“About twenty years,” the doctor prompted, after a brief pause.
“About twenty years a day!” cried Bobrov. “Two days of work swallow up one man. Damn it! Do you remember those Assyrians or Moabites in the Bible who offered human sacrifices to their gods? But, really, those brass gentlemen, Moloch and Dagon, would have blushed with shame and mortification at the figures I’ve quoted.”
This peculiar calculation had just occurred to Bobrov, who, like many impressionable people, discovered new ideas only in the heat of debate. Nevertheless, both he and Goldberg were struck by the unusual statistics.
“Hang it all, you bewilder me,” said the doctor. “The figures may be inaccurate, though.”
“And do you know anything,” Bobrov went on, with even greater vehemence, “about another statistical table which enables you to compute with devilish accuracy the price in human lives of each step forward of your damnable chariot, the invention of each paltry winnowing-fan, seeder, or rail-mill? A fine thing is your civilization, whose fruits are figures, the units being steel machines, and the ciphers human lives!”
“But look here, my friend,” said the doctor, taken aback by Bobrov’s violence, “do you mean to say, then, that we’d better fall back on primitive labour? Why do you consider only the black side? After all, in spite of your statistics, the mill has provided a school, a church, a good hospital, and a low-interest credit society for the workmen.”
Bobrov jumped out of bed and began to run about barefoot.
“Those hospitals and schools of yours don’t mean a thing! They’re no more than sops for humanists like you, concessions to public opinion. I can tell you, if you like, what we actually think of all that. Do you know what a finish is?”
“A finish? Hasn’t that got something to do with horses – with racing?”
“That’s it. A finish is the last seven-hundred foot spurt before the winning-post. The horse makes it at top speed – it’s the supreme effort, and to get the horse to make that effort they lash it till it bleeds. Then, when it’s passed the mark, it may die for all anybody cares. We’re like that, too. When we’ve squeezed the last spurt out of the horse and it drops with a broken back and shattered legs, to hell with it, it’s no longer good for anything! Your schools and hospitals mean a fat lot to a horse that’s breathed its last after the finish. Have you ever watched smelting or rolling? If you have, you ought to know that it takes deucedly strong nerves, steel muscles, and the agility of a circus performer. You ought to know that everyone on the job escapes death several times a day thanks only to his wonderful self-control. And would you like to know how much a workman gets for work of that sort?”
“Still, as long as the mill’s there, the workman’s sure of a job,” Goldberg persisted.
“Don’t be naive, doctor!” cried Bobrov, sitting on the window-sill. “The workman depends today more than ever on market demand, on stock-jobbing, on various intrigues. Each big enterprise passes through different hands three or four times before it gets under way. Do you know how our company came into being? A sum of money was put up by a small group of business men. At first the business was planned on a small scale. But a whole gang of engineers, directors and contractors frittered away the capital before the owners could see what was what. Enormous buildings were erected that turned out to be good for nothing. They were scrapped – blown up with dynamite. Only when the concern was sold at ten kopeks to the ruble did it transpire that the whole dirty gang had been acting by arrangement, for which they were paid by a more powerful and astute company. Now the business is being conducted on a much larger scale, but I know very well that the first failure cost eight hundred workmen their two months’ wages. That’s your safe employment for you! Why, as soon as the shares drop wages slide down too. I suppose you know how shares rise or drop? To bring that about you have to go to Petersburg and whisper in a broker’s ear that you want to sell, say, three hundred thousand rubles’ worth of shares, adding that it’s strictly between you and him and that you’ll pay him a nice brokerage if only he keeps his mouth shut. Then you whisper the same to another couple of brokers, and the shares instantly drop by several dozen rubles. And the greater the secrecy the sooner and surer the drop. Safe employment, indeed!”
With a vigorous push Bobrov flung the window open. Cold air rushed into the room.
“Look, doctor!” cried Bobrov, pointing to the mill.
Goldberg raised himself on his elbow and peered into the night darkness outside. The immense expanse spreading out in the distance was alight with innumerable heaps of red-hot lime-stone, whose surface flared up into bluish and green sulphur flames every now and again. Those were limekilns[2] burning. A blood-red glow wavered over the mill, showing in dark relief the slender tops of the great chimneys, whose lower parts were blurred by grey mist rising from the ground. Ceaselessly those giants belched clouds of dense smoke that merged into a chaotic mass trailing eastwards, with patches like balls of dirty grey or rust-coloured cotton wool. Bright shafts of burning gas trembled and danced above the tall, thin smoke deflectors, making them look like giant torches. The gas flames threw on the smoke cloud above the mill strange, ominous reflections. From time to time, following the sharp clank of the signal hammer, the bell of a blast-furnace would go down, and a whirlwind of flames and soot would hurtle skywards from the orifice of the furnace, roaring like distant thunder. Then, with startling suddenness, the whole mill would flash into view for a few seconds, and the serried row of black round hot-blast stoves would look like the towers of a fabulous iron castle. The burning coke ovens stretched in long, regular rows. Occasionally one of them flared up and blazed like a huge red eye. Electric light added its bluish, lifeless shine to the glare of red-hot iron. There was a continuous clangour and crashing of iron.
In the glow of the mill lights Bobrov’s face had taken on a sinister coppery hue, his eyes glistened bright red, and tousled hair hung over his forehead. His voice was piercing and angry.
“There he is – that Moloch who wants warm human blood!” he cried, stretching his thin arm out of the window. “To be sure, this is progress and machine labour and cultural advancement. But, for heaven’s sake, think of it – twenty years! Twenty years of human life a day! At moments I feel like a murderer, I swear!”
“Good God, the man’s mad,” thought the doctor, shuddering. He set about soothing Bobrov.
“Come, come, Andrei Ilyich, my friend. Why worry about foolish things! It’s damp outside, and you’ve opened the window. Go to bed, and take some bromide – here.”
“He’s a maniac, he really is,” he thought, with a feeling of both compassion and fear.
Exhausted by his outburst, Bobrov put up little resistance. But when he got into bed he suddenly broke into hysterical sobs. And the doctor sat by his side for a long time, stroking his head as if he had been a child, and soothing him with what words of sympathy occurred to him.
VI
Next day Vasily Terentyevich Kvashnin was welcomed in grand style at the Ivankovo station. The entire mill management was gathered there by eleven o’clock. Everyone seemed ill at ease. The manager, Sergei Valerianovich Shelkovnikov, drank glass after glass of seltzer and pulled out his watch every moment, only to put it back in his pocket mechanically without glancing at the dial – an absent-minded gesture that betrayed his uneasiness. His face – the handsome, well-groomed, self-confident face of a man of society – remained unchanged. Only a few men knew that as manager of the construction project he was a mere figure-head. The real manager was Andreas, a Belgian engineer of mixed Polish and Swedish ancestry, whose role at the mill none of the uninitiated could make out. The offices of the two managers had a connecting door and Shelkovnikov dared not take decision on any important paper without consulting the pencil tick which Andreas would put somewhere in a corner of the sheet. In urgent cases, when consultation was not possible, he would look worried and say to the solicitor in a casual tone, “I’m sorry, but I positively can’t spare a moment for you – I’m terribly busy. Kindly state your business to Mr. Andreas, and he will refer it to me later by special note.”
The services rendered to the Board by Andreas were innumerable. He had conceived the brilliantly fraudulent plan to ruin the original company, and he, too, had carried the intrigue to the end with a firm but invisible hand. His designs were distinguished by astounding simplicity and coherence, and were considered the last word in mining. He spoke many European languages and, in addition to his special subject, was well informed in a great variety of other subjects – a rare phenomenon among engineers.
Among those gathered at the station, Andreas, a man with a consumptive figure and the face of an old ape, was the only one who retained his habitual stolidity. He had arrived last and was slowly pacing the platform, his hands elbow-deep in the pockets of his wide, baggy trousers as he chewed his eternal cigar. His light grey eyes, which bespoke the powerful mind of a scientist and the strong will of an adventurer, stared indifferently as always from under the tired, swollen eyelids.
No one was surprised at the arrival of the Zinenko family. Somehow everybody had long been used to looking upon them as part and parcel of life at the mill. Into the cold and gloomy station hall, the young ladies brought their forced animation and unnatural laughter. They were surrounded by the younger engineers, who were tired of waiting. The young ladies at once took up their customary defensive position and began to lavish right and left their charming but stale naivetes. Anna Afanasyevna, little and flustered, looked like a restless brood-hen among her fussing daughters.
Bobrov, tired and almost ill after his fit of the previous night, sat all alone in a corner of the hall, smoking a great deal. When the Zinenko family came in and sat down chirping loudly at a round table, he had two very vague feelings. On the one hand, he was ashamed – a heart-searing shame for another – of the tactlessness which he felt the family had shown by coming. On the other hand, he was glad to see Nina, ruddy with the swift drive, her eyes shining with excitement; she was very prettily dressed and, as always happens, looked much more beautiful than his imagination had painted her. His sick, harassed soul suddenly flamed up with irrepressible desire for a tender, fragrant love, with longing for a woman’s habitual, soothing caress.
He sought for a chance to approach Nina, but she was busy chatting with two mining students, who were vying with each other to make her laugh. And she did laugh, more cheerful and coquettish than ever, her small white teeth gleaming. Nevertheless, twice or three times her gaze met Bobrov’s, and he fancied that her eyebrows were slightly raised in a silent, but not hostile query.
The bell rang on the platform, announcing that the train had left the previous station. There was a commotion among the engineers. Smiling sarcastically, Bobrov from his corner watched twenty-odd men gripped by the same cowardly thought; their faces suddenly became grave and worried, their hands ran for the last time over the buttons of their frock-coats, their neckties and caps, and their eyes turned towards the bell. Soon no one was left in the hall.
Bobrov went out on to the platform. The young ladies, abandoned by the men who had been entertaining them, crowded helplessly round Anna Afanasyevna, near the door. Nina turned to face Bobrov, who had been gazing at her fixedly, and walked over to him, as if guessing that he wanted to talk to her in private.
“Good morning. Why are you so pale today? You don’t feel well?” she asked, holding his hand in a firm, tender grasp and looking him in the eyes, earnestly and caressingly. “Why did you leave so early last night, without even saying goodbye? Were, you angry?”
“Yes and no,” replied Bobrov, with a smile. “No, because I have no right to be angry, have I?”
“I think anybody has a right to be angry. Especially if he knows that his opinion is valued highly. Why ‘yes’?”
“Because – You see, Nina Grigoryevna,” said Bobrov, feeling a surge of boldness, “last night when you and I were sitting on the veranda – remember? – I had a few wonderful moments, thanks to you. And I realized that if you’d wanted to, you could have made me the happiest man on earth – But why should I be afraid or hesitate? You know, don’t you – you must have guessed, you must have known for a long time that I – ”
He could not finish. The boldness that had surged over him was suddenly gone.
“That you what? What were you going to say?” asked Nina, with feigned indifference, but in a voice which quivered in spite of her, and casting down her eyes.
She expected a confession of love, which always thrills the hearts of young girls so strongly and so sweetly, no matter whether they share the sentiment or not. Her cheeks had paled slightly.
“Not now – some other time,” Bobrov stammered. “I’ll tell you some other day. But not now, for goodness’ sake,” he added entreatingly.
“All right. But still, why were you angry?”
“Because, after those few moments, I walked into the dining-room in a most – how shall I put it? – in a most tender mood, and when I walked in – ”
“You were shocked by the talk about Kvashnin’s income, is that it?” Nina prompted, with that instinctive perspicacity which sometimes comes to the most narrow-minded women. “Am I right?” She faced him squarely, and once more enveloped him in a deep, caressing gaze. “Be frank. You mustn’t keep anything from your friend.’”
Some three or four months before, while boating with a crowd of others, Nina, excited and softened by the beauty of the warm summer night, had offered Bobrov her friendship to the end of time. He had accepted the offer’ very earnestly, and for a whole week had called her his’ friend, just as she had called him hers. And whenever; she had said my friend, slowly and significantly, with her usual languorous air, the two short words had gone straight to his heart. Now he recalled the joke, and replied with a sigh:
“Good, ‘my friend,’ I’ll tell you the whole truth though it won’t be easy. You always inspire me with a painfully divided feeling. As we talk there are moments when, by just one word, one gesture, or even one look, you suddenly make me so happy! Ah, but how can I put such a sensation into words? Have you ever noticed it?”
“Yes,” she replied almost in a whisper, and lowered her eyes, with a sly flutter of lashes.
“And then, all of a sudden, you would become a provincial young lady, with a standard vocabulary of stock phrases and an affected manner. Please don’t be cross with me for my frankness. I wouldn’t have spoken if it hadn’t tormented me so terribly.” “I’ve noticed that, too.”
“Well, there you are. I’ve always been sure that you have a responsive and tender heart. But why don’t you want to be always as you are at this moment?”
She turned to face him again, and even moved her hand, as if to touch his. They were walking up and down the vacant end of the platform.
“You never tried to understand me, Andrei Ilyich,” she said reproachfully. “You’re nervous and impatient. You exaggerate all that is good in me, but then you won’t forgive me for being what I am, though, in the environment in which I live, I can’t really be anything else. It would be ridiculous if I were – it would bring discord into our family. I’m too weak and, to tell the truth, too insignificant to fight and be independent. I go where everybody else does, and I look on things and judge them as everybody else does. And don’t imagine I don’t know I’m common. But when I’m with the others I don’t feel it as I do with you. In your presence I lose all sense of proportion because – ” She faltered. “Oh, well – because you’re quite different, because I’ve never met anyone like you in my life.”