Chapter 14
MY duties in the workshop were not complicated. In the morning when theywere all asleep, I had to prepare the samovar for the men, and while theydrank tea in the kitchen, Pavl and I swept and dusted the workshop, set outred, yellow, or white paints, and then I went to the shop. In the evening I hadto grind up colors and “watch” the work. At first I watched with greatinterest, but I soon realized that all the men who were engaged on thishandicraft which was divided up into so many processes, disliked it, andsuffered from a torturing boredom.
The evenings were free. I used to tell them stories about life on thesteamer and different stories out of books, and without noticing how it cameabout, I soon held a peculiar position in the workshop as story-teller andreader.
I soon found out that all these people knew less than I did; almost all ofthem had been stuck in the narrow cage of workshop life since theirchildhood, and were still in it. Of all the occupants of the workshop, onlyJikharev had been in Moscow, of which he spoke suggestively andfrowningly:
“Moscow does not believe in tears; there they know which side theirbread is buttered.”
None of the rest had been farther than Shuya, or Vladimir. Whenmention was made of Kazan, they asked me :
“Are there many Russians there? Are there any churches?”
For them, Perm was in Siberia, and they would not believe that Siberiawas beyond the Urals.
“Sandres come from the Urals; and sturgeon — where are they found?
Where do they get them? From the Caspian Sea? That means that the Uralsare on the sea!”
Sometimes I thought that they were laughing at me when they declaredthat England was on the other side of the Atlantic, and that Bonapartebelonged by birth to a noble family of Kalonga. When I told them stories ofwhat I had seen, they hardly believed me, but they all loved terrible talesintermixed with history. Even the men of mature years evidently preferredimagination to the truth. I could see very well that the more improbable theevents, the more fantastic the story, the more attentively they listened to me.
On the whole, reality did not interest them, and they all gazed dreamily intothe future, not wishing to see the poverty and hideousness of the present.
This astonished me so much the more, inasmuch as I had felt keenlyenough the contradiction existing between life and books. Here before mewere living people, and in books there were none like them — no Smouri,stoker Yaakov, fugitive Aleksander Vassiliev, Jikharev. or washerwomanNatalia.
In Davidov’s trunk a torn copy of Golitzinski’s stories was found — “IvanVuijigin,” “The Bulgar,” “A Volume of Baron Brambeuss.” I read all thesealoud to them, and they were delighted. Larionovich said:
“Reading prevents quarrels and noise; it is a good thing!”
I began to look about diligently for books, found them, and read almostevery evening. Those were pleasant evenings. It was as quiet as night in theworkshop; the glass balls hung over the tables like white cold stars, their rayslighting up shaggy and bald heads. I saw round me at the table, calm,thoughtful faces; now and again an exclamation of praise of the author, orhero was heard. They were attentive and benign, quite unlike themselves. Iliked them very much at those times, and they also behaved well to me. I feltthat I was in my right place.
“When we have books it is like spring with us; when the winter framesare taken out and for the first time we can open the windows as we like,” saidSitanov one day.
It was hard to find books. We could not afford to subscribe to a library,but I managed to get them somehow, asking for them wherever I went, as acharity. One day the second officer of the fire brigade gave me the firstvolume of “Lermontov,” and it was from this that I felt the power of poety,and its mighty influence over people. I remember even now how, at the firstlines of “The Demon,” Sitanov looked first at the book and then at my face,laid down his brush on the table, and, embracing his knee with his longarms, rocked to and fro, smiling.
“Not so much noise, brothers,” said Larionovich, and also laying asidehis work, he went to Sitanov’s table where I was reading. The poem stirredme painfully and sweetly; my voice was broken; I could hardly read the lines.
Tears poured from my eyes. But what moved me still more was the dull,cautious movement of the workmen. In the workshop everything seemed tobe diverted from its usual course — drawn to me as if I had been a magnet.
When I had finished the first part, almost all of them were standing roundthe table, closely pressing against one an — other, embracing one another,frowning and laugh — ing.
“Go on reading,” said Jikharev, bending my head over the book.
When I had finished reading, he took the book, looked at the title, put itunder his arm, and said :
“We must read this again! We will read it tomorrow! I will hide the bookaway.”
He went away, locked “Lermontov” in his drawer, and returned to hiswork. It was quiet in the workshop; the men stole back to their tables.
Sitanov went to the window, pressed his forehead against the glass, andstood there as if frozen. Jikharev, again laying down his brush, said in a sternvoice:
“Well, such is life; slaves of God — yes — ah!”
He shrugged his shoulders, hid his face, and went on :
“I can draw the devil himself; black and rough, with wings of red flame,with red lead, but the face, hands, and feet — these should be bluish-white,like snow on a moonlight night.”
Until close upon suppertime he revolved about on his stool, restless andunlike himself, drumming with his fingers and talking unintelligibly of thedevil, of women and Eve, of paradise, and of the sins of holy men.
“That is all true!” he declared. “If the saints sinned with sinful women,then of course the devil may sin with a pure soul.”
They listened to him in silence; probably, like me, they had no desire tospeak. They worked unwillingly, looking all the time at their watches, and assoon as it struck ten, they put away their work altogether.
Sitanov and Jikharev went out to the yard, and I went with them. There,gazing at the stars, Sitanov said :
“Like a wandering caravan Thrown into space, it shone.”
“You did not make that up yourself!” “I can never remember words,” saidJikharev, shivering in the bitter cold. “I can’t remember anything; but he, Isee — It is an amazing thing — a man who actually pities the devil! He hasmade you sorry for him, hasn’t he?”
“He has,” agreed Sitanov.
“There, that is a real man!” exclaimed Jikharev reminiscently. In thevestibule he warned me: “You, Maxim, don’t speak to any one in the shopabout that book, for of course it is a forbidden one.”
I rejoiced; this must be one of the books of which the priest had spokento me in the confessional.
We supped languidly, without the usual noise and talk, as if somethingimportant had occurred and we could not keep from thinking about it, andafter supper, when we were going to bed, Jikharev said to me, as he drewforth the book:
“Come, read it once more!”
Several men rose from their beds, came to the table, and sat themselvesround it, undressed as they were, with their legs crossed.
And again when I had finished reading, Jikharev said, strumming hisfingers on the table :
“That is a living picture of him! Ach, devil, devil — that’s how he is,brothers, eh?”
Sitanov leaned over my shoulder, read something, and laughed, as hesaid:
“I shall copy that into my own note-book.”
Jikharev stood up and carried the book to his own table, but he turnedback and said in an offended, shaky voice:
“We live like blind puppies — to what end we do not know. We are notnecessary either to God or the devil! How are we slaves of the Lord? TheJehovah of slaves and the Lord Himself speaks with them! With Moses, toolHe even gave Moses a name; it means This is mine’ — a man of God. And we— what are we?”
He shut up the book and began to dress himself, asking Sitanov :
“Are you coming to the tavern?”
“I shall go to my own tavern,” answered Sitanov softly.
When they had gone out, I lay down on the floor by the door, beside PavlOdintzov. He tossed about for a long time, snored, and suddenly began toweep quietly.
“What is the matter with you?”
“I am sick with pity for all of them,” he said. “This is the fourth year ofmy life with them, and I know all about them.”
I also was sorry for these people. We did not go to sleep for a long time,but talked about them in whispers, finding goodness, good traits in each oneof them, and also something which increased our childish pity.
I was very friendly with Pavl Odintzov. They made a good workman ofhim in the end, but it did not last long; before the end of three years he hadbegun to drink wildly, later on I met him in rags on the Khitrov market-placein Moscow, and not long ago I heard that he had died of typhoid. It is painfulto remember how many good people in my life I have seen senselesslyruined. People of all nations wear themselves out, and to ruin themselvescomes natural, but nowhere do they wear themselves out so terribly quickly,so senselessly, as in our own Russia.
Then he was a round-headed boy two years older than myself; he waslively, intelligent, and upright; he was talented, for he could draw birds, cats,and dogs excellently, and was amazingly clever in his caricatures of theworkmen, always depicting them as feathered. Sitanov was shown as a sad-looking wood-cock standing on one leg, Jikharev as a cock with a torn comband no feathers on his head ; sickly Davidov was an injured lapwing. But bestof all was his drawing of the old chaser, Golovev, representing him as a batwith large whiskers, ironical nose, and four feet with six nails on each. Fromthe round, dark face, white, round eyes gazed forth, the pupils of whichlooked like the grain of a lentil. They were placed crossways, thus giving tothe face a lifelike and hideous expression.
The workmen were not offended when Pavl showed them thecaricatures, but the one of Golovev made an unpleasant impression on themall, and the artist was sternly advised :
“You had better tear it up, for if the old man sees it, he will half kill you!”
The dirty, putrid, everlastingly drunk old man was tiresomely pious, andinextinguishably malicious. He vilified the whole workshop to the shopmanwhom the mistress was about to marry to her niece, and who for that reasonfelt himself to be master of the whole house and the workpeople. Theworkmen hated him. but thcj were afraid of him, and for th€ same reasonwere afraid of Golovev, too.
Pavl worried the chaser furiously and in all manner of ways, just as if hehad set before himself the aim of never allowing Golovev to have a moment’speace. I helped him in this with enthusiasm, and the workshop amused itselfwith our pranks, which were al — most always pitilessly coarse. But we werewarned:
“You will get into trouble, children! Kouzka–Juchek will half kill you!”
Kouzka–Juchek was the nickname of the shopman, which was given tohim on the quiet by the workshop.
The warning did not alarm us. We painted the face of the chaser when hewas asleep. One day when he was in a drunken slumber we gilded his nose,and it was three days before he was able to get the gold out of the holes in hisspongy nose. But every time that we succeeded in infuriating the old man, Iremembered the steamboat, and the little Viatski soldier, and I wasconscious of a disturbance in my soul. In spite of his age, Golovev was sostrong that he often beat us, falling upon us unexpectedly; he would beat usand then complain of us to the mistress.
She, who was also drunk every day, and for that reason always kind andcheerful, tried to frighten us, striking her swollen hands on the table, andcrying:
“So you have been saucy again, you wild beast? He is an old man, andyou ought to respect him! Who was it that put photographic solution in hisglass, instead of wine?”
“We did.”
The mistress was amazed.
“Good Lord, they actually admit it! Ah, accursed ones, you ought torespect old men!”
She drove us away, and in the evening she complained to the shopman,who spoke to me angrily:
“How can you read books, even the Holy Scriptures, and still be so saucy,eh? Take care, my brother!”
The misjtress was solitary and touchingly sad. Sometimes when she hadbeen drinking sweet liqueurs, she would sit at the window and sing:
“No one is sorry for me,And pity have I from none ;What my grief is no one knows ;To whom shall I tell my sorrow.”
And sobbingly she drawled in the quavering voice of age:
“U— oo — oc.”
One day I saw her going down the stairs with a jug of warm milk in herhands, but suddenly her legs gave way under her. She sat down, anddescended the stairs, sadly bumping from step to step, and never letting thejug out of her hand. The milk splashed over her dress, and she, with herhands outstretched, cried angrily to the jug:
“What is the matter with you, satyr? Where are you going ?”
Not stout, but soft to flabbiness, she looked like an old cat which hadgrown beyond catching mice, and, languid from overfeeding, could do nomore than purr, dwelling sweetly on the memories of past triumphs andpleasures.
“Here,” said Sitanov, frowning thoughtfully, “was a large — business, afine workshop, and clever men labored at this trade; but now that is all donewith, all gone to ruin, all directed by the paws of Kuzikin I . It is a case ofworking and working, and all for strangers! When one thinks of this, a sort ofspring seems to break in one’s head. One wants to do nothing, — a fig for anykind of work I— just to lie on the roof, lie there for the whole summer andlook up into the sky.”
Pavl Odintzov also appropriated these thoughts of Sitanov, and smokinga cigarette which had been given him by his elders, philosophized about God,drunkenness, and women. He enlarged on the fact that all work disappears;certain people do it and others destroy it, neither valuing it norunderstanding it.
At such times his sharp, pleasant face frowned, aged. He would sit on hisbed on the floor, embracing his knees, and look long at the blue square of thewindow, at the roof of the shed which lay under a fall of snow, and at thestars in the winter sky.
The workmen snored, or talked in their sleep; one of them raved,choking with words ; in the loft, Davidov coughed away what was left of hislife. In the corner, body to body, wrapped in an iron-bound sleep ofintoxication, lay those “slaves of God” — Kapendiukhin, Sorokhin, Pcrshin;from the walls icons with — out faces, hands, or feet looked forth. There wasa close smell of bad eggs, and dirt, which had turned sour in the crevices ofthe floor.
“How I pity them all!” whispered Pavl. “Lord!”
This pity for myself and others disturbed me more and more. To us both,as I have said before, all the workmen seemed to be good people, but theirlives were bad, unworthy of them, unbearably dull. At the time of the wintersnowstorms, when everything on the earth — the houses, the trees — wasshaken, howled, and wept, and in Lent, when the melancholy bells rang out,the dullness of it all flowed over the workshop like a wave, as oppressive aslead, weighing people down, killing all that was alive in them, driving themto the tavern, to women, who served the same purpose as vodka in helpingthem to forget.
On such evenings books were of no use, so Pavl and I tried to amuse theothers in our own way: smearing our faces with soot and paint, dressingourselves up and playing different comedies composed by ourselves,heroically fighting against the boredom till we made them laugh.
Remembering the “Account of how the soldier saved Peter the Great,” Iturned this book into a conversational form, and climbing on to Davidov’spallet-bed, we acted thereon cheerfully, cutting off the head of an imaginarySwede. Our audience burst out laughing.
They were especially delighted with the legend of the Chinese devil, Sing-U-Tongia. Pashka represented the unhappy devil who had planned to do agood deed, and I acted all the other characters — the people of the field,subjects, the good soul, and even the stones on which the Chinese devilrested in great pain after each of his unsuccessful attempts to perform a goodaction.
Our audience laughed loudly, and I was amazed when I saw how easilythey could be made to laugh. This facility provoked me unpleasantly.
“Ach, clowns,” they cried. “Ach, you devils!”
But the further I went, the more I was troubled with the thought thatsorrow appealed more than joy to the hearts of these people. Gaiety has noplace in their lives, and as such has no value, but they evoke it from undertheir burdens, as a contrast to the dreamy Russian sadness. The inwardstrength of a gaiety which lives not of itself not because it wishes to live, butbecause it is aroused by the call of sad days, is suspect. And too often Russiangaiety changes suddenly into cruel tragedy. A man will be dancing as if hewere breaking the shackles which bound him. Suddenly a ferocious wildbeast is let loose in him, and with the unreasoning anguish of a wild beast hewill throw himself upon all who come in his way, tear them in pieces, bitethem, destroy them.
This intense joy aroused by exterior forces irritated me, and stirred toself-oblivion, I began to compose and act suddenly created fantasies — for Iwanted so much to arouse a real, free, and unrestrained joy in these people. Isucceeded in some measure. They praised me, they were amazed at me, butthe sadness which I had almost succeeded in shaking off, stole back again,gradually growing denser and stronger, harassing them.
Gray Larionovich said kindly:
“Well, you are an amusing fellow, God bless you!”
“He is a boon to us,” Jikharev seconded him. “You know, Maxim, youought to go into a circus, or a theater; you would make a good clown.”
Out of the whole workshop only two went to the theaters, on Christmasor carnival weeks, Kapendiukhin and Sitanov, and the older workmenseriously counseled them to wash themselves from this sin in the baptismalwaters of the Jordan. Sitanov particularly would often urge me :
“Throw up everything and be an actor!”
And much moved, he would tell me the “sad” story of the life of the actor,Yakolev.
“There, that will show you what may happen!”
He loved to tell stories about Marie Stuart, whom he called “the rogue,”
and his peculiar delight was the “Spanish nobleman.”
“Don Csesar de Bazan was a real nobleman. Maximich! Wonderful!”
There was something of the “Spanish nobleman” about himself.
One day in the market-place, in front of the fire-station, three firemenwere amusing themselves by beating a peasant. A crowd of people,numbering about forty persons, looked on and cheered the soldiers. Sitanovthrew himself into the brawl. With swinging blows of his long arms he struckthe firemen, lifted the peasant, and carried him into the crowd, crying:
“Take him away!”
But he remained behind himself, one against three. The yard of the fire-station was only about ten steps away; they might easily have called others totheir aid and Sitanov would have been killed. But by good luck the firemenwere frightened and ran away into the yard.
“Dogs!” he cried after them.
On Sunday the young people used to attend boxing-matches held in theTyessni yard behind the Petro — pavlovski churchyard, where sledge-driversand peasants from the adjacent villages assembled to fight with theworkmen. The wagoners put up against the town an eminent boxer, aMordovan giant with a small head, and large eyes always full of tears. Wipingaway the tears with the dirty sleeve of his short caftan, he stood before hisbackers with his legs planted widely apart, and challenged good-naturedly:
“Come on, then; what is the matter with you? Are you cold?’
Kapendiukhin was set up against him on our side, and the Mordovanalways beat him. But the bleeding, panting Cossack said :
“I’ll lick that Mordovan if I die for it!”
In the end, that became the one aim of his life. He even went to thelength of giving up vodka, rubbed his body with snow before he went tosleep, ate a lot of meat, and to develop his muscles, crossed himself manytimes every evening with two pound weights. But this did not avail him at all.
Then he sewed a piece of lead inside his gloves, and boasted to Sitanov :
“Now we will finish the Mordovan!”
Sitanov sternly warned him :
“You had better throw it away, or I will give you away before the fight.”
Kapendiukhin did not believe him, but when the time for the fightarrived, Sitanov said abruptly to the Mordovan :
“Step aside, Vassili Ivanich; I have something to Bay to Kapendiukhinfirst!”
The Cossack turned purple and roared :
“I have nothing to do with you ; go away!”
“Yes, you have!” said Sitanov, and approaching him, he looked into theCossack’s face with a compelling glance.
Kapendiukhin stamped on the ground, tore the gloves from his hands,thrust them in his breast, and went quickly away from the scene of his fight.
Both our side and the other were unpleasantly surprised, and a certainimportant personage said angrily to Sitanov :
“That is quite against the rules, brother, — to bring private affairs to besettled in the world of the prize ring!”
They fell upon Sitanov from all sides, and abused him. He kept silencefor a long time, but at length he said to the important personage :
“Am I to stand by and see murder done?”
The important personage at once guessed the truth, and actually takingoff his cap said :
“Then our gratitude is due to you!”
“Only don’t go and spread it abroad, uncle!”
“Why should I? Kapendiukhin is hardly ever the victor, and ill-successembitters a man. We understand! But in future we will have his gloves ex —amined before the contest.”
“That is your affair!”
When the important personage had gone away, our side began to abuseKapendiukhin:
“You have made a nice mess of it. He would have killed his man, ourCossack would, and now we have to stay on the losing side!”
They abused him at length, captiously, to their hearts’ content.
Sitanov sighed and said:
“Oh, you guttersnipes!”
And to the surprise of everyone he challenged the Mordovan to a singlecontest. The latter squared up and flourishing his fists said jokingly:
“We will kill each other.”
A good number of persons, taking hands, formed a wide, spacious circle.
The boxers, looking at each other keenly, changed over, the right hand heldout, the left on their breasts. The experienced people noticed at once thatSitanov’s arms were longer than those of the Mordovan. It was very quiet;the snow crunched under the feet of the boxers. Some one, unable to restrainhis impatience, muttered complain — ingly and eagerly:
“They ought to have begun by now.”
Sitanov flourished his right hand, the Mordovan raised his left fordefense, and received a straight blow under the right arm from Sitanov’s lefthand. He gasped, retired, and exclaimed in a tone of satisfaction:
“He is young, but he Is no fool!”
They began to leap upon one another, striking each other’s breasts withblows from their mighty fists. In a few minutes not only our own people, butstrangers began to cry excitedly :
“Get your blows in quicker, image-painter! Fix him up, embosser.”
The Mordovan was a little stronger than Sitanov, but as he wasconsiderably the heavier, he could not deal such swift blows, and receivedtwo or three to every one he gave. But his seasoned body apparently did notsuffer much, and he was laughing and exclaiming all the time, when,suddenly, with a heavy upward blow he put Sitanov’s right arm out of jointfrom the shoulder.
“Part them; it is a draw!” cried several voices, and, breaking the circle,the crowd gathered round the pugilists.
“He is not very strong but he is skilful, the image-painter,” said theMordovan good-naturedly. “He will make a good boxer, and that I say beforethe whole world!”
The elder persons began a general wrestling match, and I took Sitanov tothe Feldsher bone-setter. His deed had raised him still higher in my esteem,had increased my sympathy with him, and his importance in my eyes.
He was, in the main, very upright and honorable, and he felt that he hadonly done his duty, but the graceless Kapendiukhin made fun of him lightly.
“Ekh, Genya, you live for show! You have polished up your soul like asamovar before a holiday, and you go about boasting, ‘look how brightly itshines!’ But your soul is really brass, and a very dull affair, too.”
Sitanov remained calmly silent, either working hard or copyingLermontov’s verses into his note-book. He spent all his spare time in thiscopying, and when I suggested to him:
“Why, when you have plenty of money, don’t you buy the book?” heanswered:
“No, it is better in my own handwriting.”
Having written a page in his pretty, small hand-writing, he would readsoftly while he was waiting for the ink to dry:
“Without regret, as a being apart, You will look down upon this earth,Where there is neither real happiness Nor lasting beauty.”
And he said, half-closing his eyes :
“That is true. Ekh! and well he knows the truth, too!”
The behavior (5f Sitanov to Kapendiukhin always amazed me. When hehad been drinking, the Cossack always tried to pick a quarrel with hiscomrade, and Sitanov would go on for a long time bearing it, and sayingpersuasively :
“That will do, let me alone!”
And then he would start to beat the drunken man so cruelly that theworkmen, who regarded internal dissensions amongst themselves merely asa spectacle, in terfered between the friends, and separated them.
“If we didn’t stop Evgen in time, he would beat any one to death, and hewould never forgive himself,” they said.
When he was sober Kapendiukhin ceaselessly jeered at Sitanov, makingfun of his passion for poetry and his unhappy romance, obscenely, butunsuccessfully trying to arouse jealousy. Sitanov listened to the Cossack’staunts in silence, without taking offense, and he sometimes even laughedwith Kapendiukhin at himself.
They slept side by side, and at night they would feold long, whisperedconversations about something. These conversations gave me no peace, for Iwas anxious to know what these two people who were so un like each otherfound to talk about in such a friendly manner. But when I went near them,the Cossack veiled :
“What do you want?”
But Sitanov did not seem to see me.
However, one day they called me, and the Cossack asked :
“Maximich, if you were rich, what would you do?”
“I would buy books.”
“And what else?”
“I don’t know.”
“Ekh!” said Kapendiukhin, turning away from me in disgust, but Sitanovsaid calmly:
“You see; no one knows that, whether they be old or young. I tell you thatriches in themselves are worth nothing, unless they are applied to somespecial purpose.”
I asked them, “What are you talking about?”
“We don’t feel inclined to sleep, and so we are talking,” answered theCossack.
Later, listening to them, I found that they were discussing by night thosethings which other people dis cussed by day — God, truth, happiness, thestupidity and cunning of women, the greediness of the rich, and the fact thatlife is complicated and incomprehensible.
I always listened to their conversations eagerly; they excited me. I waspleased to think that almost every one had arrived at the same conclusion;namely, that life is evil, and that we ought to have a better form of existence!
But at the same time I saw that the desire to live under better conditionswould have no effect, would change nothing in the lives of the work-people,in their relations one with another. All these talks, throwing a light upon mylife as it lay before me, revealed at the same time, beyond it, a sort ofmelancholy emptiness; and in this emptiness, like specks of dust in a pondruffled by the wind, floated people, absurdly and exasperatingly, amongthem those very people who had said that such a crowd was devoid of sense.
Always ready to give their opinion, they were always passing judgment onothers, repeating, bragging, and starting bitter quarrels about mere trifles.
They were always seriously offending one another. They tried to guess whatwould happen to them after death ; while on the threshold of the workshopwhere the washstand stood, the floor-boards had rotted away. From thatdamp, fetid hole rose the cold, damp smell of sour earth, and it was this thatmade one’s feet freeze. Pavl and I stopped up this hole with straw and cloths.
We often said that the boards should be renewed, but the hole grew largerand larger, and in bad weather fumes rose from it as from a pipe. Every onecaught cold, and coughed. The tin ventilator in the fortochka squeaked, andwhen some one had oiled it, though they had all been grumbling at it,Jikharev said:
“It is dull, now that the fortochka has stopped squeaking.”
To come straight from the bath and lie down on a dirty, dusty bed, in themidst of dirt and bad smells, did not revolt any one of them. There weremany insignificant trifles which made our lives unbearable. which mighteasily have been remedied, but no one took the trouble to do anything.
They often said:
“No one has any mercy upon human creatures, — neither God nor weourselves.”
But when Pavl and I washed dying Davidov, who was eaten up with dirtand insects, a laugh was raised against us. They took off their shirts andinvited us to search them, called us blockheads, and jeered at us as if we haddone something shameful and very ludicrous.
From Christmas till the beginning of Lent drew near, Davidov lay in theloft, coughing protractedly, spitting blood, which, if it did not fall into thewash-hand basin, splashed on the floor. At night he woke the others with hisdelirious shrieks.
Almost every day they said :
“We must take him to the hospital!”
But it turned out that Davidov’s passport had expired. Then he seemedbetter, and they said :
“It is of no consequence after all; he will soon be dead!”
And he would say to himself:
“I shall soon be gone!”
He was a quiet humorist and also tried to relieve the dullness of theworkshop by jokes, hanging down his dark bony face, and saying in a wheezyvoice :
“Listen, people, to the voice of one who ascended to the loft.
“In the loft I live,Early do I wake;Asleep or awakeCockroaches devour me.”
“He is not downhearted!” exclaimed his audience.
Sometimes Pavl and I went to him, and he joked with difficulty.
“With what shall I regale you, my dear guests? A fresh little spider —would you like that?”
He died slowly, and he grew very weary of it. He said with unfeignedvexation:
“It seems that I can’t die, somehow; it is really a calamity!”
His fearlessness in the face of death frightened Pavl very much. Heawoke me in the night and whispered:
“Maximich, he seems to be dying. Suppose he dies in the night, when weare lying beneath him — Oh, Lord! I am frightened of dead people.”
Or he would say :
“Why was he born? Not twenty-two years have passed over his head andhe is dying.”
Once, on a moonlight night he awoke, and gazing with wide-open,terrified eyes said:
“Listen!”
Davidov was croaking in the loft, saying quickly and clearly :
“Give it to me — give — ”
Then he began to hiccup.
“He is dying, by God he is; you see!” said Pavl agitatedly.
I had been carrying snow from the yard into the fields all day, and I wasvery sleepy, but Pavl begged me:
“Don’t go to sleep, please; for Christ’s sake don’t go to sleep!”
And suddenly getting on to his knees, he cried f renziedly :
“Get up! Davidov is dead!”
Some of them awoke; several figures rose from the beds; angry voiceswere raised, asking questions.
Kapendiukhin climbed up into the loft and said in a tone of amzement:
“It is a fact; he is dead, although he is still warm.”
It was quiet now. Jikharev crossed himself, and wrapping himself roundin his blanket, said :
“Well, he is in the Kingdom of Heaven now!”
Some one suggested:
“Let us carry him into the vestibule.”
Kapendiukhin climbed down from the loft and glanced through thewindow.
“Let him lie where he is till the morning; he never hurt any one while hewas alive.”
Pavl, hiding his head under the pillow, sobbed.
But Sitanov did not even wake!
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