The Orloff Couple

and

Malva

By

Maxim Gorky

(Alexei Maximovitch Peshkoff)

Authorized Translation from the Russian by

Emily Jakowleff and Dora B. Montefiore

With a Portrait

London

William Heinemann

1901

CONTENTS
[BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE]
[THE ORLOFF COUPLE]
[CHAPTER I]
[CHAPTER II]
[CHAPTER III]
[CHAPTER IV]
[CHAPTER V]
[CHAPTER VI]
[CHAPTER VII]
[CHAPTER VIII]
[CHAPTER IX]
[MALVA]
[CHAPTER I]
[CHAPTER II]
[CHAPTER III]
[CHAPTER IV]
[CHAPTER V]
[CHAPTER VI]

[BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE]

Alexei Maximovitch Peshkoff was born March 14, 1869, at Nijni Novgorod. On both his father's and mother's side he belonged to the people; his father followed the trade of a jobbing upholsterer, and his mother was the daughter of a dyer. He was left an orphan when quite young, and he passed then under the care of his grandfather, a cruel and tyrannical old man, who had already so ill-treated young Alexei's father when a lad, that he ran away from home.

Peshkoff attended school for about five months, but having caught smallpox, his grandfather took him away from school, and sent him at the age of nine as errand-boy to a shoemaker. Here the child scalded his hand badly and was sent back to his home. His grandfather next apprenticed him to a draughtsman, from whom young Peshkoff ran away. In order to keep himself he went as galley-boy on a Volga steamer, where he helped the ship's cook. This cook was a reader, and something of a character; he possessed a small library which he allowed his galley-boy to read, and it was here that the lad felt the first awakening of literary instinct, though he had always, from the time he left school at nine years old, read everything that fell into his hands. The cook's library contained amongst other authors Nekrassoff; translations of the works of Ann Radcliff; a volume of Sovrememick, whose editor was Tchemishewsky, the translator and commentator of John Stuart Mill; Iscra, and several works in Little Russian; the lives of the saints, and works by some mystical writers; some odd volumes of Dumas, and some Freemasons' literature. This curious collection of miscellaneous writings gave young Peshkoff, now fifteen, a burning desire to obtain some degree of culture, and awoke in him the wish to write. He left the steamer, and wandered to Kazan, where he was told free instruction could be obtained. Here, in order to keep himself, he had to enter a bakery at three roubles, or six shillings, a month; and he speaks of this work as being the hardest that he ever did, with the exception of work in the salt mines, which he describes in one of his essays. A story written later in life, called 'The Outcasts,' is a truthful reflection of the people amongst whom he lived and worked at this period of his life, and-it contains much that is autobiographical. He lived amongst these outcasts of society, chopping wood and carrying burdens, earning a living as best he could, and in the intervals of manual work picking up what instruction fell in his way. On leaving Kazan he tried his luck at Tzaritzine, where he worked as a signalman on the railway.

At the age of twenty he had to return to Nijni Novgorod in order to perform his years of military service, but he failed to pass the health test, and was rejected as not strong enough to serve. For some time after this he sold "kwass" in the streets, until he managed to get a situation as clerk in a lawyer's office. This lawyer, whose name was Lanine, eventually took a great interest in the young man, and influenced him much in his reading and general culture. At this time also, Peshkoff, being in better circumstances, was able to join a group of young intellectuals amongst whom was Federoff, who, on seeing some of Peshkoff's writings, declared the youth showed great literary talent But a settled and sedentary life did not suit him, and he never really felt himself at home among these young intellectuals; preferring his wandering life, supporting himself from day to day by unskilled manual labour, and sharing the society of tramps, day-labourers and outcasts. So in 1890 we find him again wandering through Southern Russia, working one month as a sawyer, the next as a stevedore lighterman, and in 1892 he was employed at Tiflis in the Caucasus in some railway engineering shops. It was during this period that his first story, 'Markar Tchoudra,' appeared in a local paper; but his first real literary début was made in 1893 when he published 'Tchelkache,' a short story containing marvellous impressionist effects of water and of night.

The budding talent displayed in these and other stories being now recognized, he returned to the Volga, where he had spent so much of his youth, and began contributing short stories to the Volgeschky Viesnick.' These were followed by a longer story, 'Emilia Pilai,' which appeared in an important Moscow paper, the 'Russky Viedomoski'; and a lucky chance having brought him across Korolenko, Peshkoff, who had now taken for his nom de plume the title of Gorki (the Russian for bitter), through the influence of this leading man of letters was able to place his writings in some of the most important periodicals of the day, Korolenko did much for him also in the way of advice, and Gorki wrote later of this period of his life: "If I learnt little, it was not Korolenko's fault, but my own."

Broad sympathy with, and understanding of every expression of human nature, seems to be the prevailing characteristic of Gorki's writings; whilst his realism has a special quality, in that it is never forced, never voulu, as is too often the case with writers of another class who make literary studies of the lives of the people. Gorki, having lived the life of the tramp, of the out-of-work loafer, of the slum inhabitant, is saturated with the detail of that life, and possesses the true artistic faculty necessary for reproducing it. Many of his so-called "stories" are rather studies and sketches, so slight is the plot, so impressionist is the form under which he reproduces the "bits of life" with which he has come in contact He seems to succeed in the art of "viewing life as a whole, and viewing it sanely"; but his pictures are of necessity tinged with pessimism, for he is the mouthpiece of the unprivileged, the sweated, the "lapsed and lost" This vein of pessimism is, however, relieved by a spirituality, a sensitiveness to the consolations of music, of light, and cloud, and water effects, of nature's healing inspiration, which wholly redeem his work from the reproach of empty, crushing pessimistic teaching. He is essentially the prophet of revolt,—revolt against the dreariness, the monotony, the inhumanity of drudgery, which keeps men and women working at high pressure like machines, in order that they may be able to earn—just daily bread.... As the shoemaker Grischka says in one of the stories published in this volume: "And why do we need daily bread? In order to be able to work I And why do we work, but to obtain daily bread? What's the sense of that?"

He has certainly made very real for us a large class of our fellow human beings whom before we scarcely recognized in any other way than in their outward form of baker, shoemaker, dock-labourer, or vagrant Gorki makes them live in his pages, unfolds their psychology, makes us joy with their joys and sorrow with their sorrows, and introduces them—as fellow-sufferers from the all-pervading disease of modern life, ennui and dissatisfaction with existing social conditions—into the great human brotherhood.

Gorki acknowledges the four literary influences of his life to have been those of the cook on the steamer, of Lanine, of Kaligny and of Korolenko. Of late years he has been forbidden, because of political writings, to enter St Petersburg or Moscow. Three volumes of his works have already been published, and his stories have found their way through translations into many leading French and German Reviews.

D. B. M.

[THE ORLOFF COUPLE]

[CHAPTER I]

Almost every Saturday, just before supper-time, the dirty old house of the merchant Petounukoff was the scene of a violent and murderous attack. From the two cellar windows there rang forth into the narrow courtyard, surrounded by old tumble-down hovels, and filled with all sorts of rubbish, the horrible screams of a woman.

"Let me alone! Let me alone! you devil!" she shrieked in a high treble voice.

"Leave go of me then!" answered the tenor voice of a man.

"I won't let go of you, you wretch! you monster!"

"Shut up, and leave go of me!"

"Not if you kill me—I won't let you go!"

"What, you won't? Then take that, you heretic!"

"Help! He is killing me! Help!"

"Will you let go of me then?"

"You may go on beating me, you dog, till you have killed me!"

"I can't do that in a hurry—you take more killing than that!"

At the first words of such a dialogue, the painter Soutchkoff's apprentice, Senka Tschischik, who from one day's end to the other was busy in one of the sheds in the yard rubbing and mixing colours, used to rush out in hot haste, and whilst his little black mouse eyes flashed, he would shout with all his might, so that his voice rang right across the court—

"There's another row up at Orloff's the cobbler."

The little Tschischik was an ardent lover of every sort of adventure and story. As soon as there appeared to be trouble at the Orloffs he would run quickly to the window of their dwelling, lie down on his stomach, poke his mischievous shock head of hair and his thin face, smeared with ochre and vermilion, as far as he could into the gloom of the cellar, and watch with curiosity all that went on in the dark, damp hole, from which arose a smell of musty cobbler's wax and of sour batter. There, on the floor of this hole were to be seen two figures, rolling over each other on the ground, groaning and cursing.

"You want to kill me, then?" gasped at this moment, in a warning, breathless voice, the woman.

"Don't be afraid!" the man mockingly reassured her in a tone of suppressed violence.

Heavy dull blows were then heard, falling on something soft; then sobs and sighs, and the panting of a man, who seemed to be making efforts to move a heavy object.

"Blast it all! Now he has given her a good one!—with the boot-last," cried Tschischik, watching what was going on in the cellar, whilst the public who had gathered round—the porter, Lewtschenko, the accordion-player Kisljakoff, a couple of tailor's apprentices, and other amateurs of gratuitous amusement,—were all impatient to get news from Senka, and pulled him, now by his legs and now by his many-coloured trousers.

"Well, what's going on now? what's he doing to her this time?" they would ask.

"Now he is sitting astride of her, and is banging her nose into the ground," explained Senka, who with true enjoyment was taking in every action of the play.

The public pushed nearer to the windows of the Orloffs' dwelling. They burned with curiosity to see with their own eyes all the developments of the struggle, and although they knew well of old every point in the attack and defence in the war which Grischka Orloff waged against his wife, they always appeared equally surprised and astonished.

"No, but what a devil he is! He has beaten her again, has he not, till she is bleeding?" asked one of them.

"Her nose is all over blood.... It is running down," Senka informed them.

"Ah! good heavens! What a terror, what a wretch he is!" cried some women, full of sympathy.

The men regarded the matter from a more abstract and philosophic point of view.

"He will certainly end by killing her," they said.

The accordion-player remarked in a prophetic voice—

"He'll stick a knife into her some day; you take my word for it He'll get tired of always knocking her about, and some day will put an end to the whole business in a hurry."

"Now he has let go of her," said Senka in a whisper, springing up from the ground, and bounding on one side like an india-rubber ball. Immediately afterwards he took up another post of observation in a corner of the court, for he knew that Grischka Orloff would now appear above ground.

Most of the spectators went off rapidly, for they had no desire to come face to face with the enraged cobbler. Now that the fight was over Grischka had lost all interest in their eyes, and besides it was not without danger to come across him under these circumstances.

So it happened that when Orloff emerged from his cellar, there was generally, with the exception of Senka, no living soul to be seen in the courtyard. Breathing heavily, his shirt torn, his hair tumbled, with fresh scratches on his still excited and perspiring face, Grischka Orloff, with bloodshot eyes would glance suspiciously round the court. With his hands behind his back, he would walk slowly towards an old sledge which was leaning against the wall of a dilapidated wool-shed. Sometimes he would whistle and throw threatening glances around, as if he were challenging all the dwellers in Petounukoff's house to battle. Then he would sit down on the sledge, and with the sleeve of his shirt wipe the blood away from his face. He would remain for a long time motionless, glowering darkly at the wall of the opposite house, where the plaster was crumbling away, and where a variety of colours had been smeared on by the house-painter Soutchkoff's apprentices, who had the habit, when they left off work, of cleaning their brushes on this part of the wall.

The cobbler Orloff was about thirty years old. His dark, nervous, finely-cut face was adorned with a black moustache, under which showed full red lips. Above a prominent nose thick black eyebrows were drawn close together; dark restless flashing eyes looked out from under them. The curly hair that hung forward on his forehead fell behind over his brown strong neck in thick ringlets. Orloff was of middle height, a little bent with a slight stoop—the result of his special work,— muscular and full-blooded; but now he sat on the sledge as if in a dull state of stupor, and gazed blankly at the variegated wall, his breath coming in heavy gasps and throbs.

The sun had already gone off the courtyard, in which there still reigned a dull twilight; a mingled smell of oil-paint, of tar, of sauerkraut and of rotting vegetable matter hung heavy on the sultry evening air. From the windows of the two-storied dwelling there came a sound of song and of oaths, which rang through the court, whilst a drunken man thrust an inquiring head out of a window from behind a corner, looked across at Orloff, and then disappeared with a mocking laugh.

The time came for the painters to leave their work; they passed by Orloff, throwing mocking glances at him, winking meaningly at one another, and filled the courtyard with the sounds of their Kostroma dialect Then they separated—each going his own way, the one to the bath, the other to the vodka-shop.

Later on, the tailors came down from the second storey into the courtyard; half-dressed, bow-legged fellows who were making merry over the dialect of their painter comrades. The whole court was once more filled with noise, jovial laughter and jokes. Orloff sat silent in his corner, taking no notice of any one. No one went near him, no one dared to joke with him, for all knew that at these moments he was like a raging animal.

Completely swayed by his dark desperate mood, which seemed to weigh on his breast and oppress his breathing, he sat there as if rooted to the spot.

From time to time his nostrils swelled and his lips parted, showing two rows of big yellow teeth. A dark indescribable feeling of anguish seemed to hold him inexorably; red spots swam before his eyes. A sense of utter melancholy took possession of him, and to this was added a burning thirst for vodka. He knew that he would feel more lighthearted when he had had something to drink, but he was ashamed while it was still light to show his torn and ragged condition in the street, where every one knew him personally as Grigori Orloff the cobbler. He had a feeling of his own dignity, and would not expose himself as a butt for general mirth. But neither could he go home to wash and dress himself,—for there, lying bleeding on the ground, was his wife whom he had greviously ill-used, and whom, at any price, he must not look on at present.

There, no doubt, she is lying groaning, and he feels that she is a martyr, and that he has been a thousand times guilty towards her. All this he realizes quite clearly and distinctly. He knows well that where she is concerned he has much to blame himself, and this consideration increases even more the hatred which he feels towards her. A vague but dominating feeling of anger gnaws his soul, prevailing over every other feeling, whilst an inconsolable melancholy overwhelms his inmost being, and he gives way consciously to the dull heavy misery which has taken possession of him, but against which he knows no other remedy than—a pint of vodka....

The accordion-player Kisljakoff crosses the yard. He is wearing a velvet tunic without sleeves; a red silk shirt and wide trousers tucked into his stockings; on his feet are smartly-polished shoes. Under his arm he carries in a green bundle his accordion; he has twisted up his black moustache, his cap is worn jauntily on one side, and his whole countenance beams with the joy of living. Orloff liked his brisk liveliness, his cordial ways, and his playing, and he envied him his bright, happy-go-lucky life, free from all care.

"I greet thee, Grischka, proud conqueror, returning blood-stained from the fray!" cried jokingly the accordion-player.

Orloff did not feel angry with Kisljakoff's joke, though he had heard it already for the fiftieth time. He knew that the accordion-player meant no harm, but only wanted to have a little innocent fun with him.

"Well, brother; so you have been acting Plevna again?" Kisljakoff asked the cobbler, as he remained for a moment standing before him.

"Ah! Grischka, you are indeed a melancholy-looking swain!... Come along with me to the only place which is of any good to such as you and me ... we will go and have a drop together!"

"It's too early yet," objected Orloff, without moving his head.

"I shall await thee then with silent longing!..." said Kisljakoff, turning away.

After a time Orloff followed him. As soon as he had left, there issues from the cellar a short, plump woman's form. A handkerchief is bound tightly round her head, allowing only one eye and a piece of her cheek to be seen; she walks with tottering steps, leaning for support against the wall, crosses the courtyard, going straight to the place where a short time before her husband had sat, and sits down precisely in the same spot No one is surprised at her appearance, they are all accustomed to it, and they know she will sit there till Grischka, drunk and repentant, returns from the dram-shop. She has come up into the courtyard, because the air is too heavy in the cellar, and because she will have to guide the drunken steps of Grischka on his return.

The steps are very steep and half broken away; once before, when Grischka returned from the dram-shop he fell down, and sprained his arm, so that he could not work for a fortnight, and she, in order that they might live, had been obliged to pawn everything they possessed. From that time Matrona had taken good care of him. Sometimes one of the inhabitants of the house would come and speak to her; generally it was Lewtschenko, a retired, bearded non-commissioned officer, a very sensible worthy "Little Russian," with a smooth shaven head and a purple nose.

He would sit down, with a yawn and a stretch, and remark—"Well, have you been catching it again?"

"What's that to you?" Matrona would reply in an unfriendly tone.

"Nothing in the world!" said the "Little Russian," and then they both remained silent for a while.

Matrona would gasp; something seemed to be choking her breath.

"What a pity it is to think that you are always at loggerheads with one another! Can't you alter things?" the "Little Russian" would begin again.

"That's our business," replied Orloff's wife shortly.

"Of course it is! Of course it's your business..." agreed Lewtschenko, nodding his head to show that he was entirely at one with her on this point.

"What are you driving at?" continued Matrona in an angry voice.

"La! la! la! What a bad temper you are in! You won't let one say a word to you! Whenever I see you and Grischka, I say to myself, what a pair they are! They worry each other like two dogs! You ought both to be beaten twice a day, morning and evening—then perhaps the desire for quarrelling would be knocked out of you." And he went away angrily and Matrona was glad; for several times there had been whisperings and gossipings in die court, caused by Lewtschenko's attempts to be friendly; so she was vexed with him, as she was with everybody who mixed themselves up with her affairs.

Lewtschenko, in spite of his forty years, walked with a soldierly stride to a corner of the yard, when suddenly Tschischik, the painter's apprentice, ran like a ball between his legs.

"That was a nasty one she gave you, little uncle!" he whispered with a precocious air to the non-commissioned officer, winking cunningly in the direction of Matrona.

"You'll get something nasty from me, if you don't look out! do you understand!" the "Little Russian" threatened him, though he was really laughing behind his moustache. He liked the lively little lad, who knew all the secrets of the court, and he really enjoyed having a gossip with him.

"There is nothing to be done with her," continued Senka, without paying any attention to Lewtschenko's threat, and going on with his revelations. "Maximka, the painter, has also tried—but what did he get for his pains?... a box on the ear!... I saw it myself...."

The, but half grown, lively little lad of twelve absorbed greedily all the filth and evil with which his life was surrounded, just as a sponge absorbs the water in which it lies; and the delicate wrinkles on his forehead showed that Senka Tschischik had already begun to think.

In the courtyard it grew dark. Overhead was stretched a square patch of dark blue sky on which twinkled the shimmering glory of the stars. The courtyard itself with its steep walled sides looked like a deep pit, at the bottom of which sat, huddled up in a corner, the form of Matrona, resting after the beating she had received, and awaiting the return of her drunken husband....

[CHAPTER II]

The Orloffs had been married three years. They had had a child, which died at the age of a year and a half. Neither of them grieved over it much, for they consoled themselves with the thought that they would soon get another one. The cellar in which they lived was a great long, dusty room with a cobwebby ceiling. Close against the door stood, with its front towards the window, a huge Russian oven; between it and the wall a narrow passage led into a square room which obtained its light from two of the windows that looked on to the courtyard. Through these windows the light fell in two dim streaks into the cellar, which was damp, clammy, and death-like in its stillness.... Life flowed by somewhere, far, far away out there and above; here, in this hole only vague, dull sounds found an entrance, and blending with the dust of th? court, pressed in on the senses of the Orloffs in formless and colourless waves. Opposite the stove stood, behind a brown curtain with a pattern of roses, a great wooden double bedstead; over against the bed, and near the other wall stood a table, at which the Orloffs drank their tea and ate their dinner, and between the bed and the opposite wall, in a sort of frame formed by two rays of light, the couple sat and worked.

Blackbeetles wandered about, nibbling the paste with which old newspapers had been stuck against the walls. Flies hovered over everything, buzzing in a melancholy drone; and the pictures, which were decorated with the spots they left, looked against the dirty green background of the walls like dark blotches.

The day's work of the Orloffs left nothing to wish for in the way of monotony. Matrona got up at six o'clock, washed herself, and prepared the samovar; this utensil had more than once in the heat of strife, received some hard hits, and was in consequence covered with patches of solder. While the water was heating in the samovar, she had already swept out the room and prepared breakfast Then she awoke her husband. By the time he was up and washed, the samovar was boiling and hissing on the table. Then they drank their tea and ate their white bread, of which they consumed a whole pound. Grigori was a skilled worker, and never therefore without work. Whilst they were drinking their tea he apportioned out the day's labour; he did the finer parts which required a master hand, whilst his wife's share lay in twisting the waxed threads, and in finishing off pieces of work which did not require so much skill. They also spoke during breakfast of what they should have for their dinner. In the winter, when the stomach required more, this was a fairly interesting subject, but in the summer when the stove, for motives of economy, was only lit on high days and holidays, and not always then, they lived mostly on cold meats, on kwass, varied with salt-fish and onions; sometimes they boiled, on some neighbour's fire in the courtyard, a piece of meat. As soon as their breakfast was finished they sat down to work, Grigori astride on a log of wood covered with bits of leather, Matrona on a low stool beside him. At first they would work in silence, for what had they to talk about? They might sometimes exchange a few words about their work, and then silence would once more reign for half-an-hour or more. The blows of the hammer fell with a dull sound, the thread squeaked as it was drawn through the tight-stretched leather. Grigori yawned now and then, and after each yawn would close his mouth with a loud noise. Matrona sighed and was silent.

Often Orloff would begin a song; he possessed a powerful metallic voice, and did not sing badly. The words of the song poured forth rapidly and plaintively in a ringing recitative from Grischka's whole chest, or they flowed evenly in loud, strong wailings, whose melancholy sounds found their way out of the cellar windows into the courtyard. Matrona in a weak soft alto would sing second to her husband. Both faces at such times would wear a thoughtful, sad expression, and Grischka's dark eyes would grow moist His wife, absorbed in the world of sound, would sit in a half-conscious state, swaying from side to side; sometimes she would appear completely lost in the music, suddenly pausing on a note, and then slowly falling once more into the words of the song her husband was singing. Neither of them felt at such times the presence of the other; they were each pouring forth what seemed to be the whole emptiness and dreariness of their joyless lives, and through the words of the song they were seeking for an outlet for their own half-conscious feelings and thoughts. At times Grischka would improvise—

"Ah! to think of my life, my cursed Life! And the ache in my soul, that cursed ache! Ah! this bitter ache! Ah! this ache and sorrow....!"

But Matrona did not love these improvisings, and she generally asked him—

"Why do you howl then like a dog, when death is about?"

He immediately answered her angrily—

"Thick-headed creature! What do you understand about things—an old scarecrow like you?"

"Oh, howl and howl away, and then bark if you like!"

"Hold your tongue! Am I an apprentice, that you want to begin to teach me now, eh?... Just mind your own business!"

Matrona saw that his eyes flashed angrily, and that the veins of his neck were swelling. She was silent for some time, refusing to answer the questions of her husband, whose anger had disappeared as quickly as it had arisen. She turned away her face so as not to meet his eyes, which were full of love and of self-reproach for the cruel words he had just spoken. She heeded not his signals of reconciliation, and though awaiting impatiently his smile, trembled with fear lest he should once more lose his temper over this game which she was playing out with him. But it was pleasant to her to sit opposite to him in this defiant mood, and to watch how he longed to make peace with her; it seemed like living, it awoke feeling and gave an object to her thoughts.

They were both young and healthy, they both loved each other and were proud of each other. Grischka was such a handsome, hearty, strong fellow, and Matrona was a plump little woman with a clear, fair complexion, and warm sympathy in her grey eyes; "a fine little woman" as all the neighbours used to call her. They loved each other, but their life was so monotonous and tedious, so entirely bereft of all deep interests and outside influences, which might have given them the possibility of diverting occasionally their thoughts from each other, of getting change, which is the natural desire of every human heart, of, in a word—living. It is in fact a psychological fact that man and wife, though they may have attained a high degree of culture, without such an inner life, such an interest, must inevitably grow tired of, and burdensome to each other. If the Orloffs had had an object in life, if it had only been in the empty toil of hoarding halfpence in order to collect capital—life would certainly have appeared easier to them. But as it was, they were deprived even of this interest, which might have proved a bond between them. As each had the other always before his eyes, they had grown to know each other's every movement, every gesture. One day followed the other, and brought nothing into their lives either of change or of excitement Sometimes on holidays they went to see friends, whose lives were as poor and as empty as their own; occasionally friends came to see them, drank, sang and beat each other. And then would follow an endless succession of monotonous grey days, just like the links of an invisible chain, which made dreary the lives of these people with work, ennui, and groundless irritation against each other.

"A regular devil of a life!" Grischka used to say. "Just as if it were bewitched. Whatever was life given to us for? Work and weariness; weariness and work...." And after he had been silent for some time he continued with a blank look on his face, and with downcast eyes—"Well, it was God's decree that my mother should bear me ... so it's no use complaining about that! Then I learnt my trade.... Why was that?... Are there not enough cobblers in the world without me?... So then I became a cobbler.... And what next?... What good fortune is there for me in that?... I sit here in a hole and stitch boots.... And by and by I shall die. There is what they call cholera in the town.... Perhaps it will find us out.;. Then they will merely say—'There was once a certain Grigori Orloff, who made boots, and who died of cholera.' ... What sense is there in that? Why is it necessary that I should live, make boots and die? Eh?..."

Matrona was silent? she was always upset when her husband spoke in that tone; often she begged him not to talk like that, for it was like speaking against God, who knew best how men's lives should be arranged. Sometimes, when not too depressed, she would interject a remark full of common-sense—"You shouldn't drink vodka, then you would live more happily, and not frighten yourself with such thoughts. Others live and don't complain; they save money, open a shop, and in time become their own masters."

"Stop talking nonsense, you stupid woman!" Grischka would exclaim angrily. "Just consider a moment how can I possibly live without drink, when that is my only pleasure? You talk about others ... how many do you know pray, who have been fortunate enough to make themselves independent? Was I not before my marriage quite a different sort of fellow? I will just tell you the truth; it is you who give me so much trouble, and who embitter my life ... you ugly frog!..."

Matrona felt herself wronged when she heard these words. He was certainly right in saying that he was jollier and more amiable when he was drunk. The "others" however of whom she spoke, were a product of her imagination. And that before his marriage he was more cheerful, more entertaining, more good-natured—that also was true.... Now however he had really grown like a wild beast.... "Am I indeed then such a burden to him?" thought Matrona to herself. Her heart ached at this painful thought—she felt pity for him and for herself. She went up to him looked smilingly into his eyes, and pressed her head tenderly against his breast.

"Just look at that now! She finds time for wheedling me, the little cow!..." grumbled Grischka, pretending to push her away from him. But she knew very well that he would not do so, and pressed closer against him.

Then his eyes would suddenly brighten; he would throw his work on one side, take her on his knee, and kiss her long and passionately; at the same time sighing deeply and low, as if he feared that some one might hear him, whilst he whispered in her ear—

"Ah, Motrja! here we are living like cat and dog together ... we tear each other like wild beasts; why is that so?... It seems to be my fate.... Every man it seems is born under a certain star, and that star is his fate."

But this explanation was but poor comfort, and whilst he clasped his wife closer to him, he fell into a dull state of despondency. For a long time they sat thus in the dim twilight, surrounded by the oppressive atmosphere of their cellar. Matrona only sighed and was silent Sometimes however at these happy moments, the memory of her undeserved sufferings and blows came across her and she would begin to cry and sob softly. Her gentle reproaches moved him, and his caresses became more and more warm. She however would go on complaining, and make statements which finally exhausted his patience.

"Shut up with your whining!" he cried harshly; "I suffer, very likely, a thousand times more than you do, when I beat you.... Now be quiet, will you? If one gives in the least bit to a woman, she will take advantage of you at once. Leave off reproaching me! What is a man to do whose life is a burden to him?"

Another time, perhaps, his heart would melt under the torrent of her tears, and pitiful complaints. Then he would say humbly and thoughtfully—

"What on earth am I to do, with the unfortunate disposition that I possess? I have hurt you often, that is certain.... I know very well that you are the only one in the world who cares for me, though I often seem to forget it But it's like this, Motrja; sometimes it seems as if I could no longer bear the sight of you ... as if I had had enough of you for ever. And then, such a rage comes into my soul, as if I could tear you and myself to pieces; and the more you are in the right, the stronger the desire grows in me to beat you."

She did not quite understand what he meant to express; but the contrite, loving tone in which he spoke, touched her deeply.

"God grant that we may both improve; that we may grow used to each other," she said. "Perhaps it would be better if we had a child ... then we should have something to care for, and to interest us," she continued with a sigh.

"Well then, bring one into the world!"

"How can I bear a child, when you knock me about so?... always striking me on the body and on the loins.... If only you would give up kicking me so constantly!..."

"How can one arrange the exact place where one kicks a person?"

Grischka tried to excuse himself in a grumbling voice. "At any rate I am not a brute! I don't do it for my pleasure, but only when that ache comes over me ... and I can't help myself then...."

"How is it that that aching feeling comes over you?" asked Matrona gloomily.

"You see, that's my fate, Motrja," Grischka philosophized. "My fate and my disposition. Am I worse than others?... Worse, for instance, than Lewtschenko, the 'Little Russian'? Certainly he takes life more easily than I do, and does not know what this ache is. He is alone in the world, and has no wife, no relations.... But without you I should certainly die.... Yes, that 'Little Russian' is happy enough; he smokes his pipe, and laughs, is lively and contented, the devil he is!... But I can't live like that.... I certainly was born with unrest in my soul, and have got that sort of disposition. Lewtschenko's nature is just like a straight stick; mine is like a spring; the least pressure on it makes it start vibrating.... For instance, I go along the street, and see beautiful things on every hand—and nothing of it all belongs to me. That makes me feel injured. The 'Little Russian,' he does not need any of those things. But it makes me furious to think how that moustached fellow is so entirely without needs, whilst I ... ah! I don't even know what I want.... I should like to have everything, yes, everything! But I sit here in this hole and work from morning till night, and it all leads to nothing. We sit here together, you and I, you my wife ... and what is the good of it all? What is there in you to give me pleasure? You are a woman, like all the rest of women. You can offer me nothing new; I know you through and through. I even know how you will sneeze to-morrow. I know it so well, because I have heard you sneeze a thousand times in the same way before.... What interest can I find in such a life? That's what is wanting to me—interest in life. Yes ... and that's why I go to the vodka-shop, because it's more cheerful there...."

"Then why on earth did you marry?" asked Matrona.

"Why?" Grischka asked mockingly. "The devil only knows why! I have often said I ought not to have done so. I ought instead to have joined the ranks of the tramps, where I should have suffered hunger, but I should have been free! Go where you will.... The whole world lies open before you!"

"Go then!... Set me free!" cried Matrona, with difficulty suppressing a sob.

"Where would you go then?" asked Grischka with angry interest.

"That's my business!"

"Where?" he shouted at her, a wild hatred flashing from his eyes.

"Don't shout so; I'm not afraid of you!"

"Have you already taken up with some one else?... Out with it!"

"Just let me go!"

"Where shall I let you go?" Grischka continued to shout.

He tore the handkerchief from her head, and in his fury caught her by the hair. His blows awoke her whole spirit of opposition, and all that was worst in her; and the feeling of this anger gave her real pleasure, thrilled every fibre of her soul. Instead of quenching his jealousy with a few conciliatory words, she fed it all the more, whilst she smiled in his face with a peculiarly meaning smile. His rage grew more and more furious, and he beat her unmercifully.

But in the night, when she, with her bruised and ill-used body, lay groaning by his side, he would watch her from the corner of his eye, and sigh heavily. His conscience troubled him, and he felt a painful feeling of shame, as he realized that there was not the smallest foundation for his jealousy, and that he had once more unjustly beaten his wife.

"Now then, stop sobbing!" he said in a remorseful tone. "Is it my fault if I have that sort of character?... And it's a great deal your fault.... Instead of speaking to me quietly, you try and aggravate me. What is it makes you behave like that?"

She did not answer, though she was quite conscious why she acted thus. She knew that she was looking forward to the pitying and passionate caresses with which he would seal her forgiveness. For the sake of these caresses she was prepared to allow herself to be beaten every day till the blood flowed, and she shed precious tears in the sole expectation of this joy of reconciliation.

"How do you feel now?... Come now, be quiet, Motrja! Come, my treasure, forgive me?... do forgive me now!"

He stroked her hair, kissed her tenderly, whilst he ground his teeth with the bitterness which was eating into his soul.

The window of their room stood open, but the sky was hidden by the thick wall of the neighbouring houses, and in the cellar it was, as usual, dark, damp, and sticky.

"Ah! this life; it's a veritable prison!" whispered Grischka, unable to put into words all the pain that was oppressing his soul, "This hole that we live in is the cause of it all, Motrja! Whatever do we stay here for?... It's just as if we were buried alive!"

"Well, let's go into other lodgings," remarked Motrja through her tears, taking his words literally.

"It's not that, dear.... I did not mean that exactly.... For even if we were to live in a garret we should still be living in a hole, and all would remain exactly the same I It's not only the lodgings ... our whole life is like a hole...."

Matrona began to think over his words, and finally remarked, "God grant that we may improve ... that we may get used to each other."

"Yes, that things may improve ... you have often said that already. It doesn't look much like it, Motrja.... The scandals we create become more and more frequent."

Motrja could not deny this. The intervals between her beatings grew ever shorter and shorter, and Grischka would frequently begin the trouble quite early on Saturday morning. He would commence by saying—

"This evening, as soon as I have finished work, I am off to the vodka-shop across the way, and I mean to have such a bout!"

Motrja blinked her eyes, and was silent "Have you nothing to say about it? Well, well! It's better to be silent.... It's better for you!" he added threateningly. As the evening hour approached, he grew more and more excited. He would speak to her over and over again of his intention to get drunk. He knew only too well how painful it was to her to hear such words, and he noticed how she went about in obstinate silence, with a cold glance in her grey eyes, attending to her duties in the cellar; and this made him feel all the more furious.

In the evening Senka Tschischik, the herald of misfortune to the inhabitants of the court, was able to report another battle having been fought at the Orloffs'.

When Grischka had beaten his wife black and blue, he disappeared sometimes for the whole night, not even coming back to the house for Sunday. Finally he would return, dirty, and with bloodshot eyes, to his home. Matrona would receive him in silence, wearing a severe expression, but full of secret pity. She knew that under these circumstances he would like nothing better than a drop of spirits, and already had a bottle of vodka prepared for him.

"Come, pour me out a glass!" he cried in a hoarse voice, and after swallowing two, he would sit down to work.

The whole of that day he would be troubled with pricks of conscience, which often became so severe and painful that he could not bear himself. He would throw down his work, and uttering wild words of self-reproach would pace up and down the room, or would throw himself on the bed. Motrja would give him time to get over this attack of remorse, and then they would make it up again.

At first these reconciliations were full of much that was tender and sweet, but after a time this delight disappeared entirely, and they simply made it up, because it was impossible to remain a whole week—that is to say, till the following Saturday—without speaking to each other.

"Are you going to destroy yourself, then, altogether with that vodka?" sighed Motrja.

"It's possible," replied Grischka, spitting on one side, with the look of a man to whom it was quite immaterial whether he destroyed himself or not "And you will end by running away from me?..." he continued generally, exaggerating the picture of the future, and looking searchingly into her eyes.

For some time past she had cast down her eyes whenever he had spoken in this way; though at first she had never done so. Grischka, when he noticed this, frowned threateningly, and ground his teeth ominously. As a matter of fact Matrona was just now doing her very best to win back his heart She visited the fortune-teller's and wise women, and brought back with her all sorts of charms and spells in order to gain this object When none of these had any effect she paid for a mass in honour of the martyr St Boniface, the patron saint against drunkenness; during the whole mass she knelt in a dark corner of the church crying bitterly, whilst her trembling lips moved in wordless prayer.

But ever more and more often her soul became possessed with a cold feeling of hatred against Grischka, which awoke within her dark thoughts. She felt ever less and less pity towards this man, who three years ago, with his joyful laugh and his loving words, had given to her whole life such full delight and pleasure.... Thus lived, from one day's end to another, these two children of men, who at heart were neither of them evilly disposed; whilst they waited with fatalistic simplicity for something to happen, which would break into and dispel their present meaningless, and terrible life.

[CHAPTER III]

One Monday morning, just as the Orloffs had finished their breakfast, there appeared on the threshold of their unfriendly-looking dwelling the imposing form of a police-officer. Grischka Orloff sprang frightened from his seat, and catching a glimpse of a startled and reproachful look in his wife's eye, made vain efforts to recall to his dulled brain the events of the last few days. Matrona watched him with looks that spoke of anxious reproach. In obstinate silence, though full of scared expectation, Grischka turned his troubled eyes on the unexpected guest.

"This way! Down here!" cried the police-officer to some one who was coming down behind him.

"It's as dark as a vault here!... What a devil's hole is this merchant Petounukoff's house!" The words were spoken in a young, cheerful voice.

The police-officer moved on one side, and, with a rapid step, a medical student in a white coat entered the Orloffs' dwelling, holding his cap in his hand. His head was smooth shaven, his forehead high and sunburnt; he had cheerful brown eyes, which smiled through his spectacles.

"Good-morning!" he exclaimed, in his still youthful ringing alto voice. "I have the honour to introduce myself to you; I am a member of the Sanitary Commission. I have come to inquire about the state in which you live here, and just to report what sort of air you are breathing.... It's quite abominable air!"

Orloff breathed more freely, and a look of relief passed across his face. From the first moment, the medical student, with his boisterous unaffected ways, pleased him; the healthy young face, covered on cheeks and chin with fair downy hair, had something so friendly and good-natured in it The fresh free laughter of the young man brought into the Orloffs' cellar a ray of light and of brightness.

"Now, my good people," continued the student, after a pause; "you might empty the slop-pail a little more often, for it is from that this horrible smell comes. I should like to advise you, my good woman, to wash it out more often, and to place chloride of lime in the corners of the room. That will purify the air, and it's a very good remedy against the damp. And you, my fine fellow—why do you look so upset?" He turned towards Orloff, seized his hand suddenly, and felt his pulse. The quick assured manner of the medical student impressed the Orloffs to such a degree that they seemed at first to be struck dumb. Matrona smiled constrainedly and watched him in silence, whilst Grigori seemed as if refreshed by the sight of the open fair young face.

"Well, and how are your stomachs feeling?" asked the medical student "You can speak out openly to me without any fuss—it's a question you see of life and death.... If anything is not quite right we will treat you gratis with some simple citrate medicine or something of that sort, and you will be all right in a few days."

"We can't complain; we are fairly healthy," said Grigori, smiling. "And if I don't seem quite up to the mark, it's nothing out of the common—to tell the truth, I took a drop too much last night...."

"That I had already guessed, for my nose told me so.... Of course it was only a small glass too much? Only half a glass or so?..."

Grischka could not contain himself when listening to the comical way in which this was said, and watching the sly grimace which accompanied it; and he burst into a loud good-tempered laugh. Matrona smiled also behind her apron. The medical student, who, at first had laughed with them for company, then changed to a more serious expression. As the lines of his face altered, it appeared even more open and candid than before.

"That a man who is working should drink a glass from time to time—that is all right," said he. "But as I have just said, it must be taken in moderation, and as times are now it is better to keep away from drink altogether. Have you already heard about the epidemic that is just now raging in the town?"

And with a serious expression on his face, he began to tell the Orloffs about the cholera, and the means to be taken to counteract it; trying to express himself as clearly and as simply as possible. Whilst talking, he was busily examining the room, feeling the walls with his hands, looking behind the door, stooping down to peep into the stove, and sniffing about everywhere with his nose. His voice, which had not yet completely changed, alternated between bass and treble, and the simple forms of words which he used impressed themselves unconsciously on the minds of his audience. His brown eyes gleamed, and seemed full of youthful enthusiasm for the work to which he had dedicated himself so earnestly and simply.

Grigori hung eagerly on every one of his words, and followed with curiosity all his movements. Matrona listened also, without understanding very much; the police-officer had already gone off.

"Be careful to use chloride of lime as I have told you. Close by here is a new building; for a couple of kopecks they will give you a whole heap of it. And, about the drink, it's better to leave it alone for a while, my friend. Well, good-day to you I I shall soon be looking you up again...."

And he disappeared as quickly as he came, and left as it were as a recollection of his pleasant visit, a contented, happy smile on the faces of the couple.

For a time they were silent, both looking at each other, unable to put into words the impression which this sudden visit, with all its revelation of well-directed energy, had made on the monotonous tenor of their dull automatic life.

"Just think, now!" began Grigori at last, shaking his head, "what a sorcerer that fellow is!... And they tell us that those are the men who poison people! Can a man with a face like that have anything to do with those sort of goings on?... And that cheerful clear voice, and all the rest of it!... No, it's all open and above board, it's all straight! He comes in quite simply—'Here I am, my good people; listen to what I have to say!' Chloride of lime, that can't hurt And citric acid, that's just an acid, and nothing more.... The principal thing, however, is to keep clean, to have everything clean indoors, and to attend to the slop-bucket Can a man be poisoned by attending to those sort of things? They must be stupid folk who talk like that!... Poisoners, they call them? Yes, that's it.... To think that such a dear fellow as that could be a poisoner! Pfui!... 'He who works may drink a glass,' he said; 'of course with moderation.' Did you hear, Matrona? Well, pour me out one, then. Is there one left?"

Matrona hastened to pour him out a glass of vodka, which she produced from some hiding-place.

"He is really a very nice fellow; there is something so friendly about him," she said, still smiling at the thought of the student. "But who can say what the others may be like? Perhaps they are indeed hired to——"

"What do you mean?... Hired to do what?" roared Grigori.

"Well, to put folk out of the way.... It seems there is an order that all the poor people are to be poisoned when there are too many of them," added Motrja.

"Who told you that?"

"Well, everybody says so.... The painter's cook says so also.... And lots of others say the same thing."

"A lot of silly fools! What would the Government gain by it? Just think a moment! First they would have to treat us all with medicine; and then they would have to pay for the funerals, the coffins, the graves, and all that sort of thing. That all costs something, and it all has to come out of the coffers of the State.... That's all idle chatter; if they really want to get rid of a few of the poor people, they have only got to send them out to Siberia; there's room for them all there; or to some uninhabited island, where they can dig the ground, work and pay taxes! Can't you understand? Don't you see that would be the right sort of way of thinning out the people, and would be at the same time advantageous.... For an uninhabited island produces nothing; but workers, who pay taxes, are the most important matter for the State coffers. But what sense would there be in poisoning people and burying them?... There would be no sense in it, don't you see? And then about the medical students; they are certainly a troublesome lot, but more especially because they are always in opposition to the authorities, than because they poison people.... No, you won't catch a medical student doing that, not for all the money in the world!... One can see at once that these students are not that sort."

The whole day they talked of the medical student, and of the advice he had given them. They spoke of his cheerful laugh, of his expression, and they remembered that there was a button missing on his coat But on the question as to whether it was missing on the right side or the left, they could not agree; and they nearly came to pulling one another's hair over it. Twice already Grischka had made his wife angry, but he noticed in time that her bottle still contained a good drop of vodka; so in the end he gave in to her. They made resolutions to commence cleaning up their cellar the next day, and then began once more to talk of the student, whose entry into their home had acted on them like a refreshing breath of fresh air.

"By heavens, but he's a regular jolly lad!" said Grigori delighted. "He comes in as simply as if he had known us for years, gives the necessary directions, and there's an end of it.... All without noise or fuss, though he had a right to use authority.... That's the sort of fellow that takes my fancy! One sees at once that he has a heart for people like us.... What say you, Motrja? They don't want us to die, that's all about it I And all this women's chatter about poisoning and that sort of thing—that's all rubbish. 'How are your stomachs getting on?' he asked. If he wants to poison me what can it matter to him how my stomach is? And how cleverly he explained all that.... What the devil did he call those—those worms that get into our insides?"

"'Bactery,' or some word like that," answered Motrja, with a sneer. "But he only told us that to frighten us, so as to make us more careful about being clean...."

"Who knows, perhaps it is true! Perhaps there are animals of that sort—in the damp all kinds of creatures live! Damn it all, what was the name of those little beasts? Bac—bactery—that was not quite it.... If I could only pronounce it I.... It's just on the tip of my tongue, but I can't get it out!..."

Once again, in the evening when they lay down to sleep, they spoke about the event of the day with the most naïve excitement, just as children have the habit of chattering with each other about some strong impression they may have received. And they fell asleep in the middle of the conversation.

In the morning they woke up early. At their bedside stood the painter's stout cook; her usually healthy, rosy-coloured face was now white and leaden-looking.

"How is it you are still in bed?".she began at once in an excited voice, speaking with trembling lips. "The cholera has started here in the courtyard! The Lord has visited us...!" and she began suddenly to sob aloud.

"What nonsense! It can't be true!" cried Grigori In a scared voice.

"And I forgot again last night to carry out the slop-bucket!" said Matrona with contrition.

"I have come in to say good-bye to you, my dear friends," said the cook. "I have decided to leave, and go back to my village."

"Who is in for it?" asked Grigori, jumping out of bed.

"The accordion-player. He drank last evening some cold water from the pump, and in the night he was taken with dreadful cramps."

"The accordion-player?" muttered Grigori. It seemed to him quite incredible that any sort of illness could hurt that strong fellow. Yesterday only he crossed the yard as cheerful and as proud as a peacock.

"I shall just go and see what is going on," said Grischka, still smiling incredulously.

"But it is catching, Grischka!" screamed Matrona, horrified.

"What do you want to be doing there, man? Stay here!" cried the cook.

Grigori muttered a few curses, and began to dress himself hastily without washing, and went out just as he was into the yard.

Matrona caught hold of him by the shoulders to hold him back; he felt how her hand trembled, but he shook her off against her will.

"Get away, or something will happen!" he shouted out, pushing her back, and he strode out by the door.

The courtyard seemed empty and quiet.... Whilst Grigori walked towards the accordion-player's room a feeling of fear took possession of him; but this was followed by an immediate sense of satisfaction that he should be the only one in the house who had the courage to visit the sick man. This feeling increased when he noticed that the tailor's apprentices were watching him from the windows of the second-floor. In order to appear quite free from fear he whistled as he went along. At the door, however, of the accordion-player's room he met with a slight surprise. He was not the first to visit the sick man; Senka Tschischik was there before him. Senka was just sticking his nose through the crack of the door, and observing in his usual fashion, with intense curiosity, all that was going on in the room. He did not notice Orloff's approach till the latter took him by the ear.

"Just look, Uncle Grischka, how the cramps have got hold of him!" he whispered, lifting his dirty little face, which, under the impression of what he had just been witnessing, seemed more sharp-set than ever. "How parched and dried up he looks. By Jove! he looks like a dry cask!"

Orloff was quite overcome by the pestiferous atmosphere which was issuing from the room. He stood there silently, listening to Tschischik, whilst watching with one eye through the narrow crack of the partly open door.

"We ought, perhaps, to give him some water to drink, Uncle Grigori," said Tschischik.

Orloff glanced at the excited, nervous, trembling face of the child, and felt within himself the desire to help the sufferer.

"Be off, quick, and get some water!" he ordered Senka. Then he opened wide the door of the sick man's room, and stepped boldly across the threshold.

Through the mist, which seemed to have arisen before his eyes, Grigori saw poor Kisljakoff. The accordion-player, dressed in his best clothes, leant all of a heap against the table, pressing convulsively his body against the edge, which he held with both his hands. His feet, still wearing the patent leather boots, dangled helplessly on the damp floor.

"Who is there?" asked the sick man in a hollow, apathetic, changed voice.

Grigori moved a step nearer, treading carefully over the damp boards, and trying to speak in even cheerful tone of voice.

"It is!—brother Mitri Pawlow.... What's the matter with you, then? This is a queer sort of music you are making here! Did you have a drop too much yesterday?"

He looked at Kisljakoff with terrified curiosity, for he scarcely recognized him. The accordion-player's face had taken on it a drawn angular expression; the cheek-bones stood out sharply. The deep-sunk eyes, surrounded by black rings, looked unusually fixed and staring. The skin had turned the colour of a corpse in summer-time. Orloff felt he was looking into the leaden face of a dying man. Only the slow movement of the jaws showed that what was before him was still a living body.... For some time Kisljakoff stared with motionless, glassy eyes into Grigori's face; and this dying stare frightened Orloff. It seemed to him as if a damp, cold hand had seized him by the throat, and was slowly strangling him. And he felt within him the desire to leave as soon as possible this room, which used to be so pleasant and gay, but which now seemed unnaturally cold, and filled with such a horrible foul smell of decay and rottenness.

"Come now," said he, preparing to leave the room.

Suddenly a sort of change passed over the grey face of the accordion-player. The lips, which were tinged with a leaden-coloured shade, opened, and he said in a low monotonous voice—

"I—must—d—die."

These three words, uttered so apathetically, struck Orloff's head and heart like three dull strokes. He turned, as if stunned, towards the door, where he was met by Tschischik, hot and perspiring, who was returning with a bucket of water.

"Here's some water from Spridinoff's well!... They did not want to let me take it, the dogs!"

He placed the bucket on the ground, disappeared quickly into a corner of the room, and re-appeared with a glass, which he handed to Orloff. Then he went on chattering—

"They said we had cholera here. Well, I said, what does that matter?... It will come to you, too—it's going all round the town. Then I got a box on the ear...."

Orloff took the glass, filled it from the bucket, and drank it off in one draught In his ears still rang the words of the sick man—

"I—must—die."

Tschischik wriggled about the room like an eel; he seemed to be quite in his element.

"Give me water," moaned the accordion-player, leaning his trembling body forward on the table.

Tschischik ran up to him and held a glass of water to his black, swelled lips. Grigori stood as if spell-bound or in a bad dream, leaning against the wall near the door. He heard how the sick man gulped down the water, and how Tschischik asked him if he should undress him and put him on the bed; and then he heard once more the voice of the painter's cook. He could see her fat face glancing with an expression of mingled fear and pity from one of the windows of the courtyard, as she said in a whining tone—"Mix two tablespoonfuls of soot with pine-juice and rum, and give it to him."

Some one whom he could not see, but who stood behind her, recommended cucumber-pickle and aqua regia.

Orloff felt suddenly with a clear flash the strong silent voice of his soul speaking. In order to strengthen the flickering flame, he rubbed his forehead briskly; then he left the room suddenly, ran across the yard, and disappeared down the street.

"Oh, Lord!... The cobbler's taken ill now!... He's run off to the Infirmary!" cried loudly the cook.

Matrona stood near her, with wide-open eyes, and trembling in her whole body.

"You're a liar!" she said angrily, though her white lips could scarcely pronounce the words. "My Grischka could not catch this filthy complaint. He'd never give way to it."

But the cook was not listening to her; she had already gone off somewhere else, talking excitedly as she went along. Five minutes later quite a crowd of neighbours and passers-by had assembled before the merchant Petounukoff's house. There they stood, whispering together under their breath, and on each of their faces one could read the same feeling of terror, nervous excitement and hopeless misery—mixed with secret rage on the part of some, and of fictitious boldness on that of others. Tschischik ran backwards and forwards between the courtyard and the sick man's room, bringing each time to the curious crowd of onlookers some fresh piece of news about the condition of the accordion-player.

The crowd stood tightly pressed together, and filled the dusty, foul-smelling air of the street with its half-uttered whispers. From time to time a loud oath from some undistinguishable quarter was heard; an oath as senseless as it was malicious.

"Look there; there's Orloff coming!"

Orloff drove up on an ambulance-van covered over with a white awning, which stopped at the door of the old house. He was seated by the side of the driver, a dark-looking man, who was also dressed in white linen.

"Make way there! Get out of the way!" shouted the driver of the carriage, in a deep bass voice to the bystanders.

He drove right into the midst of the crowd, so that they scattered to right and left, falling over each other. The sight of the ambulance-van, and the rough voice of the driver, both helped to calm the excited feelings of the onlookers, and many of them left their posts of observation. Close behind the driver was to be seen the medical student, who had the day before visited the Orloffs. His hat was on the back of his head, big drops of perspiration stood out on his forehead. He wore a long, dazzlingly white coat, in front of which a big hole had been burnt out with some strong acid.

"Now then, Orloff! Where's the sick man?" asked the student in a loud voice, throwing a critical glance at the bystanders, who were loitering about in small knots, partially concealed behind the comers of the gates.

"Look out! There's the cook coming," cried some one.

"Take care, or he'll cook you something you don't like!" replied a second voice in a vicious tone.

The would-be wit, who is always to be found in a crowd, shouted out, "Just wait; he'll cook a broth for you that won't agree with your stomach!"

The crowd laughed, but it was a mirthless laugh, a mixture of fear and of distrust.

"They don't seem to be afraid of the infection themselves.... That's rather difficult to understand," some one in the crowd remarked, with a meaning look, but in a voice that betrayed hatred. Under the impression of this question the faces in the crowd took on once more threatening expressions, and the conversation fell to low whispers.

"Look, they are bringing him out now!"

"Orloff is carrying him! Just look what a bold fellow he is!"

"It's true, he has plenty of courage."

"What does it matter for a sot like him? What has he to be afraid of?"

"Carefully, carefully, Orloff! Lift his legs higher ... that's right Ate you ready?... Drive on, Peter!" the student ordered. "Tell the doctor I will follow him directly.... I beg of you, Mr. Orloff, to stay here for a time and help me to disinfect the place.... You might take this opportunity of learning what to do in case of necessity some other time. Is it agreed? Yes?"

"We can set about it at once," said Orloff with visible pride, glancing round at the crowd.

"I will help too!" cried Tschischik.

He had followed the ambulance-van up to the door of the Infirmary, and had already returned in time to offer his services to the medical student The latter looked at him over his spectacles.

"Who are you, my little chap?"

"I am the apprentice here at the painter's," replied Tschischik.

"And you are not afraid of the cholera?"

"I ... afraid?" replied Senka, astonished. "I am not afraid of anything in the world."

"Is that so?... Well, that's all right.... Just listen now, my friends."

The student sat down on a barrel which stood in the yard, and, whilst he rocked himself backwards and forwards on it, he began to explain to Orloff and Tschischik how, before everything else, they must be scrupulously clean in their own persons.

A few minutes later Matrona, smiling anxiously, joined the group in the courtyard. The cook followed her, wiping her tear-stained eyes with a damp apron. One by one the crowd followed, approaching the group where sat the student, with furtive steps as a cat might approach a sparrow. After about a dozen people had collected, the student became more enthusiastic and interested, for he observed the increasing attention paid to what he was saying. Standing in their midst, and gesticulating as he spoke, he gave a sort of lecture, raising by turns a laugh, or calling forth an expression of distrust.

"The principal thing, gentlemen, in all cases of illness is cleanliness in your own persons, and good fresh air," thus he instructed his listeners.

"But those who keep clean manage to die all the same!" remarked one of the audience.

"Ah! dear Lord!" sighed the painter's cook out loud. "It would be better to pray to the holy martyr St. Barbara to save us from a sudden death!"

Orloff stood near his wife, and though apparently occupied with his own thoughts, watched the student with a fixed stare. Suddenly he felt some one pull his sleeve.

"Little Uncle Grigori!" whispered Tschischik in his ear, standing on tiptoe, and looking at the cobbler with small round eyes that glowed like burning coals. "The poor Mitri Pavlovitch is going to die. He has no relations—what will become of his accordion?"

"Keep quiet, you little imp!" Orloff replied, and pushed him on one side.

Senka looked in at the window of the room from which they had just carried out the accordion-player, his eyes searching round with a covetous glance.

"Well, as a final word of caution, my friends, use plenty of chloride of lime!" the student's voice was heard once more saying.

[CHAPTER IV]

Towards the end of this disturbed day, whilst the Orloffs were sitting at tea, Matrona asked her husband in a tone of curiosity, "Where did you go just now with the student?"

Grigori seemed to be looking at her as through a mist, and he poured his tea from the cup into the saucer without replying.

Towards mid-day, after they had disinfected the accordion-player's room, both Grigori and the sanitary officer had gone off together. On his return, Grigori had remained for nearly three hours in a silent, thoughtful mood. He had lain down on the bed, and had remained there till tea-time, his face turned up towards the ceiling, without speaking a word. In vain had Matrona tried, over and over again, to begin a conversation with him. He did not once swear, even when she worried him. This was quite an uncommon occurrence which gave her much cause for thought With the instinct of the woman whose life is absorbed in that of her husband, she guessed at once that something new had come between them. She felt alarmed, and was all the more curious to find out what had really happened.

"Come, arn't you feeling very well, Grischka?" she began once more.

Grigori gulped down the last drop of tea from his saucer, wiped his moustache with his sleeve, handed the cup to his wife, and said with a dark frown, "I was with the medical student, up at the Infirmary."

"What, in the cholera hospital?" exclaimed Matrona, in a scared voice; and then added, terrified, "Are there many folk there?"

"Fifty-three people, counting the one they brought from here."

"You don't say so?—and——"

"About a dozen are getting better, they can already walk about; but they are quite yellow and thin."

"Are they really cholera patients...? Or have they been changed for others?—so that the doctors might be able to say they had cured them?"

"You stupid goose!" cried Grigori roughly, throwing an angry look at her. "What a lot of foolish people you are, all of you! It is ignorance and stupidity, nothing else! One can stick here all one's days in blind ignorance—understanding nothing!"

He pulled the cup of tea, which Matrona had just poured out for him, violently towards him, and was silent.

"I should like to know where you get all your great wisdom?" said Matrona mockingly.

Orloff did not pay the least attention to her words. He grew as silent as before, and appeared quite unapproachable. The samovar was nearly extinguished, only a simmering sound escaping from it. There came into the windows from across the yard a smell of oil-paints, carbolic, and dirty slops. This smell, blending with the twilight of evening, and the monotonous singing of the samovar, awoke in the narrow close cellar a sensation, which lay with the weight of a nightmare on its occupants. The black ghastly mouth of the stove seemed to look at them menacingly, as if about to devour them. For a long time the Orloffs sat there in silence, nibbling sugar, gulping down mouthfuls of tea, and fidgeting with the tea-things. Matrona sighed, and Grigori drummed with his fingers on the tea-table.

"I never saw such cleanliness as reigns there!—never saw anything like it!" Grischka broke in suddenly on the silence.

"Every one of the attendants wears white linen clothes; the sick people have baths as often as it is necessary—and they get wine to drink at five and a half roubles a bottle! And the food!... The smell is almost enough for one; it's so delicious! There is such care—such attention! —no mother could be kinder to a child. Yes, yes! when one comes to think of it! Here we live, and not a soul bothers his head about us, asks us how we are, or how we are getting on;—whether we are happy or unhappy—whether we have anything to put in our mouths or not But as soon as it's a case of dying, then they can't do enough for one, they will go to any expense. These infirmaries, for instance—and the wine—five and a half roubles the bottle! Don't the fellows reason then, what all that is going to cost them? They had better have spent it in helping the living every year a little."

Matrona did not trouble to try and follow what he was saying. It was sufficient for her that his thoughts had taken a new direction, and that now her relations with Grigori would be on a different footing. She was quite convinced that this would be the result, and foresaw only too quickly what the consequences of this spiritual change would be to her. Fear and hope moved her, together with a feeling of enmity against her husband.

"They'll know very well what to do without you," she said ironically, drawing down the corners of her mouth.

Grigori shrugged his shoulders, glancing askance at her; then continued to speak in still more meaning tones, this time watching her attentively.

"Whether they know it or not that is their business.... But if I have to die without seeing something of life, then I shall be the first to whom such a thing happens!... Understand then, this time of torment must come to an end! I won't sit here any longer, and wait till the cholera comes to me as it did to the accordion-player, and carries me off to the grave. No, I won't, I can't! I would rather go boldly and meet it.... Peter, the student, said to me—'If Fate is against you, just show that you also can oppose Fate. You can but try which is the stronger.... It's simply a battle—nothing more.' You ask what is the matter with me?... I mean to go as an attendant in the Infirmary! do you understand?... I will crawl right into the jaws that threaten, and they may swallow me up, but at least I will defend myself with my hands and my feet!... I shan't be so badly off there; I shall get twenty roubles a month, besides tips, and my keep. It's just possible that I shall die there; but that might happen here!... At any rate it's a change in one's life."

He struck the table with his fist in wild excitement, so that the tea-things clattered and danced.

Matrona had listened to him at first full of curiosity and disquietude, but towards the end she interrupted angrily.

"The medical student has been advising you to do this, hasn't he?" she asked in a meaning voice.

"Haven't I my own reason to go by? Can't I take a decision for myself?" answered Grigori, evading a direct answer.

"Well!—and what am I to do meanwhile?"

"What are you to do?" asked Grigori, astonished. He had not once thought about this side of the question. The simplest way, of course, would be for him to leave his wife in their old lodgings. But wives are not always trustworthy, and he had not entire confidence in his Matrona. She required, according to him, a good deal of looking after. Struck by this thought, Grigori continued sullenly—

"The most simple thing would be for you to remain here. I shall always get my wages, and that will keep you. Hm!—yes," he said, apparently anxious to hear what she would reply to this.

"It's all the same to me," she answered quietly.

And once more he noticed cross her face that woman's smile, which seemed to him to possess a double meaning, and which had so often before awoke in him a feeling of jealousy. It aroused his anger now just in the same way, but he knew how to control himself, and said abruptly, "It's all nonsense, all that you say!"

He looked at her irritably, full of expectation of what she would reply. She however was silent, but continued to annoy him with the same provoking smile.