Yama (The Pit) Part 35

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

"Bar ... Barbarisov."

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

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

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

"Well, but this Barbarisov of yours--that is, ours--is a swine. It isn't ten roubles he owes me at all, but a quarter of a century. What a scoundrel! Twenty-five roubles and some small change besides. Well, the small change, of course, I won't count up to him. G.o.d be with him!

This, you see, is a billiard debt. I must say that he's a blackguard, plays crookedly ... And so, young man, dig up fifteen more."

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

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

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

"Oh, well!" he thought, walking quickly along the street, "the very beginning has been laid down, the most difficult part has been done.

Hold fast, now, Lichonin, and don't fall in spirit! What you've done is splendid and lofty. Let me be even a victim of this deed--it's all one!

It's a shame, having done a good deed, to expect rewards for it right away. I'm not a little circus dog, and not a trained camel, and not the first pupil of a young ladies' genteel inst.i.tute. Only it was useless for me to let loose yesterday before these bearers of enlightenment. It all turned out to be silly, tactless, and, in any case, premature. But everything in life is reparable. A person will sustain the heaviest, most disgraceful things; but, time pa.s.ses, and they are recalled as trifles ..."

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

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

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

"My dearie! Va.s.sil Va.s.silich! Vasinka! Honest to G.o.d! Honest to G.o.d, now, there never was anything of the kind! I always was so careful! I was awfully afraid of this. I love you so! I would have told you without fail." She caught his hands, pressed them to her wet face and continued to a.s.sure him with the absurd and touching sincerity of an unjustly accused child.

And he at once believed her in his soul.

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

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

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

CHAPTER XVI.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thus, for example, Lichonin did not want, under any conditions, to become reconciled, in teaching her arithmetic, to her queer, barbarous, savage, or, more correctly, childish, primitive method of counting. She counted exclusively in ones, twos, threes and fives. Thus, for example, twelve to her was two times two threes; nineteen--three fives and two twos; and, it must be said, that through her system she with the rapidity of a counting board operated almost up to a hundred. To go further she dared not; and besides she had no practical need of this.

In vain did Lichonin try to transfer her to a digital system. Nothing came of this, save that he flew into a rage, yelled at Liubka; while she would look at him in silence, with astonished, widely open and guilty eyes, the lashes of which stuck into long black arrows from tears. Also, through a capricious turn of her mind, she began to master addition and multiplication with comparative ease, but subtraction and division were for her an impenetrable wall. But then, she could, with amazing speed and wit, solve all possible jocose oral head-breaking riddles, and even remembered very many of them herself from the thousand year old usage of the village. Toward geography she was perfectly dull. True, she could orientate herself as to the four cardinal points on the street, in the garden, and in the room; hundreds of times better than Lichonin--the ancient peasant instinct in her a.s.serted itself--but she stubbornly denied the sphericity of the earth and did not recognize the horizon; and when she was told that the terrestrial globe moves in s.p.a.ce, she only snorted from laughter.

Geographical maps to her were always an incomprehensible daubing in several colours; but separate figures she memorized exactly and quickly. "Where's Italy?" Lichonin would ask her. "Here it is, a boot,"

Liubka would say and triumphantly jabbed the Apennine Peninsula.

"Sweden and Norway?" "This dog, which is jumping off a roof." "The Baltic Sea?" "A widow standing on her knees." "The Black Sea?" "A shoe." "Spain?" "A fatty in a cap" ... &c. With history matters went no better; Lichonin did not take into consideration the fact that she, with her childlike soul thirsting for fiction, would have easily become familiarized with historic events through various funny and heroically touching anecdotes; but he, accustomed to pulling through examinations and tutoring high-school boys of the fourth or fifth grade, starved her on names and dates. Besides that, he was very impatient, unrestrained, irascible; grew fatigued soon, and a secret--usually concealed but constantly growing--hatred for the girl who had so suddenly and incongruously warped all his life, more and more frequently and unjustly broke forth during the time of these lessons.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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