and Marya Vassilyevna could only

The barrier was down at the railway crossing. A train was coming out of the station. Marya Vassilyevna

stood at the crossing waiting till it should pass, and shivering all over with cold. Vyazovye was in sight now,

and the school with the green roof, and the church with its crosses flashing in the evening sun: and the station

windows flashed too, and a pink smoke rose from the engine . . . and it seemed to her that everything was

Here was the train; the windows reflected the gleaming light like the crosses on the church: it made her eyes

ache to look at them. On the little platform between two firstclass carriages a lady was standing, and Marya

Vassilyevna glanced at her as she passed. Her mother! What a resemblance! Her mother had had just such

luxuriant hair, just such a brow and bend of the head. And with amazing distinctness, for the first time in

those thirteen years, there rose before her mind a vivid picture of her mother, her father, her brother, their flat

in Moscow, the aquarium with little fish, everything to the tiniest detail; she heard the sound of the piano, her

father's voice; she felt as she had been then, young, goodlooking, welldressed, in a bright warm room

among her own people. A feeling of joy and happiness suddenly came over her, she pressed her hands to her

And she began crying, she did not know why. Just at that instant Hanov drove up with his team of four

horses, and seeing him she imagined happiness such as she had never had, and smiled and nodded to him as

an equal and a friend, and it seemed to her that her happiness, her triumph, was glowing in the sky and on all

sides, in the windows and on the trees. Her father and mother had never died, she had never been a

schoolmistress, it was a long, tedious, strange dream, and now she had awakened. . . .

And at once it all vanished. The barrier was slowly raised. Marya Vassilyevna, shivering and numb with cold,

got into the cart. The carriage with the four horses crossed the railway line; Semyon followed it. The

A MEDICAL student called Mayer, and a pupil of the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture, and

Architecture called Rybnikov, went one evening to see their friend Vassilyev, a law student, and suggested

that he should go with them to S. Street. For a long time Vassilyev would not consent to go, but in the end he

He knew nothing of fallen women except by hearsay and from books, and he had never in his life been in the

houses in which they live. He knew that there are immoral women who, under the pressure of fatal

circumstances environment, bad education, poverty, and so on are forced to sell their honor for money.

They know nothing of pure love, have no children, have no civil rights; their mothers and sisters weep over

them as though they were dead, science treats of them as an evil, men address them with contemptuous

familiarity. But in spite of all that, they do not lose the semblance and image of God. They all acknowledge

their sin and hope for salvation. Of the means that lead to salvation they can avail themselves to the fullest

extent. Society, it is true, will not forgive people their past, but in the sight of God St. Mary of Egypt is no

lower than the other saints. When it had happened to Vassilyev in the street to recognize a fallen woman as

such, by her dress or her manners, or to see a picture of one in a comic paper, he always remembered a story

he had once read: a young man, pure and selfsacrificing, loves a fallen woman and urges her to become his

Vassilyev lived in one of the side streets turning out of Tverskoy Boulevard. When he came out of the house

with his two friends it was about eleven o'clock. The first snow had not long fallen, and all nature was under

the spell of the fresh snow. There was the smell of snow in the air, the snow crunched softly under the feet;

the earth, the roofs, the trees, the seats on the boulevard, everything was soft, white, young, and this made the

houses look quite different from the day before; the street lamps burned more brightly, the air was more

transparent, the carriages rumbled with a deeper note, and with the fresh, light, frosty air a feeling stirred in

the soul akin to the white, youthful, feathery snow. "Against my will an unknown force," hummed the

"Behold the mill . . . in ruins now," the medical student repeated, raising his eyebrows and shaking his head

He paused, rubbed his forehead, trying to remember the words, and then sang aloud, so well that passersby

The three of them went into a restaurant and, without taking off their greatcoats, drank a couple of glasses of

vodka each. Before drinking the second glass, Vassilyev noticed a bit of cork in his vodka, raised the glass to

his eyes, and gazed into it for a long time, screwing up his shortsighted eyes. The medical student did not

"Come, why look at it? No philosophizing, please. Vodka is given us to be drunk, sturgeon to be eaten,

women to be visited, snow to be walked upon. For one evening anyway live like a human being!"

"But I haven't said anything . . ." said Vassilyev, laughing. "Am I refusing to?"

There was a warmth inside him from the vodka. He looked with softened feelings at his friends, admired

them and envied them. In these strong, healthy, cheerful people how wonderfully balanced everything is, how

finished and smooth is everything in their minds and souls! They sing, and have a passion for the theatre, and

draw, and talk a great deal, and drink, and they don't have headaches the day after; they are both poetical and

debauched, both soft and hard; they can work, too, and be indignant, and laugh without reason, and talk

nonsense; they are warm, honest, selfsacrificing, and as men are in no way inferior to himself, Vassilyev,

who watched over every step he took and every word he uttered, who was fastidious and cautious, and ready

to raise every trifle to the level of a problem. And he longed for one evening to live as his friends did, to open

out, to let himself loose from his own control. If vodka had to be drunk, he would drink it, though his head

would be splitting next morning. If he were taken to the women he would go. He would laugh, play the fool,

He went out of the restaurant laughing. He liked his friends one in a crushed broadbrimmed hat, with an

affectation of artistic untidiness; the other in a sealskin cap, a man not poor, though he affected to belong to

the Bohemia of learning. He liked the snow, the pale street lamps, the sharp black tracks left in the first snow

by the feet of the passersby. He liked the air, and especially that limpid, tender, naive, as it were virginal

tone, which can be seen in nature only twice in the year when everything is covered with snow, and in

And the tune for some reason haunted him and his friends all the way, and all three of them hummed it

Vassilyev's imagination was picturing how, in another ten minutes, he and his friends would knock at a door;

how by little dark passages and dark rooms they would steal in to the women; how, taking advantage of the

darkness, he would strike a match, would light up and see the face of a martyr and a guilty smile. The

unknown, fair or dark, would certainly have her hair down and be wearing a white dressingjacket; she

would be panicstricken by the light, would be fearfully confused, and would say: "For God's sake, what are

The friends turned out of Trubnoy Square into Gratchevka, and soon reached the side street which Vassilyev

only knew by reputation. Seeing two rows of houses with brightly lighted windows and wideopen doors,

and hearing gay strains of pianos and violins, sounds which floated out from every door and mingled in a

strange chaos, as though an unseen orchestra were tuning up in the darkness above the roofs, Vassilyev was

"That's nothing," said the medical student. "In London there are ten times as many. There are about a hundred

The cabmen were sitting on their boxes as calmly and indifferently as in any other side street; the same

passersby were walking along the pavement as in other streets. No one was hurrying, no one was hiding his

face in his coatcollar, no one shook his head reproachfully. . . . And in this indifference to the noisy chaos of

pianos and violins, to the bright windows and wideopen doors, there was a feeling of something very open,

insolent, reckless, and devilmaycare. Probably it was as gay and noisy at the slavemarkets in their day,

The friends went into a narrow passage lighted by a lamp with a reflector. When they opened the door a man

in a black coat, with an unshaven face like a flunkey's, and sleepylooking eyes, got up lazily from a yellow

sofa in the hall. The place smelt like a laundry with an odor of vinegar in addition. A door from the hall led

into a brightly lighted room. The medical student and the artist stopped at this door and, craning their necks,

"Buona sera, signori, rigolleto hugenotti traviata!" began the artist, with a theatrical bow.

"Havanna tarakano pistoleto!" said the medical student, pressing his cap to his breast and bowing low.

Vassilyev was standing behind them. He would have liked to make a theatrical bow and say something silly,

too, but he only smiled, felt an awkwardness that was like shame, and waited impatiently for what would

A little fair girl of seventeen or eighteen, with short hair, in a short lightblue frock with a bunch of white

"Why do you stand at the door?" she said. "Take off your coats and come into the drawingroom."

The medical student and the artist, still talking Italian, went into the drawingroom. Vassilyev followed them

"Gentlemen, take off your coats!" the flunkey said sternly; "you can't go in like that."

In the drawingroom there was, besides the girl, another woman, very stout and tall, with a foreign face and

bare arms. She was sitting near the piano, laying out a game of patience on her lap. She took no notice

"They are having their tea," said the fair girl. "Stepan," she called, "go and tell the young ladies some students

A little later a third young lady came into the room. She was wearing a bright red dress with blue stripes. Her

face was painted thickly and unskillfully, her brow was hidden under her hair, and there was an unblinking,

frightened stare in her eyes. As she came in, she began at once singing some song in a coarse, powerful

In all this Vassilyev saw nothing new or interesting. It seemed to him that that room, the piano, the

lookingglass in its cheap gilt frame, the bunch of white ribbon, the dress with the blue stripes, and the blank

indifferent faces, he had seen before and more than once. Of the darkness, the silence, the secrecy, the guilty

smile, of all that he had expected to meet here and had dreaded, he saw no trace.

Everything was ordinary, prosaic, and uninteresting. Only one thing faintly stirred his curiosity the

terrible, as it were intentionally designed, bad taste which was visible in the cornices, in the absurd pictures,

in the dresses, in the bunch of ribbons. There was something characteristic and peculiar in this bad taste.

"How poor and stupid it all is!" thought Vassilyev. "What is there in all this trumpery I see now that can

tempt a normal man and excite him to commit the horrible sin of buying a human being for a rouble? I

understand any sin for the sake of splendor, beauty, grace, passion, taste; but what is there here? What is there

"With pleasure," he said, bowing politely. "Only excuse me, madam, I . . . I won't drink with you. I don't

"Why did you ask for porter?" said the medical student angrily. "What a millionaire! You have thrown away

"If she wants it, why not let her have the pleasure?" said Vassilyev, justifying himself.

"You did not give pleasure to her, but to the 'Madam.' They are told to ask the visitors to stand them treat

Going into the next house, the friends stopped in the hall and did not go into the drawingroom. Here, as in

the first house, a figure in a black coat, with a sleepy face like a flunkey's, got up from a sofa in the hall.

Looking at this flunkey, at his face and his shabby black coat, Vassilyev thought: "What must an ordinary

simple Russian have gone through before fate flung him down as a flunkey here? Where had he been before

and what had he done? What was awaiting him? Was he married? Where was his mother, and did she know

that he was a servant here?" And Vassilyev could not help particularly noticing the flunkey in each house. In

one of the houses he thought it was the fourth there was a little spare, fraillooking flunkey with a

watchchain on his waistcoat. He was reading a newspaper, and took no notice of them when they went in.

Looking at his face Vassilyev, for some reason, thought that a man with such a face might steal, might

murder, might bear false witness. But the face was really interesting: a big forehead, gray eyes, a little

flattened nose, thin compressed lips, and a blankly stupid and at the same time insolent expression like that of

a young harrier overtaking a hare. Vassilyev thought it would be nice to touch this man's hair, to see whether

Having drunk two glasses of porter, the artist became suddenly tipsy and grew unnaturally lively.

"Let's go to another!" he said peremptorily, waving his hands. "I will take you to the best one."

When he had brought his fri ends to the house which in his opinion was the best, he declared his firm

intention of dancing a quadrille. The medical student grumbled something about their having to pay the

It was just as nasty in the best house as in the worst. Here there were just the same lookingglasses and

pictures, the same styles of coiffure and dress. Looking round at the furnishing of the rooms and the

costumes, Vassilyev realized that this was not lack of taste, but something that might be called the taste, and

even the style, of S. Street, which could not be found elsewheresomething intentional in its ugliness, not

accidental, but elaborated in the course of years. After he had been in eight houses he was no longer surprised

at the color of the dresses, at the long trains, the gaudy ribbons, the sailor dresses, and the thick purplish

rouge on the cheeks; he saw that it all had to be like this, that if a single one of the women had been dressed

like a human being, or if there had been one decent engraving on the wall, the general tone of the whole street

"How unskillfully they sell themselves!" he thought. "How can they fail to understand that vice is only

alluring when it is beautiful and hidden, when it wears the mask of virtue? Modest black dresses, pale faces,

mournful smiles, and darkness would be far more effective than this clumsy tawdriness. Stupid things! If they

don't understand it of themselves, their visitors might surely have taught them. . . ."

A young lady in a Polish dress edged with white fur came up to him and sat down beside him.

"Usually soup, beefsteak, and dessert. Our madam keeps the girls well. But why do you ask all this?"

Vassilyev longed to talk to the young lady about many things. He felt an intense desire to find out where she

came from, whether her parents were living, and whether they knew that she was here; how she had come

into this house; whether she were cheerful and satisfied, or sad and oppressed by gloomy thoughts; whether

she hoped some day to get out of her present position. . . . But he could not think how to begin or in what

shape to put his questions so as not to seem impertinent. He thought for a long time, and asked:

"Eighty," the young lady jested, looking with a laugh at the antics of the artist as he danced.

All at once she burst out laughing at something, and uttered a long cynical sentence loud enough to be heard

by everyone. Vassilyev was aghast, and not knowing how to look, gave a constrained smile. He was the only

one who smiled; all the others, his friends, the musicians, the women, did not even glance towards his

Vassilyev felt a repulsion for her white fur and for her voice, and walked away from her. It seemed to him hot

and stifling, and his heart began throbbing slowly but violently, like a hammer one! two! three!

While the artist and the medical student were finishing the quadrille, to avoid looking at the women,

Vassilyev scrutinized the musicians. A respectablelooking old man in spectacles, rather like Marshal

Bazaine, was playing the piano; a young man with a fair beard, dressed in the latest fashion, was playing the

violin. The young man had a face that did not look stupid nor exhausted, but intelligent, youthful, and fresh.

He was dressed fancifully and with taste; he played with feeling. It was a mystery how he and the

respectablelooking old man had come here. How was it they were not ashamed to sit here? What were they

If the violin and the piano had been played by men in rags, looking hungry, gloomy, drunken, with dissipated

or stupid faces, then one could have understood their presence, perhaps. As it was, Vassilyev could not

understand it at all. He recalled the story of the fallen woman he had once read, and he thought now that that

human figure with the guilty smile had nothing in common with what he was seeing now. It seemed to him

that he was seeing not fallen women, but some different world quite apart, alien to him and

incomprehensible; if he had seen this world before on the stage, or read of it in a book, he would not have

The woman with the white fur burst out laughing again and uttered a loathsome sentence in a loud voice. A

feeling of disgust took possession of him. He flushed crimson and went out of the room.

"While we were dancing," said the medical student, as they all three went out into the street, "I had a

conversation with my partner. We talked about her first romance. He, the hero, was an accountant at

Smolensk with a wife and five children. She was seventeen, and she lived with her papa and mamma, who

"So he knew how to get his partner's story out of her," thought Vassilyev about the medical student. "But I

"Because I don't know how to behave here. Besides, I am bored, disgusted. What is there amusing in it? If

they were human beings but they are savages and animals. I am going; do as you like."

"Come, Grisha, Grigory, darling. . ." said the artist in a tearful voice, hugging Vassilyev, "come along! Let's

They persuaded Vassilyev and led him up a staircase. In the carpet and the gilt banisters, in the porter who

opened the door, and in the panels that decorated the hall, the same S. Street style was apparent, but carried to

"Come, come, dear boy," said the artist, and he kissed him on the neck. "Don't be tiresome. . . . Grigri, be a

good comrade! We came together, we will go back together. What a beast you are, really!"

"Come, come, Grisha. . . . If it is loathsome, you can observe it! Do you understand? You can observe!"

Vassilyev went into the drawingroom and sat down. There were a number of visitors in the room besides

him and his friends: two infantry officers, a bald, grayhaired gentleman in spectacles, two beardless youths

from the institute of landsurveying, and a very tipsy man who looked like an actor. All the young ladies

Only one of them, dressed _a la Aida,_ glanced sideways at him, smiled, and said, yawning: "A dark one has

Vassilyev's heart was throbbing and his face burned. He felt ashamed before these visitors of his presence

here, and he felt disgusted and miserable. He was tormented by the thought that he, a decent and loving man

(such as he had hitherto considered himself), hated these women and felt nothing but repulsion towards them.

"It is because I am not trying to understand them," he thought. "They are all more like animals than human

beings, but of course they are human beings all the same , they have souls. One must understand them and

"Yes, one must make an effort to understand, one mustn't be like this. . ." Vassilyev went on thinking.

And he began gazing at each of the women with strained attention, looking for a guilty smile. But either he

did not know how to read their faces, or not one of these women felt herself to be guilty; he read on every

face nothing but a blank expression of everyday vulgar boredom and complacency. Stupid faces, stupid

smiles, harsh, stupid voices, insolent movements, and nothing else. Apparently each of them had in the past a

romance with an accountant based on underclothes for fifty roubles, and looked for no other charm in the

present but coffee, a dinner of three courses, wines, quadrilles, sleeping till two in the afternoon. . . .

Finding no guilty smile, Vassilyev began to look whether there was not one intelligent face. And his attention

was caught by one pale, rather sleepy, exhaustedlooking face. . . . It was a dark woman, not very young,

wearing a dress covered with spangles; she was sitting in an easychair, looking at the floor lost in thought.

Vassilyev walked from one corner of the room to the other, and, as though casually, sat down beside her.

"I must begin with something trivial," he thought, "and pass to what is serious. . . ."

"What a pretty dress you have," and with his finger he touched the gold fringe of her fichu.

"It's a pity I cannot describe nature," thought Vassilyev. "I might touch her by a description of nature in

"Yes, when I hadn't the money to study. Even if I hadn't anyone could understand that. A beggar is anyway a

The dark woman stretched, and watched with sleepy eyes the footman who was bringing a trayful of glasses

"Porter," thought Vassilyev. "And what if your brother or mother walked in at this moment? What would you

All at once there was the sound of weeping. From the adjoining room, from which the footman had brought

the seltzer water, a fair man with a red face and angry eyes ran in quickly. He was followed by the tall, stout

"Nobody has given you leave to slap girls on the cheeks! We have visitors better than you, and they don't

A hubbub arose. Vassilyev was frightened and turned pale. In the next room there was the sound of bitter,

genuine weeping, as though of someone insulted. And he realized that there were real people living here who,

like people everywhere else, felt insulted, suffered, wept, and cried for help. The feeling of oppressive hate

and disgust gave way to an acute feeling of pity and anger against the aggressor. He rushed into the room

where there was weeping. Across rows of bottles on a marbletop table he distinguished a suffering face, wet

with tears, stretched out his hands towards that face, took a step towards the table, but at once drew back in

As he made his way though the noisy crowd gathered about the fair man, his heart sank and he felt frightened

like a child; and it seemed to him that in this alien, incomprehensible world people wanted to pursue him, to

beat him, to pelt him with filthy words. . . . He tore down his coat from the hatstand and ran headlong

Leaning against the fence, he stood near the house waiting for his friends to come out. The sounds of the

pianos and violins, gay, reckless, insolent, and mournful, mingled in the air in a sort of chaos, and this tangle

of sounds seemed again like an unseen orchestra tuning up on the roofs. If one looked upwards into the

darkness, the black background was all spangled with white, moving spots: it was snow falling. As the

snowflakes came into the light they floated round lazily in the air like down, and still more lazily fell to the

ground. The snowflakes whirled thickly round Vassilyev and hung upon his beard, his eyelashes, his

"And how can the snow fall in this street!" thought Vassilyev. "Damnation take these houses!"

His legs seemed to be giving way from fatigue, simply from having run down the stairs; he gasped for breath

as though he had been climbing uphill, his heart beat so loudly that he could hear it. He was consumed by a

desire to get out of the street as quickly as possible and to go home, but even stronger was his desire to wait

There was much he did not understand in these houses, the souls of ruined women were a mystery to him as

before; but it was clear to him that the thing was far worse than could have been believed. If that sinful

woman who had poisoned herself was called fallen, it was difficult to find a fitting name for all these who

were dancing now to this tangle of sound and uttering long, loathsome sentences. They were not on the road

"There is vice," he thought, "but neither consciousness of sin nor hope of salvation. They are sold and bought,

steeped in wine and abominations, while they, like sheep, are stupid, indifferent, and don't understand. My

It was clear to him, too, that everything that is called human dignity, personal rights, the Divine image and

semblance, were defiled to their very foundations "to the very marrow," as drunkards say and that not

A group of students, white with snow, passed him laughing and talking gaily; one, a tall thin fellow, stopped,

"One of us! A bit on, old man? Ahaha! Never mind, have a good time! Don't be downhearted, old chap!"

He took Vassilyev by the shoulder and pressed his cold wet mustache against his cheek, then he slipped,

"Don't you dare to hit the women! I won't let you, damnation take you! You scoundrels!"

The medical student appeared in the doorway. He looked from side to side, and seeing Vassilyev, said in an

"You here! I tell you it's really impossible to go anywhere with Yegor! What a fellow he is! I don't

understand him! He has got up a scene! Do you hear? Yegor!" he shouted at the door. Yegor!"

"I won't allow you to hit women!" the artist's piercing voice sounded from above. Something heavy and

lumbering rolled down the stairs. It was the artist falling headlong. Evidently he had been pushed downstairs.

He picked himself up from the ground, shook his hat, and, with an angry and indignant face, brandished his

"Scoundrels! Torturers! Bloodsuckers! I won't allow you to hit them! To hit a weak, drunken woman! Oh,

"Yegor! . . . Come, Yegor! . . ." the medical student began imploring him. "I give you my word of honor I'll

"Against my will an unknown force," hummed the medical student, "has led me to these mournful shores."

"Behold t he mill," the artist chimed in a little later, "in ruins now. What a lot of snow, Holy Mother! Grisha,

"One of two things: either we only fancy prostitution is an evil, and we exaggerate it; or, if prostitution really

is as great an evil as is generally assumed, these dear friends of mine are as much slaveowners, violators, and

murderers, as the inhabitants of Syria and Cairo, that are described in the 'Neva.' Now they are singing,

laughing, talking sense, but haven't they just been exploiting hunger, ignorance, and stupidity? They have

I have been a witness of it. What is the use of their humanity, their medicine, their painting? The science, art,

and lofty sentiments of these souldestroyers remind me of the piece of bacon in the story. Two brigands

murdered a beggar in a forest; they began sharing his clothes between them, and found in his wallet a piece of

bacon. 'Well found,' said one of them, 'let us have a bit.' 'What do you mean? How can you?' cried the other in

horror. 'Have you forgotten that today is Wednesday?' And they would not eat it. After murdering a man,

they came out of the forest in the firm conviction that they were keeping the fast. In the same way these men,

after buying women, go their way imagining that they are artists and men of science. . . ."

"Listen!" he said sharply and angrily. "Why do you come here? Is it possible is it possible you don't

understand how horrible it is? Your medical books tell you that every one of these women dies prematurely

of consumption or something; art tells you that morally they are dead even earlier. Every one of them dies

because she has in her time to entertain five hundred men on an average, let us say. Each one of them is killed

by five hundred men. You are among those five hundred! If each of you in the course of your lives visits this

place or others like it two hundred and fifty times, it follows that one woman is killed for every two of you!

Can't you understand that? Isn't it horrible to murder, two of you, three of you, five of you, a foolish, hungry

"I knew it would end like that," the artist said frowning. "We ought not to have gone with this fool and ass!

You imagine you have grand notions in your head now, ideas, don't you? No, it's the devil knows what, but

not ideas. You are looking at me now with hatred and repulsion, but I tell you it's better you should set up

twenty more houses like those than look like that. There's more vice in your expression than in the whole

street! Come along, Volodya, let him go to the devil! He's a fool and an ass, and that's all. . . ."

"We human beings do murder each other," said the medical student. "It's immoral, of course, but

At Trubnoy Square the friends said goodby and parted. When he was left alone, Vassilyev strode rapidly

along the boulevard. He felt frightened of the darkness, of the snow which was falling in heavy flakes on the

ground, and seemed as though it would cover up the whole world; he felt frightened of the street lamps

shining with pale light through the clouds of snow. His soul was possessed by an unaccountable,

fainthearted terror. Passersby came towards him from time to time, but he timidly moved to one side; it

seemed to him that women, none but women, were coming from all sides and staring at him. . . .

At home he lay on his bed and said, shuddering all over: "They are alive! Alive! My God, those women are

He encouraged his imagination in all sorts of ways to picture himself the brother of a fallen woman, or her

father; then a fallen woman herself, with her painted cheeks; and it all moved him to horror.

It seemed to him that he must settle the question at once at all costs, and that this question was not one that

did not concern him, but was his own personal problem. He made an immense effort, repressed his despair,

and, sitting on the bed, holding his head in his hands, began thinking how one could save all the women he

had seen that day. The method for attacking problems of all kinds was, as he was an educated man, well

known to him. And, however excited he was, he strictly adhered to that method. He recalled the history of the

problem and its literature, and for a quarter of an hour he paced from one end of the room to the other trying

to remember all the methods practiced at the present time for saving women. He had very many good friends

and acquaintances who lived in lodgings in Petersburg. . . . Among them were a good many honest and

"All these not very numerous attempts," thought Vassilyev, "can be divided into three groups. Some, after

buying the woman out of the brothel, took a room for her, bought her a sewingmachine, and she became a

semptress. And whether he wanted to or not, after having bought her out he made her his mistress; then when

he had taken his degree, he went away and handed her into the keeping of some other decent man as though

she were a thing. And the fallen woman remained a fallen woman. Others, after buying her out, took a

lodging apart for her, bought the inevitable sewingmachine, and tried teaching her to read, preaching at her

and giving her books. The woman lived and sewed as long as it was interesting and a novelty to her, then

getting bored, began receiving men on the sly, or ran away and went back where she could sleep till three

o'clock, drink coffee, and have good dinners. The third class, the most ardent and selfsacrificing, had taken a

bold, resolute step. They had married them. And when the insolent and spoilt, or stupid and crushed animal

became a wife, the head of a household, and afterwards a mother, it turned her whole existence and attitude to

life upside down, so that it was hard to recognize the fallen woman afterwards in the wife and the mother.

"But it is impossible!" Vassilyev said aloud, and he sank upon his bed. "I, to begin with, could not marry one!

To do that one must be a saint and be unable to feel hatred or repulsion. But supposing that I, the medical

student, and the artist mastered ourselves and did marry them suppose they were all married. What would

be the result? The result would be that while here in Moscow they were being married, some Smolensk

accountant would be debauching another lot, and that lot would be streaming here to fill the vacant places,

together with others from Saratov, NizhniNovgorod, Warsaw. . . . And what is one to do with the hundred

The lamp in which the oil had burnt down began to smoke. Vassilyev did not notice it. He began pacing to

and fro again, still thinking. Now he put the question differently: what must be done that fallen women

should not be needed? For that, it was essential that the men who buy them and do them to death should feel

all the immorality of their share in enslaving them and should be horrified. One must save the men.

"One won't do anything by art and science, that is clear . . ." thought Vassilyev. "The only way out of it is

And he began to dream how he would the next evening stand at the corner of the street and say to every

He would turn to the apathetic cabmen and say to them: "Why are you staying here? Why aren't you

revolted? Why aren't you indignant? I suppose you believe in God and know that it is a sin, that people go to

hell for it? Why don't you speak? It is true that they are strangers to you, but you know even they have

One of Vassilyev's friends had once said of him that he was a talented man. There are all sorts of talents

talent for writing, talent for the stage, talent for art; but he had a peculi ar talent a talent for _humanity_.

He possessed an extraordinarily fine delicate scent for pain in general. As a good actor reflects in himself the

movements and voice of others, so Vassilyev could reflect in his soul the sufferings of others. When he saw

tears, he wept; beside a sick man, he felt sick himself and moaned; if he saw an act of violence, he felt as

though he himself were the victim of it, he was frightened as a child, and in his fright ran to help. The pain of

others worked on his nerves, excited him, roused him to a state of frenzy, and so on.

Whether this friend were right I don't know, but what Vassilyev experienced when he thought this question

was settled was something like inspiration. He cried and laughed, spoke aloud the words that he should say

next day, felt a fervent love for those who would listen to him and would stand beside him at the corner of the

All this was like inspiration also from the fact that it did not last long. Vassilyev was soon tired. The cases in

London, in Hamburg, in Warsaw, weighed upon him by their mass as a mountain weighs upon the earth; he

felt dispirited, bewildered, in the face of this mass; he remembered that he had not a gift for words, that he

was cowardly and timid, that indifferent people would not be willing to listen and understand him, a law

student in his third year, a timid and insignificant person; that genuine missionary work included not only

When it was daylight and carriages were already beginning to rumble in the street, Vassilyev was lying

motionless on the sofa, staring into space. He was no longer thinking of the women, nor of the men, nor of

missionary work. His whole attention was turned upon the spiritual agony which was torturing him. It was a

dull, vague, undefined anguish akin to misery, to an extreme form of terror and to despair. He could point to

the place where the pain was, in his breast under his heart; but he could not compare it with anything. In the

past he had had acute toothache, he had had pleurisy and neuralgia, but all that was insignificant compared

with this spiritual anguish. In the presence of that pain life seemed loathsome. The dissertation, the excellent

work he had written already, the people he loved, the salvation of fallen women everything that only the

day before he had cared about or been indifferent to, now when he thought of them irritated him in the same

way as the noise of the carriages, the scurrying footsteps of the waiters in the passage, the daylight. . . . If at

that moment someone had performed a great deed of mercy or had committed a revolting outrage, he would

have felt the same repulsion for both actions. Of all the thoughts that strayed through his mind only two did

not irritate him: one was that at every moment he had the power to kill himself, the other that this agony

After lying for a while he got up and, wringing his hands, walked about the room, not as usual from corner to

corner, but round the room beside the walls. As he passed he glanced at himself in the lookingglass. His

face looked pale and sunken, his temples looked hollow, his eyes were bigger, darker, more staring, as though

they belonged to someone else, and they had an expression of insufferable mental agony.

Getting no answer, he stood for a minute, pondered, and answered himself in Little Russian: "Nay. The

And he went away. Vassilyev lay down on the bed and, thrusting his head under the pillow, began crying

with agony, and the more freely his tears flowed the more terrible his mental anguish became. As it began to

get dark, he thought of the agonizing night awaiting him, and was overcome by a horrible despair. He dressed

quickly, ran out of his room, and, leaving his door wide open, for no object or reason, went out into the street.

Without asking himself where he should go, he walked quickly along Sadovoy Street.

Snow was falling as heavily as the day before; it was thawing. Thrusting his hands into his sleeves,

shuddering and frightened at the noises, at the trambells, and at the passersby, Vassilyev walked along

Sadovoy Street as far as Suharev Tower; then to the Red Gate; from there he turned off to Basmannya Street.

He went into a tavern and drank off a big glass of vodka, but that did not make him feel better. When he

reached Razgulya he turned to the right, and strode along side streets in which he had never been before in his

life. He reached the old bridge by which the Yauza runs gurgling, and from which one can see long rows of

lights in the windows of the Red Barracks. To distract his spiritual anguish by some new sensation or some

other pain, Vassilyev, not knowing what to do, crying and shuddering, undid his greatcoat and jacket and

exposed his bare chest to the wet snow and the wind. But that did not lessen his suffering either. Then he bent

down over the rail of the bridge and looked down into the black, yeasty Yauza, and he longed to plunge down

head foremost; not from loathing for life, not for the sake of suicide, but in order to bruise himself at least,

and by one pain to ease the other. But the black water, the darkness, the deserted banks covered with snow

were terrifying. He shivered and walked on. He walked up and down by the Red Barracks, then turned back

And he went back. When he reached home he pulled off his wet coat and cap, began pacing round the room,

When next morning the artist and the medical student went in to him, he was moving about the room with his

"For God's sake!" he sobbed when he saw his friends, "take me where you please, do what you can; but for

The artist turned pale and was helpless. The medical student, too, almost shed tears, but considering that

The artist and the medical student with trembling hands put Vassilyev's coat and hat on and led him out into

"Mihail Sergeyitch has been wanting to make your acquaintance for a long time," the medical student said on

the way. "He is a very nice man and thoroughly good at his work. He took his degree in 1882, and he has an

Mihail Sergeyitch, a stout, fairhaired doctor, received the friends with politeness and frigid dignity, and

"Rybnikov and Mayer have spoken to me of your illness already," he said. "Very glad to be of service to you.

He made Vassilyev sit down in a big armchair near the table, and moved a box of cigarettes towards him.

"Now then!" he began, stroking his knees. "Let us get to work. . . . How old are you?"

He asked questions and the medical student answered them. He asked whether Vassilyev's father had suffered

from certain special diseases, whether he drank to excess, whether he were remarkable for cruelty or any

peculiarities. He made similar inquiries about his grandfather, mother, sisters, and brothers. On learning that

his mother had a beautiful voice and sometimes acted on the stage, he grew more animated at once, and

"Excuse me, but don't you remember, perhaps, your mother had a passion for the stage?"

Twenty minutes passed. Vassilyev was annoyed by the way the docto r kept stroking his knees and talking of

"So far as I understand your questions, doctor," he said, "you want to know whether my illness is hereditary

The doctor proceeded to ask Vassilyev whether he had had any secret vices as a boy, or had received injuries

to his head; whether he had had any aberrations, any peculiarities, or exceptional propensities. Half the

questions usually asked by doctors of their patients can be left unanswered without the slightest ill effect on

the health, but Mihail Sergeyitch, the medical student, and the artist all looked as though if Vassilyev failed

to answer one question all would be lost. As he received answers, the doctor for some reason noted them

down on a slip of paper. On learning that Vassilyev had taken his degree in natural science, and was now

"He wrote a firstrate piece of original work last year, . . ." said the medical student.

"I beg your pardon, but don't interrupt me; you prevent me from concentrating," said the doctor, and he

smiled on one side of his face. "Though, of course, that does enter into the diagnosis. Intense intellectual

work, nervous exhaustion. . . . Yes, yes. . . . And do you drink vodka?" he said, addressing Vassilyev.

Another twenty minutes passed. The medical student began telling the doctor in a low voice his opinion as to

the immediate cause of the attack, and described how the day before yesterday the artist, Vassilyev, and he

The indifferent, reserved, and frigid tone in which his friends and the doctor spoke of the women and that

"Doctor, tell me one thing only," he said, controlling himself so as not to speak rudely. "Is prostitution an evil

"My dear fellow, who disputes it?" said the doctor, with an expression that suggested that he had settled all

"Perhaps all of you are right!" said Vassilyev, getting up and beginning to walk from one end of the room to

the other. "Perhaps! But it all seems marvelous to me! That I should have taken my degree in two faculties

you look upon as a great achievement; because I have written a work which in three years will be thrown

aside and forgotten, I am praised up to the skies; but because I cannot speak of fallen women as

unconcernedly as of these chairs, I am being examined by a doctor, I am called mad, I am pitied!"

Vassilyev for some reason felt all at once unutterably sorry for himself, and his companions, and all the

people he had seen two days before, and for the doctor; he burst into tears and sank into a chair.

His friends looked inquiringly at the doctor. The latter, with the air of completely comprehending the tears

and the despair, of feeling himself a specialist in that line, went up to Vassilyev and, without a word, gave

him some medicine to drink; and then, when he was calmer, undressed him and began to investigate the

And Vassilyev felt easier. When he came out from the doctor's he was beginning to feel ashamed; the rattle of

the carriages no longer irritated him, and the load at his heart grew lighter and lighter as though it were

melting away. He had two prescriptions in his hand: one was for bromide, one was for morphia. . . . He had

In the street he stood still and, saying goodby to his friends, dragged himself languidly to the University.

THE twilight of evening. Big flakes of wet snow are whirling lazily about the street lamps, which have just

been lighted, and lying in a thin soft layer on roofs, horses' backs, shoulders, caps. Iona Potapov, the

sledgedriver, is all white like a ghost. He sits on the box without stirring, bent as double as the living body

can be bent. If a regular snowdrift fell on him it seems as though even then he would not think it necessary to

shake it off. . . . His little mare is white and motionless too. Her stillness, the angularity of her lines, and the

sticklike straightness of her legs make her look like a halfpenny gingerbread horse. She is probably lost in

thought. Anyone who has been torn away from the plough, from the familiar gray landscapes, and cast into

this slough, full of monstrous lights, of unceasing uproar and hurrying people, is bound to think.

It is a long time since Iona and his nag have budged. They came out of the yard before dinnertime and not a

single fare yet. But now the shades of evening are falling on the town. The pale light of the street lamps

Iona starts, and through his snowplastered eyelashes sees an officer in a military overcoat with a hood over

In token of assent Iona gives a tug at the reins which sends cakes of snow flying from the horse's back and

shoulders. The officer gets into the sledge. The sledgedriver clicks to the horse, cranes his neck like a swan,

rises in his seat, and more from habit than necessity brandishes his whip. The mare cranes her neck, too,

"Where are you shoving, you devil?" Iona immediately hears shouts from the dark mass shifting to and fro

A coachman driving a carriage swears at him; a pedestrian crossing the road and brushing the horse's nose

with his shoulder looks at him angrily and shakes the snow off his sleeve. Iona fidgets on the box as though

he were sitting on thorns, jerks his elbows, and turns his eyes about like one possessed as though he did not

"What rascals they all are!" says the officer jocosely. "They are simply doing their best to run up against you

Iona looks as his fare and moves his lips. . . . Apparently he means to say something, but nothing comes but a

Iona gives a wry smile, and straining his throat, brings out huskily: "My son . . . er . . . my son died this week,

"Who can tell! It must have been from fever. . . . He lay three days in the hospital and then he died. . . . God's

"Turn round, you devil!" comes out of the darkness. "Have you gone cracked, you old dog? Look where you

"Drive on! drive on! . . ." says the officer. "We shan't get there till tomorrow going on like this. Hurry up!"

The sledgedriver cranes his neck again, rises in his seat, and with heavy grace swings his whip. Several

times he looks round at the officer, but the latter keeps his eyes shut and is apparently disinclined to listen.

Putting his fare down at Vyborgskaya, Iona stops by a restaurant, and again sits huddled up on the box. . . .

Again the wet snow paints him and his horse white. One hour passes, and then another. . . .

Three young men, two tall and thin, one short and hunchbacked, come up, railing at each other and loudly

"Cabby, to the Police Bridge!" the hunchback cries in a cracked voice. "The three of us, . . . twenty kopecks!"

Iona tugs at the reins and clicks to his horse. Twenty kopecks is not a fair price, but he has no thoughts for

that. Whether it is a rouble or whether it is five kopecks does not matter to him now so long as he has a fare. .

. . The three young men, shoving each other and using bad language, go up to the sledge, and all three try to

sit down at once. The question remains to be settled: Which are to sit down and which one is to stand? After a

long altercation, illtemper, and abuse, they come to the conclusion that the hunchback must stand because

"Well, drive on," says the hunchback in his cracked voice, settling himself and breathing down Iona's neck.

"Cut along! What a cap you've got, my friend! You wouldn't find a worse one in all Petersburg. . . ."

"Well, then, nothing to boast of, drive on! Are you going to drive like this all the way? Eh? Shall I give you

"My head aches," says one of the tall ones. "At the Dukmasovs' yesterday Vaska and I drank four bottles of

"I can't make out why you talk such stuff," says the other tall one angrily. "You lie like a brute."

"Tfoo! the devil take you!" cries the hunchback indignantly. "Will you get on, you old plague, or won't you?

Is that the way to drive? Give her one with the whip. Hang it all, give it her well."

Iona feels behind his back the jolting person and quivering voice of the hunchback. He hears abuse addressed

to him, he sees people, and the feeling of loneliness begins little by little to be less heavy on his heart. The

hunchback swears at him, till he chokes over some elaborately whimsical string of epithets and is

overpowered by his cough. His tall companions begin talking of a certain Nadyezhda Petrovna. Iona looks

round at them. Waiting till there is a brief pause, he looks round once more and says:

"We shall all die, . . ." says the hunchback with a sigh, wiping his lips after coughing. "Come, drive on! drive

on! My friends, I simply cannot stand crawling like this! When will he get us there?"

"Do you hear, you old plague? I'll make you smart. If one stands on ceremony with fellows like you one may

as well walk. Do you hear, you old dragon? Or don't you care a hang what we say? "

"I? He he! Meerry gentlemen. The only wife for me now is the damp earth. . . . Hehoho!. . . .The grave

that is! . . . Here my son's dead and I am alive. . . . It's a strange thing, death has come in at the wrong door. . .

And Iona turns round to tell them how his son died, but at that point the hunchback gives a faint sigh and

announces that, thank God! they have arrived at last. After taking his twenty kopecks, Iona gazes for a long

while after the revelers, who disappear into a dark entry. Again he is alone and again there is silence for him.

. . . The misery which has been for a brief space eased comes back again and tears his heart more cruelly than

ever. With a look of anxiety and suffering Iona's eyes stray restlessly among the crowds moving to and fro on

both sides of the street: can he not find among those thousands someone who will listen to him? But the

crowds flit by heedless of him and his misery. . . . His misery is immense, beyond all bounds. If Iona's heart

were to burst and his misery to flow out, it would flood the whole world, it seems, but yet it is not seen. It has

found a hidingplace in such an insignificant shell that one would not have found it with a candle by

Iona drives a few paces away, bends himself double, and gives himself up to his misery. He feels it is no

good to appeal to people. But before five minutes have passed he draws himself up, shakes his head as though

And his little mare, as though she knew his thoughts, falls to trotting. An hour and a half later Iona is sitting

by a big dirty stove. On the stove, on the floor, and on the benches are people snoring. The air is full of smells

and stuffiness. Iona looks at the sleeping figures, scratches himself, and regrets that he has come home so

"I have not earned enough to pay for the oats, even," he thinks. "That's why I am so miserable. A man who

knows how to do his work, . . . who has had enough to eat, and whose horse has had enough to eat, is always

In one of the corners a young cabman gets up, clears his throat sleepily, and makes for the waterbucket.

"May it do you good. . . . But my son is dead, mate. . . . Do you hear? This week in the hospital. . . . It's a

Iona looks to see the effect produced by his words, but he sees nothing. The young man has covered his head

over and is already asleep. The old man sighs and scratches himself. . . . Just as the young man had been

thirsty for water, he thirsts for speech. His son will soon have been dead a week, and he has not really talked

to anybody yet . . . . He wants to talk of it properly, with deliberation. . . . He wants to tell how his son was

taken ill, how he suffered, what he said before he died, how he died. . . . He wants to describe the funeral, and

how he went to the hospital to get his son's clothes. He still has his daughter Anisya in the country. . . . And

he wants to talk about her too. . . . Yes, he has plenty to talk about now. His listener ought to sigh and

exclaim and lament. . . . It would be even better to talk to women. Though they are silly creatures, they

"Let's go out and have a look at the mare," Iona thinks. "There is always time for sleep. . . . You'll have sleep

He puts on his coat and goes into the stables where his mare is standing. He thinks about oats, about hay,

about the weather. . . . He cannot think about his son when he is alone. . . . To talk about him with someone is

"Are you munching?" Iona asks his mare, seeing her shining eyes. "There, munch away, munch away. . . .

Since we have not earned enough for oats, we will eat hay. . . . Yes, . . . I have grown too old to drive. . . . My

son ought to be driving, not I. . . . He was a real cabman. . . . He ought to have lived. . . ."

"That's how it is, old girl. . . . Kuzma Ionitch is gone. . . . He said goodby to me. . . . He went and died for

no reason. . . . Now, suppose you had a little colt, and you were own mother to that little colt. . . . And all at

once that same little colt went and died. . . . You'd be sorry, wouldn't you? . . ."

The little mare munches, listens, and breathes on her master's hands. Iona is carried away and tells her all

IN the year in which my story begins I had a job at a little station on one of our southwestern railways.

Whether I had a gay or a dull life at the station you can judge from the fact that for fifteen miles round there

was not one human habitation, not one woman, not one decent tavern; and in those days I was young, strong,

hotheaded, giddy, and foolish. The only distraction I could possibly find was in the windows of the

passenger trains, and in the vile vodka which the Jews drugged with thornapple. Sometimes there would be

a glimpse of a woman's head at a carriage window, and one would stand like a statue without breathing and

stare at it until the train turned into an almost invisible speck; or one would drink all one could of the

loathsome vodka till one was stupefied and did not feel the passing of the long hours and days. Upon me, a

native of the no rth, the steppe produced the effect of a deserted Tatar cemetery. In the summer the steppe

with its solemn calm, the monotonous chur of the grasshoppers, the transparent moonlight from which one

could not hide, reduced me to listless melancholy; and in the winter the irreproachable whiteness of the

steppe, its cold distance, long nights, and howling wolves oppressed me like a heavy nightmare. There were

several people living at the station: my wife and I, a deaf and scrofulous telegraph clerk, and three watchmen.

My assistant, a young man who was in consumption, used to go for treatment to the town, where he stayed

for months at a time, leaving his duties to me together with the right of pocketing his salary. I had no

children, no cake would have tempted visitors to come and see me, and I could only visit other officials on

I remember my wife and I saw the New Year in. We sat at table, chewed lazily, and heard the deaf telegraph

clerk monotonously tapping on his apparatus in the next room. I had already drunk five glasses of drugged

vodka, and, propping my heavy head on my fist, thought of my overpowering boredom from which there was

no escape, while my wife sat beside me and did not take her eyes off me. She looked at me as no one can

look but a woman who has nothing in this world but a handsome husband. She loved me madly, slavishly,

and not merely my good looks, or my soul, but my sins, my illhumor and boredom, and even my cruelty

when, in drunken fury, not knowing how to vent my illhumor, I tormented her with reproaches.

In spite of the boredom which was consuming me, we were preparing to see the New Year in with

exceptional festiveness, and were awaiting midnight with some impatience. The fact is, we had in reserve two

bottles of champagne, the real thing, with the label of Veuve Clicquot; this treasure I had won the previous

autumn in a bet with the stationmaster of D. when I was drinking with him at a christening. It sometimes

happens during a lesson in mathematics, when the very air is still with boredom, a butterfly flutters into the

classroom; the boys toss their heads and begin watching its flight with interest, as though they saw before

them not a butterfly but something new and strange; in the same way ordinary champagne, chancing to come

into our dreary station, roused us. We sat in silence looking alternately at the clock and at the bottles.

When the hands pointed to five minutes to twelve I slowly began uncorking a bottle. I don't know whether I

was affected by the vodka, or whether the bottle was wet, but all I remember is that when the cork flew up to

the ceiling with a bang, my bottle slipped out of my hands and fell on the floor. Not more than a glass of the

wine was spilt, as I managed to catch the bottle and put my thumb over the foaming neck.

"Well, may the New Year bring you happiness!" I said, filling two glasses. "Drink!"

My wife took her glass and fixed her frightened eyes on me. Her face was pale and wore a look of horror.

"It's unlucky," she said, putting down her glass and turning paler still. "It's a bad omen. It means that some

"What a silly thing you are," I sighed. "You are a clever woman, and yet you talk as much nonsense as an old

She did not even sip her glass, she moved away and sank into thought. I uttered a few stale commonplaces

about superstition, drank half a bottle, paced up and down, and then went out of the room.

Outside there was the still frosty night in all its cold, inhospitable beauty. The moon and two white fluffy

clouds beside it hung just over the station, motionless as though glued to the spot, and looked as though

waiting for something. A faint transparent light came from them and touched the white earth softly, as though

afraid of wounding her modesty, and lighted up everything the snowdrifts, the embankment. . . . It was

"Silly woman," I thought, looking at the sky spangled with brilliant stars. "Even if one admits that omens

sometimes tell the truth, what evil can happen to us? The misfortunes we have endured already, and which

are facing us now, are so great that it is difficult to imagine anything worse. What further harm can you do a

A poplar covered with hoar frost looked in the bluish darkness like a giant wrapt in a shroud. It looked at me

sullenly and dejectedly, as though like me it realized its loneliness. I stood a long while looking at it.

"My youth is thrown away for nothing, like a useless cigarette end," I went on musing. "My parents died

when I was a little child; I was expelled from the high school, I was born of a noble family, but I have

received neither education nor breeding, and I have no more knowledge than the humblest mechanic. I have

no refuge, no relations, no friends, no work I like. I am not fitted for anything, and in the prime of my powers

I am good for nothing but to be stuffed into this little station; I have known nothing but trouble and failure all

Red lights came into sight in the distance. A train was moving towards me. The slumbering steppe listened to

the sound of it. My thoughts were so bitter that it seemed to me that I was thinking aloud and that the moan of

"What can happen worse? The loss of my wife?" I wondered. "Even that is not terrible. It's no good hiding it

from my conscience: I don't love my wife. I married her when I was only a wretched boy; now I am young

and vigorous, and she has gone off and grown older and sillier, stuffed from her head to her heels with

conventional ideas. What charm is there in her maudlin love, in her hollow chest, in her lusterless eyes? I put

up with her, but I don't love her. What can happen? My youth is being wasted, as the saying is, for a pinch of

snuff. Women flit before my eyes only in the carriage windows, like falling stars. Love I never had and have

not. My manhood, my courage, my power of feeling are going to ruin. . . . Everything is being thrown away

The train rushed past me with a roar and indifferently cast the glow of its red lights upon me. I saw it stop by

the green lights of the station, stop for a minute and rumble off again. After walking a mile and a half I went

back. Melancholy thoughts haunted me still. Painful as it was to me, yet I remember I tried as it were to make

my thoughts still gloomier and more melancholy. You know people who are vain and not very clever have

moments when the consciousness that they are miserable affords them positive satisfaction, and they even

coquet with their misery for their own entertainment. There was a great deal of truth in what I thought, but

there was also a great deal that was absurd and conceited, and there was something boyishly defiant in my

"And what is there to happen?" I asked myself. "I think I have endured everything. I've been ill, I've lost

money, I get reprimanded by my superiors every day, and I go hungry, and a mad wolf has run into the

station yard. What more is there? I have been insulted, humiliated, . . . and I have insulted others in my time. I

have not been a criminal, it is true, but I don't think I am capable of crime I am not afraid of being hauled

The two little clouds had moved away from the moon and stood at a little distance, looking as though they

were whispering about something which the moon must not know. A light breeze was racing across the

My wife met me at the doorway. Her eyes were laughing gaily and her whole face was beaming with

"There is news for you!" she whispered. "Make haste, go to your room and put on your new coat; we have a

"The wife of my uncle Semyon Fyodoritch. You don't know her. She is a very nice, good woman."

"Of course it is queer her having come, but don't be cross, Nikolay, and don't be hard on her. She is unhappy,

you know; Uncle Semyon Fyodoritch really is illnatured and tyrannical, it is difficult to live with him. She

says she will only stay three days with us, only till she gets a letter from her brother."

My wife whispered a great deal more nonsense to me about her despotic uncle; about the weakness of

mankind in general and of young wives in particular; about its being our duty to give shelter to all, even great

sinners, and so on. Unable to make head or tail of it, I put on my new coat and went to make acquaintance

A little woman with large black eyes was sitting at the table. My table, the gray walls, my roughlymade

sofa, everything to the tiniest grain of dust seemed to have grown younger and more cheerful in the presence

of this new, young, beautiful, and dissolute creature, who had a most subtle perfume about her. And that our

visitor was a lady of easy virtue I could see from her smile, from her scent, from the peculiar way in which

she glanced and made play with her eyelashes, from the tone in which she talked with my wife a

respectable woman. There was no need to tell me she had run away from her husband, that her husband was

old and despotic, that she was goodnatured and lively; I took it all in at the first glance. Indeed, it is doubtful

whether there is a man in all Europe who cannot spot at the first glance a woman of a certain temperament.

"I did not know I had such a big nephew!" said my aunt, holding out her hand to me and smiling.

Supper began over again. The cork flew with a bang out of the second bottle, and my aunt swallowed half a

glassful at a gulp, and when my wife went out of the room for a moment my aunt did not scruple to drain a

full glass. I was drunk both with the wine and with the presence of a woman. Do you remember the song?

"Eyes black as pitch, eyes full of passion, Eyes burning bright and beautiful, How I love you, How I fear

I don't remember what happened next. Anyone who wants to know how love begins may read novels and

Everything went head over heels to the devil. I remember a fearful, frantic whirlwind which sent me flying

round like a feather. It lasted a long while, and swept from the face of the earth my wife and my aunt herself

and my strength. From the little station in the steppe it has flung me, as you see, into this dark street.

NADYA ZELENIN had just come back with her mamma from the theatre where she had seen a performance

of "Yevgeny Onyegin." As soon as she reached her own room she threw off her dress, let down her hair, and

in her petticoat and white dressingjacket hastily sat down to the table to write a letter like Tatyana's.

She was only sixteen and did not yet love anyone. She knew that an officer called Gorny and a student called

Gruzdev loved her, but now after the opera she wanted to be doubtful of their love. To be unloved and

unhappy how interesting that was. There is something beautiful, touching, and poetical about it when one

loves and the other is indifferent. Onyegin was interesting because he was not in love at all, and Tatyana was

fascinating because she was so much in love; but if they had been equally in love with each other and had

"Leave off declaring that you love me," Nadya went on writing, thinking of Gorny. "I cannot believe it. You

are very clever, cultivated, serious, you have immense talent, and perhaps a brilliant future awaits you, while

I am an uninteresting girl of no importance, and you know very well that I should be only a hindrance in your

life. It is true that you were attracted by me and thought you had found your ideal in me, but that was a

mistake, and now you are asking yourself in despair: 'Why did I meet that girl?' And only your goodness of

"It is hard for me to leave my mother and my brother, or I should take a nun's veil and go whither chance may

lead me. And you would be left free and would love another. Oh, if I were dead! "

She could not make out what she had written through her tears; little rainbows were quivering on the table, on

the floor, on the ceiling, as though she were looking through a prism. She could not write, she sank back in

My God! how interesting, how fascinating men were! Nadya recalled the fine expression, ingratiating, guilty,

and soft, which came into the officer's face when one argued about music with him, and the effort he made to

prevent his voice from betraying his passion. In a society where cold haughtiness and indifference are

regarded as signs of good breeding and gentlemanly bearing, one must conceal one's passions. And he did try

to conceal them, but he did not succeed, and everyone knew very well that he had a passionate love of music.

The endless discussions about music and the bold criticisms of people who knew nothing about it kept him

always on the strain; he was frightened, timid, and silent. He played the piano magnificently, like a

professional pianist, and if he had not been in the army he would certainly have been a famous musician.

The tears on her eyes dried. Nadya remembered that Gorny had declared his love at a Symphony concert, and

again downstairs by the hatstand where there was a tremendous draught blowing in all directions.

"I am very glad that you have at last made the acquaintance of Gruzdev, our student friend," she went on

writing. "He is a very clever man, and you will be sure to like him. He came to see us yesterday and stayed

till two o'clock. We were all delighted with him, and I regretted that you had not come. He said a great deal

Nadya laid her arms on the table and leaned her head on them, and her hair covered the letter. She recalled

that the student, too, loved her, and that he had as much right to a letter from her as Gorny. Wouldn't it be

better after all to write to Gruzdev? There was a stir of joy in her bosom for no reason whatever; at first the

joy was small, and rolled in her bosom like an indiarubber ball; then it became more massive, bigger, and

rushed like a wave. Nadya forgot Gorny and Gruzdev; her thoughts were in a tangle and her joy grew and

grew; from her bosom it passed into her arms and legs, and it seemed as though a light, cool breeze were

breathing on her head and ruffling her hair. Her shoulders quivered with subdued laughter, the table and the

lamp chimney shook, too, and tears from her eyes splashed on the letter. She could not stop laughing, and to

prove to herself that she was not laughing about nothing she made haste to think of something funny.

"What a funny poodle," she said, feeling as though she would choke with laughter. "What a funny poodle! "

She thought how, after tea the evening before, Gruzdev had played with Maxim the poodle, and afterwards

had told them about a very intelligent poodle who had run after a crow in the yard, and the crow had looked

The poodle, not knowing he had to do with a learned crow, was fearfully confused and retreated in perplexity,

"No, I had better love Gruzdev," Nadya decided, and she tore up the letter to Gorny.

She fell to thinking of the student, of his love, of her love; but the thoughts in her head insisted on flowing in

all directions, and she thought about everything about her mother, about the street, about the pencil, about

the piano. . . . She thought of them joyfully, and felt that everything was good, splendid, and her joy told her

that this was not all, that in a little while it would be better still. Soon it would be spring, summer, going with

her mother to Gorbiki. Gorny would come for his furlough, would walk about the garden with her and make

love to her. Gruzdev would come too. He would play croquet and skittles with her, and would tell her

wonderful things. She had a passionate longing for the garden, the darkness, the pure sky, the stars. Again her

shoulders shook with laughter, and it seemed to her that there was a scent of wormwood in the room and that

She went to her bed, sat down, and not knowing what to do with the immense joy which filled her with

yearning, she looked at the holy image hanging at the back of her bed, and said:

NINE years ago Pyotr Sergeyitch, the deputy prosecutor, and I were riding towards evening in haymaking

The weather was magnificent, but on our way back we heard a peal of thunder, and saw an angry black

stormcloud which was coming straight towards us. The stormcloud was approaching us and we were

Against the background of it our house and church looked white and the tall poplars shone like silver. There

was a scent of rain and mown hay. My companion was in high spirits. He kept laughing and talking all sorts

of nonsense. He said it would be nice if we could suddenly come upon a medieval castle with turreted towers,

with moss on it and owls, in which we could take shelter from the rain and in the end be killed by a

Then the first wave raced through the rye and a field of oats, there was a gust of wind, and the dust flew

Infected by his gaiety, I too began laughing at the thought that in a minute I should be drenched to the skin

Riding swiftly in a hurricane when one is breathless with the wind, and feels like a bird, thrills one and puts

one's heart in a flutter. By the time we rode into our courtyard the wind had gone down, and big drops of rain

were pattering on the grass and on the roofs. There was not a soul near the stable.

Pyotr Sergeyitch himself took the bridles off, and led the horses to their stalls. I stood in the doorway waiting

for him to finish, and watching the slanting streaks of rain; the sweetish, exciting scent of hay was even

stronger here than in the fields; the stormclouds and the rain made it almost twilight.

"What a crash!" said Pyotr Sergeyitch, coming up to me after a very loud rolling peal of thunder when it

He stood beside me in the doorway and, still breathless from his rapid ride, looked at me. I could see that he

"Natalya Vladimirovna," he said, "I would give anything only to stay here a little longer and look at you. You

His eyes looked at me with delight and supplication, his face was pale. On his beard and mustache were

"I love you," he said. "I love you, and I am happy at seeing you. I know you cannot be my wife, but I want

nothing, I ask nothing; only know that I love you. Be silent, do not answer me, take no notice of it, but only

His rapture affected me too; I looked at his enthusiastic face, listened to his voice which mingled with the

"You say nothing, and that is splendid," said Pyotr Sergeyitch. "Go on being silent."

I felt happy. I laughed with delight and ran through the drenching rain to the house; he laughed too, and,

Both drenched, panting, noisily clattering up the stairs like children, we dashed into the room. My father and

brother, who were not used to seeing me laughing and lighthearted, looked at me in surprise and began

The stormclouds had passed over and the thunder had ceased, but the raindrops still glittered on Pyotr

Sergeyitch's beard. The whole evening till suppertime he was singing, whistling, playing noisily with the

dog and racing about the room after it, so that he nearly upset the servant with the samovar. And at supper he

ate a great deal, talked nonsense, and maintained that when one eats fresh cucumbers in winter there is the

When I went to bed I lighted a candle and threw my window wide open, and an undefined feeling took

possession of my soul. I remembered that I was free and healthy, that I had rank and wealth, that I was

beloved; above all, that I had rank and wealth, rank and wealth, my God! how nice that was! . . . Then,

huddling up in bed at a touch of cold which reached me from the garden with the dew, I tried to discover

whether I loved Pyotr Sergeyitch or not, . . . and fell asleep unable to reach any conclusion.

And when in the morning I saw quivering patches of sunlight and the shadows of the lime trees on my bed,

what had happened yesterday rose vividly in my memory. Life seemed to me rich, varied, full of charm.

And what happened afterwards? Why nothing. In the winter when we lived in town Pyotr Sergeyitch

came to see us from time to time. Country acquaintances are charming only in the country and in summer; in

the town and in winter they lose their charm. When you pour out tea for them in the town it seems as though

they are wearing other people's coats, and as though they stirred their tea too long. In the town, too, Pyotr

Sergeyitch spoke sometimes of love, but the effect was not at all the same as in the country. In the town we

were more vividly conscious of the wall that stood between us. I had rank and wealth, while he was poor, and

he was not even a nobleman, but only the son of a deacon and a deputy public prosecutor; we both of us I

through my youth and he for some unknown reason thought of that wall as very high and thick, and when

he was with us in the town he would criticize aristocratic society with a forced smile, and maintain a sullen

silence when there was anyone else in the drawingroom. There is no wall that cannot be broken through, but

the heroes of the modern romance, so far as I know them, are too timid, spiritless, lazy, and oversensitive, and

are too ready to resign themselves to the thought that they are doomed to failure, that personal life has

disappointed them; instead of struggling they merely criticize, calling the world vulgar and forgetting that

I was loved, happiness was not far away, and seemed to be almost touching me; I went on living in careless

ease without trying to understand myself, not knowing what I expected or what I wanted from life, and time

went on and on. . . . People passed by me with their love, bright days and warm nights flashed by, the

nightingales sang, the hay smelt fragrant, and all this, sweet and overwhelming in remembrance, passed with

me as with everyone rapidly, leaving no trace, was not prized, and vanished like mist. . . . Where is it all?

My father is dead, I have grown older; everything that delighted me, caressed me, gave me hope the patter

of the rain, the rolling of the thunder, thoughts of happiness, talk of love all that has become nothing but a

memory, and I see before me a flat desert dist ance; on the plain not one living soul, and out there on the

A ring at the bell. . . . It is Pyotr Sergeyitch. When in the winter I see the trees and remember how green they

And when I see people with whom I spent my springtime, I feel sorrowful and warm and whisper the same

He has long ago by my father's good offices been transferred to town. He looks a little older, a little fallen

away. He has long given up declaring his love, has left off talking nonsense, dislikes his official work, is ill in

some way and disillusioned; he has given up trying to get anything out of life, and takes no interest in living.

I thought of the past, and all at once my shoulders began quivering, my head dropped, and I began weeping

bitterly. I felt unbearably sorry for myself and for this man, and passionately longed for what had passed

away and what life refused us now. And now I did not think about rank and wealth.

And he sat and was silent, and did not say to me: "Don't weep." He understood that I must weep, and that the

I saw from his eyes that he was sorry for me; and I was sorry for him, too, and vexed with this timid,

When I saw him to the door, he was, I fancied, purposely a long while putting on his coat. Twice he kissed

my hand without a word, and looked a long while into my tearstained face. I believe at that moment he

recalled the storm, the streaks of rain, our laughter, my face that day; he longed to say something to me, and

he would have been glad to say it; but he said nothing, he merely shook his head and pressed my hand. God

After seeing him out, I went back to my study and again sat on the carpet before the fireplace; the red embers

were covered with ash and began to grow dim. The frost tapped still more angrily at the windows, and the

OLD SEMYON, nicknamed Canny, and a young Tatar, whom no one knew by name, were sitting on the

riverbank by the campfire; the other three ferrymen were in the hut. Semyon, an old man of sixty, lean and

toothless, but broad shouldered and still healthylooking, was drunk; he would have gone in to sleep long

before, but he had a bottle in his pocket and he was afraid that the fellows in the hut would ask him for vodka.

The Tatar was ill and weary, and wrapping himself up in his rags was describing how nice it was in the

Simbirsk province, and what a beautiful and clever wife he had left behind at home. He was not more than

twenty five, and now by the light of the campfire, with his pale and sick, mournful face, he looked like a

"To be sure, it is not paradise here," said Canny. "You can see for yourself, the water, the bare banks, clay,

and nothing else. . . . Easter has long passed and yet there is ice on the river, and this morning there was

The dark, cold river was flowing ten paces away; it grumbled, lapped against the hollow clay banks and raced

on swiftly towards the faraway sea. Close to the bank there was the dark blur of a big barge, which the

ferrymen called a "karbos." Far away on the further bank, lights, dying down and flickering up again,

zigzagged like little snakes; they were burning last year's grass. And beyond the little snakes there was

darkness again. There little icicles could be heard knocking against the barge It was damp and cold. . . .

The Tatar glanced at the sky. There were as many stars as at home, and the same blackness all round, but

something was lacking. At home in the Simbirsk province the stars were quite different, and so was the sky.

"You will get used to it," said Semyon, and he laughed. "Now you are young and foolish, the milk is hardly

dry on your lips, and it seems to you in your foolishness that you are more wretched than anyone; but the

time will come when you will say to yourself: 'I wish no one a better life than mine.' You look at me. Within

a week the floods will be over and we shall set up the ferry; you will all go wandering off about Siberia while

I shall stay and shall begin going from bank to bank. I've been going like that for twentytwo years, day and

night. The pike and the salmon are under the water while I am on the water. And thank God for it, I want

The Tatar threw some dry twigs on the campfire, lay down closer to the blaze, and said:

"My father is a sick man. When he dies my mother and wife will come here. They have promised."

"And what do you want your wife and mother for?" asked Canny. "That's mere foolishness, my lad. It's the

devil confounding you, damn his soul! Don't you listen to him, the cursed one. Don't let him have his way.

He is at you about the women, but you spite him; say, 'I don't want them!' He is on at you about freedom, but

you stand up to him and say: 'I don't want it!' I want nothing, neither father nor mother, nor wife, nor

"I am not a simple peasant, not of the working class, but the son of a deacon, and when I was free I lived at

Kursk; I used to wear a frockcoat, and now I have brought myself to such a pass that I can sleep naked on the

ground and eat grass. And I wish no one a better life. I want nothing and I am afraid of nobody, and the way I

look at it is that there is nobody richer and freer than I am. When they sent me here from Russia from the first

day I stuck it out; I want nothing! The devil was at me about my wife and about my home and about freedom,

but I told him: 'I want nothing.' I stuck to it, and here you see I live well, and I don't complain, and if anyone

gives way to the devil and listens to him, if but once, he is lost, there is no salvation for him: he is sunk in the

"It is not only a foolish peasant like you, but even gentlemen, welleducated people, are lost. Fifteen years

ago they sent a gentleman here from Russia. He hadn't shared something with his brothers and had forged

something in a will. They did say he was a prince or a baron, but maybe he was simply an official who

knows? Well, the gentleman arrived here, and first thing he bought himself a house and land in

Muhortinskoe. 'I want to live by my own work,' says he, 'in the sweat of my brow, for I am not a gentleman

now,' says he, 'but a settler.' 'Well,' says I, 'God help you, that's the right thing.' He was a young man then,

busy and careful; he used to mow himself and catch fish and ride sixty miles on horseback. Only this is what

happened: from the very first year he took to riding to Gyrino for the post; he used to stand on my ferry and

sigh: 'Ech, Semyon, how long it is since they sent me any money from home!' 'You don't want money,

Vassily Sergeyitch,' says I. 'What use is it to you? You cast away the past, and forget it as though it had never

been at all, as though it had been a dream, and begin to live anew. Don't listen to the devil,' says I; 'he will

bring you to no good, he'll draw you into a snare. Now you want money,' says I, ' but in a very little while

you'll be wanting something else, and then more and more. If you want to be happy,' says I, the chief thing is

not to want anything. Yes. . . . If,' says I, 'if Fate has wronged you and me cruelly it's no good asking for her

favor and bowing down to her, but you despise her and laugh at her, or else she will laugh at you.' That's what

"Two years later I ferried him across to this side, and he was rubbing his hands and laughing. ' I am going to

Gyrino to meet my wife,' says he. 'She was sorry for me,' says he; 'she has come. She is good and kind.' And

he was breathless with joy. So a day later he came with his wife. A beautiful young lady in a hat; in her arms

was a baby girl. And lots of luggage of all sorts. And my Vassily Sergeyitch was fussing round her; he

couldn't take his eyes off her and couldn't say enough in praise of her. 'Yes, brother Semyon, even in Siberia

people can live!' 'Oh, all right,' thinks I, 'it will be a different tale presently.' And from that time forward he

went almost every week to inquire whether money had not come from Russia. He wanted a lot of money.

'She is losing her youth and beauty here in Siberia for my sake,' says he, 'and sharing my bitter lot with me,

"To make it livelier for the lady he made acquaintance with the officials and all sorts of riffraff. And of

course he had to give food and drink to all that crew, and there had to be a piano and a shaggy lapdog on the

sofa plague take it! . . . Luxury, in fact, selfindulgence. The lady did not stay with him long. How could

she? The clay, the water, the cold, no vegetables for you, no fruit. All around you ignorant and drunken

people and no sort of manners, and she was a spoilt lady from Petersburg or Moscow. . . . To be sure she

moped. Besides, her husband, say what you like, was not a gentleman now, but a settler not the same rank.

"Three years later, I remember, on the eve of the Assumption, there was shouting from the further bank. I

went over with the ferry, and what do I see but the lady, all wrapped up, and with her a young gentleman, an

official. A sledge with three horses. . . . I ferried them across here, they got in and away like the wind. They

were soon lost to sight. And towards morning Vassily Sergeyitch galloped down to the ferry. 'Didn't my wife

come this way with a gentleman in spectacles, Semyon?' 'She did,' said I; 'you may look for the wind in the

fields!' He galloped in pursuit of them. For five days and nights he was riding after them. When I ferried him

over to the other side afterwards, he flung himself on the ferry and beat his head on the boards of the ferry

and howled. 'So that's how it is,' says I. I laughed, and reminded him 'people can live even in Siberia!' And he

"Then he began longing for freedom. His wife had slipped off to Russia, and of course he was drawn there to

see her and to get her away from her lover. And he took, my lad, to galloping almost every day, either to the

post or the town to see the commanding officer; he kept sending in petitions for them to have mercy on him

and let him go back home; and he used to say that he had spent some two hundred roubles on telegrams

alone. He sold his land and mortgaged his house to the Jews. He grew gray and bent, and yellow in the face,

as though he was in consumption. If he talked to you he would go, khee khee khee,. . . and there were

tears in his eyes. He kept rushing about like this with petitions for eight years, but now he has grown brighter

and more cheerful again: he has found another whim to give way to. You see, his daughter has grown up. He

looks at her, and she is the apple of his eye. And to tell the truth she is all right, goodlooking, with black

eyebrows and a lively disposition. Every Sunday he used to ride with her to church in Gyrino. They used to

stand on the ferry, side by side, she would laugh and he could not take his eyes off her. 'Yes, Semyon,' says

he, 'people can live even in Siberia. Even in Siberia there is happiness. Look,' says he, 'what a daughter I have

got! I warrant you wouldn't find another like her for a thousand versts round.' 'Your daughter is all right,' says

I, 'that's true, certainly.' But to myself I thought: 'Wait a bit, the wench is young, her blood is dancing, she

wants to live, and there is no life here.' And she did begin to pine, my lad. . . . She faded and faded, and now

"So you see what Siberian happiness is, damn its soul! You see how people can live in Siberia. . . . He has

taken to going from one doctor to another and taking them home with him. As soon as he hears that two or

three hundred miles away there is a doctor or a sorcerer, he will drive to fetch him. A terrible lot of money he

spent on doctors, and to my thinking he had better have spent the money on drink. . . . She'll die just the

same. She is certain to die, and then it will be all over with him. He'll hang himself from grief or run away to

Russia that's a sure thing. He'll run away and they'll catch him, then he will be tried, sent to prison, he will

"His wife, his daughter. . . . What of prison and what of sorrow! anyway, he did see his wife and his

daughter. . . . You say, want nothing. But 'nothing' is bad! His wife lived with him three years that was a

Shivering and hesitating, with effort picking out the Russian words of which he knew but few, the Tatar said

that God forbid one should fall sick and die in a strange land, and be buried in the cold and dark earth; that if

his wife came to him for one day, even for one hour, that for such happiness he would be ready to bear any

Then he described again what a beautiful and clever wife he had left at home. Then, clutching his head in

both hands, he began crying and assuring Semyon that he was not guilty, and was suffering for nothing. His

two brothers and an uncle had carried off a peasant's horses, and had beaten the old man till he was half dead,

and the commune had not judged fairly, but had contrived a sentence by which all the three brothers were

The Tatar was silent, and stared with tearstained eyes at the fire; his face expressed bewilderment and fear,

as though he still did not understand why he was here in the darkness and the wet, beside strangers, and not in

Canny lay near the fire, chuckled at something, and began humming a song in an undertone.

"What joy has she with her father?" he said a little later. "He loves her and he rejoices in her, that's true; but,

mate, you must mind your ps and qs with him, he is a strict old man, a harsh old man. And young wenches

don't want strictness. They want petting and hahaha! and hohoho! and scent and pomade. Yes. . . . Ech!

life, life," sighed Semyon, and he got up heavily. "The vodka is all gone, so it is time to sleep. Eh? I am

Left alone, the Tatar put on more twigs, lay down and stared at the fire; he began thinking of his own village

and of his wife. If his wife could only come for a month, for a day; and then if she liked she might go back

again. Better a month or even a day than nothing. But if his wife kept her promise and came, what would he

"If there were not something to eat, how could she live?" the Tatar asked aloud.

He was paid only ten kopecks for working all day and all night at the oar; it is true that travelers gave him tips

for tea and for vodkas but the men shared all they received among themselves, and gave nothing to the Tatar,

but only laughed at him. And from poverty he was hungry, cold, and frightened. . . . Now, when his whole

body was aching and shivering, he ought to go into the hut and lie down to sleep; but he had nothing to cover

him there, and it was colder than on the riverbank; here he had nothing to cover him either, but at least he

In another week, when the floods were quite ov er and they set the ferry going, none of the ferrymen but

Semyon would be wanted, and the Tatar would begin going from village to village begging for alms and for

work. His wife was only seventeen; she was beautiful, spoilt, and shy; could she possibly go from village to

village begging alms with her face unveiled? No, it was terrible even to think of that. . . .

It was already getting light; the barge, the bushes of willow on the water, and the waves could be clearly

discerned, and if one looked round there was the steep clay slope; at the bottom of it the hut thatched with

dingy brown straw, and the huts of the village lay clustered higher up. The cocks were already crowing in the

The rusty red clay slope, the barge, the river, the strange, unkind people, hunger, cold, illness, perhaps all that

was not real. Most likely it was all a dream, thought the Tatar. He felt that he was asleep and heard his own

snoring. . . . Of course he was at home in the Simbirsk province, and he had only to call his wife by name for

her to answer; and in the next room was his mother. . . . What terrible dreams there are, though! What are

The Tatar woke up, and went to wake his mates and row over to the other side. The ferrymen came on to the

riverbank, putting on their torn sheepskins as they walked, swearing with voices husky from sleepiness and

shivering from the cold. On waking from their sleep, the river, from which came a breath of piercing cold,

seemed to strike them as revolting and horrible. They jumped into the barge without hurrying themselves. . . .

The Tatar and the three ferrymen took the long, broadbladed oars, which in the darkness looked like the

claws of crabs; Semyon leaned his stomach against the tiller. The shout on the other side still continued, and

two shots were fired from a revolver, probably with the idea that the ferrymen were asleep or had gone to the

"All right, you have plenty of time," said Semyon in the tone of a man convinced that there was no necessity

The heavy, clumsy barge moved away from the bank and floated between the willowbushes, and only the

willows slowly moving back showed that the barge was not standing still but moving. The ferrymen swung

the oars evenly in time; Semyon lay with his stomach on the tiller and, describing a semicircle in the air, flew

from one side to the other. In the darkness it looked as though the men were sitting on some antediluvian

animal with long paws, and were moving on it through a cold, desolate land, the land of which one

They passed beyond the willows and floated out into the open. The creak and regular splash of the oars was

Another ten minutes passed, and the barge banged heavily against the landingstage.

"And it keeps sprinkling and sprinkling," muttered Semyon, wiping the snow from his face; "and where it all

On the bank stood a thin man of medium height in a jacket lined with fox fur and in a white lambskin cap. He

was standing at a little distance from his horses and not moving; he had a gloomy, concentrated expression,

as though he were trying to remember something and angry with his untrustworthy memory. When Semyon

"I am hastening to Anastasyevka. My daughter's worse again, and they say that there is a new doctor at

They dragged the carriage on to the barge and floated back. The man whom Semyon addressed as Vassily

Sergeyitch stood all the time motionless, tightly compressing his thick lips and staring off into space; when

his coachman asked permission to smoke in his presence he made no answer, as though he had not heard.

There was a triumphant expression on Canny's face, as though he had proved something and was delighted

that things had happened as he had foretold. The unhappy helplessness of the man in the foxskin coat

"It's muddy driving now, Vassily Sergeyitch," he said when the horses were harnessed again on the bank.

"You should have put off going for another fortnight, when it will be drier. Or else not have gone at all. . . . If

any good would come of your going but as you know yourself, people have been driving about for years

Vassily Sergeyitch tipped him without a word, got into his carriage and drove off.

"There, he has galloped off for a doctor!" said Semyon, shrinking from the cold. "But looking for a good

doctor is like chasing the wind in the fields or catching the devil by the tail, plague take your soul! What a

The Tatar went up to Canny, and, looking at him with hatred and repulsion, shivering, and mixing Tatar

words with his broken Russian, said: "He is good . . . good; but you are bad! You are bad! The gentleman is a

good soul, excellent, and you are a beast, bad! The gentleman is alive, but you are a dead carcass. . . . God

created man to be alive, and to have joy and grief and sorrow; but you want nothing, so you are not alive, you

are stone, clay! A stone wants nothing and you want nothing. You are a stone, and God does not love you, but

Everyone laughed; the Tatar frowned contemptuously, and with a wave of his hand wrapped himself in his

"It's cold," said one ferryman huskily as he stretched himself on the straw with which the damp clay floor was

They all lay down. The door was thrown open by the wind and the snow drifted into the hut; nobody felt

inclined to get up and shut the door: they were cold, and it was too much trouble.

"I am all right," said Semyon as he began to doze. "I wouldn't wish anyone a better life."

THE long goods train has been standing for hours in the little station. The engine is as silent as though its fire

A pale streak of light comes from one of the vans and glides over the rails of a siding. In that van two men are

sitting on an outspread cape: one is an old man with a big gray beard, wearing a sheepskin coat and a high

lambskin hat, somewhat like a busby; the other a beardless youth in a threadbare cloth reefer jacket and

muddy high boots. They are the owners of the goods. The old man sits, his legs stretched out before him,

musing in silence; the young man half reclines and softly strums on a cheap accordion. A lantern with a

The van is quite full. If one glances in through the dim light of the lantern, for the first moment the eyes

receive an impression of something shapeless, monstrous, and unmistakably alive, something very much like

gigantic crabs which move their claws and feelers, crowd together, and noiselessly climb up the walls to the

ceiling; but if one looks more closely, horns and their shadows, long lean backs, dirty hides, tails, eyes begin

to stand out in the dusk. They are cattle and their shadows. There are eight of them in the van. Some turn

round and stare at the men and swing their tails. Others try to stand or lie d own more comfortably. They are

crowded. If one lies down the others must stand and huddle closer. No manger, no halter, no litter, not a wisp

At last the old man pulls out of his pocket a silver watch and looks at the time: a quarter past two.

"We have been here nearly two hours," he says, yawning. "Better go and stir them up, or we may be here till

The old man gets up and, followed by his long shadow, cautiously gets down from the van into the darkness.

He makes his way along beside the train to the engine, and after passing some two dozen vans sees a red open

furnace; a human figure sits motionless facing it; its peaked cap, nose, and knees are lighted up by the

crimson glow, all the rest is black and can scarcely be distinguished in the darkness.

No answer. The motionless figure is evidently asleep. The old man clears his throat impatiently and,

shrinking from the penetrating damp, walks round the engine, and as he does so the brilliant light of the two

engine lamps dazzles his eyes for an instant and makes the night even blacker to him; he goes to the station.

The platform and steps of the station are wet. Here and there are white patches of freshly fallen melting snow.

In the station itself it is light and as hot as a steambath. There is a smell of paraffin. Except for the

weighingmachine and a yellow seat on which a man wearing a guard's uniform is asleep, there is no

furniture in the place at all. On the left are two wideopen doors. Through one of them the telegraphic

apparatus and a lamp with a green shade on it can be seen; through the other, a small room, half of it taken up

by a dark cupboard. In this room the head guard and the enginedriver are sitting on the windowsill. They

"That's not real beaver, it's imitation," says the enginedriver. "Real beaver is not like that. Five roubles

"You know a great deal about it, . . ." the head guard says, offended. "Five roubles, indeed! Here, we will ask

the merchant. Mr. Malahin," he says, addressing the old man, "what do you say: is this imitation beaver or

Old Malahin takes the cap into his hand, and with the air of a connoisseur pinches the fur, blows on it, sniffs

A dispute follows. The guard maintains that the cap is real beaver, and the enginedriver and Malahin try to

persuade him that it is not. In the middle of the argument the old man suddenly remembers the object of his

"Beaver and cap is all very well, but the train's standing still, gentlemen!" he says. "Who is it we are waiting

"Let us," the guard agrees. "We will smoke another cigarette and go on. But there is no need to be in a hurry.

"Oh, well. . . . We are too much behind time. . . . If you are late at one station you can't help being delayed at

the other stations to let the trains going the opposite way pass. Whether we set off now or in the morning we

Malahin looks at the guard, reflects, and mutters mechanically as though to himself:

"God be my judge, I have reckoned it and even jotted it down in a notebook; we have wasted thirtyfour

hours standing still on the journey. If you go on like this, either the cattle will die, or they won't pay me two

The guard raises his eyebrows and sighs with an air that seems to say: "All that is unhappily true!" The

enginedriver sits silent, dreamily looking at the cap. From their faces one can see that they have a secret

thought in common, which they do not utter, not because they want to conceal it, but because such thoughts

are much better expressed by signs than by words. And the old man understands. He feels in his pocket, takes

out a tenrouble note, and without preliminary words, without any change in the tone of his voice or the

expression of his face, but with the confidence and directness with which probably only Russians give and

take bribes, he gives the guard the note. The latter takes it, folds it in four, and without undue haste puts it in

his pocket. After that all three go out of the room, and waking the sleeping guard on the way, go on to the

"What weather!" grumbles the head guard, shrugging his shoulders. "You can't see your hand before your

From the window they can see the flaxen head of the telegraph clerk appear beside the green lamp and the

telegraphic apparatus; soon after another head, bearded and wearing a red cap, appears beside it no doubt

that of the stationmaster. The stationmaster bends down to the table, reads something on a blue form,

The young man, his companion, is still half reclining and hardly audibly strumming on the accordion. He is

little more than a boy, with no trace of a mustache; his full white face with its broad cheekbones is

childishly dreamy; his eyes have a melancholy and tranquil look unlike that of a grownup person, but he is

broad, strong, heavy and rough like the old man; he does not stir nor shift his position, as though he is not

equal to moving his big body. It seems as though any movement he made would tear his clothes and be so

noisy as to frighten both him and the cattle. From under his big fat fingers that clumsily pick out the stops and

keys of the accordion comes a steady flow of thin, tinkling sounds which blend into a simple, monotonous

little tune; he listens to it, and is evidently much pleased with his performance.

A bell rings, but with such a muffled note that it seems to come from far away. A hurried second bell soon

follows, then a third and the guard's whistle. A minute passes in profound silence; the van does not move, it

stands still, but vague sounds begin to come from beneath it, like the crunch of snow under sledgerunners;

the van begins to shake and the sounds cease. Silence reigns again. But now comes the clank of buffers, the

violent shock makes the van start and, as it were, give a lurch forward, and all the cattle fall against one

"May you be served the same in the world to come," grumbles the old man, setting straight his cap, which

had slipped on the back of his head from the jolt. "He'll maim all my cattle like this!"

Yasha gets up without a word and, taking one of the fallen beasts by the horns, helps it to get on to its legs. . .

. The jolt is followed by a stillness again. The sounds of crunching snow come from under the van again, and

"There will be another jolt in a minute," says the old man. And the convulsive quiver does, in fact, run along

the train, there is a crashing sound and the bullocks fall on one another again.

"It's a job!" says Yasha, listening. "The train must be heavy. It seems it won't move."

"It was not heavy before, but now it has suddenly got heavy. No, my lad, the guard has not gone shares with

him, I expect. Go and take him something, or he will be jolting us till morning."

Yasha takes a threerouble note from the old man and jumps out of the van. The dull thud of his heavy

footsteps resounds outside the van and gradually dies away. Stillness. . . . In the next van a bullock utters a

"Shut the door, Yasha, and we will go to bed," says the old man. "Why burn a candle for nothing?"

Yasha moves the heavy door; there is a sound of a whistle, the engine and the train set off.

"It's cold," mutters the old man, stretching himself on the cape and laying his head on a bundle. "It is very

different at home! It's warm and clean and soft, and there is room to say your prayers, but here we are worse

Yasha, staggering from the jolting of the train, opens the lantern and snuffs out the wick with his wet fingers.

"Yes, my lad," Malahin goes on, as he feels Yasha lie down beside him and the young man's huge back

huddle against his own, "it's cold. There is a draught from every crack. If your mother or your sister were to

sleep here for one night they would be dead by morning. There it is, my lad, you wouldn't study and go to the

high school like your brothers, so you must take the cattle with your father. It's your own fault, you have only

yourself to blame. . . . Your brothers are asleep in their beds now, they are snug under the bedclothes, but

you, the careless and lazy one, are in the same box as the cattle. . . . Yes. . . . "

The old man's words are inaudible in the noise of the train, but for a long time he goes on muttering, sighing

and clearing his throat. . . . The cold air in the railway van grows thicker and more stifling The pungent odor

of fresh dung and smoldering candle makes it so repulsive and acrid that it irritates Yasha's throat and chest

as he falls asleep. He coughs and sneezes, while the old man, being accustomed to it, breathes with his whole

To judge from the swaying of the van and the rattle of the wheels the train is moving rapidly and unevenly.

The engine breathes heavily, snorting out of time with the pulsation of the train, and altogether there is a

medley of sounds. The bullocks huddle together uneasily and knock their horns against the walls.

When the old man wakes up, the deep blue sky of early morning is peeping in at the cracks and at the little

uncovered window. He feels unbearably cold, especially in the back and the feet. The train is standing still;

The old man wakes up out of humor. Frowning and gloomy, he clears his throat angrily and looks from under

his brows at Yasha who, supporting a bullock with his powerful shoulder and slightly lifting it, is trying to

"I told you last night that the cords were too long," mutters the old man; "but no, 'It's not too long, Daddy.'

There's no making you do anything, you will have everything your own way. . . . Blockhead!"

He angrily moves the door open and the light rushes into the van. A passenger train is standing exactly

opposite the door, and behind it a red building with a roofedin platform a big station with a refreshment

bar. The roofs and bridges of the trains, the earth, the sleepers, all are covered with a thin coating of fluffy,

freshly fallen snow. In the spaces between the carriages of the passenger train the passengers can be seen

moving to and fro, and a redhaired, redfaced gendarme walking up and down; a waiter in a frockcoat and

a snowwhite shirtfront, looking cold and sleepy, and probably very much dissatisfied with his fate, is

The old man gets up and begins saying his prayers towards the east. Yasha, having finished with the bullock

and put down the spade in the corner, stands beside him and says his prayers also. He merely moves his lips

and crosses himself; the father prays in a loud whisper and pronounces the end of each prayer aloud and

". . . And the life of the world to come. Amen," the old man says aloud, draws in a breath, and at once

whispers another prayer, rapping out clearly and firmly at the end: " . . . and lay calves upon Thy altar!"

After saying his prayers, Yasha hurriedly crosses himself and says: "Five kopecks, please."

And on being given the fivekopeck piece, he takes a red copper teapot and runs to the station for boiling

water. Taking long jumps over the rails and sleepers, leaving huge tracks in the feathery snow, and pouring

away yesterday's tea out of the teapot he runs to the refreshment room and jingles his fivekopeck piece

against his teapot. From the van the barkeeper can be seen pushing away the big teapot and refusing to give

half of his samovar for five kopecks, but Yasha turns the tap himself and, spreading wide his elbows so as not

"Damned blackguard!" the barkeeper shouts after him as he runs back to the railway van.

"We know how to eat and drink, but we don't remember our work. Yesterday we could do nothing all day but

eat and drink, and I'll be bound we forgot to put down what we spent. What a memory! Lord have mercy on

The old man recalls aloud the expenditure of the day before, and writes down in a tattered notebook where

Meanwhile the passenger train has long ago gone off, and an engine runs backwards and forwards on the

empty line, apparently without any definite object, but simply enjoying its freedom. The sun has risen and is

playing on the snow; bright drops are falling from the station roof and the tops of the vans.

Having finished his tea, the old man lazily saunters from the van to the station. Here in the middle of the

firstclass waitingroom he sees the familiar figure of the guard standing beside the stationmaster, a young

man with a handsome beard and in a magnificent rough woollen overcoat. The young man, probably new to

his position, stands in the same place, gracefully shifting from one foot to the other like a good racehorse,

looks from side to side, salutes everyone that passes by, smiles and screws up his eyes. . . . He is

redcheeked, sturdy, and goodhumored; his face is full of eagerness, and is as fresh as though he had just

fallen from the sky with the feathery snow. Seeing Malahin, the guard sighs guiltily and throws up his hands.

"We can't go number fourteen," he says. "We are very much behind time. Another train has gone with that

The stationmaster rapidly looks through some forms, then turns his beaming blue eyes upon Malahin, and,

"You are Mr. Malahin? You have the cattle? Eight vanloads? What is to be done now? You are late and I let

The young man discreetly takes hold of the fur of Malahin's coat with two pink fingers and, shifting from one

foot to the other, explains affably and convincingly that such and such numbers have gone already, and that

such and such are going, and that he is ready to do for Malahin everything in his power. And from his face it

is evident that he is ready to do anything to please not only Malahin, but the whole world he is so happy,

so pleased, and so delighted! The old man listens, and though he can make absolutely nothing of the intricate

system of numbering the trains, he nods his head approvingly, and he, too, puts two fingers on the soft wool

of the rough coat. He enjoys seeing and hearing the polite and genial young man. To show goodwill on his

side also, he takes out a tenrouble note and, after a moment's thought, adds a couple of rouble notes to it,

and gives them to the stationmaster. The latter takes them, puts his finger to his cap, and gracefully thrusts

"Well, gentlemen, can't we arrange it like this?" he says, kindled by a new idea that has flashed on him. "The

troop train is late, . . . as you see, it is not here, . . . so why shouldn't you go as the troop train?** And I will

"Excellent!" the stationmaster says, delighted. "In that case there is no need for you to wait here; you can set

He salutes Malahin and runs off to his room, reading forms as he goes. The old man is very much pleased by

the conversation that has just taken place; he smiles and looks about the room as though looking for

They both go to the refreshment bar. After having a drink the guard spends a long time selecting something to

He is a very stout, elderly man, with a puffy and discolored face. His fatness is unpleasant, flabbylooking,

"And now we might have a second glass," says Malahin. "It's cold now, it's no sin to drink. Please take some.

So I can rely upon you, Mr. Guard, that there will be no hindrance or unpleasantness for the rest of the

journey. For you know in moving cattle every hour is precious. Today meat is one price; and tomorrow,

look you, it will be another. If you are a day or two late and don't get your price, instead of a profit you get

home excuse my saying it with out your breeches. Pray take a little. . . . I rely on you, and as for

standing you something or what you like, I shall be pleased to show you my respect at any time."

"I have just got hold of the troop train," he says to his son. "We shall go quickly. The guard says if we go all

the way with that number we shall arrive at eight o'clock tomorrow evening. If one does not bestir oneself,

After the first bell a man with a face black with soot, in a blouse and filthy frayed trousers hanging very

slack, comes to the door of the van. This is the oiler, who had been creeping under the carriages and tapping

"Why, because two of the vans are not safe. They can't go on, they must stay here to be repaired."

"Oh, come, tell us another! You simply want a drink, to get something out of me. . . . You should have said

Without indignation or protest, simply, almost mechanically, the old man takes two twentykopeck pieces

out of his pocket and gives them to the oiler. He takes them very calmly, too, and looking goodnaturedly at

Malahin sighs and, looking calmly at the oiler's black face, tells him that trading in cattle used certainly to be

"I have a mate here," the oiler interrupts him. "You merchant gentlemen might make him a little present. . .."

Malahin gives something to the mate too. The troop train goes quickly and the waits at the stations are

comparatively short. The old man is pleased. The pleasant impression made by the young man in the rough

overcoat has gone deep, the vodka he has drunk slightly clouds his brain, the weather is magnificent, and

everything seems to be going well. He talks without ceasing, and at every stopping place runs to the

refreshment bar. Feeling the need of a listener, he takes with him first the guard, and then the enginedriver,

and does not simply drink, but makes a long business of it, with suitable remarks and clinking of glasses.

"You have your job and we have ours," he says with an affable smile. "May God prosper us and you, and not

The vodka gradually excites him and he is worked up to a great pitch of energy. He wants to bestir himself, to

fuss about, to make inquiries, to talk incessantly. At one minute he fumbles in his pockets and bundles and

looks for some form. Then he thinks of something and cannot remember it; then takes out his pocketbook,

and with no sort of object counts over his money. He bustles about, sighs and groans, clasps his hands. . . .

Laying out before him the letters and telegrams from the meat salesmen in the city, bills, post office and

telegraphic receipt forms, and his note book, he reflects aloud and insists on Yasha's listening.

And when he is tired of reading over forms and talking about prices, he gets out at the stopping places, runs

to the vans where his cattle are, does nothing, but simply clasps his hands and exclaims in horror.

"Oh, dear! oh, dear!" he says in a complaining voice. "Holy Martyr Vlassy! Though they are bullocks, though

they are beasts, yet they want to eat and drink as men do. . . . It's four days and nights since they have drunk

Yasha follows him and does what he is told like an obedient son. He does not like the old man's frequent

visits to the refreshment bar. Though he is afraid of his father, he cannot refrain from remarking on it.

"So you have begun already!" he says, looking sternly at the old man. "What are you rejoicing at? Is it your

When he has not to follow his father along the other vans Yasha sits on the cape and strums on the accordion.

Occasionally he gets out and walks lazily beside the train; he stands by the engine and turns a prolonged,

unmoving stare on the wheels or on the workmen tossing blocks of wood into the tender; the hot engine

wheezes, the falling blocks come down with the mellow, hearty thud of fresh wood; the enginedriver and

his assistant, very phlegmatic and imperturbable persons, perform incomprehensible movements and don't

hurry themselves. After standing for a while by the engine, Yasha saunters lazily to the station; here he looks

at the eatables in the refreshment bar, reads aloud some quite uninteresting notice, and goes back slowly to

the cattle van. His face expresses neither boredom nor desire; apparently he does not care where he is, at

Towards evening the train stops near a big station. The lamps have only just been lighted along the line;

against the blue background in the fresh limpid air the lights are bright and pale like stars; they are only red

and glowing under the station roof, where it is already dark. All the lines are loaded up with carriages, and it

seems that if another train came in there would be no place for it. Yasha runs to the station for boiling water

to make the evening tea. Welldressed ladies and highschool boys are walking on the platform. If one looks

into the distance from the platform there are faraway lights twinkling in the evening dusk on both sides of

the station that is the town. What town? Yasha does not care to know. He sees only the dim lights and

wretched buildings beyond the station, hears the cabmen shouting, feels a sharp, cold wind on his face, and

While they are having tea, when it is quite dark and a lantern is hanging on the wall again as on the previous

evening, the train quivers from a slight shock and begins moving backwards. After going a little way it stops;

they hear indistinct shouts, someone sets the chains clanking near the buffers and shouts, "Ready!" The train

Getting out of the van, Malahin does not recognize his train. His eight vans of bullocks are standing in the

same row with some trolleys which were not a part of the train before. Two or three of these are loaded with

rubble and the others are empty. The guards running to and fro on the platform are strangers. They give

unwilling and indistinct answers to his questions. They have no thoughts to spare for Malahin; they are in a

hurry to get the train together so as to finish as soon as possible and be back in the warmth.

Getting n o answer, the old man goes to the station. He looks first for the familiar figure of the head guard

and, not finding him, goes to the stationmaster. The stationmaster is sitting at a table in his own room,

turning over a bundle of forms. He is busy, and affects not to see the newcomer. His appearance is

impressive: a cropped black head, prominent ears, a long hooked nose, a swarthy face; he has a forbidding

and, as it were, offended expression. Malahin begins making his complaint at great length.

"What?" queries the stationmaster. "How is this?" He leans against the back of his chair and goes on,

growing indignant: "What is it? and why shouldn't you go by number eighteen? Speak more clearly, I don't

He showers questions on him, and for no apparent reason grows sterner and sterner. Malahin is already

feeling in his pocket for his pocketbook, but in the end the stationmaster, aggrieved and indignant, for some

unknown reason jumps up from his seat and runs out of the room. Malahin shrugs his shoulders, and goes out

From boredom or from a desire to put the finishing stroke to a busy day, or simply that a window with the

inscription "Telegraph! " on it catches his eye, he goes to the window and expresses a desire to send off a

telegram. Taking up a pen, he thinks for a moment, and writes on a blue form: "Urgent. Traffic Manager.

Eight vans of live stock. Delayed at every station. Kindly send an express number. Reply paid. Malahin."

Having sent off the telegram, he goes back to the stationmaster's room. There he finds, sitting on a sofa

covered with gray cloth, a benevolentlooking gentleman in spectacles and a cap of raccoon fur; he is

wearing a peculiar overcoat very much like a lady's, edged with fur, with frogs and slashed sleeves. Another

gentleman, driedup and sinewy, wearing the uniform of a railway inspector, stands facing him.

"Just think of it," says the inspector, addressing the gentleman in the queer overcoat. " I'll tell you an incident

that really is A1! The Z. railway line in the coolest possible way stole three hundred trucks from the N. line.

It's a fact, sir! I swear it! They carried them off, repainted them, put their letters on them, and that's all about

it. The N. line sends its agents everywhere, they hunt and hunt. And then can you imagine it? the

Company happen to come upon a brokendown carriage of the Z. line. They repair it at their depot, and all at

once, bless my soul! see their own mark on the wheels What do you say to that? Eh? If I did it they would

It is pleasant to Malahin to talk to educated, cultured people. He strokes his beard and joins in the

"Take this case, gentlemen, for instance," he says. I am transporting cattle to X. Eight vanloads. Very good. .

. . Now let us say they charge me for each vanload as a weight of ten tons; eight bullocks don't weigh ten

At that instant Yasha walks into the room looking for his father. He listens and is about to sit down on a

"They don't take any notice of that," Malahin goes on, "and charge me and my son the thirdclass fare, too,

fortytwo roubles, for going in the van with the bullocks. This is my son Yakov. I have two more at home,

but they have gone in for study. Well and apart from that it is my opinion that the railways have ruined the

The old man's talk is lengthy and drawn out. After every sentence he looks at Yasha as though he would say:

"Upon my word!" the inspector interrupts him. "No one is indignant, no one criticizes. And why? It is very

simple. An abomination strikes the eye and arouses indignation only when it is exceptional, when the

established order is broken by it. Here, where, saving your presence, it constitutes the longestablished

program and forms and enters into the basis of the order itself, where every sleeper on the line bears the trace

The second bell rings, the gentlemen in the queer overcoat gets up. The inspector takes him by the arm and,

still talking with heat, goes off with him to the platform. After the third bell the stationmaster runs into his

"Are you Malahin, eight vanloads? You must pay a rouble a van and six roubles and twenty kopecks for

Receiving the money, he writes something down, dries it with sand, and, hurriedly snatching up a bundle of

At ten o'clock in the evening Malahin gets an answer from the traffic manager: "Give precedence."

Reading the telegram through, the old man winks significantly and, very well pleased with himself, puts it in

At midnight his train goes on. The night is dark and cold like the previous one; the waits at the stations are

long. Yasha sits on the cape and imperturbably strums on the accordion, while the old man is still more eager

to exert himself. At one of the stations he is overtaken by a desire to lodge a complaint. At his request a

"November 10, 188. I, noncommissioned officer of the Z. section of the N. police department of

railways, Ilya Tchered, in accordance with article II of the statute of May 19, 1871, have drawn up this

Malahin lays out before him forms, postal and telegraph receipts, accounts. . . . He does not know himself

definitely what he wants of the gendarme; he wants to describe in the protocol not any separate episode but

his whole journey, with all his losses and conversations with stationmasters to describe it lengthily and

"At the station of Z.," he says, "write that the stationmaster unlinked my vans from the troop train because

And he wants the gendarme to be sure to mention his countenance. The latter listens wearily, and goes on

"The above deposition I, noncommissioned officer Tchered, have written down in this protocol with a view

to present it to the head of the Z. section, and have handed a copy thereof to Gavril Malahin."

The old man takes the copy, adds it to the papers with which his side pocket is stuffed, and, much pleased,

In the morning Malahin wakes up again in a bad humor, but his wrath vents itself not on Yasha but the cattle.

"The cattle are done for!" he grumbles. "They are done for! They are at the last gasp! God be my judge! they

The bullocks, who have had nothing to drink for many days, tortured by thirst, are licking the hoar frost on

the walls, and when Malachin goes up to them they begin licking his cold fur jacket. From their clear, tearful

eyes it can be seen that they are exhausted by thirst and the jolting of the train, that they are hungry and

"It's a nice job taking you by rail, you wretched brutes!" mutters Malahin. "I could wish you were dead to get

At midday the train stops at a big station where, according to the regulations, there was drinking water

Water is given to the cattle, but the bullocks will not drink it: the water is too cold. . . .

Two more days and nights pass, and at last in the distance in the murky fog the city comes into sight. The jou

rney is over. The train comes to a standstill before reaching the town, near a goods' station. The bullocks,

released from the van, stagger and stumble as though they were walking on slippery ice.

Having got through the unloading and veterinary inspection, Malahin and Yasha take up their quarters in a

dirty, cheap hotel in the outskirts of the town, in the square in which the cattlemarket is held. Their lodgings

are filthy and their food is disgusting, unlike what they ever have at home; they sleep to the harsh strains of a

wretched steam hurdygurdy which plays day and night in the restaurant under their lodging.

The old man spends his time from morning till night going about looking for purchasers, and Yasha sits for

days in the hotel room, or goes out into the street to look at the town. He sees the filthy square heaped up

with dung, the signboards of restaurants, the turreted walls of a monastery in the fog. Sometimes he runs

across the street and looks into the grocer's shop, admires the jars of cakes of different colors, yawns, and

At last the bullocks are sold to a dealer. Malahin hires drovers. The cattle are divided into herds, ten in each,

and driven to the other end of the town. The bullocks, exhausted, go with drooping heads through the noisy

streets, and look indifferently at what they see for the first and last time in their lives. The tattered drovers

walk after them, their heads drooping too. They are bored. . . . Now and then some drover starts out of his

brooding, remembers that there are cattle in front of him intrusted to his charge, and to show that he is doing

his duty brings a stick down full swing on a bullock's back. The bullock staggers with the pain, runs forward

a dozen paces, and looks about him as though he were ashamed at being beaten before people.

After selling the bullocks and buying for his family presents such as they could perfectly well have bought at

home, Malahin and Yasha get ready for their journey back. Three hours before the train goes the old man,

who has already had a drop too much with the purchaser and so is fussy, goes down with Yasha to the

restaurant and sits down to drink tea. Like all provincials, he cannot eat and drink alone: he must have

"Call the host!" he says to the waiter; "tell him I should like to entertain him."

The hotelkeeper, a wellfed man, absolutely indifferent to his lodgers, comes and sits down to the table.

"Well, we have sold our stock," Malahin says, laughing. "I have swapped my goat for a hawk. Why, when we

set off the price of meat was three roubles ninety kopecks, but when we arrived it had dropped to three

roubles twentyfive. They tell us we are too late, we should have been here three days earlier, for now there

is not the same demand for meat, St. Philip's fast has come. . . . Eh? It's a nice howdoyoudo! It meant a

loss of fourteen roubles on each bullock. Yes. But only think what it costs to bring the stock! Fifteen roubles

carriage, and you must put down six roubles for each bullock, tips, bribes, drinks, and one thing and another. .

The hotelkeeper listens out of politeness and reluctantly drinks tea. Malahin sighs and groans, gesticulates,

jests about his illluck, but everything shows that the loss he has sustained does not trouble him much. He

doesn't mind whether he has lost or gained as long as he has listeners, has something to make a fuss about,

An hour later Malahin and Yasha, laden with bags and boxes, go downstairs from the hotel room to the front

door to get into a sledge and drive to the station. They are seen off by the hotelkeeper, the waiter, and

various women. The old man is touched. He thrusts tenkopeck pieces in all directions, and says in a

"Good by, good health to you! God grant that all may be well with you. Please God if we are alive and well

Getting into the sledge, the old man spends a long time crossing himself in the direction in which the

monastery walls make a patch of darkness in the fog. Yasha sits beside him on the very edge of the seat with

his legs hanging over the side. His face as before shows no sign of emotion and expresses neither boredom

nor desire. He is not glad that he is going home, nor sorry that he has not had time to see the sights of the city.

The cabman whips up the horse and, turning round, begins swearing at the heavy and cumbersome luggage.

* On many railway lines, in order to avoid accidents, it is against the regulations to carry hay on the

**The train destined especially for the transport of troops is called the troop train; when they are no troops it

THE turner, Grigory Petrov, who had been known for years past as a splendid craftsman, and at the same

time as the most senseless peasant in the Galtchinskoy district, was taking his old woman to the hospital. He

had to drive over twenty miles, and it was an awful road. A government post driver could hardly have coped

with it, much less an incompetent sluggard like Grigory. A cutting cold wind was blowing straight in his face.

Clouds of snowflakes were whirling round and round in all directions, so that one could not tell whether the

snow was falling from the sky or rising from the earth. The fields, the telegraph posts, and the forest could

not be seen for the fog of snow. And when a particularly violent gust of wind swooped down on Grigory,

even the yoke above the horse's head could not be seen. The wretched, feeble little nag crawled slowly along.

It took all its strength to drag its legs out of the snow and to tug with its head. The turner was in a hurry. He

kept restlessly hopping up and down on the front seat and lashing the horse's back.

"Don't cry, Matryona, . . ." he muttered. "Have a little patience. Please God we shall reach the hospital, and in

a trice it will be the right thing for you. . . . Pavel Ivanitch will give you some little drops, or tell them to

bleed you; or maybe his honor will be pleased to rub you with some sort of spirit it'll . . . draw it out of

your side. Pavel Ivanitch will do his best. He will shout and stamp about, but he will do his best. . . . He is a

nice gentleman, affable, God give him health! As soon as we get there he will dart out of his room and will

begin calling me names. 'How? Why so?' he will cry. 'Why did you not come at the right time? I am not a dog

to be hanging about waiting on you devils all day. Why did you not come in the morning? Go away! Get out

of my sight. Come again tomorrow.' And I shall say: 'Mr. Doctor! Pavel Ivanitch! Your honor!' Get on, do!

The turner lashed his nag, and without looking at the old woman went on muttering to himself:

"'Your honor! It's true as before God. . . . Here's the Cross for you, I set off almost before it was light. How

could I be here in time if the Lord. . . .The Mother of God . . . is wroth, and has sent such a snowstorm?

Kindly look for yourself. . . . Even a firstrate horse could not do it, while mine you can see for yourself

is not a horse but a disgrace.' And Pavel Ivanitch will frown and shout: 'We know you! You always find

some excuse! Especially you, Grishka; I know you of old! I'll be bound you have stopped at half a dozen

taverns!' And I shall say: 'Your honor! am I a criminal or a heathen? My old woman is giving up her soul to

God, she is dying, and am I going to run from tavern to tavern! What an idea, upon my word! Plague take

them, the taverns!' Then Pavel Ivanitch will order you to be taken into the hospital, and I shall fall at his feet.

. . . 'Pavel Ivanitch! Your honor, we thank you most humbly! Forgive us fools and anathemas, don't be hard

on us peasants! We deserve a good kicking, whi le you graciously put yourself out and mess your feet in the

snow!' And Pavel Ivanitch will give me a look as though he would like to hit me, and will say: 'You'd much

better not be swilling vodka, you fool, but taking pity on your old woman instead of falling at my feet. You

want a thrashing!' 'You are right there a thrashing, Pavel Ivanitch, strike me God! But how can we help

bowing down at your feet if you are our benefactor, and a real father to us? Your honor! I give you my word,

. . . here as before God, . . . you may spit in my face if I deceive you: as soon as my Matryona, this same here,

is well again and restored to her natural condition, I'll make anything for your honor that you would like to

order! A cigarettecase, if you like, of the best birchwood, . . . balls for croquet, skittles of the most foreign

pattern I can turn. . . . I will make anything for you! I won't take a farthing from you. In Moscow they would

charge you four roubles for such a cigarettecase, but I won't take a farthing.' The doctor will laugh and say:

'Oh, all right, all right. . . . I see! But it's a pity you are a drunkard. . . .' I know how to manage the gentry, old

girl. There isn't a gentleman I couldn't talk to. Only God grant we don't get off the road. Oh, how it is

And the turner went on muttering endlessly. He prattled on mechanically to get a little relief from his

depressing feelings. He had plenty of words on his tongue, but the thoughts and questions in his brain were

even more numerous. Sorrow had come upon the turner unawares, unlookedfor, and unexpected, and now

he could not get over it, could not recover himself. He had lived hitherto in unruffled calm, as though in

drunken halfconsciousness, knowing neither grief nor joy, and now he was suddenly aware of a dreadful

pain in his heart. The careless idler and drunkard found himself quite suddenly in the position of a busy man,

The turner remembered that his trouble had begun the evening before. When he had come home yesterday

evening, a little drunk as usual, and from longestablished habit had begun swearing and shaking his fists, his

old woman had looked at her rowdy spouse as she had never looked at him before. Usually, the expression in

her aged eyes was that of a martyr, meek like that of a dog frequently beaten and badly fed; this time she had

looked at him sternly and immovably, as saints in the holy pictures or dying people look. From that strange,

evil look in her eyes the trouble had begun. The turner, stupefied with amazement, borrowed a horse from a

neighbor, and now was taking his old woman to the hospital in the hope that, by means of powders and

"I say, Matryona, . . ." the turner muttered, "if Pavel Ivanitch asks you whether I beat you, say, 'Never!' and I

never will beat you again. I swear it. And did I ever beat you out of spite? I just beat you without thinking. I

am sorry for you. Some men wouldn't trouble, but here I am taking you. . . . I am doing my best. And the way

it snows, the way it snows! Thy Will be done, O Lord! God grant we don't get off the road. . . . Does your

It struck him as strange that the snow on his old woman's face was not melting; it was queer that the face

itself looked somehow drawn, and had turned a pale gray, dingy waxen hue and had grown grave and solemn.

"You are a fool!" muttered the turner. . . . "I tell you on my conscience, before God,. . . and you go and . . .

The turner let the reins go and began thinking. He could not bring himself to look round at his old woman: he

was frightened. He was afraid, too, of asking her a question and not getting an answer. At last, to make an

end of uncertainty, without looking round he felt his old woman's cold hand. The lifted hand fell like a log.

And the turner cried. He was not so much sorry as annoyed. He thought how quickly everything passes in this

world! His trouble had hardly begun when the final catastrophe had happened. He had not had time to live

with his old woman, to show her he was sorry for her before she died. He had lived with her for forty years,

but those forty years had passed by as it were in a fog. What with drunkenness, quarreling, and poverty, there

had been no feeling of life. And, as though to spite him, his old woman died at the very time when he felt he

was sorry for her, that he could not live without her, and that he had behaved dreadfully badly to her.

"Why, she used to go the round of the village," he remembered. "I sent her out myself to beg for bread. What

a business! She ought to have lived another ten years, the silly thing; as it is I'll be bound she thinks I really

was that sort of man. . . . Holy Mother! but where the devil am I driving? There's no need for a doctor now,

Grigory turned back and lashed the horse with all his might. The road grew worse and worse every hour.

Now he could not see the yoke at all. Now and then the sledge ran into a young fir tree, a dark object

scratched the turner's hands and flashed before his eyes, and the field of vision was white and whirling again.

He remembered that forty years ago Matryona had been young, handsome, merry, that she had come of a

welltodo family. They had married her to him because they had been attracted by his handicraft. All the

essentials for a happy life had been there, but the trouble was that, just as he had got drunk after the wedding

and lay sprawling on the stove, so he had gone on without waking up till now. His wedding he remembered,

but of what happened after the wedding for the life of him he could remember nothing, except perhaps

that he had drunk, lain on the stove, and quarreled. Forty years had been wasted like that.

The white clouds of snow were beginning little by little to turn gray. It was getting dusk.

"Where am I going?" the turner suddenly bethought him with a start. "I ought to be thinking of the burial, and

Grigory turned round again, and again lashed his horse. The little nag strained its utmost and, with a snort,

fell into a little trot. The turner lashed it on the back time after time. . . . A knocking was audible behind him,

and though he did not look round, he knew it was the dead woman's head knocking against the sledge. And

the snow kept turning darker and darker, the wind grew colder and more cutting. . . .

"To live over again!" thought the turner. "I should get a new lathe, take orders, . . . give the money to my old

And then he dropped the reins. He looked for them, tried to pick them up, but could not his hands would

"It does not matter," he thought, "the horse will go of itself, it knows the way. I might have a little sleep now.

. . . Before the funeral or the requiem it would be as well to get a little rest. . . ."

The turner closed his eyes and dozed. A little later he heard the horse stop; he opened his eyes and saw before

He would have got out of the sledge and found out what it was, but he felt overcome by such inertia that it

He woke up in a big room with painted walls. Bright sunlight was streaming in at the windows. The turner

saw people facing him, and his first feeling was a desire to show himself a respectable man who knew how

"A requiem, brothers, for my old woman," he said. "The priest should be told. . . ."

"Pavel Ivanitch!" the turner cried in surprise, seeing the doctor before him. "Your honor, benefactor! "

He wanted to leap up and fall on his knees before the doctor, but felt that his arms and legs would not obey

"Say goodby to your arms and legs. . . . They've been frozen off. Come, come! . . . What are you crying for

? You've lived your life, and thank God for it! I suppose you have had sixty years of it that's enough for

"I am grieving. . . . Graciously forgive me! If I could have another five or six years! . . ."

"The horse isn't mine, I must give it back. . . . I must bury my old woman. . . . How quickly it is all ended in

this world! Your honor, Pavel Ivanitch! A cigarettecase of birchwood of the best! I'll turn you croquet balls.

The doctor went out of the ward with a wave of his hand. It was all over with the turner.

THE deputy examining magistrate and the district doctor were going to an inquest in the village of Syrnya.

On the road they were overtaken by a snowstorm; they spent a long time going round and round, and arrived,

not at midday, as they had intended, but in the evening when it was dark. They put up for the night at the

Zemstvo hut. It so happened that it was in this hut that the dead body was lying the corpse of the Zemstvo

insurance agent, Lesnitsky, who had arrived in Syrnya three days before and, ordering the samovar in the hut,

had shot himself, to the great surprise of everyone; and the fact that he had ended his life so strangely, after

unpacking his eatables and laying them out on the table, and with the samovar before him, led many people to

In the outer room the doctor and the examining magistrate shook the snow off themselves and knocked it off

their boots. And meanwhile the old village constable, Ilya Loshadin, stood by, holding a little tin lamp. There

He used to spell it "conshtable" when he signed the receipts at the post office.

On the right was the parlor, the travelers' or gentry's room; on the left the kitchen, with a big stove and

sleeping shelves under the rafters. The doctor and the examining magistrate, followed by the constable,

holding the lamp high above his head, went into the parlor. Here a still, long body covered with white linen

was lying on the floor close to the tablelegs. In the dim light of the lamp they could clearly see, besides the

white covering, new rubber goloshes, and everything about it was uncanny and sinister: the dark walls, and

the silence, and the goloshes, and the stillness of the dead body. On the table stood a samovar, cold long ago;

"To shoot oneself in the Zemstvo hut, how tactless!" said the doctor. "If one does want to put a bullet through

He sank on to a bench, just as he was, in his cap, his fur coat, and his felt overboots; his fellowtraveler, the

"These hysterical, neurasthenic people are great egoists," the doctor went on hotly. "If a neurasthenic sleeps

in the same room with you, he rustles his newspaper; when he dines with you, he gets up a scene with his

wife without troubling about your presence; and when he feels inclined to shoot himself, he shoots himself in

a village in a Zemstvo hut, so as to give the maximum of trouble to everybody. These gentlemen in every

circumstance of life think of no one but themselves! That's why the elderly so dislike our 'nervous age.'"

"The elderly dislike so many things," said the examining magistrate, yawning. "You should point out to the

elder generation what the difference is between the suicides of the past and the suicides of today. In the old

days the socalled gentleman shot himself because he had made away with Government money, but

"Sick of life, depressed; but you must admit that he might have shot himself somewhere else."

"Such trouble!" said the constable, "such trouble! It's a real affliction. The people are very much upset, your

honor; they haven't slept these three nights. The children are crying. The cows ought to be milked, but the

women won't go to the stall they are afraid . . . for fear the gentleman should appear to them in the

darkness. Of course they are silly women, but some of the men are frightened too. As soon as it is dark they

won't go by the hut one by one, but only in a flock together. And the witnesses too. . . ."

Dr. Startchenko, a middleaged man in spectacles with a dark beard, and the examining magistrate Lyzhin, a

fair man, still young, who had only taken his degree two years before and looked more like a student than an

official, sat in silence, musing. They were vexed that they were late. Now they had to wait till morning, and

to stay here for the night, though it was not yet six o'clock; and they had before them a long evening, a dark

night, boredom, uncomfortable beds, beetles, and cold in the morning; and listening to the blizzard that

howled in the chimney and in the loft, they both thought how unlike all this was the life which they would

have chosen for themselves and of which they had once dreamed, and how far away they both were from

their contemporaries, who were at that moment walking about the lighted streets in town without noticing the

weather, or were getting ready for the theatre, or sitting in their studies over a book. Oh, how much they

would have given now only to stroll along the Nevsky Prospect, or along Petrovka in Moscow, to listen to

"Oooooooo!" sang the storm in the loft, and something outside slammed viciously, probably the

"You can do as you please, but I have no desire to stay here," said Startchenko, getting up. "It's not six yet,

it's too early to go to bed; I am off. Von Taunitz lives not far from here, only a couple of miles from Syrnya. I

shall go to see him and spend the evening there. Constable, run and tell my coachman not to take the horses

The doctor wrapped himself in his fur coat and went out. Lyzhin could hear him talking to the coachman and

"It is not nice for you, sir, to spend the night in here," said the constable; "come into the other room. It's dirty,

but for one night it won't matter. I'll get a samovar from a peasant and heat it directly. I'll heap up some hay

A little later the examining magistrate was sitting in the kitchen drinking tea, while Loshadin, the constable,

was standing at the door talking. He was an old man about sixty, short and very thin, bent and white, with a

naive smile on his face and watery eyes, and he kept smacking with his lips as though he were sucking a

sweetmeat. He was wearing a short sheepskin coat and high felt boots, and held his stick in his hands all the

time. The youth of the examining magistrate aroused his compassion, and that was probably why he

"The elder gave orders that he was to be informed when the police superintendent or the examining

magistrate came," he said, "so I suppose I must go now. . . . It's nearly three miles to the _volost_, and the

storm, the snowdrifts, are something terrible maybe one won't get there before midnight. Ough! how the

"How many? Why, thirty years. Five years after the Freedom I began going as constable, that's how I reckon

it. And from that time I have been going every day since. Other people have holidays, but I am always going.

When it's Easter and the church bells are ringing and Christ has risen, I still go about with my bag to the

treasury, to the post, to the police superintendent's lodgings, to the rural captain, to the tax inspector, to the

municipal office, to the gentry, to the peasants, to all orthodox Christians. I carry parcels, notices, tax papers,

letters, forms of different sorts, circulars, and to be sure, kind gentleman, there are all sorts of forms

nowadays, so as to note down the numbers yellow, white, and red and every gentleman or priest or

welltodo peasant must write down a dozen times in the year how much he has sown and harvested, how

many quarters or poods he has of rye, how many of oats, how many of hay, and what the weather's like, you

know, and insects, too, of all sorts. To be sure you can write what you like, it's only a regulation, but one

must go and give out the notices and then go again and collect them. Here, for instance, there's no need to cut

open the gentleman; you know yourself it's a silly thing, it's only dirtying your hands, and here you have been

put to trouble, your honor; you have come because it's the regulation; you can't help it. For thirty years I have

been going round according to regulation. In the summer it is all right, it is warm and dry; but in winter and

autumn it's uncomfortable At times I have been almost drowned and almost frozen; all sorts of things have

happened wicked people set on me in the forest and took away my bag; I have been beaten, and I have

"Why, you see, Hrisanf Grigoryev, the clerk, sold the contractor some boards belonging to someone else

cheated him, in fact. I was mixed up in it. They sent me to the tavern for vodka; well, the clerk did not share

with me did not even offer me a glass; but as through my poverty I was in appearance, I mean not a

man to be relied upon, not a man of any worth, we were both brought to trial; he was sent to prison, but,

praise God! I was acquitted on all points. They read a notice, you know, in the court. And they were all in

uniforms in the court, I mean. I can tell you, your honor, my duties for anyone not used to them are

terrible, absolutely killing; but to me it is nothing. In fact, my feet ache when I am not walking. And at home

it is worse for me. At home one has to heat the stove for the clerk in the _volost_ office, to fetch water for

"Other little sums? No, indeed! Gentlemen nowadays don't often give tips. Gentlemen nowadays are strict,

they take offense at anything. If you bring them a notice they are offended, if you take off your cap before

them they are offended. 'You have come to the wrong entrance,' they say. 'You are a drunkard,' they say. 'You

smell of onion; you are a blockhead; you are the son of a bitch.' There are kindhearted ones, of course; but

what does one get from them? They only laugh and call one all sorts of names. Mr. Altuhin, for instance, he

is a goodnatured gentleman; and if you look at him he seems sober and in his right mind, but so soon as he

sees me he shouts and does not know what he means himself. He gave me such a name 'You,' said he, . . ."

The constable uttered some word, but in such a low voice that it was impossible to make out what he said.

" 'Administration,' " the constable repeated aloud. "He has been calling me that for a long while, for the last

six years. 'Hullo, Administration!' But I don't mind; let him, God bless him! Sometimes a lady will send one a

glass of vodka and a bit of pie and one drinks to her health. But peasants give more; peasants are more

kindhearted, they have the fear of God in their hearts: one will give a bit of bread, another a drop of cabbage

soup, another will stand one a glass. The village elders treat one to tea in the tavern. Here the witnesses have

gone to their tea. 'Loshadin,' they said, 'you stay here and keep watch for us,' and they gave me a kopeck

each. You see, they are frightened, not being used to it, and yesterday they gave me fifteen kopecks and

"I am, sir; but of course it is my duty, there is no getting away from it. In the summer I was taking a convict

to the town, and he set upon me and gave me such a drubbing! And all around were fields, forest how

could I get away from him? It's just the same here. I remember the gentleman, Mr. Lesnitsky, when he was so

high, and I knew his father and mother. I am from the village of Nedoshtchotova, and they, the Lesnitsky

family, were not more than threequarters of a mile from us and less than that, their ground next to ours, and

Mr. Lesnitsky had a sister, a Godfearing and tenderhearted lady. Lord keep the soul of Thy servant Yulya,

eternal memory to her! She was never married, and when she was dying she divided all her property; she left

three hundred acres to the monastery, and six hundred to the commune of peasants of Nedoshtchotova to

commemorate her soul; but her brother hid the will, they do say burnt it in the stove, and took all this land for

himself. He thought, to be sure, it was for his benefit; but nay, wait a bit, you won't get on in the world

through injustice, brother. The gentleman did not go to confession for twenty years after. He kept away from

the church, to be sure, and died impenitent. He burst. He was a very fat man, so he burst lengthways. Then

everything was taken from the young master, from Seryozha, to pay the debts everything there was. Well,

he had not gone very far in his studies, he couldn't do anything, and the president of the Rural Board, his

uncle 'I'll take him' Seryozha, I mean thinks he, 'for an agent; let him collect the insurance, that's

not a difficult job,' and the gentleman was young and proud, he wanted to be living on a bigger scale and in

better style and with more freedom. To be sure it was a comedown for him to be jolting about the district in

a wretched cart and talking to the peasants; he would walk and keep looking on the ground, looking on the

ground and saying nothing; if you called his name right in his ear, 'Sergey Sergeyitch!' he would look round

like this, 'Eh?' and look down on the ground again, and now you see he has laid hands on himself. There's no

sense in it, your honor, it's not right, and there's no making out what's the meaning of it, merciful Lord! Say

your father was rich and you are poor; it is mortifying, there's no doubt about it, but there, you must make up

your mind to it. I used to live in good style, too; I had two horses, your honor, three cows, I used to keep

twenty head of sheep; but the time has come, and I am left with nothing but a wretched bag, and even that is

not mine but Government property. And now in our Nedoshtchotova, if the truth is to be told, my house is the

worst of the lot. Makey had four footmen, and now Makey is a footman himself. Petrak had four laborers, and

"My sons drink terribly. I could not tell you how they drink, you wouldn't believe it."

Lyzhin listened and thought how he, Lyzhin, would go back sooner or later to Moscow, while this old man

would stay here for ever, and would always be walking and walking. And how many times in his life he

would come across such battered, unkempt old men, not "men of any worth," in whose souls fifteen kopecks,

glasses of vodka, and a profound belief that you can't get on in this life by dishonesty, were equally firmly

Then he grew tired of listening, and told the old man to bring him some hay for his bed, There was an iron

bedstead with a pillow and a quilt in the traveler's room, and it could be fetched in ; but the dead man had

been lying by it for nearly three days (and perhaps sitting on it just before his death), and it would be

"It's only halfpast seven," thought Lyzhin, glancing at his watch. "How awful it is!"

He was not sleepy, but having nothing to do to pass away the time, he lay down and covered himself with a

rug. Loshadin went in and out several times, clearing away the teathings; smacking his lips and sighing, he

kept tramping round the table; at last he took his little lamp and went out, and, looking at his long,

It was dark. The moon must have been behind the clouds, as the windows and the snow on the

"Hoholy saaints!" wailed a woman in the loft, or it sounded like it. "Hoholy saaints!"

The examining magistrate listened: there was no woman up there, it was the wind howling. It was rather cold,

and he put his fur coat over his rug. As he got warm he thought how remote all this the storm, and the hut,

and the old man, and the dead body lying in the next room how remote it all was from the life he desired

for himself, and how alien it all was to him, how petty, how uninteresting. If this man had killed himself in

Moscow or somewhere in the neighborhood, and he had had to hold an inquest on him there, it would have

been interesting, important, and perhaps he might even have been afraid to sleep in the next room to the

corpse. Here, nearly a thousand miles from Moscow, all this was seen somehow in a different light; it was not

life, they were not human beings, but something only existing "according to the regulation," as Loshadin said;

it would leave not the faintest trace in the memory, and would be forgotten as soon as he, Lyzhin, drove away

from Syrnya. The fatherland, the real Russia, was Moscow, Petersburg; but here he was in the provinces, the

colonies. When one dreamed of playing a leading part, of becoming a popular figure, of being, for instance,

examining magistrate in particularly important cases or prosecutor in a circuit court, of being a society lion,

one always thought of Moscow. To live, one must be in Moscow; here one cared for nothing, one grew easily

resigned to one's insignificant position, and only expected one thing of life to get away quickly, quickly.

And Lyzhin mentally moved about the Moscow streets, went into the familiar houses, met his kindred, his

comrades, and there was a sweet pang at his heart at the thought that he was only twentysix, and that if in

five or ten years he could break away from here and get to Moscow, even then it would not be too late and he

would still have a whole life before him. And as he sank into unconsciousness, as his thoughts began to be

confused, he imagined the long corridor of the court at Moscow, himself delivering a speech, his sisters, the

And he suddenly recalled how one day, when he was talking to the bookkeeper in the little office of the Rural

Board, a thin, pale gentleman with black hair and dark eyes walked in; he had a disagreeable look in his eyes

such as one sees in people who have slept too long after dinner, and it spoilt his delicate, intelligent profile;

and the high boots he was wearing did not suit him, but looked clumsy. The bookkeeper had introduced him:

He recalled Lesnitsky's soft voice, imagined his gait, and it seemed to him that someone was walking beside

"I have come to ask, your honor you said this evening that you did not want the elder, but I am afraid he

"That's enough, you bother me," said Lyzhin with vexation, and he covered himself up again.

"He may be angry. . . . I'll go, your honor. I hope you will be comfortable," and Loshadin went out.

In the passage there was coughing and subdued voices. The witnesses must have returned.

"We'll let those poor beggars get away early tomorrow, . . ." thought the examining magistrate; "we'll begin

He began sinking into forgetfulness when suddenly there were steps again, not timid this time but rapid and

"Are you asleep? Are you asleep?" Dr. Startchenko was asking him hurriedly and angrily as he struck one

match after another; he was covered with snow, and brought a chill air in with him. "Are you asleep? Get up!

Let us go to Von Taunitz's. He has sent his own horses for you. Come along. There, at any rate, you will have

supper, and sleep like a human being. You see I have come for you myself. The horses are splendid, we shall

Lyzhin, sleepy and discontented, put on his felt overboots, his furlined coat, his cap and hood, and went out

with the doctor. There was not a very sharp frost, but a violent and piercing wind was blowing and driving

along the street the clouds of snow which seemed to be racing away in terror: high drifts were heaped up

already under the fences and at the doorways. The doctor and the examining magistrate got into the sledge,

and the white coachman bent over them to button up the cover. They were both hot.

They drove through the village. "Cutting a feathery furrow," thought the examining magistrate, listlessly

watching the action of the trace horse's legs. There were lights in all the huts, as though it were the eve of a

great holiday: the peasants had not gone to bed because they were afraid of the dead body. The coachman

preserved a sullen silence, probably he had felt dreary while he was waiting by the Zemstvo hut, and now he,

"At the Von Taunitz's," said Startchenko, "they all set upon me when they heard that you were left to spend

As they drove out of the village, at the turning the coachman suddenly shouted at the top of his voice: "Out of

They caught a glimpse of a man: he was standing up to his knees in the snow, moving off the road and staring

at the horses. The examining magistrate saw a stick with a crook, and a beard and a bag, and he fancied that it

was Loshadin, and even fancied that he was smiling. He flashed by and disappeared.

The road ran at first along the edge of the forest, then along a broad forest clearing; they caught glimpses of

old pines and a young birch copse, and tall, gnarled young oak trees standing singly in the clearings where the

wood had lately been cut; but soon it was all merged in the clouds of snow. The coachman said he could see

the forest; the examining magistrate could see nothing but the trace horse. The wind blew on their backs.

The coachman got down from the box without a word and began running round the sledge, treading on his

heels; he made larger and larger circles, getting further and further away from the sledge, and it looked as

though he were dancing; at last he came back and began to turn off to the right.

Then there was a little village and not a single light in it. Again the forest and the fields. Again they lost the

road, and again the coachman got down from the box and danced round the sledge. The sledge flew along a

dark avenue, flew swiftly on. And the heated trace horse's hoofs knocked against the sledge . Here there was

a fearful roaring sound from the trees, and nothing could be seen, as though they were flying on into space;

and all at once the glaring light at the entrance and the windows flashed upon their eyes, and they heard the

While they were taking off their fur coats and their felt boots below, "Un Petit Verre de Clicquot" was being

played upon the piano overhead, and they could hear the children beating time with their feet. Immediately on

going in they were aware of the snug warmth and special smell of the old apartments of a mansion where,

"That's capital!" said Von Taunitz, a fat man with an incredibly thick neck and with whiskers, as he shook the

examining magistrate's hand. "That's capital! You are very welcome, delighted to make your acquaintance.

We are colleagues to some extent, you know. At one time I was deputy prosecutor; but not for long, only two

years. I came here to look after the estate, and here I have grown old an old fogey, in fact. You are very

welcome," he went on, evidently restraining his voice so as not to speak too loud; he was going upstairs with

his guests. "I have no wife, she's dead. But here, I will introduce my daughters," and turning round, he

shouted down the stairs in a voice of thunder: "Tell Ignat to have the sledge ready at eight o'clock tomorrow

His four daughters, young and pretty girls, all wearing gray dresses and with their hair done up in the same

style, and their cousin, also young and attractive, with her children, were in the drawingroom. Startchenko,

who knew them already, began at once begging them to sing something, and two of the young ladies spent a

long time declaring they could not sing and that they had no music; then the cousin sat down to the piano, and

with trembling voices, they sang a duet from "The Queen of Spades." Again "Un Petit Verre de Clicquot"

was played, and the children skipped about, beating time with their feet. And Startchenko pranced about too.

Then the children said goodnight and went off to bed. The examining magistrate laughed, danced a

quadrille, flirted, and kept wondering whether it was not all a dream? The kitchen of the Zemstvo hut, the

heap of hay in the corner, the rustle of the beetles, the revolting povertystricken surroundings, the voices of

the witnesses, the wind, the snow storm, the danger of being lost; and then all at once this splendid, brightly

lighted room, the sounds of the piano, the lovely girls, the curlyheaded children, the gay, happy laughter

such a transformation seemed to him like a fairy tale, and it seemed incredible that such transitions were

possible at the distance of some two miles in the course of one hour. And dreary thoughts prevented him from

enjoying himself, and he kept thinking this was not life here, but bits of life fragments, that everything here

was accidental, that one could draw no conclusions from it; and he even felt sorry for these girls, who were

living and would end their lives in the wilds, in a province far away from the center of culture, where nothing

is accidental, but everything is in accordance with reason and law, and where, for instance, every suicide is

intelligible, so that one can explain why it has happened and what is its significance in the general scheme of

things. He imagined that if the life surrounding him here in the wilds were not intelligible to him, and if he

"He left a wife and child," said Startchenko. "I would forbid neurasthenics and all people whose nervous

system is out of order to marry, I would deprive them of the right and possibility of multiplying their kind. To

"He was an unfortunate young man," said Von Taunitz, sighing gently and shaking his head. "What a lot one

must suffer and think about before one brings oneself to take one's own life, . . . a young life! Such a

misfortune may happen in any family, and that is awful. It is hard to bear such a thing, insufferable. . . ."

And all the girls listened in silence with grave faces, looking at their father. Lyzhin felt that he, too, must say

He slept in a warm room, in a soft bed covered with a quilt under which there were fine clean sheets, but for

some reason did not feel comfortable: perhaps because the doctor and Von Taunitz were, for a long time,

talking in the adjoining room, and overhead he heard, through the ceiling and in the stove, the wind roaring

Von Taunitz's wife had died two years before, and he was still unable to resign himself to his loss and,

whatever he was talking about, always mentioned his wife; and there was no trace of a prosecutor left about

"Is it possible that I may some day come to such a condition?" thought Lyzhin, as he fell asleep, still hearing

The examining magistrate did not sleep soundly. He felt hot and uncomfortable, and it seemed to him in his

sleep that he was not at Von Taunitz's, and not in a soft clean bed, but still in the hay at the Zemstvo hut,

hearing the subdued voices of the witnesses; he fancied that Lesnitsky was close by, not fifteen paces away.

In his dreams he remembered how the insurance agent, blackhaired and pale, wearing dusty high boots, had

Then he dreamed that Lesnitsky and Loshadin the constable were walking through the open country in the

snow, side by side, supporting each other; the snow was whirling about their heads, the wind was blowing on

The old man was like a magician in an opera, and both of them were singing as though they were on the

"We go on, and on, and on! . . . You are in the warmth, in the light and snugness, but we are walking in the

frost and the storm, through the deep snow. . . . We know nothing of ease, we know nothing of joy. . . . We

bear all the burden of this life, yours and ours. . . . Oooooo! We go on, and on, and on. . . ."

Lyzhin woke and sat up in bed. What a confused, bad dream! And why did he dream of the constable and the

agent together? What nonsense! And now while Lyzhin's heart was throbbing violently and he was sitting on

his bed, holding his head in his hands, it seemed to him that there really was something in common between

the lives of the insurance agent and the constable. Don't they really go side by side holding each other up?

Some tie unseen, but significant and essential, existed between them, and even between them and Von

Taunitz and between all men all men; in this life, even in the remotest desert, nothing is accidental,

everything is full of one common idea, everything has one soul, one aim, and to understand it it is not enough

to think, it is not enough to reason, one must have also, it seems, the gift of insight into life, a gift which is

evidently not bestowed on all. And the unhappy man who had broken down, who had killed himself the

"neurasthenic," as the doctor called him and the old peasant who spent every day of his life going from

one man to another, were only accidental, were only fragments of life for one who thought of his own life as

accidental, but were parts of one organism marvelous and rational for one who thought of his own life

as part of that universal whole and understood it. So thought Lyzhin, and it was a thought that had long lain

hidden in his soul, and only now it was unfolded broadly and clearly to his consciousness.

He lay down and began to drop asleep; and again they were going along together, singing: "We go on, and

on, and on. . . . We take from life what is hardest and bitterest in it, and we leave you what is easy and joyful;

and sitting at supper, you can coldly and sensibly discuss why we suffer and perish, and why we are not as

What they were singing had occurred to his mind before, but the thought was somewhere in the background

behind his other thoughts, and flickered timidly like a faraway light in foggy weather. And he felt that this

suicide and the peasant's sufferings lay upon his conscience, too; to resign himself to the fact that these

people, submissive to their fate, should take up the burden of what was hardest and gloomiest in life how

awful it was! To accept this, and to desire for himself a life full of light and movement among happy and

contented people, and to be continually dreaming of such, means dreaming of fresh suicides of men crushed

by toil and anxiety, or of men weak and outcast whom people only talk of sometimes at supper with

"We go on, and on, and on . . ." as though someone were beating with a hammer on his temples.

He woke early in the morning with a headache, roused by a noise; in the next room Von Taunitz was saying

"It's impossible for you to go now. Look what's going on outside. Don't argue, you had better ask the

"Well, if it were only half a mile. If you can't, then you can't. Directly you drive out of the gates it is perfect

hell, you would be off the road in a minute. Nothing will induce me to let you go, you can say what you like."

"It's bound to be quieter towards evening," said the peasant who was heating the stove.

And in the next room the doctor began talking of the rigorous climate and its influence on the character of the

Russian, of the long winters which, by preventing movement from place to place, hinder the intellectual

development of the people; and Lyzhin listened with vexation to these observations and looked out of

window at the snow drifts which were piled on the fence. He gazed at the white dust which covered the whole

visible expanse, at the trees which bowed their heads despairingly to right and then to left, listened to the

"Well, what moral can be drawn from it? It's a blizzard and that is all about it. . . ."

At midday they had lunch, then wandered aimlessly about the house; they went to the windows.

"And Lesnitsky is lying there," thought Lyzhin, watching the whirling snow, which raced furiously round and

round upon the drifts. "Lesnitsky is lying there, the witnesses are waiting. . . ."

They talked of the weather, saying that the snowstorm usually lasted two days and nights, rarely longer. At

six o'clock they had dinner, then they played cards, sang, danced; at last they had supper. The day was over,

In the night, towards morning, it all subsided. When they got up and looked out of window, the bare willows

with their weakly drooping branches were standing perfectly motionless; it was dull and still, as though

nature now were ashamed of its orgy, of its mad nights, and the license it had given to its passions. The

horses, harnessed tandem, had been waiting at the front door since five o'clock in the morning. When it was

fully daylight the doctor and the examining magistrate put on their fur coats and felt boots, and, saying

At the steps beside the coachman stood the familiar figure of the constable, Ilya Loshadin, with an old leather

bag across his shoulder and no cap on his head, covered with snow all over, and his face was red and wet

with perspiration. The footman who had come out to help the gentlemen and cover their legs looked at him

"Your honor, the people are anxious," said Loshadin, smiling naively all over his face, and evidently pleased

at seeing at last the people he had waited for so long. "The people are very uneasy, the children are crying. . .

. They thought, your honor, that you had gone back to the town again. Show us the heavenly mercy, our

The doctor and the examining magistrate said nothing, got into the sledge, and drove to Syrnya.

A FIRSTCLASS passenger who had just dined at the station and drunk a little too much lay down on the

velvetcovered seat, stretched himself out luxuriously, and sank into a doze. After a nap of no more than five

"My father of blessed memory used to like to have his heels tickled by peasant women after dinner. I am just

like him, with this difference, that after dinner I always like my tongue and my brains gently stimulated.

Sinful man as I am, I like empty talk on a full stomach. Will you allow me to have a chat with you?"

"After a good dinner the most trifling subject is sufficient to arouse devilishly great thoughts in my brain. For

instance, we saw just now near the refreshment bar two young men, and you heard one congratulate the other

on being celebrated. 'I congratulate you,' he said; 'you are already a celebrity and are beginning to win fame.'

Evidently actors or journalists of microscopic dimensions. But they are not the point. The question that is

occupying my mind at the moment, sir, is exactly what is to be understood by the word _fame_ or _charity_.

What do you think? Pushkin called fame a bright patch on a ragged garment; we all understand it as Pushkin

does that is, more or less subjectively but no one has yet given a clear, logical definition of the word. .

"You see, if we knew what fame is, the means of attaining it might also perhaps be known to us," said the

firstclass passenger, after a moment's thought. I must tell you, sir, that when I was younger I strove after

celebrity with every fiber of my being. To be popular was my craze, so to speak. For the sake of it I studied,

worked, sat up at night, neglected my meals. And I fancy, as far as I can judge without partiality, I had all the

natural gifts for attaining it. To begin with, I am an engineer by profession. In the course of my life I have

built in Russia some two dozen magnificent bridges, I have laid aqueducts for three towns; I have worked in

Russia, in England, in Belgium. . . . Secondly, I am the author of several special treatises in my own line.

And thirdly, my dear sir, I have from a boy had a weakness for chemistry. Studying that science in my leisure

hours, I discovered methods of obtaining certain organic acids, so that you will find my name in all the

foreign manuals of chemistry. I have always been in the service, I have risen to the grade of actual civil

councilor, and I have an unblemished record. I will not fatigue your attention by enumerating my works and

my merits, I will only say that I have done far more than some celebrities. And yet here I am in my old age, I

am getting ready for my coffin, so to say, and I am as celebrated as that black dog yonder running on the

"H'm! Well, we will test it at once. Tell me, have you ever heard the name Krikunov?"

"That is my surname. You, a man of education, getting on in years, have never heard of me a convincing

proof! It is evident that in my efforts to gain fame I have not done the right thing at all: I did not know the

right way to set to work, and, trying to catch fame by the tail, got on the wrong side of her."

"Well, the devil only knows! Talent, you say? Genius? Originality? Not a bit of it, sir!. . . People have lived

and made a career side by side with me who were worthless, trivial, and even contemptible compared with

me. They did not do onetenth of the work I did, did not put themselves out, were not distinguished for their

talents, and did not make an effort to be celebrated, but just look at them! Their names are continually in the

newspapers and on men's lips! If you are not tired of listening I will illustrate it by an example. Some years

ago I built a bridge in the town of K. I must tell you that the dullness of that scurvy little town was terrible. If

it had not been for women and cards I believe I should have gone out of my mind. Well, it's an old story: I

was so bored that I got into an affair with a singer. Everyone was enthusiastic about her, the devil only knows

why; to my thinking she was what shall I say? an ordinary, commonplace creature, like lots of others.

The hussy was emptyheaded, illtempered, greedy, and what's more, she was a fool.

"She ate and drank a vast amount, slept till five o clock in the afternoon and I fancy did nothing else. She

was looked upon as a cocotte, and that was indeed her profession; but when people wanted to refer to her in a

literary fashion, they called her an actress and a singer. I used to be devoted to the theatre, and therefore this

fraudulent pretense of being an actress made me furiously indignant. My young lady had not the slightest

right to call herself an actress or a singer. She was a creature entirely devoid of talent, devoid of feeling a

pitiful creature one may say. As far as I can judge she sang disgustingly. The whole charm of her 'art' lay in

her kicking up her legs on every suitable occasion, and not being embarrassed when people walked into her

dressingroom. She usually selected translated vaudevilles, with singing in them, and opportunities for

disporting herself in male attire, in tights. In fact it was ough! Well, I ask your attention. As I remember

now, a public ceremony took place to celebrate the opening of the newly constructed bridge. There was a

religious service, there were speeches, telegrams, and so on. I hung about my cherished creation, you know,

all the while afraid that my heart would burst with the excitement of an author. Its an old story and there's no

need for false modesty, and so I will tell you that my bridge was a magnificent work! It was not a bridge but a

picture, a perfect delight! And who would not have been excited when the whole town came to the opening?

'Oh,' I thought, 'now the eyes of all the public will be on me! Where shall I hide myself?' Well, I need not

have worried myself, sir alas! Except the official personages, no one took the slightest notice of me. They

stood in a crowd on the riverbank, gazed like sheep at the bridge, and did not concern themselves to know

who had built it. And it was from that time, by the way, that I began to hate our estimable public

damnation take them! Well, to continue. All at once the public became agitated; a whisper ran through the

crowd, . . . a smile came on their faces, their shoulders began to move. 'They must have seen me,' I thought. A

likely idea! I looked, and my singer, with a train of young scamps, was making her way through the crowd.

The eyes of the crowd were hurriedly following this procession. A whisper began in a thousand voices:

'That's soandso. . . . Charming! Bewitching!' Then it was they noticed me. . . . A couple of young

milksops, local amateurs of the scenic art, I presume, looked at me, exchanged glances, and whispered:

'That's her lover!' How do you like that? And an unprepossessing individual in a tophat, with a chin that

badly needed shaving, hung round me, shifting from one foot to the other, then turned to me with the words:

"'Do you know who that lady is, walking on the other bank? That's soandso. . . . Her voice is beneath all

" 'Can you tell me,' I asked the unprepossessing individual, 'who built this bridge?'

"Then I asked him who was considered the best teacher in K., who the best architect, and to all my questions

" 'And tell me, please,' I asked in conclusion, with whom is that singer living?'

"Well, how do you like that, sir? But to proceed. There are no minnesingers or bards nowadays, and celebrity

is created almost exclusively by the newspapers. The day after the dedication of the bridge, I greedily

snatched up the local _Messenger,_ and looked for myself in it. I spent a long time running my eyes over all

the four pages, and at last there it was hurrah! I began reading: 'Yesterday in beautiful weather, before a

vast concourse of people, in the presence of His Excellency the Governor of the province, soandso, and

other dignitaries, the ceremony of the dedication of the newly constructed bridge took place,' and so on. . . .

Towards the end: Our talented actress soandso, the favorite of the K. public, was present at the dedication

looking very beautiful. I need not say that her arrival created a sensation. The star was wearing . . .' and so on.

They might have given me one word! Half a word. Petty as it seems, I actually cried with vexation!

"I consoled myself with the reflection that the provinces are stupid, and one could expect nothing of them and

for celebrity one must go to the intellectual centers to Petersburg and to Moscow. And as it happened, at

that very time there was a work of mine in Petersburg which I had sent in for a competition. The date on

"I took leave of K. and went to Petersburg. It is a long journey from K. to Petersburg, and that I might not be

bored on the journey I took a reserved compartment and well of course, I took my singer. We set off,

and all the way we were eating, drinking champagne, and tralala! But behold, at last we reach the

intellectual center. I arrived on the very day the result was declared, and had the satisfaction, my dear sir, of

celebrating my own success: my work received the first prize. Hurrah! Next day I went out along the Nevsky

and spent seventy kopecks on various newspapers. I hastened to my hotel room, lay down on the sofa, and,

controlling a quiver of excitement, made haste to read. I ran through one newspaper nothing. I ran through

a second nothing either; my God! At last, in the fourth, I lighted upon the following paragraph: 'Yesterday

the wellknown provincial actress soandso arrived by express in Petersburg. We note with pleasure that

the climate of the South has had a beneficial effect on our fair friend; her charming stage appearance. . .' and I

don't remember the rest! Much lower down than that paragraph I found, printed in the smallest type: first

prize in the competition was adjudged to an engineer called soandso.' That was all! And to make things

better, they even misspelt my name: instead of Krikunov it was Kirkutlov. So much for your intellectual

center! But that was not all. . . . By the time I left Petersburg, a month later, all the newspapers were vying

with one another in discussing our incomparable, divine, highly talented actress, and my mistress was

referred to, not by her surname, but by her Christian name and her father's. . . .

"Some years later I was in Moscow. I was summoned there by a letter, in the mayor's own handwriting, to

undertake a work for which Moscow, in its newspapers, had been clamoring for over a hundred years. In the

intervals of my work I delivered five public lectures, with a philanthropic object, in one of the museums

there. One would have thought that was enough to make one known to the whole town for three days at least,

wouldn't one? But, alas! not a single Moscow gazette said a word about me There was something about

houses on fire, about an operetta, sleeping town councilors, dr unken shop keepers about everything; but

about my work, my plans, my lectures mum. And a nice set they are in Moscow! I got into a tram. . . . It

was packed full; there were ladies and military men and students of both sexes, creatures of all sorts in

"'I am told the town council has sent for an engineer to plan such and such a work!' I said to my neighbor, so

"My neighbor shook his head. The rest of the public took a cursory glance at me, and in all their eyes I read:

"'I am told that there is someone giving lectures in such and such a museum?' I persisted, trying to get up a

"No one even nodded. Evidently they had not all of them heard of the lectures, and the ladies were not even

aware of the existence of the museum. All that would not have mattered, but imagine, my dear sir, the people

suddenly leaped to their feet and struggled to the windows. What was it? What was the matter?

"'Look, look!' my neighbor nudged me. 'Do you see that dark man getting into that cab? That's the famous

"And the whole tram began talking breathlessly of the runner who was then absorbing the brains of Moscow.

"I could give you ever so many other examples, but I think that is enough. Now let us assume that I am

mistaken about myself, that I am a wretchedly boastful and incompetent person; but apart from myself I

might point to many of my contemporaries, men remarkable for their talent and industry, who have

nevertheless died unrecognized. Are Russian navigators, chemists, physicists, mechanicians, and

agriculturists popular with the public? Do our cultivated masses know anything of Russian artists, sculptors,

and literary men? Some old literary hack, hardworking and talented, will wear away the doorstep of the

publishers' offices for thirtythree years, cover reams of paper, be had up for libel twenty times, and yet not

step beyond his antheap. Can you mention to me a single representative of our literature who would have

become celebrated if the rumor had not been spread over the earth that he had been killed in a duel, gone out

The firstclass passenger was so excited that he dropped his cigar out of his mouth and got up.

"Yes," he went on fiercely, "and side by side with these people I can quote you hundreds of all sorts of

The door creaked, there was a draught, and an individual of forbidding aspect, wearing an Inverness coat, a

tophat, and blue spectacles, walked into the carriage. The individual looked round at the seats, frowned, and

"Do you know who that is?" there came a timid whisper from the furthest corner of the compartment.

That is N. N., the famous Tula cardsharper who was had up in connection with the Y. bank affair."

"There you are!" laughed the firstclass passenger. He knows a Tula cardsharper, but ask him whether he

knows Semiradsky, Tchaykovsky, or Solovyov the philosopher he'll shake his head. . . . It swinish!"

"Allow me in my turn to ask you a question," said the _visavis_ timidly, clearing his throat. Do you know

"That is my name,. . ." said the _visavis,_, overcome with embarrassment. "Then you don't know it? And

yet I have been a professor at one of the Russian universities for thirtyfive years, . . . a member of the

The firstclass passenger and the _visavis_ looked at each other and burst out laughing.

IT was the benefit night of Fenogenov, the tragic actor. They were acting "Prince Serebryany." The tragedian

himself was playing Vyazemsky; Limonadov, the stage manager, was playing Morozov; Madame Beobahtov,

Elena. The performance was a grand success. The tragedian accomplished wonders indeed. When he was

carrying off Elena, he held her in one hand above his head as he dashed across the stage. He shouted, hissed,

banged with his feet, tore his coat across his chest. When he refused to fight Morozov, he trembled all over as

nobody ever trembles in reality, and gasped loudly. The theatre shook with applause. There were endless

calls. Fenogenov was presented with a silver cigarettecase and a bouquet tied with long ribbons. The ladies

waved their handkerchiefs and urged their men to applaud, many shed tears. . . . But the one who was the

most enthusiastic and most excited was Masha, daughter of Sidoretsky the police captain. She was sitting in

the first row of the stalls beside her papa; she was ecstatic and could not take her eyes off the stage even

between the acts. Her delicate little hands and feet were quivering, her eyes were full of tears, her cheeks

turned paler and paler. And no wonder she was at the theatre for the first time in her life.

"How well they act! how splendidly!" she said to her papa the police captain, every time the curtain fell. How

And if her papa had been capable of reading faces he would have read on his daughter's pale little

countenance a rapture that was almost anguish. She was overcome by the acting, by the play, by the

surroundings. When the regimental band began playing between the acts, she closed her eyes, exhausted.

"Papa!" she said to the police captain during the last interval, "go behind the scenes and ask them all to dinner

The police captain went behind the scenes, praised them for all their fine acting, and complimented Madame

"All except the fair sex," he whispered. "I don't want the actresses, for I have a daughter."

Next day the actors dined at the police captain's. Only three turned up, the manager Limonadov, the tragedian

Fenogenov, and the comic man Vodolazov; the others sent excuses. The dinner was a dull affair. Limonadov

kept telling the police captain how much he respected him, and how highly he thought of all persons in

authority; Vodolazov mimicked drunken merchants and Armenians; and Fenogenov (on his passport his

name was Knish), a tall, stout Little Russian with black eyes and frowning brow, declaimed "At the portals of

the great," and "To be or not to be." Limonadov, with tears in his eyes, described his interview with the

former Governor, General Kanyutchin. The police captain listened, was bored, and smiled affably. He was

well satisfied, although Limonadov smelt strongly of burnt feathers, and Fenogenov was wearing a hired

dress coat and boots trodden down at heel. They pleased his daughter and made her lively, and that was

enough for him. And Masha never took her eyes off the actors. She had never before seen such clever,

In the evening the police captain and Masha were at the theatre again. A week later the actors dined at the

police captain's again, and after that came almost every day either to dinner or supper. Masha became more

She fell in love with the tragedian. One fine morning, when the police captain had gone to meet the bishop,

Masha ran away with Limonadov's company and married her hero on the way. After celebrating the wedding,

the actors composed a long and touching letter and sent it to the police captain.

"Bring out the motive, the motive!" Limonadov kept saying as he dictated to the comic man. "Lay on the

respect. . . . These official chaps like it. Add something of a sort . . . to draw a tear."

The answer to this letter was most discomforting. The police captain disowned his daughter for marrying, as

He had beaten her, beaten her behind the scenes, in the presence of Limonadov, the washerwoman, and two

lighting men. He remembered how, four days before the wedding, he was sitting in the London Tavern with

the whole company, and all were talking about Masha. The company were advising him to "chance it," and

Limonadov, with tears in his eyes urged: "It would be stupid and irrational to let slip such an opportunity!

Why, for a sum like that one would go to Siberia, let alone getting married! When you marry and have a

theatre of your own, take me into your company. I shan't be master then, you'll be master."

"If he doesn't send money I'll smash her! I won't let myself be made a fool of, damn my soul!"

At one provincial town the company tried to give Masha the slip, but Masha found out, ran to the station, and

got there when the second bell had rung and the actors had all taken their seats.

"I've been shamefully treated by your father," said the tragedian; "all is over between us!"

And though the carriage was full of people, she went down on her knees and held out her hands, imploring

"I love you! Don't drive me away, Kondraty Ivanovitch," she besought him. "I can't live without you!"

They listened to her entreaties, and after consulting together, took her into the company as a "countess"

the name they used for the minor actresses who usually came on to the stage in crowds or in dumb parts. To

begin with Masha used to play maidservants and pages, but when Madame Beobahtov, the flower of

Limonadov's company, eloped, they made her _ingenue_. She acted badly, lisped, and was nervous. She soon

grew used to it, however, and began to be liked by the audience. Fenogenov was much displeased.

"To call her an actress!" he used to say. "She has no figure, no deportment, nothing whatever but silliness."

In one provincial town the company acted Schiller's " Robbers." Fenogenov played Franz, Masha, Amalie.

The tragedian shouted and quivered. Masha repeated her part like a welllearnt lesson, and the play would

have gone off as they generally did had it not been for a trifling mishap. Everything went well up to the point

where Franz declares his love for Amalie and she seizes his sword. The tragedian shouted, hissed, quivered,

and squeezed Masha in his iron embrace. And Masha, instead of repulsing him and crying "Hence! "

"Have pity on me!" she whispered in his ear. "Oh, have pity on me! I am so miserable!"

"You don't know your part! Listen to the prompter!" hissed the tragedian, and he thrust his sword into her

After the performance, Limonadov and Fenogenov were sitting in the ticket boxoffice engaged in

"Your wife does not learn her part, you are right there," the manager was saying. "She doesn't know her line. .

A COLLEGIATE assessor called Miguev stopped at a telegraphpost in the course of his evening walk and

heaved a deep sigh. A week before, as he was returning home from his evening walk, he had been overtaken

"Wait a bit! I'll cook you such a crab that'll teach you to ruin innocent girls! I'll leave the baby at your door,

And she demanded that he should put five thousand roubles into the bank in her name. Miguev remembered

it, heaved a sigh, and once more reproached himself with heartfelt repentance for the momentary infatuation

When he reached his bungalow, he sat down to rest on the doorstep. It was just ten o'clock, and a bit of the

moon peeped out from behind the clouds. There was not a soul in the street nor near the bungalows; elderly

summer visitors were already going to bed, while young ones were walking in the wood. Feeling in both his

pockets for a match to light his cigarette, Miguev brought his elbow into contact with something soft. He

looked idly at his right elbow, and his face was instantly contorted by a look of as much horror as though he

had seen a snake beside him. On the step at the very door lay a bundle. Something oblong in shape was

wrapped up in something judging by the feel of it, a wadded quilt. One end of the bundle was a little open,

and the collegiate assessor, putting in his hand, felt something damp and warm. He leaped on to his feet in

horror, and looked about him like a criminal trying to escape from his warders. . . .

"She has left it!" he muttered wrathfully through his teeth, clenching his fists. "Here it lies. . . . Here lies my

He was numb with terror, anger, and shame. . . What was he to do now? What would his wife say if she

found out? What would his colleagues at the office say? His Excellency would be sure to dig him in the ribs,

guffaw, and say: "I congratulate you! . . . Hehehe! Though your beard is gray, your heart is gay. . . . You

are a rogue, Semyon Erastovitch!" The whole colony of summer visitors would know his secret now, and

probably the respectable mothers of families would shut their doors to him. Such incidents always get into the

The middle window of the bungalow was open and he could distinctly hear his wife, Anna Filippovna, laying

the table for supper; in the yard close to the gate Yermolay, the porter, was plaintively strumming on the

balalaika. The baby had only to wake up and begin to cry, and the secret would be discovered. Miguev was

"Haste, haste! . . ." he muttered, "this minute, before anyone sees. I'll carry it away and lay it on somebody's

Miguev took the bundle in one hand and quietly, with a deliberate step to avoid awakening suspicion, went

"A wonderfully nasty position!" he reflected, trying to assume an air of unconcern. "A collegiate assessor

walking down the street with a baby! Good heavens! if anyone sees me and understands the position, I am

done for. . . . I'd better put it on this doorstep. . . . No, stay, the windows are open and perhaps someone is

looking. Where shall I put it? I know! I'll take it to the merchant Myelkin's.. .. Merchants are rich people and

And Miguev made up his mind to take the baby to Myelkin's, although the merchant's villa was in the furthest

"If only it does not begin screaming or wriggle out of the bundle," thought the collegiate assessor. "This is

indeed a pleasant surprise! Here I am carrying a human being under my arm as though it were a portfolio. A

human being, alive, with soul, with feelings like anyone else. . . . If by good luck the Myelkins adopt him, he

may turn out somebody. . . . Maybe he will become a professor, a great general, an author. . . . Anything may

happen! Now I am carrying him under my arm like a bundle of rubbish, and perhaps in thirty or forty years I

As Miguev was walking along a narrow, deserted alley, beside a long row of fences, in the thick black shade

of the lime trees, it suddenly struck him that he was doing something very cruel and criminal.

"How mean it is really!" he thought. "So mean that one can't imagine anything meaner. . . . Why are we

shifting this poor baby from door to door? It's not its fault that it's been born. It's done us no harm. We are

scoundrels. . . . We take our pleasure, and the innocent babies have to pay the penalty. Only to think of all

this wretched business! I've done wrong and the child has a cruel fate before it. If I lay it at the Myelkins'

door, they'll send it to the foundling hospital, and there it will grow up among strangers, in mechanical

routine, . . . no love, no petting, no spoiling. . . . And then he'll be apprenticed to a shoemaker, . . . he'll take to

drink, will learn to use filthy language, will go hungry. A shoemaker! and he the son of a collegiate assessor,

Miguev came out of the shade of the lime trees into the bright moonlight of the open road, and opening the

"Asleep!" he murmured. "You little rascal! why, you've an aquiline nose like your father's. . . . He sleeps and

doesn't feel that it's his own father looking at him! . . . It's a drama, my boy. . . Well, well, you must forgive

The collegiate assessor blinked and felt a spasm running down his cheeks. . . . He wrapped up the baby, put

him under his arm, and strode on. All the way to the Myelkins' villa social questions were swarming in his

"If I were a decent, honest man, he thought, "I should damn everything, go with this baby to Anna

Filippovna, fall on my knees before her, and say: 'Forgive me! I have sinned! Torture me, but we won't ruin

an innocent child. We have no children; let us adopt him!" She's a good sort, she'd consent. . . . And then my

He reached the Myelkins' villa and stood still hesitating. He imagined himself in the parlor at home, sitting

reading the paper while a little boy with an aquiline nose played with the tassels of his dressing gown. At the

same time visions forced themselves on his brain of his winking colleagues, and of his Excellency digging

him in the ribs and guffawing. . . . Besides the pricking of his conscience, there was something warm, sad,

Cautiously the collegiate assessor laid the baby on the verandah step and waved his hand. Again he felt a

"Forgive me, old fellow! I am a scoundrel, he muttered. "Don't remember evil against me."

"Oh, come what will! Damn it all! I'll take him, and let people say what they like!"

"Let them say what they like," he thought. "I'll go at once, fall on my knees, and say: 'Anna Filippovna!'

Anna is a good sort, she'll understand. . . . And we'll bring him up. . . . If it's a boy we'll call him Vladimir,

and if it's a girl we'll call her Anna! Anyway, it will be a comfort in our old age."

And he did as he determined. Weeping and almost faint with shame and terror, full of hope and vague

rapture, he went into his bungalow, went up to his wife, and fell on his knees before her.

"Anna Filippovna!" he said with a sob, and he laid the baby on the floor. "Hear me before you punish. . . . I

have sinned! This is my child. . . . You remember Agnia? Well, it was the devil drove me to it. . . ."

And, almost unconscious with shame and terror, he jumped up without waiting for an answer, and ran out

"I'll stay here outside till she calls me," he thought. "I'll give her time to recover, and to think it over. . . ."

The porter Yermolay passed him with his balalaika, glanced at him and shrugged his shoulders. A minute

"Here's a go! Did you ever!" he muttered grinning. "Aksinya, the washerwoman, was here just now,

Semyon Erastovitch. The silly woman put her baby down on the steps here, and while she was indoors with

Yermolay, interpreting his master's wrath in his own fashion, scratched his head and heaved a sigh.

"I am sorry, Semyon Erastovitch," he said, "but it's the summer holidays, . . . one can't get on without . . .

And glancing at his master's eyes glaring at him with anger and astonishment, he cleared his throat guiltily

"It's a sin, of course, but there what is one to do?. . . You've forbidden us to have strangers in the house, I

know, but we've none of our own now. When Agnia was here I had no women to see me, for I had one at

home; but now, you can see for yourself, sir, . . . one can't help having strangers. In Agnia's time, of course,

"Be off, you scoundrel!" Miguev shouted at him, stamping, and he went back into the room.

Anna Filippovna, amazed and wrathful, was sitting as before, her tearstained eyes fixed on the baby. . . .

"There! there!" Miguev muttered with a pale face, twisting his lips into a smile. "It was a joke. . . . It's not my

baby, . . . it's the washerwoman's! . . . I . . . I was joking. . . . Take it to the porter."

"HONORED Sir, Father and Benefactor!" a petty clerk called Nevyrazimov was writing a rough copy of an

Easter congratulatory letter. "I trust that you may spend this Holy Day even as many more to come, in good

The lamp, in which the kerosene was getting low, was smoking and smelling. A stray cockroach was running

about the table in alarm near Nevyrazimov's writing hand. Two rooms away from the office Paramon the

porter was for the third time cleaning his best boots, and with such energy that the sound of the

"What else can I write to him, the rascal?" Nevyrazimov wondered, raising his eyes to the smutty ceiling.

On the ceiling he saw a dark circle the shadow of the lampshade. Below it was the dusty cornice, and

lower still the wall, which had once been painted a bluish muddy color. And the office seemed to him such a

place of desolation that he felt sorry, not only for himself, but even for the cockroach.

"When I am off duty I shall go away, but he'll be on duty here all his cockroachlife," he thought, stretching.

And stretching once more, Nevyrazimov slouched lazily to the porter's room. Paramon had finished cleaning

his boots. Crossing himself with one hand and holding the brush in the other, he was standing at the open

"They're ringing," he whispered to Nevyrazimov, looking at him with eyes intent and wide open. "Already!"

Nevyrazimov put his ear to the open pane and listened. The Easter chimes floated into the room with a whiff

of fresh spring air. The booming of the bells mingled with the rumble of carriages, and above the chaos of

sounds rose the brisk tenor tones of the nearest church and a loud shrill laugh.

"What a lot of people!" sighed Nevyrazimov, looking down into the street, where shadows of men flitted one

after another by the illumination lamps. "They're all hurrying to the midnight service. . . . Our fellows have

had a drink by now, you may be sure, and are strolling about the town. What a lot of laughter, what a lot of

talk! I'm the only unlucky one, to have to sit here on such a day: And I have to do it every year!"

"Well, nobody forces you to take the job. It's not your turn to be on duty today, but Zastupov hired you to

take his place. When other folks are enjoying themselves you hire yourself out. It's greediness!"

"Devil a bit of it! Not much to be greedy over two roubles is all he gives me; a necktie as an extra. . . . It's

poverty, not greediness. And it would be jolly, now, you know, to be going with a party to the service, and

then to break the fast. . . . To drink and to have a bit of supper and tumble off to sleep. . . . One sits down to

the table, there's an Easter cake and the samovar hissing, and some charming little thing beside you. . . . You

drink a glass and chuck her under the chin, and it's first rate. . . . You feel you're somebody. . . . Ech hh! . .

. I've made a mess of things! Look at that hussy driving by in her carriage, while I have to sit here and

"We each have our lot in life, Ivan Danilitch. Please God, you'll be promoted and drive about in your carriage

"I? No, brother, not likely. I shan't get beyond a 'titular,' not if I try till I burst. I'm not an educated man."

"Well, but the General stole a hundred thousand before he got his position. And he's got very different

manners and deportment from me, brother. With my manners and deportment one can't get far! And such a

scoundrelly surname, Nevyrazimov! It's a hopeless position, in fact. One may go on as one is, or one may

He moved away from the window and walked wearily about the rooms. The din of the bells grew louder and

louder. . . . There was no need to stand by the window to hear it. And the better he could hear the bells and

the louder the roar of the carriages, the darker seemed the muddy walls and the smutty cornice and the more

But such a flight promised nothing worth having. . . . After coming out of the office and wandering about the

town, Nevyrazimov would have gone home to his lodging, and in his lodging it was even grayer and more

depressing than in the office. . . . Even supposing he were to spend that day pleasantly and with comfort, what

had he beyond? Nothing but the same gray walls, the same stopgap duty and complimentary letters. . . .

Nevyrazimov stood still in the middle of the office and sank into thought. The yearning for a new, better life

gnawed at his heart with an intolerable ache. He had a passionate longing to find himself suddenly in the

street, to mingle with the living crowd, to take part in the solemn festivity for the sake of which all those bells

were clashing and those carriages were rumbling. He longed for what he had known in childhood the

family circle, the festive faces of his own people, the white cloth, light, warmth . . . ! He thought of the

carriage in which the lady had just driven by, the overcoat in which the head clerk was so smart, the gold

chain that adorned the secretary's chest. . . . He thought of a warm bed, of the Stanislav order, of new boots,

of a uniform without holes in the elbows. . . . He thought of all those things because he had none of them.

"Shall I steal?" he thought. "Even if stealing is an easy matter, hiding is what's difficult. Men run away to

America, they say, with what they've stolen, but the devil knows where that blessed America is. One must

The bells died down. He heard only a distant noise of carriages and Paramon's cough, while his depression

and anger grew more and more intense and unbearable. The clock in the office struck halfpast twelve.

Nevyrazimov sat down at his table and pondered. The lamp in which the kerosene had quite run dry was

smoking violently and threatening to go out. The stray cockroach was still running about the table and had

"One can always send in a secret report, but how is one to make it up? I should want to make all sorts of

innuendoes and insinuations, like Proshkin, and I can't do it. If I made up anything I should be the first to get

And Nevyrazimov, racking his brain for a means of escape from his hopeless position, stared at the rough

copy he had written. The letter was written to a man whom he feared and hated with his whole soul, and from

whom he had for the last ten years been trying to wring a post worth eighteen roubles a month, instead of the

"Ah, I'll teach you to run here, you devil!" He viciously slapped the palm of his hand on the cockroach, who

The cockroach fell on its back and wriggled its legs in despair. Nevyrazimov took it by one leg and threw it

IN the village church of Verhny Zaprudy mass was just over. The people had begun moving and were

trooping out of church. The only one who did not move was Andrey Andreyitch, a shopkeeper and old

inhabitant of Verhny Zaprudy. He stood waiting, with his elbows on the railing of the right choir. His fat and

shaven face, covered with indentations left by pimples, expressed on this occasion two contradictory feelings:

resignation in the face of inevitable destiny, and stupid, unbounded disdain for the smocks and striped

kerchiefs passing by him. As it was Sunday, he was dressed like a dandy. He wore a long cloth overcoat with

yellow bone buttons, blue trousers not thrust into his boots, and sturdy goloshes the huge clumsy goloshes

only seen on the feet of practical and prudent persons of firm religious convictions.

His torpid eyes, sunk in fat, were fixed upon the ikon stand. He saw the long familiar figures of the saints, the

verger Matvey puffing out his cheeks and blowing out the candles, the darkened candle stands, the threadbare

carpet, the sacristan Lopuhov running impulsively from the altar and carrying the holy bread to the

churchwarden. . . . All these things he had seen for years, and seen over and over again like the five fingers of

his hand. . . . There was only one thing, however, that was somewhat strange and unusual. Father Grigory,

still in his vestments, was standing at the north door, twitching his thick eyebrows angrily.

"Who is it he is winking at? God bless him!" thought the shopkeeper. "And he is beckoning with his finger!

And he stamped his foot! What next! What's the matter, Holy Queen and Mother! Whom does he mean it

Andrey Andreyitch looked round and saw the church completely deserted. There were some ten people

"Do come when you are called! Why do you stand like a graven image?" he heard Father Grigory's angry

The shopkeeper looked at Father Grigory's red and wrathful face, and only then realized that the twitching

eyebrows and beckoning finger might refer to him. He started, left the railing, and hesitatingly walked

"Andrey Andreyitch, was it you asked for prayers for the rest of Mariya's soul?" asked the priest, his eyes

"Then it was you wrote this? You?" And Father Grigory angrily thrust before his eyes the little note.

And on this little note, handed in by Andrey Andreyitch before mass, was written in big, as it were

"How dared you write it?" whispered the priest, and in his husky whisper there was a note of wrath and

The shopkeeper looked at him in blank amazement; he was perplexed, and he, too, was alarmed. Father

Grigory had never in his life spoken in such a tone to a leading resident of Verhny Zaprudy. Both were silent

for a minute, staring into each other's face. The shopkeeper's amazement was so great that his fat face spread

"You don't understand?" whispered Father Grigory, stepping back in astonishment and clasping his hands.

"What have you got on your shoulders, a head or some other object? You send a note up to the altar, and

write a word in it which it would be unseemly even to utter in the street! Why are you rolling your eyes?

"Are you referring to the word harlot?" muttered the shopkeeper, flushing crimson and blinking. "But you

know, the Lord in His mercy . . . forgave this very thing, . . . forgave a harlot. . . . He has prepared a place for

her, and indeed from the life of the holy saint, Mariya of Egypt, one may see in what sense the word is used

The shopkeeper wanted to bring forward some other argument in his justification, but took fright and wiped

"So that's what you make of it!" cried Father Grigory, clasping his hands. "But you see God has forgiven her

do you understand? He has forgiven, but you judge her, you slander her, call her by an unseemly name,

and whom! Your own deceased daughter! Not only in Holy Scripture, but even in worldly literature you

won't read of such a sin! I tell you again, Andrey, you mustn't be oversubtle! No, no, you mustn't be

oversubtle, brother! If God has given you an inquiring mind, and if you cannot direct it, better not go into

"But you know, she, . . . excuse my mentioning it, was an actress!" articulated Andrey Andreyitch,

"An actress! But whatever she was, you ought to forget it all now she is dead, instead of writing it on the

"You ought to do penance," boomed the deacon from the depths of the altar, looking contemptuously at

Andrey Andreyitch's embarrassed face, "that would teach you to leave off being so clever! Your daughter

was a wellknown actress. There were even notices of her death in the newspapers. . . . Philosopher!"

"To be sure, . . . certainly," muttered the shopkeeper, "the word is not a seemly one; but I did not say it to

judge her, Father Grigory, I only meant to speak spiritually, . . . that it might be clearer to you for whom you

were praying. They write in the memorial notes the various callings, such as the infant John, the drowned

woman Pelagea, the warrior Yegor, the murdered Pavel, and so on. . . . I meant to do the same."

"It was foolish, Andrey! God will forgive you, but beware another time. Above all, don't be subtle, but think

"I obey," said the shopkeeper, relieved that the lecture was over, and allowing his face to resume its

expression of importance and dignity. "Ten bows? Very good, I understand. But now, Father, allow me to ask

you a favor. . . . Seeing that I am, anyway, her father, . . . you know yourself, whatever she was, she was still

my daughter, so I was, . . . excuse me, meaning to ask you to sing the requiem today. And allow me to ask

"Well, that's good," said Father Grigory, taking off his vestments. "That I commend. I can approve of that!

Andrey Andreyitch walked with dignity from the altar, and with a solemn, requiemlike expression on his

red face took his stand in the middle of the church. The verger Matvey set before him a little table with the

There was perfect stillness in the church. Nothing could be heard but the metallic click of the censer and slow

singing. . . . Near Andrey Andreyitch stood the verger Matvey, the midwife Makaryevna, and her onearmed

son Mitka. There was no one else. The sacristan sang badly in an unpleasant, hollow bass, but the tune and

the words were so mournful that the shopkeeper little by little lost the expression of dignity and was plunged

in sadness. He thought of his Mashutka, . . . he remembered she had been born when he was still a lackey in

the service of the owner of Verhny Zaprudy. In his busy life as a lackey he had not noticed how his girl had

grown up. That long period during which she was being shaped into a graceful creature, with a little flaxen

head and dreamy eyes as big as kopeckpieces passed unnoticed by him. She had been brought up like all the

children of favorite lackeys, in ease and comfort in the company of the young ladies. The gentry, to fill up

their idle time, had taught her to read, to write, to dance; he had had no hand in her bringing up. Only from

time to time casually meeting her at the gate or on the landing of the stairs, he would remember that she was

his daughter, and would, so far as he had leisure for it, begin teaching her the prayers and the scripture. Oh,

even then he had the reputation of an authority on the church rules and the holy scriptures! Forbidding and

stolid as her father's face was, yet the girl listened readily. She repeated the prayers after him yawning, but on

the other hand, when he, hesitating and trying to express himself elaborately, began telling her stories, she

was all attention. Esau's pottage, the punishment of Sodom, and the troubles of the boy Joseph made her turn

Afterwards when he gave up being a lackey, and with the money he had saved opened a shop in the village,

Three years before her death she had come to see her father. He had scarcely recognized her. She was a

graceful young woman with the manners of a young lady, and dressed like one. She talked cleverly, as though

from a book, smoked, and slept till midday. When Andrey Andreyitch asked her what she was doing, she had

announced, looking him boldly straight in the face: "I am an actress." Such frankness struck the former

flunkey as the acme of cynicism. Mashutka had begun boasting of her successes and her stage life; but seeing

that her father only turned crimson and threw up his hands, she ceased. And they spent a fortnight together

without speaking or looking at one another till the day she went away. Before she went away she asked her

father to come for a walk on the bank of the river. Painful as it was for him to walk in the light of day, in the

sight of all honest people, with a daughter who was an actress, he yielded to her request.

"What a lovely place you live in!" she said enthusiastically. "What ravines and marshes! Good heavens, how

"The place is simply taking up room, . . ." Andrey Andreyvitch had thought, looking blankly at the ravines,

not understanding his daughter's enthusiasm. "There is no more profit from them than milk from a

And she had cried and cried, drawing her breath greedily with her whole chest, as though she felt she had not

Andrey Andreyitch shook his head like a horse that has been bitten, and to stifle painful memories began

"Be mindful, O Lord," he muttered, "of Thy departed servant, the harlot Mariya, and forgive her sins,

The unseemly word dropped from his lips again, but he did not notice it: what is firmly imbedded in the

consciousness cannot be driven out by Father Grigory's exhortations or even knocked out by a nail.

Makaryevna sighed and whispered something, drawing in a deep breath, while onearmed Mitka was

"Where there is no sickness, nor grief, nor sighing," droned the sacristan, covering his right cheek with his

Bluish smoke coiled up from the censer and bathed in the broad, slanting patch of sunshine which cut across

the gloomy, lifeless emptiness of the church. And it seemed as though the soul of the dead woman were

soaring into the sunlight together with the smoke. The coils of smoke like a child's curls eddied round and

round, floating upwards to the window and, as it were, holding aloof from the woes and tribulations of which

IT was between nine and ten o'clock in the evening. Stepan the coachman, Mihailo the houseporter,

Alyoshka the coachman's grandson, who had come up from the village to stay with his grandfather, and

Nikandr, an old man of seventy, who used to come into the yard every evening to sell salt herrings, were

sitting round a lantern in the big coachhouse, playing "kings." Through the wideopen door could be seen

the whole yard, the big house, where the master's family lived, the gates, the cellars, and the porter's l odge. It

was all shrouded in the darkness of night, and only the four windows of one of the lodges which was let were

brightly lit up. The shadows of the coaches and sledges with their shafts tipped upwards stretched from the

walls to the doors, quivering and cutting across the shadows cast by the lantern and the players. . . . On the

other side of the thin partition that divided the coachhouse from the stable were the horses. There was a

scent of hay, and a disagreeable smell of salt herrings coming from old Nikandr.

The porter won and was king; he assumed an attitude such as was in his opinion befitting a king, and blew his

"Now if I like I can chop off anybody's head," he said. Alyoshka, a boy of eight with a head of flaxen hair,

left long uncut, who had only missed being king by two tricks, looked angrily and with envy at the porter. He

"I shall give you the trick, grandfather," he said, pondering over his cards; "I know you have got the queen of

Alyoshka timidly played the knave of diamonds. At that moment a ring was heard from the yard.

"Oh, hang you!" muttered the porter, getting up. "Go and open the gate, O king!"

When he came back a little later, Alyoshka was already a prince, the fishhawker a soldier, and the

"It's a nasty business," said the porter, sitting down to the cards again. "I have just let the doctors out. They

"How could they? Just think, they would have to pick open the brains. If there is a bullet in the head, of what

"He is lying unconscious," the porter went on. "He is bound to die. Alyoshka, don't look at the cards, you

little puppy, or I will pull your ears! Yes, I let the doctors out, and the father and mother in. . . They have only

just arrived. Such crying and wailing, Lord preserve us! They say he is the only son. . . . It's a grief!"

All except Alyoshka, who was absorbed in the game, looked round at the brightly lighted windows of the

"I have orders to go to the police station tomorrow," said the porter. "There will be an inquiry . . . But what

do I know about it? I saw nothing of it. He called me this morning, gave me a letter, and said: 'Put it in the

letterbox for me.' And his eyes were red with crying. His wife and children were not at home. They had

gone out for a walk. So when I had gone with the letter, he put a bullet into his forehead from a revolver.

"It's a great sin," said the fishhawker in a husky voice, and he shook his head, "a great sin!"

"From too much learning," said the porter, taking a trick; "his wits outstripped his wisdom. Sometimes he

would sit writing papers all night. . . . Play, peasant! . . . But he was a nice gentleman. And so white skinned,

"It seems the fair sex is at the bottom of it," said the coachman, slapping the nine of trumps on the king of

diamonds. "It seems he was fond of another man's wife and disliked his own; it does happen."

At that moment there was again a ring from the yard. The rebellious king spat with vexation and went out.

Shadows like dancing couples flitted across the windows of the lodge. There was the sound of voices and

"I suppose the doctors have come again," said the coachman. "Our Mihailo is run off his legs. . . ."

A strange wailing voice rang out for a moment in the air. Alyoshka looked in alarm at his grandfather, the

"He stroked me on the head at the gate yesterday, and said, 'What district do you come from, boy?'

"The man is lost," he said a little later, with a yawn. "He is lost, and his children are ruined, too. It's a

"He is dead," he said. "They have sent to the almshouse for the old women to lay him out."

"The kingdom of heaven and eternal peace to him!" whispered the coachman, and he crossed himself.

"That's true," the porter assented. "Now his soul has gone straight to hell, to the devil. . . ."

"It's a sin," repeated the fishhawker; "such as he have no funeral, no requiem, but are buried like carrion

"It was the same thing at our lady's," he said, pulling his cap on further. "We were serfs in those days; the

younger son of our mistress, the General's lady, shot himself through the mouth with a pistol, from too much

learning, too. It seems that by law such have to be buried outside the cemetery, without priests, without a

requiem service; but to save disgrace our lady, you know, bribed the police and the doctors, and they gave her

a paper to say her son had done it when delirious, not knowing what he was doing. You can do anything with

money. So he had a funeral with priests and every honor, the music played, and he was buried in the church;

for the deceased General had built that church with his own money, and all his family were buried there. Only

this is what happened, friends. One month passed, and then another, and it was all right. In the third month

they informed the General's lady that the watchmen had come from that same church. What did they want?

They were brought to her, they fell at her feet. 'We can't go on serving, your excellency,' they said. 'Look out

for other watchmen and graciously dismiss us.' 'What for?' 'No,' they said, 'we can't possibly; your son howls

Alyoshka shuddered, and pressed his face to the coachman's back so as not to see the windows.

"At first the General's lady would not listen," continued the old man. "'All this is your fancy, you simple folk

have such notions,' she said. 'A dead man cannot howl.' Some time afterwards the watchmen came to her

again, and with them the sacristan. So the sacristan, too, had heard him howling. The General's lady saw that

it was a bad job; she locked herself in her bedroom with the watchmen. 'Here, my friends, here are

twentyfive roubles for you, and for that go by night in secret, so that no one should hear or see you, dig up

my unhappy son, and bury him,' she said, 'outside the cemetery.' And I suppose she stood them a glass . . .

And the watchmen did so. The stone with the inscription on it is there to this day, but he himself, the

General's son, is outside the cemetery. . . . O Lord, forgive us our transgressions!" sighed the fishhawker.

"There is only one day in the year when one may pray for such people: the Saturday before Trinity. . . . You

mustn't give alms to beggars for their sake, it is a sin, but you may feed the birds for the rest of their souls.

The General's lady used to go out to the crossroads every three days to feed the birds. Once at the crossroads

a black dog suddenly appeared; it ran up to the bread, and was such a . . . we all know what that dog was. The

General's lady was like a halfcrazy creature for five days afterwards, she neither ate nor drank. . . . All at

once she fell on her knees in the garden, and prayed and prayed. . . . Well, goodby, friends, the blessing of

God and the Heavenly Mother be with you. Let us go, Mihailo, you'll open the gate for me."

The fishhawker and the porter went out. The coachman and Alyoshka went out too, so as not to be left in

"The man was living and is dead!" said the coachman, looking towards the windows where shadows were

still flitting to and fro. "Only this morning he was walking about the yard, and now he is lying dead."

"The time will come and we shall die too," said the porter, walking away with the fish hawker, and at once

The coachman, and Alyoshka after him, somewhat timidly went up to the lighted windows. A very pale lady

with large tear stained eyes, and a finelooking gray headed man were moving two cardtables into the

middle of the room, probably with the intention of laying the dead man upon them, and on the green cloth of

the table numbers could still be seen written in chalk. The cook who had run about the yard wailing in the

morning was now standing on a chair, stretching up to try and cover the looking glass with a towel.

"They are just going to lay him on the tables," answered his grandfather. "Let us go, child, it is bedtime."

The coachman and Alyoshka went back to the coachhouse. They said their prayers, and took off their boots.

Stepan lay down in a corner on the floor, Alyoshka in a sledge. The doors of the coach house were shut, there

was a horrible stench from the extinguished lantern. A little later Alyoshka sat up and looked about him;

through the crack of the door he could still see a light from those lighted windows.

Alyoshka suddenly jumped out of the sledge and, loudly weeping, ran to his grandfather.

"What is it? What's the matter?" cried the coachman in a fright, getting up also.

"It's their crying," he said. "Come! there, little silly! They are sad, so they are crying."

"I want to go home, . . ." his grandson went on sobbing and trembling all over. "Grandfather, let us go back to

the village, to mammy; come, grandfather dear, God will give you the heavenly kingdom for it. . . ."

"What a silly, ah! Come, be quiet, be quiet! Be quiet, I will light the lantern, . . . silly!"

The coachman fumbled for the matches and lighted the lantern. But the light did not comfort Alyoshka.

"Grandfather Stepan, let's go to the village!" he besought him, weeping. "I am frightened here; oh, oh, how

"Who's an accursed man? You mustn't use such disrespectable words to your lawful grandfather. I shall whip

"Do whip me, grandfather, do; beat me like Sidor's goat, but only take me to mammy, for God's mercy! . . ."

"Come, come, grandson, come!" the coachman said kindly. "It's all right, don't be frightened. . . .I am

The door creaked and the porter's head appeared. "Aren't you asleep, Stepan?" he asked. "I shan't get any

sleep all night," he said, coming in. "I shall be opening and shutting the gates all night. . . . What are you

"They are crying. The mother can't believe her eyes. . . . It's dreadful how upset she is."

"Yes. . . . The father is all right. He sits in the corner and says nothing. They have taken the children to

"Yes," the coachman agreed, scratching himself, "and you, Alyoshka, go to sleep. Almost big enough to be

The presence of the porter reassured Alyoshka. He went, not very resolutely, towards the sledge and lay

The bell rang in the yard, the door creaked and seemed also saying: "I beat and cover." When Alyoshka

dreamed of the gentleman and, frightened by his eyes, jumped up and burst out crying, it was morning, his

DURING all the years I have been living in this world I have only three times been terrified.

The first real terror, which made my hair stand on end and made shivers run all over me, was caused by a

trivial but strange phenomenon. It happened that, having nothing to do one July evening, I drove to the

station for the newspapers. It was a still, warm, almost sultry evening, like all those monotonous evenings in

July which, when once they have set in, go on for a week, a fortnight, or sometimes longer, in regular

unbroken succession, and are suddenly cut short by a violent thunderstorm and a lavish downpour of rain that

The sun had set some time before, and an unbroken gray dusk lay all over the land. The mawkishly sweet

I was driving in a rough trolley. Behind my back the gardener's son Pashka, a boy of eight years old, whom I

had taken with me to look after the horse in case of necessity, was gently snoring, with his head on a sack of

oats. Our way lay along a narrow byroad, straight as a ruler, which lay hid like a great snake in the tall thick

rye. There was a pale light from the afterglow of sunset; a streak of light cut its way through a narrow,

uncouthlooking cloud, which seemed sometimes like a boat and sometimes like a man wrapped in a quilt. . .

I had driven a mile and a half, or two miles, when against the pale background of the evening glow there

came into sight one after another some graceful tall poplars; a river glimmered beyond them, and a gorgeous

picture suddenly, as though by magic, lay stretched before me. I had to stop the horse, for our straight road

broke off abruptly and ran down a steep incline overgrown with bushes. We were standing on the hillside and

beneath us at the bottom lay a huge hole full of twilight, of fantastic shapes, and of space. At the bottom of

this hole, in a wide plain guarded by the poplars and caressed by the gleaming river, nestled a village. It was

now sleeping. . . . Its huts, its church with the belfry, its trees, stood out against the gray twilight and were

I led the horse down the hill and looked at the village. At the first glance one strange circumstance caught my

attention: at the very top of the belfry, in the tiny window between the cupola and the bells, a light was

twinkling. This light was like that of a smoldering lamp, at one moment dying down, at another flickering up.

Its source was beyond my comprehension. It could not be burning at the window, for there were neither ikons

nor lamps in the top turret of the belfry; there was nothing there, as I knew, but beams, dust, and spiders'

webs. It was hard to climb up into that turret, for the passage to it from the belfry was closely blocked up.

It was more likely than anything else to be the reflection of some outside light, but though I strained my eyes

to the utmost, I could not see one other speck of light in the vast expanse that lay before me. There was no

moon. The pale and, by now, quite dim streak of the afterglow could not have been reflected, for the window

looked not to the west, but to the east. These and other similar considerations were straying through my mind

all the while that I was going down the slope with the horse. At the bottom I sat down by the roadside and

And little by little I was overcome by an unpleasant feeling. At first I thought that this was vexation at not

being able to explain a simple phenomenon; but afterwards, when I suddenly turned away from the light in

horror and caugh t hold of Pashka with one hand, it became clear that I was overcome with terror. . . .

I was seized with a feeling of loneliness, misery, and horror, as though I had been flung down against my will

into this great hole full of shadows, where I was standing all alone with the belfry looking at me with its red

This brief conversation with the boy reassured me for a little, but not for long. Pashka, seeing my uneasiness,

fastened his big eyes upon the light, looked at me again, then again at the light. . . .

At this point, beside myself with terror, I clutched the boy with one hand, huddled up to him, and gave the

"It's stupid!" I said to myself. "That phenomenon is only terrible because I don't understand it; everything we

I tried to persuade myself, but at the same time I did not leave off lashing the horse. When we reached the

posting station I purposely stayed for a full hour chatting with the overseer, and read through two or three

newspapers, but the feeling of uneasiness did not leave me. On the way back the light was not to be seen, but

on the other hand the silhouettes of the huts, of the poplars, and of the hill up which I had to drive, seemed to

The second terror I experienced was excited by a circumstance no less trivial. . . . I was returning from a

romantic interview. It was one o'clock at night, the time when nature is buried in the soundest, sweetest sleep

before the dawn. That time nature was not sleeping, and one could not call the night a still one. Corncrakes,

quails, nightingales, and W.s were calling, crickets and grasshoppers were chirruping. There was a

light mist over the grass, and clouds were scurrying straight ahead across the sky near the moon. Nature was

I walked along a narrow path at the very edge of a railway embankment. The moonlight glided over the lines

which were already covered with dew. Great shadows from the clouds kept flitting over the embankment. Far

I had a quiet, peaceful, comfortable feeling in my heart. I was returning from a tryst, I had no need to hurry; I

was not sleepy, and I was conscious of youth and health in every sigh, every step I took, rousing a dull echo

in the monotonous hum of the night. I don't know what I was feeling then, but I remember I was happy, very

I had gone not more than threequarters of a mile when I suddenly heard behind me a monotonous sound, a

rumbling, rather like the roar of a great stream. It grew louder and louder every second, and sounded nearer

and nearer. I looked round; a hundred paces from me was the dark copse from which I had only just come;

there the embankment turned to the right in a graceful curve and vanished among the trees. I stood still in

perplexity and waited. A huge black body appeared at once at the turn, noisily darted towards me, and with

the swiftness of a bird flew past me along the rails. Less than half a minute passed and the blur had vanished,

It was an ordinary goods truck. There was nothing peculiar about it in itself, but its appearance without an

engine and in the night puzzled me. Where could it have come from and what force sent it flying so rapidly

If I had been superstitious I should have made up my mind it was a party of demons and witches journeying

to a devils' sabbath, and should have gone on my way; but as it was, the phenomenon was absolutely

inexplicable to me. I did not believe my eyes, and was entangled in conjectures like a fly in a spider's web. . .

I suddenly realized that I was utterly alone on the whole vast plain; that the night, which by now seemed

inhospitable, was peeping into my face and dogging my footsteps; all the sounds, the cries of the birds, the

whisperings of the trees, seemed sinister, and existing simply to alarm my imagination. I dashed on like a

madman, and without realizing what I was doing I ran, trying to run faster and faster. And at once I heard

something to which I had paid no attention before: that is, the plaintive whining of the telegraph wires.

"This is beyond everything," I said, trying to shame myself. "It's cowardice! it's silly!"

But cowardice was stronger than common sense. I only slackened my pace when I reached the green light,

where I saw a dark signalbox, and near it on the embankment the figure of a man, probably the signalman.

"I saw it, . . ." the peasant said reluctantly. "It broke away from the goods train. There is an incline at the

ninetieth mile . . .; the train is dragged uphill. The coupling on the last truck gave way, so it broke off and ran

The strange phenomenon was explained and its fantastic character vanished. My panic was over and I was

My third fright came upon me as I was going home from stand shooting in early spring. It was in the dusk of

evening. The forest road was covered with pools from a recent shower of rain, and the earth squelched under

one's feet. The crimson glow of sunset flooded the whole forest, coloring the white stems of the birches and

Four or five miles from home, walking along the forest road, I suddenly met a big black dog of the water

spaniel breed. As he ran by, the dog looked intently at me, straight in my face, and ran on.

I looked round. The dog was standing ten paces off with his eyes fixed on me. For a minute we scanned each

other in silence, then the dog, probably flattered by my attention, came slowly up to me and wagged his tail.

I knew all the country gentry for twenty or thirty miles round, and knew all their dogs. Not one of them had a

spaniel like that. How did he come to be in the depths of the forest, on a track used for nothing but carting

timber? He could hardly have dropped behind someone passing through, for there was nowhere for the gentry

I sat down on a stump to rest, and began scrutinizing my companion. He, too, sat down, raised his head, and

fastened upon me an intent stare. He gazed at me without blinking. I don't know whether it was the influence

of the stillness, the shadows and sounds of the forest, or perhaps a result of exhaustion, but I suddenly felt

uneasy under the steady gaze of his ordinary doggy eyes. I thought of Faust and his bulldog, and of the fact

that nervous people sometimes when exhausted have hallucinations. That was enough to make me get up

The dog probably liked my voice, for he gave a gleeful jump and ran about in front of me.

The dog looked round, stared at me intently, and wagged his tail goodhumoredly. Evidently my threatening

tone amused him. I ought to have patted him, but I could not get Faust's dog out of my head, and the feeling

of panic grew more and more acute. . . Darkness was coming on, which completed my confusion, and every

time the dog ran up to me and hit me with his tail, like a coward I shut my eyes. The same thing happened as

with the light in the belfry and the truck on the railway: I could not stand it and rushed away.

At home I found a visitor, an old friend, who, after greeting me, began to complain that as he wa s driving to

me he had lost his way in the forest, and a splendid valuable dog of his had dropped behind.

IT WAS a dark autumn night. The old banker was walking up and down his study and remembering how,

fifteen years before, he had given a party one autumn evening. There had been many clever men there, and

there had been interesting conversations. Among other things they had talked of capital punishment. The

majority of the guests, among whom were many journalists and intellectual men, disapproved of the death

penalty. They considered that form of punishment out of date, immoral, and unsuitable for Christian States.

In the opinion of some of them the death penalty ought to be replaced everywhere by imprisonment for life.

"I don't agree with you," said their host the banker. "I have not tried either the death penalty or imprisonment

for life, but if one may judge _a priori_, the death penalty is more moral and more humane than imprisonment

for life. Capital punishment kills a man at once, but lifelong imprisonment kills him slowly. Which

executioner is the more humane, he who kills you in a few minutes or he who drags the life out of you in the

"Both are equally immoral," observed one of the guests, "for they both have the same object to take away

life. The State is not God. It has not the right to take away what it cannot restore when it wants to."

Among the guests was a young lawyer, a young man of fiveandtwenty. When he was asked his opinion, he

"The death sentence and the life sentence are equally immoral, but if I had to choose between the death

penalty and imprisonment for life, I would certainly choose the second. To live anyhow is better than not at

A lively discussion arose. The banker, who was younger and more nervous in those days, was suddenly

carried away by excitement; he struck the table with his fist and shouted at the young man:

"It's not true! I'll bet you two millions you wouldn't stay in solitary confinement for five years."

"If you mean that in earnest," said the young man, "I'll take the bet, but I would stay not five but fifteen

And this wild, senseless bet was carried out! The banker, spoilt and frivolous, with millions beyond his

reckoning, was delighted at the bet. At supper he made fun of the young man, and said:

"Think better of it, young man, while there is still time. To me two millions are a trifle, but you are losing

three or four of the best years of your life. I say three or four, because you won't stay longer. Don't forget

either, you unhappy man, that voluntary confinement is a great deal harder to bear than compulsory. The

thought that you have the right to step out in liberty at any moment will poison your whole existence in

And now the banker, walking to and fro, remembered all this, and asked himself: "What was the object of

that bet? What is the good of that man's losing fifteen years of his life and my throwing away two millions?

Can it prove that the death penalty is better or worse than imprisonment for life? No, no. It was all

nonsensical and meaningless. On my part it was the caprice of a pampered man, and on his part simple greed

Then he remembered what followed that evening. It was decided that the young man should spend the years

of his captivity under the strictest supervision in one of the lodges in the banker's garden. It was agreed that

for fifteen years he should not be free to cross the threshold of the lodge, to see human beings, to hear the

human voice, or to receive letters and newspapers. He was allowed to have a musical instrument and books,

and was allowed to write letters, to drink wine, and to smoke. By the terms of the agreement, the only

relations he could have with the outer world were by a little window made purposely for that object. He

might have anything he wanted books, music, wine, and so on in any quantity he desired by writing an

order, but could only receive them through the window. The agreement provided for every detail and every

trifle that would make his imprisonment strictly solitary, and bound the young man to stay there _exactly_

fifteen years, beginning from twelve o'clock of November 14, 1870, and ending at twelve o'clock of

November 14, 1885. The slightest attempt on his part to break the conditions, if only two minutes before the

For the first year of his confinement, as far as one could judge from his brief notes, the prisoner suffered

severely from loneliness and depression. The sounds of the piano could be heard continually day and night

from his lodge. He refused wine and tobacco. Wine, he wrote, excites the desires, and desires are the worst

foes of the prisoner; and besides, nothing could be more dreary than drinking good wine and seeing no one.

And tobacco spoilt the air of his room. In the first year the books he sent for were principally of a light

character; novels with a complicated love plot, sensational and fantastic stories, and so on.

In the second year the piano was silent in the lodge, and the prisoner asked only for the classics. In the fifth

year music was audible again, and the prisoner asked for wine. Those who watched him through the window

said that all that year he spent doing nothing but eating and drinking and lying on his bed, frequently yawning

and angrily talking to himself. He did not read books. Sometimes at night he would sit down to write; he

would spend hours writing, and in the morning tear up all that he had written. More than once he could be

In the second half of the sixth year the prisoner began zealously studying languages, philosophy, and history.

He threw himself eagerly into these studies so much so that the banker had enough to do to get him the

books he ordered. In the course of four years some six hundred volumes were procured at his request. It was

during this period that the banker received the following letter from his prisoner:

"My dear Jailer, I write you these lines in six languages. Show them to people who know the languages. Let

them read them. If they find not one mistake I implore you to fire a shot in the garden. That shot will show

me that my efforts have not been thrown away. The geniuses of all ages and of all lands speak different

languages, but the same flame burns in them all. Oh, if you only knew what unearthly happiness my soul

feels now from being able to understand them!" The prisoner's desire was fulfilled. The banker ordered two

Then after the tenth year, the prisoner sat immovably at the table and read nothing but the Gospel. It seemed

strange to the banker that a man who in four years had mastered six hundred learned volumes should waste

nearly a year over one thin book easy of comprehension. Theology and histories of religion followed the

In the last two years of his confinement the prisoner read an immense quantity of books quite

indiscriminately. At one time he was busy with the natural sciences, then he would ask for Byron or

Shakespeare. There were notes in which he demanded at the same time books on chemistry, and a manual of

medicine, and a novel, and some treatise on philosophy or theology. His reading suggested a man swimming

in the sea among the wreckage of his ship, and trying to save his life by greedily clutching first at one spar

"Tomorrow at twelve o'clock he will regain his freedom. By our agreement I ought to pay him two millions.

Fifteen years before, his millions had been beyond his reckoning; now he was afraid to ask himself which

were greater, his debts or his assets. Desperate gambling on the Stock Exchange, wild speculation and the

excitability whic h he could not get over even in advancing years, had by degrees led to the decline of his

fortune and the proud, fearless, selfconfident millionaire had become a banker of middling rank, trembling

at every rise and fall in his investments. "Cursed bet!" muttered the old man, clutching his head in despair

"Why didn't the man die? He is only forty now. He will take my last penny from me, he will marry, will

enjoy life, will gamble on the Exchange; while I shall look at him with envy like a beggar, and hear from him

every day the same sentence: 'I am indebted to you for the happiness of my life, let me help you!' No, it is too

much! The one means of being saved from bankruptcy and disgrace is the death of that man!"

It struck three o'clock, the banker listened; everyone was asleep in the house and nothing could be heard

outside but the rustling of the chilled trees. Trying to make no noise, he took from a fireproof safe the key of

the door which had not been opened for fifteen years, put on his overcoat, and went out of the house.

It was dark and cold in the garden. Rain was falling. A damp cutting wind was racing about the garden,

howling and giving the trees no rest. The banker strained his eyes, but could see neither the earth nor the

white statues, nor the lodge, nor the trees. Going to the spot where the lodge stood, he twice called the

watchman. No answer followed. Evidently the watchman had sought shelter from the weather, and was now

"If I had the pluck to carry out my intention," thought the old man, "Suspicion would fall first upon the

He felt in the darkness for the steps and the door, and went into the entry of the lodge. Then he groped his

way into a little passage and lighted a match. There was not a soul there. There was a bedstead with no

bedding on it, and in the corner there was a dark castiron stove. The seals on the door leading to the

When the match went out the old man, trembling with emotion, peeped through the little window. A candle

was burning dimly in the prisoner's room. He was sitting at the table. Nothing could be seen but his back, the

hair on his head, and his hands. Open books were lying on the table, on the two easychairs, and on the

Five minutes passed and the prisoner did not once stir. Fifteen years' imprisonment had taught him to sit still.

The banker tapped at the window with his finger, and the prisoner made no movement whatever in response.

Then the banker cautiously broke the seals off the door and put the key in the keyhole. The rusty lock gave a

grating sound and the door creaked. The banker expected to hear at once footsteps and a cry of astonishment,

but three minutes passed and it was as quiet as ever in the room. He made up his mind to go in.

At the table a man unlike ordinary people was sitting motionless. He was a skeleton with the skin drawn tight

over his bones, with long curls like a woman's and a shaggy beard. His face was yellow with an earthy tint in

it, his cheeks were hollow, his back long and narrow, and the hand on which his shaggy head was propped

was so thin and delicate that it was dreadful to look at it. His hair was already streaked with silver, and seeing

his emaciated, agedlooking face, no one would have believed that he was only forty. He was asleep. . . . In

front of his bowed head there lay on the table a sheet of paper on which there was something written in fine

"Poor creature!" thought the banker, "he is asleep and most likely dreaming of the millions. And I have only

to take this halfdead man, throw him on the bed, stifle him a little with the pillow, and the most

conscientious expert would find no sign of a violent death. But let us first read what he has written here. . . ."

"Tomorrow at twelve o'clock I regain my freedom and the right to associate with other men, but before I

leave this room and see the sunshine, I think it necessary to say a few words to you. With a clear conscience I

tell you, as before God, who beholds me, that I despise freedom and life and health, and all that in your books

"For fifteen years I have been intently studying earthly life. It is true I have not seen the earth nor men, but in

your books I have drunk fragrant wine, I have sung songs, I have hunted stags and wild boars in the forests,

have loved women. . . . Beauties as ethereal as clouds, created by the magic of your poets and geniuses, have

visited me at night, and have whispered in my ears wonderful tales that have set my brain in a whirl. In your

books I have climbed to the peaks of Elburz and Mont Blanc, and from there I have seen the sun rise and

have watched it at evening flood the sky, the ocean, and the mountaintops with gold and crimson. I have

watched from there the lightning flashing over my head and cleaving the stormclouds. I have seen green

forests, fields, rivers, lakes, towns. I have heard the singing of the sirens, and the strains of the shepherds'

pipes; I have touched the wings of comely devils who flew down to converse with me of God. . . . In your

books I have flung myself into the bottomless pit, performed miracles, slain, burned towns, preached new

"Your books have given me wisdom. All that the unresting thought of man has created in the ages is

compressed into a small compass in my brain. I know that I am wiser than all of you.

"And I despise your books, I despise wisdom and the blessings of this world. It is all worthless, fleeting,

illusory, and deceptive, like a mirage. You may be proud, wise, and fine, but death will wipe you off the face

of the earth as though you were no more than mice burrowing under the floor, and your posterity, your

history, your immortal geniuses will burn or freeze together with the earthly globe.

"You have lost your reason and taken the wrong path. You have taken lies for truth, and hideousness for

beauty. You would marvel if, owing to strange events of some sorts, frogs and lizards suddenly grew on apple

and orange trees instead of fruit, or if roses began to smell like a sweating horse; so I marvel at you who

"To prove to you in action how I despise all that you live by, I renounce the two millions of which I once

dreamed as of paradise and which now I despise. To deprive myself of the right to the money I shall go out

When the banker had read this he laid the page on the table, kissed the strange man on the head, and went out

of the lodge, weeping. At no other time, even when he had lost heavily on the Stock Exchange, had he felt so

great a contempt for himself. When he got home he lay on his bed, but his tears and emotion kept him for

Next morning the watchmen ran in with pale faces, and told him they had seen the man who lived in the

lodge climb out of the window into the garden, go to the gate, and disappear. The banker went at once with

the servants to the lodge and made sure of the flight of his prisoner. To avoid arousing unnecessary talk, he

took from the table the writing in which the millions were renounced, and when he got home locked it up in

A SALE of flowers was taking place in Count N.'s greenhouses. The purchasers were few in number a

landowner who was a neighbor of mine, a young timbermerchant, and myself. While the workmen were

carrying out our magnificent purchases and packing them into the carts, we sat at the entry of the greenhouse

and chatted about one thing and another. It is extremely pleasant to sit in a garden on a still April morning,

listening to the birds, and watching the flowers brought out into the open air and basking in the sunshine.

The headgardener, Mihail Karlovitch, a venerable old man with a full shaven face, wearing a fur waistcoat

and no coat, superintended the packing of the plants himself, but at the same time he listened to our

conversation in the hope of hearing something new. He was an intelligent, very goodhearted man, respected

by everyone. He was for some reason looked upon by everyone as a German, though he was in reality on his

father's side Swedish, on his mother's side Russian, and attended the Orthodox church. He knew Russian,

Swedish, and German. He had read a good deal in those languages, and nothing one could do gave him

greater pleasure than lending him some new book or talking to him, for instance, about Ibsen.

He had his weaknesses, but they were innocent ones: he called himself the head gardener, though there were

no undergardeners; the expression of his face was unusually dignified and haughty; he could not endure to

"That young fellow there I can recommend to you as an awful rascal," said my neighbor, pointing to a laborer

with a swarthy, gipsy face, who drove by with the waterbarrel. "Last week he was tried in the town for

burglary and was acquitted; they pronounced him mentally deranged, and yet look at him, he is the picture of

health. Scoundrels are very often acquitted nowadays in Russia on grounds of abnormality and aberration, yet

these acquittals, these unmistakable proofs of an indulgent attitude to crime, lead to no good. They

demoralize the masses, the sense of justice is blunted in all as they become accustomed to seeing vice

unpunished, and you know in our age one may boldly say in the words of Shakespeare that in our evil and

"That's very true," the merchant assented. "Owing to these frequent acquittals, murder and arson have become

"As far as I am concerned, gentlemen, I am always delighted to meet with these verdicts of not guilty. I am

not afraid for morality and justice when they say 'Not guilty,' but on the contrary I feel pleased. Even when

my conscience tells me the jury have made a mistake in acquitting the criminal, even then I am triumphant.

Judge for yourselves, gentlemen; if the judges and the jury have more faith in _man_ than in evidence,

material proofs, and speeches for the prosecution, is not that faith _in man_ in itself higher than any ordinary

considerations? Such faith is only attainable by those few who understand and feel Christ."

"But it's not a new one. I remember a very long time ago I heard a legend on that subject. A very charming

legend," said the gardener, and he smiled. "I was told it by my grandmother, my father's mother, an excellent

old lady. She told me it in Swedish, and it does not sound so fine, so classical, in Russian."

But we begged him to tell it and not to be put off by the coarseness of the Russian language. Much gratified,

"There settled in a certain little town a solitary, plain, elderly gentleman called Thomson or Wilson but

that does not matter; the surname is not the point. He followed an honorable profession: he was a doctor. He

was always morose and unsociable, and only spoke when required by his profession. He never visited

anyone, never extended his acquaintance beyond a silent bow, and lived as humbly as a hermit. The fact was,

he was a learned man, and in those days learned men were not like other people. They spent their days and

nights in contemplation, in reading and in healing disease, looked upon everything else as trivial, and had no

time to waste a word. The inhabitants of the town understood this, and tried not to worry him with their visits

and empty chatter. They were very glad that God had sent them at last a man who could heal diseases, and

were proud that such a remarkable man was living in their town. 'He knows everything,' they said about him.

"But that was not enough. They ought to have also said, 'He loves everyone.' In the breast of that learned man

there beat a wonderful angelic heart. Though the people of that town were strangers and not his own people,

yet he loved them like children, and did not spare himself for them. He was himself ill with consumption, he

had a cough, but when he was summoned to the sick he forgot his own illness he did not spare himself and,

gasping for breath, climbed up the hills however high they might be. He disregarded the sultry heat and the

cold, despised thirst and hunger. He would accept no money and strange to say, when one of his patients died,

"And soon he became so necessary to the town that the inhabitants wondered how they could have got on

before without the man. Their gratitude knew no bounds. Grownup people and children, good and bad alike,

honest men and cheats all in fact, respected him and knew his value. In the little town and all the

surrounding neighborhood there was no man who would allow himself to do anything disagreeable to him;

indeed, they would never have dreamed of it. When he came out of his lodging, he never fastened the doors

or windows, in complete confidence that there was no thief who could bring himself to do him wrong. He

often had in the course of his medical duties to walk along the highroads, through the forests and mountains

haunted by numbers of hungry vagrants; but he felt that he was in perfect security.

"One night he was returning from a patient when robbers fell upon him in the forest, but when they

recognized him, they took off their hats respectfully and offered him something to eat. When he answered

that he was not hungry, they gave him a warm wrap and accompanied him as far as the town, happy that fate

had given them the chance in some small way to show their gratitude to the benevolent man. Well, to be sure,

my grandmother told me that even the horses and the cows and the dogs knew him and expressed their joy

"And this man who seemed by his sanctity to have guarded himself from every evil, to whom even brigands

and frenzied men wished nothing but good, was one fine morning found murdered. Covered with blood, with

his skull broken, he was lying in a ravine, and his pale face wore an expression of amazement. Yes, not

horror but amazement was the emotion that had been fixed upon his face when he saw the murderer before

him. You can imagine the grief that overwhelmed the inhabitants of the town and the surrounding districts.

All were in despair, unable to believe their eyes, wondering who could have killed the man. The judges who

conducted the inquiry and examined the doctor's body said: 'Here we have all the signs of a murder, but as

there is not a man in the world capable of murdering our doctor, obviously it was not a case of murder, and

the combination of evidence is due to simple chance. We must suppose that in the darkness he fell into the

"The whole town agreed with this opinion. The doctor was buried, and nothing more was said about a violent

death. The existence of a man who could have the baseness and wickedness to kill the doctor seemed

"All at once, would you believe it, chance led them to discovering the murderer. A vagrant who had been

many times convicted, notorious for his vicious life, was seen selling for drink a snuffbox and watch that

had belonged to the doctor. When he was questioned he was confused, and answered with an obvious lie. A

search was made, and in his bed was found a shirt with stains of blood on the sleeves, and a doctor's lancet set

in gold. What more evidence was wanted? They put the criminal in prison. The inhabitants were indignant,

" 'It's incredible! It can't be so! Take care that a mistake is not made; it does happen, you know, that evidence

"At his trial the murderer obstinately denied his guilt. Everything was against him, and to be convinced of his

guilt was as easy as to believe that this earth is black; but the judges seem to have gone mad: they weighed

every proof ten times, looked distrustfully at the witnesses, flushed crimson and sipped water. . . . The trial

"'Accused!' the chief judge said, addressing the murderer, 'the court has found you guilty of murdering Dr.

"The chief judge meant to say 'to the death penalty,' but he dropped from his hands the paper on which the

"'No! May God punish me if I judge wrongly, but I swear he is not guilty. I cannot admit the thought that

there exists a man who would dare to murder our friend the doctor! A man could not sink so low!'

"The murderer was set free to go where he chose, and not one soul blamed the court for an unjust verdict.

And my grandmother used to say that for such faith in humanity God forgave the sins of all the inhabitants of

that town. He rejoices when people believe that man is His image and semblance, and grieves if, forgetful of

human dignity, they judge worse of men than of dogs. The sentence of acquittal may bring harm to the

inhabitants of the town, but on the other hand, think of the beneficial influence upon them of that faith in man

a faith which does not remain dead, you know; it raises up generous feelings in us, and always impels us

Mihail Karlovitch had finished. My neighbor would have urged some objection, but the headgardener made

a gesture that signified that he did not like objections; then he walked away to the carts, and, with an

I REMEMBER, when I was a high school boy in the fifth or sixth class, I was driving with my grandfather

from the village of Bolshoe Kryepkoe in the Don region to RostovontheDon. It was a sultry, languidly

dreary day of August. Our eyes were glued together, and our mouths were parched from the heat and the dry

burning wind which drove clouds of dust to meet us; one did not want to look or speak or think, and when

our drowsy driver, a Little Russian called Karpo, swung his whip at the horses and lashed me on my cap, I

did not protest or utter a sound, but only, rousing myself from halfslumber, gazed mildly and dejectedly into

the distance to see whether there was a village visible through the dust. We stopped to feed the horses in a big

Armenian village at a rich Armenian's whom my grandfather knew. Never in my life have I seen a greater

caricature than that Armenian. Imagine a little shaven head with thick overhanging eyebrows, a beak of a

nose, long gray mustaches, and a wide mouth with a long cherrywood chibouk sticking out of it. This little

head was clumsily attached to a lean hunchback carcass attired in a fantastic garb, a short red jacket, and

full bright blue trousers. This figure walked straddling its legs and shuffling with its slippers, spoke without

taking the chibouk out of its mouth, and behaved with truly Armenian dignity, not smiling, but staring with

There was neither wind nor dust in the Armenian's rooms, but it was just as unpleasant, stifling, and dreary as

in the steppe and on the road. I remember, dusty and exhausted by the heat, I sat in the corner on a green box.

The unpainted wooden walls, the furniture, and the floors colored with yellow ocher smelt of dry wood baked

by the sun. Wherever I looked there were flies and flies and flies. . . . Grandfather and the Armenian were

talking about grazing, about manure, and about oats. . . . I knew that they would be a good hour getting the

samovar; that grandfather would be not less than an hour drinking his tea, and then would lie down to sleep

for two or three hours; that I should waste a quarter of the day waiting, after which there would be again the

heat, the dust, the jolting cart. I heard the muttering of the two voices, and it began to seem to me that I had

been seeing the Armenian, the cupboard with the crockery, the flies, the windows with the burning sun

beating on them, for ages and ages, and should only cease to see them in the faroff future, and I was seized

A Little Russian peasant woman in a kerchief brought in a tray of teathings, then the samovar. The

Armenian went slowly out into the passage and shouted: "Mashya, come and pour out tea! Where are you,

Hurried footsteps were heard, and there came into the room a girl of sixteen in a simple cotton dress and a

white kerchief. As she washed the crockery and poured out the tea, she was standing with her back to me, and

all I could see was that she was of a slender figure, barefooted, and that her little bare heels were covered by

The Armenian invited me to have tea. Sitting down to the table, I glanced at the girl, who was handing me a

glass of tea, and felt all at once as though a wind were blowing over my soul and blowing away all the

impressions of the day with their dust and dreariness. I saw the bewitching features of the most beautiful face

I have ever met in real life or in my dreams. Before me stood a beauty, and I recognized that at the first

I am ready to swear that Masha or, as her father called her, Mashya was a real beauty, but I don't know

how to prove it. It sometimes happens that clouds are huddled together in disorder on the horizon, and the sun

hiding behind them colors them and the sky with tints of every possible shadecrimson, orange, gold, lilac,

muddy pink; one cloud is like a monk, another like a fish, a third like a Turk in a turban. The glow of sunset

enveloping a third of the sky gleams on the cross on the church, flashes on the windows of the manor house,

is reflected in the river and the puddles, quivers on the trees; far, far away against the background of the

sunset, a flock of wild ducks is flying homewards. . . . And the boy herding the cows, and the surveyor

driving in his chaise over the dam, and the gentleman out for a walk, all gaze at the sunset, and every one of

them thinks it terribly beautiful, but no one knows or can say in what its beauty lies.

I was not the only one to think the Armenian girl beautiful. My grandfather, an old man of seventy, gruff and

indifferent to women and the beauties of nature, looked caressingly at Masha for a full minute, and asked:

An artist would have called the Armenian girl's beauty classical and severe, it was just that beauty, the

contemplation of which God knows why! inspires in one the conviction that one is seeing correct

features; that hair, eyes, nose, mouth, neck, bosom, and every movement of the young body all go together in

one complete harmonious accord in which nature has not blundered over the smallest line. You fancy for

some reason that the ideally beautiful woman must have such a nose as Masha's, straight and slightly

aquiline, just such great dark eyes, such long lashes, such a languid glance; you fancy that her black curly

hair and eyebrows go with the soft white tint of her brow and cheeks as the green reeds go with the quiet

stream. Masha's white neck and her youthful bosom were not fully developed, but you fancy the sculptor

would need a great creative genius to mold them. You gaze, and little by little the desire comes over you to

say to Masha something extraordinarily pleasant, sincere, beautiful, as beautiful as she herself was.

At first I felt hurt and abashed that Masha took no notice of me, but was all the time looking down; it seemed

to me as though a peculiar atmosphere, proud and happy, separated her from me and jealously screened her

"That's because I am covered with dust," I thought, "am sunburnt, and am still a boy."

But little by little I forgot myself, and gave myself up entirely to the consciousness of beauty. I thought no

more now of the dreary steppe, of the dust, no longer heard the buzzing of the flies, no longer tasted the tea,

and felt nothing except that a beautiful girl was standing only the other side of the table.

I felt this beauty rather strangely. It was not desire, nor ecstacy, nor enjoyment that Masha excited in me, but

a painful though pleasant sadness. It was a sadness vague and undefined as a dream. For some reason I felt

sorry for myself, for my grandfather and for the Armenian, even for the girl herself, and I had a feeling as

though we all four had lost something important and essential to life which we should never find again. My

grandfather, too, grew melancholy; he talked no more about manure or about oats, but sat silent, looking

After tea my grandfather lay down for a nap while I went out of the house into the porch. The house, like all

the houses in the Armenian village stood in the full sun; there was not a tree, not an awning, no shade. The

Armenian's great courtyard, overgrown with goosefoot and wild mallows, was lively and full of gaiety in

spite of the great heat. Threshing was going on behind one of the low hurdles which intersected the big yard

here and there. Round a post stuck into the middle of the threshingfloor ran a dozen horses harnessed side

by side, so that they formed one long radius. A Little Russian in a long waistcoat and full trousers was

walking beside them, cracking a whip and shouting in a tone that sounded as though he were jeering at the

The horses, sorrel, white, and piebald, not understanding why they were made to run round in one place and

to crush the wheat straw, ran unwillingly as though with effort, swinging their tails with an offended air. The

wind raised up perfect clouds of golden chaff from under their hoofs and carried it away far beyond the

hurdle. Near the tall fresh stacks peasant women were swarming with rakes, and carts were moving, and

beyond the stacks in another yard another dozen similar horses were running round a post, and a similar Little

The steps on which I was sitting were hot; on the thin rails and here and there on the windowframes sap was

oozing out of the wood from the heat; red ladybirds were huddling together in the streaks of shadow under

the steps and under the shutters. The sun was baking me on my head, on my chest, and on my back, but I did

not notice it, and was conscious only of the thud of bare feet on the uneven floor in the passage and in the

rooms behind me. After clearing away the teathings, Masha ran down the steps, fluttering the air as she

passed, and like a bird flew into a little grimy outhouseI suppose the kitchenfrom which came the smell

of roast mutton and the sound of angry talk in Armenian. She vanished into the dark doorway, and in her

place there appeared on the threshold an old bent, redfaced Armenian woman wearing green trousers. The

old woman was angry and was scolding someone. Soon afterwards Masha appeared in the doorway, flushed

with the heat of the kitchen and carrying a big black loaf on her shoulder; swaying gracefully under the

weight of the bread, she ran across the yard to the threshingfloor, darted over the hurdle, and, wrapt in a

cloud of golden chaff, vanished behind the carts. The Little Russian who was driving the horses lowered his

whip, sank into silence, and gazed for a minute in the direction of the carts. Then when the Armenian girl

darted again by the horses and leaped over the hurdle, he followed her with his eyes, and shouted to the

And all the while I was unceasingly hearing her bare feet, and seeing how she walked across the yard with a

grave, preoccupied face. She ran now down the steps, swishing the air about me, now into the kitchen, now to

the threshingfloor, now through the gate, and I could hardly turn my head quickly enough to watch her.

And the oftener she fluttered by me with her beauty, the more acute became my sadness. I felt sorry both for

her and for myself and for the Little Russian, who mournfully watched her every time she ran through the

cloud of chaff to the carts. Whether it was envy of her beauty, or that I was regretting that the girl was not

mine, and never would be, or that I was a stranger to her; or whether I vaguely felt that her rare beauty was

accidental, unnecessary, and, like everything on earth, of short duration; or whether, perhaps, my sadness was

that peculiar feeling which is excited in man by the contemplation of real beauty, God only knows.

The three hours of waiting passed unnoticed. It seemed to me that I had not had time to look properly at

Masha when Karpo drove up to the river, bathed the horse, and began to put it in the shafts. The wet horse

snorted with pleasure and kicked his hoofs against the shafts. Karpo shouted to it: "Baack!" My

grandfather woke up. Masha opened the creaking gates for us, we got into the chaise and drove out of the

When, two or three hours later, Rostov and Nahitchevan appeared in the distance, Karpo, who had been silent

Another time, after I had become a student, I was traveling by rail to the south. It was May. At one of the

stations, I believe it was between Byelgorod and Harkov, I got out of the tram to walk about the platform.

The shades of evening were already lying on the station garden, on the platform, and on the fields; the station

screened off the sunset, but on the topmost clouds of smoke from the engine, which were tinged with rosy

As I walked up and down the platform I noticed that the greater number of the passengers were standing or

walking near a secondclass compartment, and that they looked as though some celebrated person were in

that compartment. Among the curious whom I met near this compartment I saw, however, an artillery officer

who had been my fellowtraveler, an intelligent, cordial, and sympathetic fellowas people mostly are

He made no answer, but only indicated with his eyes a feminine figure. It was a young girl of seventeen or

eighteen, wearing a Russian dress, with her head bare and a little shawl flung carelessly on one shoulder; not

a passenger, but I suppose a sister or daughter of the stationmaster. She was standing near the carriage

window, talking to an elderly woman who was in the train. Before I had time to realize what I was seeing, I

was suddenly overwhelmed by the feeling I had once experienced in the Armenian village.

The girl was remarkably beautiful, and that was unmistakable to me and to those who were looking at her as I

If one is to describe her appearance feature by feature, as the practice is, the only really lovely thing was her

thick wavy fair hair, which hung loose with a black ribbon tied round her head; all the other features were

either irregular or very ordinary. Either from a peculiar form of coquettishness, or from shortsightedness,

her eyes were screwed up, her nose had an undecided tilt, her mouth was small, her profile was feebly and

insipidly drawn, her shoulders were narrow and undeveloped for her age and yet the girl made the

impression of being really beautiful, and looking at her, I was able to feel convinced that the Russian face

does not need strict regularity in order to be lovely; what is more, that if instead of her turnup nose the girl

had been given a different one, correct and plastically irreproachable like the Armenian girl's, I fancy her face

Standing at the window talking, the girl, shrugging at the evening damp, continually looking round at us, at

one moment put her arms akimbo, at the next raised her hands to her head to straighten her hair, talked,

laughed, while her face at one moment wore an expression of wonder, the next of horror, and I don't

remember a moment when her face and body were at rest. The whole secret and magic of her beauty lay just

in these tiny, infinitely elegant movements, in her smile, in the play of her face, in her rapid glances at us, in

the combination of the subtle grace of her movements with her youth, her freshness, the purity of her soul that

sounded in her laugh and voice, and with the weakness we love so much in children, in birds, in fawns, and in

It was that butterfly's beauty so in keeping with waltzing, darting about the garden, laughter and gaiety, and

incongruous with serious thought, grief, and repose; and it seemed as though a gust of wind blowing over the

platform, or a fall of rain, would be enough to wither the fragile body and scatter the capricious beauty like

"Soo! . . ." the officer muttered with a sigh when, after the second bell, we went back to our compartment.

Perhaps he was sad, and did not want to go away from the beauty and the spring evening into the stuffy train;

or perhaps he, like me, was unaccountably sorry for the beauty, for himself, and for me, and for all the

passengers, who were listlessly and reluctantly sauntering back to their compartments. As we passed the

station window, at which a pale, redhaired telegraphist with upstanding curls and a faded, broadcheeked

"I bet that telegraphist is in love with that pretty girl. To live out in the wilds under one roof with that ethereal

creature and not fall in love is beyond the power of man. And what a calamity, my friend! what an ironical

fate, to be stooping, unkempt, gray, a decent fellow and not a fool, and to be in love with that pretty, stupid

little girl who would never take a scrap of notice of you! Or worse still: imagine that telegraphist is in love,

and at the same time married, and that his wife is as stooping, as unkempt, and as decent a person as himself."

On the platform between our carriage and the next the guard was standing with his elbows on the railing,

looking in the direction of the beautiful girl, and his battered, wrinkled, unpleasantly beefy face, exhausted by

sleepless nights and the jolting of the train, wore a look of tenderness and of the deepest sadness, as though in

that girl he saw happiness, his own youth, soberness, purity, wife, children; as though he were repenting and

feeling in his whole being that that girl was not his, and that for him, with his premature old age, his

uncouthness, and his beefy face, the ordinary happiness of a man and a passenger was as far away as heaven.

The third bell rang, the whistles sounded, and the train slowly moved off. First the guard, the stationmaster,

then the garden, the beautiful girl with her exquisitely sly smile, passed before our windows. . . .

Putting my head out and looking back, I saw how, looking after the train, she walked along the platform by

the window where the telegraph clerk was sitting, smoothed her hair, and ran into the garden. The station no

longer screened off the sunset, the plain lay open before us, but the sun had already set and the smoke lay in

black clouds over the green, velvety young corn. It was melancholy in the spring air, and in the darkening

The familiar figure of the guard came into the carriage, and he began lighting the candles.

IT was Christmas Eve. Marya had long been snoring on the stove; all the paraffin in the little lamp had burnt

out, but Fyodor Nilov still sat at work. He would long ago have flung aside his work and gone out into the

street, but a customer from Kolokolny Lane, who had a fortnight before ordered some boots, had been in the

previous day, had abused him roundly, and had ordered him to finish the boots at once before the morning

"It's a convict's life!" Fyodor grumbled as he worked. "Some people have been asleep long ago, others are

enjoying themselves, while you sit here like some Cain and sew for the devil knows whom. . . ."

To save himself from accidentally falling asleep, he kept taking a bottle from under the table and drinking out

"What is the reason, kindly tell me, that customers enjoy themselves while I am forced to sit and work for

He hated all his customers, especially the one who lived in Kolokolny Lane. He was a gentleman of gloomy

appearance, with long hair, a yellow face, blue spectacles, and a husky voice. He had a German name which

one could not pronounce. It was impossible to tell what was his calling and what he did. When, a fortnight

before, Fyodor had gone to take his measure, he, the customer, was sitting on the floor pounding something

in a mortar. Before Fyodor had time to say goodmorning the contents of the mortar suddenly flared up and

burned with a bright red flame; there was a stink of sulphur and burnt feathers, and the room was filled with a

thick pink smoke, so that Fyodor sneezed five times; and as he returned home afterwards, he thought:

When there was nothing left in the bottle Fyodor put the boots on the table and sank into thought. He leaned

his heavy head on his fist and began thinking of his poverty, of his hard life with no glimmer of light in it.

Then he thought of the rich, of their big houses and their carriages, of their hundredrouble notes. . . . How

nice it would be if the houses of these rich men the devil flay them! were smashed, if their horses died,

if their fur coats and sable caps got shabby! How splendid it would be if the rich, little by little, changed into

beggars having nothing, and he, a poor shoemaker, were to become rich, and were to lord it over some other

"Here's a go," he thought, looking at the boots. "The job has been finished ever so long ago, and I go on

He wrapped up the work in a red handkerchief, put on his things, and went out into the street. A fine hard

snow was falling, pricking the face as though with needles. It was cold, slippery, dark, the gaslamps burned

dimly, and for some reason there was a smell of paraffin in the street, so that Fyodor coughed and cleared his

throat. Rich men were driving to and fro on the road, and every rich man had a ham and a bottle of vodka in

his hands. Rich young ladies peeped at Fyodor out of the carriages and sledges, put out their tongues and

Students, officers, and merchants walked behind Fyodor, jeering at him and crying:

All this was insulting, but Fyodor held his tongue and only spat in disgust. But when Kuzma Lebyodkin from

Warsaw, a masterbootmaker, met him and said: "I've married a rich woman and I have men working under

me, while you are a beggar and have nothing to eat," Fyodor could not refrain from running after him. He

pursued him till he found himself in Kolokolny Lane. His customer lived in the fourth house from the corner

on the very top floor. To reach him one had to go through a long, dark courtyard, and then to climb up a very

high slipp ery staircase which tottered under one's feet. When Fyodor went in to him he was sitting on the

The customer got up and began trying on the boots in silence. Desiring to help him, Fyodor went down on

one knee and pulled off his old, boot, but at once jumped up and staggered towards the door in horror. The

The first thing should have been to cross himself, then to leave everything and run downstairs; but he

immediately reflected that he was meeting a devil for the first and probably the last time, and not to take

advantage of his services would be foolish. He controlled himself and determined to try his luck. Clasping his

hands behind him to avoid making the sign of the cross, he coughed respectfully and began:

"They say that there is nothing on earth more evil and impure than the devil, but I am of the opinion, your

honor, that the devil is highly educated. He has excuse my saying it hoofs and a tail behind, but he has

"I like you for what you say," said the devil, flattered. "Thank you, shoemaker! What do you want?"

And without loss of time the shoemaker began complaining of his lot. He began by saying that from his

childhood up he had envied the rich. He had always resented it that all people did not live alike in big houses

and drive with good horses. Why, he asked, was he poor? How was he worse than Kuzma Lebyodkin from

Warsaw, who had his own house, and whose wife wore a hat? He had the same sort of nose, the same hands,

feet, head, and back, as the rich, and so why was he forced to work when others were enjoying themselves?

Why was he married to Marya and not to a lady smelling of scent? He had often seen beautiful young ladies

in the houses of rich customers, but they either took no notice of him whatever, or else sometimes laughed

and whispered to each other: "What a red nose that shoemaker has!" It was true that Marya was a good, kind,

hardworking woman, but she was not educated; her hand was heavy and hit hard, and if one had occasion to

speak of politics or anything intellectual before her, she would put her spoke in and talk the most awful

"I beg you, your honor Satan Ivanitch, to be graciously pleased to make me a rich man."

"Certainly. Only for that you must give me up your soul! Before the cocks crow, go and sign on this paper

"Your honor," said Fyodor politely, "when you ordered a pair of boots from me I did not ask for the money in

A bright flame suddenly flared up in the mortar, a pink thick smoke came puffing out, and there was a smell

of burnt feathers and sulphur. When the smoke had subsided, Fyodor rubbed his eyes and saw that he was no

longer Fyodor, no longer a shoemaker, but quite a different man, wearing a waistcoat and a watchchain, in a

new pair of trousers, and that he was sitting in an armchair at a big table. Two foot men were handing him

What wealth! The footmen handed him a big piece of roast mutton and a dish of cucumbers, and then brought

in a fryingpan a roast goose, and a little afterwards boiled pork with horseradish cream. And how

dignified, how genteel it all was! Fyodor ate, and before each dish drank a big glass of excellent vodka, like

some general or some count. After the pork he was handed some boiled grain moistened with goose fat, then

an omelette with bacon fat, then fried liver, and he went on eating and was delighted. What more? They

In conclusion they handed him a big pot of honey. After dinner the devil appeared in blue spectacles and

But Fyodor could not answer one word, he was so stuffed after his dinner. The feeling of repletion was

unpleasant, oppressive, and to distract his thoughts he looked at the boot on his left foot.

"For a boot like that I used not to take less than seven and a half roubles. What shoemaker made it?" he

Kuzma Lebyodkin from Warsaw soon made his appearance. He stopped in a respectful attitude at the door

"Hold your tongue!" cried Fyodor, and stamped his foot. "Don't dare to argue; remember your place as a

cobbler! Blockhead! You don't know how to make boots! I'll beat your ugly phiz to a jelly! Why have you

But he at once recalled what a life the customers used to lead him, too, and he felt heavy at heart, and to

distract his attention he took a fat pocketbook out of his pocket and began counting his money. There was a

great deal of money, but Fyodor wanted more still. The devil in the blue spectacles brought him another

notebook fatter still, but he wanted even more; and the more he counted it, the more discontented he became.

In the evening the evil one brought him a fullbosomed lady in a red dress, and said that this was his new

wife. He spent the whole evening kissing her and eating gingerbreads, and at night he went to bed on a soft,

downy featherbed, turned from side to side, and could not go to sleep. He felt uncanny.

"We have a great deal of money," he said to his wife; "we must look out or thieves will be breaking in. You

He did not sleep all night, and kept getting up to see if his box was all right. In the morning he had to go to

church to matins. In church the same honor is done to rich and poor alike. When Fyodor was poor he used to

pray in church like this: "God, forgive me, a sinner!" He said the same thing now though he had become rich.

What difference was there? And after death Fyodor rich would not be buried in gold, not in diamonds, but in

the same black earth as the poorest beggar. Fyodor would burn in the same fire as cobblers. Fyodor resented

all this, and, too, he felt weighed down all over by his dinner, and instead of prayer he had all sorts of

thoughts in his head about his box of money, about thieves, about his bartered, ruined soul.

He came out of church in a bad temper. To drive away his unpleasant thoughts as he had often done before,

he struck up a song at the top of his voice. But as soon as he began a policeman ran up and said, with his

Fyodor leaned his back against a fence and fell to thinking: what could he do to amuse himself?

"Your honor," a porter shouted to him, "don't lean against the fence, you will spoil your fur coat!"

Fyodor went into a shop and bought himself the very best concertina, then went out into the street playing it.

"Is it the proper thing for gentlefolk to be disorderly in the street?" a policeman said to him. "You had better

"Your honor, give us a trifle, for Christ's sake," the beggars wailed, surrounding Fyodor on all sides.

In earlier days when he was a shoemaker the beggars took no notice of him, now they wouldn't let him pass.

And at home his new wife, the lady, was waiting for him, dressed in a green blouse and a red skirt. He meant

to be attentive to her, and had just lifted his arm to give her a good clout on the back, but she said angrily:

"Peasant! Ignorant lout! You don't know how to behave with ladies! If you love me you will kiss my hand; I

"This is a blasted existence!" thought Fyodor. "People do lead a life! You mustn't sing, you mustn't play the

He had no sooner sat down to tea with the lady when the evil spirit in the blue spectacles appeared and said:

"Come, Fyodor Pantelyeitch, I have performed my part of the bargain. Now sign your paper and come along

And he dragged Fyodor to hell, straight to the furnace, and devils flew up from all directions and shouted:

There was a fearful smell of paraffin in hell, enough to suffocate one. And suddenly it all vanished. Fyodor

opened his eyes and saw his table, the boots, and the tin lamp. The lampglass was black, and from the faint

light on the wick came clouds of stinking smoke as from a chimney. Near the table stood the customer in the

"Fool! Blockhead! Ass! I'll give you a lesson, you scoundrel! You took the order a fortnight ago and the

boots aren't ready yet! Do you suppose I want to come trapesing round here half a dozen times a day for my

Fyodor shook his head and set to work on the boots. The customer went on swearing and threatening him for

They began ringing for matins. Fyodor gave the customer the boots, took the money for them, and went to

Carriages and sledges with bearskin rugs were dashing to and fro in the street; merchants, ladies, officers

were walking along the pavement together with the humbler folk. . . . But Fyodor did not envy them nor

repine at his lot. It seemed to him now that rich and poor were equally badly off. Some were able to drive in a

carriage, and others to sing songs at the top of their voice and to play the concertina, but one and the same

thing, the same grave, was awaiting all alike, and there was nothing in life for which one would give the devil