A Reckless Character, and Other Stories Part 29

He stretched out to me a red, bloated, dirty hand.... He moaned, he bellowed for help.

I began to rummage in all my pockets.... Neither purse, nor watch, nor even handkerchief did I find.... I had taken nothing with me.

And the beggar still waited ... and extended his hand, which swayed and trembled feebly.

Bewildered, confused, I shook that dirty, tremulous hand heartily....

"Blame me not, brother; I have nothing, brother."

The beggar man fixed his swollen eyes upon me; his blue lips smiled--and in his turn he pressed my cold fingers.

"Never mind, brother," he mumbled. "Thanks for this also, brother.--This also is an alms, brother."

I understood that I had received an alms from my brother.

February, 1878.

"THOU SHALT HEAR THE JUDGMENT OF THE DULLARD...."

_Pushkin_

"Thou shalt hear the judgment of the dullard...." Thou hast always spoken the truth, thou great writer of ours; thou hast spoken it this time, also.

"The judgment of the dullard and the laughter of the crowd."... Who is there that has not experienced both the one and the other?

All this can--and must be borne; and whosoever hath the strength,--let him despise it.

But there are blows which beat more painfully on the heart itself.... A man has done everything in his power; he has toiled arduously, lovingly, honestly.... And honest souls turn squeamishly away from him; honest faces flush with indignation at his name. "Depart! Begone!" honest young voices shout at him.--"We need neither thee nor thy work, thou art defiling our dwelling--thou dost not know us and dost not understand us.... Thou art our enemy!"

What is that man to do then? Continue to toil, make no effort to defend himself--and not even expect a more just estimate.

In former days tillers of the soil cursed the traveller who brought them potatoes in place of bread, the daily food of the poor man.... They s.n.a.t.c.hed the precious gift from the hands outstretched to them, flung it in the mire, trod it under foot.

Now they subsist upon it--and do not even know the name of their benefactor.

So be it! What matters his name to them? He, although he be nameless, has saved them from hunger.

Let us strive only that what we offer may be equally useful food.

Bitter is unjust reproach in the mouths of people whom one loves.... But even that can be endured....

"Beat me--but hear me out!" said the Athenian chieftain to the Spartan chieftain.

"Beat me--but be healthy and full fed!" is what we ought to say.

February, 1878.

THE CONTENTED MAN

Along a street of the capital is skipping a man who is still young.--His movements are cheerful, alert; his eyes are beaming, his lips are smiling, his sensitive face is pleasantly rosy.... He is all contentment and joy.

What has happened to him? Has he come into an inheritance? Has he been elevated in rank? Is he hastening to a love tryst? Or, simply, has he breakfasted well, and is it a sensation of health, a sensation of full-fed strength which is leaping for joy in all his limbs? Or they may have hung on his neck thy handsome, eight-pointed cross, O Polish King Stanislaus!

No. He has concocted a calumny against an acquaintance, he has a.s.siduously disseminated it, he has heard it--that same calumny--from the mouth of another acquaintance--and _has believed it himself_.

Oh, how contented, how good even at this moment is that nice, highly-promising young man.

February, 1878.

THE RULE OF LIFE

"If you desire thoroughly to mortify and even to injure an opponent,"

said an old swindler to me, "reproach him with the very defect or vice of which you feel conscious in yourself.--Fly into a rage ... and reproach him!

"In the first place, that makes other people think that you do not possess that vice.

"In the second place, your wrath may even be sincere.... You may profit by the reproaches of your own conscience.

"If, for example, you are a renegade, reproach your adversary with having no convictions!

"If you yourself are a lackey in soul, say to him with reproof that he is a lackey ... the lackey of civilisation, of Europe, of socialism!"

"You may even say, the lackey of non-lackeyism!" I remarked.

"You may do that also," chimed in the old rascal.

February, 1878.

THE END OF THE WORLD

A DREAM

It seems to me as though I am somewhere in Russia, in the wilds, in a plain country house.