The little dusty old man threw himself about in the shop like a rat in a trap. He ran to the door, thrust his head into the street, stretched his neck out, and again turned back into the shop. His hands groped over his body impotently, and he mumbled and hissed, shaking his head till his glasses jumped from his nose.
"Umm, well, well the dirty blackguard the idea! The dirty blackguard! I'm alive alive!" Several minutes later he shouted to Yevsey. "Close the shop!"
On entering his room the old man crossed himself. He drew a deep breath, and flung himself on the black sofa. Usually so sleek and smooth, he was now all ruffled. His face had grown wrinkled, his clothes had suddenly become too large for him, and hung in folds from his agitated body.
"Tell Rayisa to give me some peppered brandy, a large glassful." When Yevsey brought the brandy the master rose, drank it down in one gulp, and opening his mouth wide looked a long time into Yevsey's face.
"Do you understand that he insulted me?"
"Yes."
"And do you understand why?"
"No."
The old man raised his hand, and silently shook his finger.
"I know him I know a great deal," he said in a broken voice.
Removing his black cap he rubbed his bare skull with his hands, looked about the room, again touched his head with his hands, and lay down on the sofa.
Rayisa Petrovna brought in supper.
"Are you tired?" she asked as she set the table.
"It seems I am a little under the weather. Fever, I think. Give me another glass of brandy. Sit down with us. It's too early for you to go."
He talked rapidly. Rayisa sat down, the old man raised his glasses, and scanned her suspiciously from head to foot. At supper he suddenly lifted his spoon and said:
"Impossible for me to eat. I'll tell you about something that happened." Bending over the plate he was silent for some time as if considering whether or not to speak of the incident. Then he began with a sigh. "Suppose a man has a wife, his own house, not a large house, a garden, and a vegetable garden, a cook, all acquired by hard labor without sparing himself. Then comes a young man, sickly, consumptive, who rents a room in the garret, and takes meals with the master and mistress."
Rayisa listened calmly and attentively. Yevsey felt bored. While looking into the woman's face he stubbornly endeavored to comprehend what had happened in the shop that day. He felt as if he had unexpectedly struck a match and set fire to something old and long dried, which began to burn alarmingly and almost consumed him in its sudden malicious blaze.
"I must keep quiet," he thought.
"Were you the man?" asked Rayisa.
Raspopov quickly raised his head.
"Why I?" he asked. He struck his breast, and exclaimed with angry heat, "The question here is, not about the man but about the law. Ought a man uphold the law? Yes, he ought. Without law it is impossible to live. You people are stupid, because man is in every respect like a beast. He is greedy, malicious, cruel."
The old man rose a little from his armchair, and shouted his words in Rayisa's face. His bald pate reddened. Yevsey listened to his exclamations without believing in their sincerity. He reflected on how people are bound together and enmeshed by some unseen threads, and how if one thread is accidentally pulled, they twist and turn, rage and cry out. So he said to himself:
"I must be more careful."
The old man continued:
"Words bring no harm if you do not listen to them. But when the fellow in the garret began to trouble her heart with his ideas, she, a stupid young woman, and that friend of his who who to-day " The old man suddenly came to a stop, and looked at Yevsey. "What are you thinking about?" he asked in a low suspicious tone.
Yevsey rose and answered in embarrassment:
"I am not thinking."
"Well, then, go. You've had your supper. So go. Clear the table."
Desiring to vex his master Yevsey was intentionally slow in removing the dishes from the table.
"Go, I tell you!" the old man screamed in a squeaking voice. "Oh, what a fool you are!"
Yevsey went to his room, and seated himself on the chest. Having left the door slightly ajar, he could hear his master's rapid talk.
"They came for him one night. She got frightened, began to shiver, understood then on what road these people had put her. I told her "
"So it was you?" Rayisa asked aloud.
The old man now began to speak in a low voice, almost a whisper. Then Yevsey heard Rayisa's clear voice:
"Did he die?"
"Well, what of it?" the old man shouted excitedly. "You can't cure a man of consumption. He would have died at any rate."
Yevsey sat upon the chest listening to the low rasping sound of his talk.
"What are you sitting there for?"
The boy turned around, and saw the master's head thrust through the door.
"Lie down and sleep."
The master withdrew his head, and the door was tightly closed.
"Who died?" Yevsey thought as he lay in bed.
The dry words of the old man came fluttering down and fluttering down, like autumn leaves upon a grave. The boy felt more and more distinctly that he lived in a circle of dread mystery. Sometimes the old man grew angry, and shouted; which prevented the boy from thinking or sleeping. He was sorry for Rayisa, who kept peacefully silent in answer to his ejaculations. At last Yevsey heard her go to her own room. Perfect stillness then prevailed in the master's room for several minutes, after which Raspopov's voice sounded again, but now even as usual:
"Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sit "
With these reassuring words ringing in his ears Yevsey fell asleep.
The next morning Rayisa again called him to her.
"What happened in the shop yesterday?" she asked with a smile when he had seated himself.
Yevsey told her everything in detail, and she laughed contentedly and happily. She suddenly drew her brows together and asked in an undertone:
"Do you understand who he is?"
"No."
"A spy," she whispered, her eyes growing wide with fright.
Yevsey was silent. She rose and went to him.
"What a tragic fellow you are!" she said thoughtfully and kindly, stroking his head. "You don't understand anything. You're so droll. What was the stuff you told me the other day? What other life?"
The question animated him; he wanted very much to talk about it. Raising his head and looking into her face with the fathomless stare of blind eyes, he began to speak rapidly.
"Of course there's another life. From where else do the fairy-tales come? And not only the fairy-tales, but "
The woman smiled, and rumpled his hair with her warm fingers.
"You little stupid! They'll seize you," she added seriously, even sternly, "they'll lead you wherever they want to, and do with you whatever they want to. That will be your life."
Yevsey nodded his head, silently assenting to Rayisa's words.
She sighed and looked through the window upon the street. When she turned to Yevsey, her face surprised him. It was red, and her eyes had become smaller and darker.
"If you were smarter," she said in an indolent, hollow voice, "or more alert, maybe I would tell you something. But you're such a queer chappie there's no use telling you anything, and your master ought to be choked to death. There, now, go tell him what I've said you tell him everything."
Yevsey rose from the table, feeling as if a cold stream of insult had been poured over him. He inclined his head and mumbled:
"I'll never tell anything about you to nobody. I love you very much, and even if you choked him, I wouldn't tell anybody. That's how I love you."
He shuffled to the door, but the woman's hands caught him like warm white wings, and turned him back.
"Did I insult you?" he heard. "Well, excuse me. If you knew what a devil he is, how he tortures me, and how I hate him. Dear me!" She pressed his face tightly to her breast, and kissed him twice. "So you love me?"
"Yes," whispered Yevsey, feeling himself turning around lightly in a hot whirlpool of unknown bliss.
"How?"
"I don't know. I love you very much."
Laughing and fondling him, she said:
"You'll tell me about it. Ah, you little baby!"
Going down the stairs he heard her satisfied laugh, and smiled in response. His head turned, his entire body was suffused with sweet lassitude. He walked quietly and cautiously, as if afraid of spilling the hot joy of his heart.
"Why have you been so long?" asked the master.
Yevsey looked at him, but saw only a confused, formless blur.
"I have a headache," he answered slowly.
"And I, too. What does it mean? Has Rayisa gotten up?"
"Yes."
"Did she speak to you?"
"Yes."
"What about?" the master asked hastily.
The question was like a slap in Yevsey's face. He recovered, however, and answered indifferently:
"She said I hadn't swept the kitchen clean."
A few moments later Yevsey heard the old man's low dejected exclamation:
"That woman is a dangerous creature! Yes, yes! She tries to find everything out, and makes you tell her whatever she wants."
Yevsey looked at him from a distance, and thought:
"I wish you were dead."
The days passed rapidly, fused in a jumbled mass, as if joy were lying in wait ahead. But every day grew more and more exciting.
CHAPTER VII
The old man became sulky and taciturn. He peered around strangely, suddenly burst into a passion, shouted, and howled dismally, like a sick dog. He constantly complained of a pain in his head and nausea. At meals he smelt of the food suspiciously, crumbled the bread into small pieces with his shaking fingers, and held the tea and brandy up to the light. His nightly scoldings of Rayisa, in which he threatened to bring ruin upon her, became more and more frequent. But she answered all his outcries with soft composure.
Yevsey's love for the woman waxed stronger, and his sad, embittered heart was filled with hatred of his master.
"Don't I understand what you're up to, you low-down woman?" raged the old man. "What does my sickness come from? What are you poisoning me with?"
"What are you saying? What are you saying?" exclaimed the woman, her calm voice quivering. "You are sick from old age."
"You lie! You lie!"
"And from fright besides."
"You miserable creature, keep quiet!"
"You suffer from the weight of years."
"You lie!"
"And it's time you thought of death."
"Aha! That's what you want! You lie! You hope in vain! I'm not the only one to know all about you. I told Dorimedont Lukin about you." He burst again into a loud tearful whine. "I know he's your paramour. It's he who talked you over into poisoning me. You think you'll have it easier with him, don't you? You won't, you won't!"
Once at night, during a similar scene, Rayisa left the old man's room with a candle in her hand, half dressed, white and voluptuous. She walked as in a dream, swaying from side to side and treading uncertainly with her bare feet. Her eyes were half closed, the fingers of her out-stretched right hand clawed the air convulsively. The little smoky red tongue of the candle inclined toward her breast, almost touching her shirt. It illuminated her lips parted in exhaustion and sickness, and set her teeth agleam.
After she had passed Yevsey without noticing him, he instinctively followed her to the door of the kitchen, where the sight that met his gaze numbed him with horror. The woman was holding a large kitchen knife in her hand, testing its sharp edge with her finger. She bent her head, and put her hand to her full neck near the ear, where she sought something with her long fingers. Then she drew a breath, and quietly returned the knife to the table. Her hands fell at her sides.
Yevsey clutched the doorpost. At the sound the woman started and turned.
"What do you want?" she demanded in an angry whisper.
Yevsey answered breathlessly.
"He'll die soon. Why are you doing that to yourself? Please don't do it. You mustn't."
"Hush!"
She put her hands on Yevsey as if for support, and walked back into the old man's room.
Soon the master became unable to leave his bed. His voice grew feeble, and frequently a rattle sounded in his throat. His face darkened, his weak neck failed to sustain his head, and the grey tuft on his chin stuck up oddly. The physician came every day. Each time Rayisa gave the sick man medicine, he groaned hoarsely:
"With poison, eh? Oh, oh, you wicked thing!"
"If you don't take it, I'll throw it away."
"No, no! Leave it! and to-morrow I'll call the police. I'll ask them what you are poisoning me with."
Yevsey stood at the door, sticking first his eye, then his ear to the chink. He was ready to cry out in amazement at Rayisa's patience. His pity for her rose in his breast more and more irrepressibly, and an ever keener desire for the death of the old man. It was difficult for him to breathe, as on a dry icy-cold day.
The bed creaked. Yevsey heard the thin sounds of a spoon knocking against glass.
"Mix it, mix it! You carrion!" mumbled the master.
Once he ordered Rayisa to carry him to the sofa. She picked him up in her arms as if he were a baby. His yellow head lay upon her rosy shoulder, and his dark, shrivelled feet dangled limply in the folds of her white skirt.
"God!" wailed the old man, lolling back on the broad sofa. "God, why hast Thou given over Thy servant into the hands of the wicked? Are my sins more grievous than their sins, O Lord? And can it be that the hour of my death is come?" He lost breath and his throat rattled. "Get away!" he went on in a wheezing voice. "You have poisoned one man I saved you from hard labor, and now you are poisoning me ugh, ugh, you lie!"
Rayisa slowly moved aside. Yevsey now could see his master's little dry body. His stomach rose and fell, his feet twitched, and his lips twisted spasmodically, as he opened and closed them, greedily gasping for air, and licked them with his thin tongue, at the same time displaying the black hollow of his mouth. His forehead and cheeks glistened with sweat, his little eyes, now looking large and deep, constantly followed Rayisa.
"And I have nobody, no one near me on earth, no true friend. Why, O Lord?" The voice of the old man wheezed and broke. "You wanton, swear before the ikon that you are not poisoning me."
Rayisa turned to the corner, and crossed herself.
"I don't believe you, I don't believe you," he muttered, clutching at the underwear on his breast and at the back of the sofa, and digging his nails into them.
"Drink your medicine. It will be better for you," Rayisa suddenly almost shrieked.
"It will be better," the old man repeated. "My dear, my only one, I will give you everything, my own Ray "
He stretched his bony arm toward her and beckoned to her to draw near him, shaking his black fingers.
"Ah, I am sick of you, you detestable creature," Rayisa cried in a stifled voice; and snatching the pillow from under his head she flung it over the old man's face, threw herself upon it, and held his thin arms, which flashed in the air.
"You have made me sick of you," she cried again. "I can't stand you any more. Go to the devil! Go, go!"
Yevsey dropped to the floor. He heard the stifled rattle, the low squeak, the hollow blows; he understood that Rayisa was choking and squeezing the old man, and that his master kept beating his feet upon the sofa. He felt neither pity nor fear. He merely desired everything to be accomplished more quickly. So he covered his eyes and ears with his hands.