The Philanderer

At about 6 o’clock in the morning I felt a living weight thrust itself upon my bed, and somebody shook me and shouted right into my ear:

“Get up!”

This was Sashka the compositor, my chum. An amusing fellow, about nineteen years of age, with a mop of tousled red hair, greenish eyes like a lizard’s, and a face smudged with lead dust.

“Come on, get up!” he shouted, pulling me out of bed. “Let’s go on the spree today. I have some money, six roubles twenty kopecks, and it’s Stepakha’s birthday! Where do you keep your soap?”

He went to the wash basin in the corner and fiercely scrubbed his face. In the midst of his puffing and snorting he asked me:

“Tell me: ‘star’ – is that ‘astra’ – in German?”

“No, I think it’s Greek.”

“Greek? We have a new proof-reader at our place who writes poetry, and she signs herself ‘Astra.’ Her real name is Trushenikova, Avdotia Vassilievna. She’s nice little lady – good-looking, only – rather stout… Where’s your comb?..”

As he forced the comb through his red mop of hair, he wrinkled his nose and swore. Suddenly he broke off in the middle of a word and closely examined the reflection of his face in the murky windowpane.

Outside the sun was playing on the brick wall opposite. The wall was wet from the previous night’s rain and the sun tinted it red. A jackdaw was sitting on the funnel of the rain pipe, preening itself.

“What an awful mug I’ve got!” said Sashka, and then he exclaimed: “Look at that jackdaw! How all dressed up she is! Give me a needle and cotton, will you; I’ll sew a button on my coat.”

He pirouetted round and round, as if he were dancing on hot bricks; so much so that the draught he caused blew some scraps of paper from my table.

Then, standing at the window and clumsily plying the needle, he asked:

“Was there ever a king named Lodir?”

“You mean Lothar. Why do you ask?”

“That’s funny! I thought his name was Lodir, and that all lazy people descended from him! Let’s go to a tavern first and have some tea. After that we’ll go to the nunnery church for late matin and have a look at the nuns – I’m fond of nuns!.. And what does ‘prospectives’ mean?”

He was as full of questions as a rattle with peas. I began, to tell him what “prospects“ means, but he went on talking without waiting for me to finish.

“Last night that feuilleton writer, Red Domino, came to the printing office, drunk, of course, as usual, and kept pestering me with questions about my prospectives.”

After sewing on the button, higher than he should have done, he nipped the cotton with his white teeth, licked his red puffy lips and mumbled plaintively:

“Lizochka is quite right. I ought to read books, otherwise I shall die a boor and never know anything. But when can I read? I never have any time!

“Don’t waste so much time courting the girls…”

“What am I – a corpse? I’m not an old man yet! Wait! When I get married, I’ll give it up!

Stretching himself, he mused:

“I’ll marry Lizochka. That’s a fashionable girl for you! She has a frock made of… what do you call it?.. barege, I think. Well! She looks so lovely in it that my legs tremble when I see her wearing it. I feel I could gobble her up!”

In the tone of a grave mentor I said:

“Take care you are not gobbled up yourself!”

He smiled self-confidently and shook his head.

“The other day two students had an argument in our newspaper. One said that love was a dangerous business, but the other said no, it’s quite safe! Aren’t they clever? The girls like students. They are as fond of them as they are of military men.”

We left the house. The cobble-stones, washed by the rain, glistened like the bald pates of government officials. The sky was almost shut out by banks of snow-white clouds, and every now and again the sun peeped through the spaces between these cloudy snow-drifts. A strong autumn wind was blowing people down the street like withered leaves. It buffeted us and rang in our ears. Sashka shrivelled up and thrust his hands deep down into the pockets of his greasy trousers. He wore a light summer jacket, a blue blouse, and brown top boots, down at heel.

 

 At midnight on angel flew across the sky,

 

he declaimed in rhythm with our footsteps. “I love that piece! Who wrote it?”

“Lermontov.”

“I always mix him up with Nekrassov.”

 

And long she languished in the world,

Filled with strange desires.

 

And screwing up his greenish eyes he repeated in a low and pensive voice:

 

Filled with strange desires…

 

“Good Lord! How well I understand that! I understand it so well that I would fly myself… Strange desires…

A girl walked out of the gate of a gloomy house in holiday attire – a “claret-colour“ skirt, a black blouse with jet trimmings and a golden-yellow silk shawl.

Sashka pulled his crumpled cap from his head, and bowing respectfully, said to the girl:

“Many happy returns of the day, Miss!”

The girl’s pretty round face first lit up with a tender smile, but she immediately drew her thin brows together in a stern frown and said in an angry, and half-frightened voice:

“But I don’t know you!”

“Oh, that’s nothing!” answered Sashka cheerfully. “It’s always like that with me. They don’t know me at first; but when they do they fall in love with me…”

“If you wish to be impudent…” said the young lady, glancing round. The street was deserted, except for a cart laden with cabbages at the very far end.

“I’m as gentle as a lamb!” said Sashka, walking beside the girl and glancing at her face. “I can see it’s your birthday…”

“Please leave me alone.”

The girl stepped out faster, clicking her heels determinedly on the brick sidewalk. Sashka halted and mumbled:

“By all means. There! I’ve dropped behind. Isn’t she proud! What a pity I haven’t a costume in which to play the part! If I had another suit on, she would have taken an interest in me, don’t you worry.”

“How do you know that it’s her birthday?”

“How do I know? She comes out in her best clothes and is going to church. I’m too poor. That’s what’s the matter. Ekh! If only I had lots of money! I’d buy myself a little estate in the country and live like a gentleman… Look!

Four rough-bearded men were carrying a plain deal coffin out of a side street. In front of them, carrying the coffin lid on his head, walked a boy, and behind them walked a tall beggar, carrying a shepherd’s staff. His face was stern, and looked as if it were hewn out of stone; and as he walked he kept his red-rimmed eyes fixed on the greyish nose of the corpse that was visible above the edge of the open coffin.

“The carpenter must have died,” surmised Sashka, removing his cap. “Lord rest his soul and keep him far away from his relations and friends!”

A broad smile lit up his face, and his bright eyes flashed merrily.

“It’s lucky to meet a corpse,” he explained.

“Come on!”

“We went to the ‘Moskva’ tavern, and entered a small room crowded with chairs and tables. The tables were covered with pink cloths. The windows were hung with faded-blue curtains. Flower pots were ranged on the window sills, and above the flower pots canaries in cages were suspended. The place was bright and warm and cosy.

We ordered some fried sausage, tea, half a bottle of vodka, and a dozen cigarettes of the “Persian“ brand. Sashka sat down at a table near the window, spread himself out like a gentleman and launched into a discourse:

“I like this polite and genteel life,” he said. “You are always complaining that this is bad and the other is bad, but why? Everything is as it should be. Your character is not human, it lacks harmony. You are like the letter ‘yer.’ The word can be understood without it, but they stick it on the end for form’s sake, or perhaps because they think it looks better.”

While he was criticizing me I looked at him and thought to myself:

“How much verve there is in that lad! A man who has so much in him cannot pass out of this life unobserved.”

But he had grown tired of sermonizing by this time. He took up his knife and scraped it on his plate to tease the birds. At once the room rang with the shrill trilling of the canaries.

“That set them going!” said Sashka, extremely pleased with himself. Then, putting down the knife, he ran his fingers through his red hair and thought aloud:

“No! Lizochka won’t marry me. That’s out of the question. But who knows? Perhaps she’ll learn to love me. I’m madly in love with her!”

“But what about Zina?”

“Oh, Zinka is so plain. Lizochka – she’s smart, she is,” Sashka explained.

He was an orphan, a foundling. At the age of seven he was already working for a furrier. Then he worked for a plumber. For two years he worked as a labourer at a flour mill that belonged to a monastery, and now, for over a year, he had been working as a printer’s compositor. He liked the work on the newspaper very much. He learned to read and write in his spare time, hardly noticing it himself, and the mysteries of literature had a great fascination for him. He was particularly fond of reading poetry, and he even wrote verses himself. Sometimes he would bring me scraps of lead-smudged paper with formal lines scribbled on them in pencil. The subject of these verses was always the same, and they ran approximately as follows:

 

I loved thee at first sight when

On Black Lake my eyes met thine,

And all my thoughts have been since then

Of thee and of thy face divine.

 

When I told him that this was not poetry, he would ask in surprise: “Why not? Look! It ends with ‘en’ here and here, and with ‘me’ here and here!”

“But then, remember how Lermontov’s verses sound.”

“Oh, well! He had lots of practice, whereas I have only just begun! Wait until I get used to it!”

His self-confidence was amusing, but there was nothing repellent about it. He was simply convinced that life was in love with him, as the laundress Stepakha was; that he could do whatever he pleased, and that success awaited him everywhere.

The church bells were ringing, calling for late ma-tin. The canaries, listening to the sound, which made the windowpanes rattle, stopped singing.

Sashka mumbled:

“Shall we go to matin or not?”

And then he decided.

“Let’s go!”

On the way he said in a tone of complaint blended with self-condemnation:

“Tell me, how do you explain it? I always feel bored in church, but I love to go! The nuns there are so young. I’m sorry for them!”

In the church he stood at the gates where the beggars and other supplicants were gathered. His greenish eyes opened wide with wonder as he gazed at the choir where a crowd of choiristers were assembled, pale-faced and in pointed hoods, all standing stiff and straight as if they were carved out of black stone. They were singing harmoniously, and their silvery voices sounded amazingly pure. The gold on the icons glittered and the glass cases reflected the lights of the candles, which looked like golden flies.

The beggars sighed and muttered their humble prayers, raising their faded eyes to the dome. This was a week day, and there were few people in the church: only those had come who had nothing to do and did not know what to do with themselves.

In front of Sashka, telling her beads, stood a nun, rather a large woman, wearing a cowl. Sashka, who reached only up to her shoulder stood on tiptoe to peep into her round face and eyes, which were hidden by the cowl: and he stood like that, insolently staring at the nun with his lips pursed, as if for a kiss.

The nun slightly bent her head and gave him a sidelong glance, like a well-fed cat looking at a mouse. He collapsed at once, pulled me by the sleeve and hurried out of the church.

“Did you see the look she gave me?” he said, closing his eyes with fright. Then he drew his cap out of his pocket, wiped his perspiring face with it and wrinkled up his nose.

“Gee! The way she looked at me… as if I were the Devil! It made my heart sink!”

Then he laughed and said:

“She must have had some bad experiences with us fellows!”

Sashka was kind-hearted, but he had no pity for people. Probably, he gave more money to beggars, and gave it more willingly, than many a rich man, but he gave it because he hated poverty. The little daily tragedies of life touched him not at all. He used to talk about them and laugh.

“Have you heard? Mishka Sizov has been sent to prison!” he said to me one day with animation. “He walked and walked about, looking for work, and one day he stole an umbrella and was caught. He didn’t know how to steal. They hauled him before the beak. I was walking along and suddenly I saw him being led like a sheep by a policeman. His face was pale and his lips were parted. I shouted out to him: ‘Mishka!’ but he didn’t answer, as if he didn’t know me.”

We went into a shop and Sashka bought a pound of marmalade sweets.

“I ought to buy Stepakha some pastries,” he explained, “but I don’t like pastries. This marmalade is better!”

In addition to the sweets he bought some cakes and nuts, and then we went to a wine shop and he bought two bottles of liqueur, one the colour of red lead and the other the colour of vitriol. Walking down the street with the packages under his arm, he composed the following story about the nun:

“A buxom woman, isn’t she! She must have been a shopkeeper’s wife. Probably a grocer. I suppose she was unfaithful to her husband! He must have been a puny fellow… Aren’t those women cunning! Take Stepakha, for example…”

By this time we had reached the gates of a house, painted brown, with green shutters. Sashka kicked the wicker gate open ate if he were at home, set his cap jauntily on the side of his head and strode into the yard, which was strewn with yellow birch, poplar and elder leaves. At the other end of the yard, built against the garden wall, stood a wash-house, banked with turf right up to the windowsills. Its roof was covered with yellowish-green moss, and the treetops swayed over the roof, reluctantly shedding their leaves. With its two windows the wash-house seemed to be gazing at us mournfully and suspiciously, like a load.

The door was opened for us by a big woman, about forty years of age, with a large pock-marked face, merry eyes and thick red lips, which were stretched in a pleasant smile.

“What welcome guests!” she cried in a singsong voice. And Sasha, placing his hands on her ample shoulders and bringing his face close to hers, said:

“Many happy returns of the day, Stepanida Yakimovna, and congratulations on receiving the holy mysteries!”

“But I didn’t go to communion!” protested Stepakha.

“It’s all the same!” answered Sashka, kissing her three times on the lips, after which both wiped away the traces of the kisses, Stepakha with the palm of her hand and Sashka with his cap.

In the dark anteroom, encumbered with pokers, baskets and wash tubs, they found Stepakha’s daughter, Pasha, busy with the samovar. Pasha was a young girl with large, bulging eyes that stared with stupid astonishment, typical of children who suffered from rickets. She had a wonderfully thick plait of hair of a soft golden colour.

“Many happy returns, Panya!”

“All right,” answered the girl.

“You dummy!” exclaimed Stepakha. “You should say Thank you.’“

“Oh, all right!” retorted the girl angrily.

A third of the laundress’ habitation was taken up by a large oven, and where the shelves for the bathers used to be there was; now a wide bed. In the corner, under the icons, stood a table, laid out for tea, and at the wall stood a wide bench, on which it was convenient to place the wash tub. A shaggy dog looked through the open window like a beggar, resting his heavy paws with their broken claws upon the window sill. On the window sills there were flower pots with geraniums and fuchsias.

“She knows how to live,” said Sashka, looking round the squalid room and winking to me, as much as to say: “I’m joking!”

The hostess carefully drew a pie from the oven and flipped its rosy crust with her fingernail. Pasha brought in the samovar, glistening like the sun, and cast an angry glance at Sashka. But he said, licking his lips:

“Hell! I must get married! I do love pie!”

“One doesn’t marry for the sake of pie,” observed Stepakha, gravely.

“Oh. I understand that!”

The buxom laundress laughed merrily at this, but her eyes were grave when she said:

“You’ll marry one day and forget me.”

“But how many have you forgotten?” retorted Sashka with a grin.

Stepakha also smiled. Dressed as she was, too gaudily for her age, she resembled not a laundress, but a matchmaker, or a fortune teller.

Her daughter, looking like a silent gnome out of a sad fairy tale, was unwanted here, and indeed seemed to be totally unwanted on earth. She ate very carefully, as if she were rating not pie, but fish that was full of bones. And every now and again she slowly turned her large eyes towards Sashka and gazed into his thin mobile face in a queer way, as if she were blind.

The dog whined pitifully at the window. The brassy strains of martial music, the steady tramp of hundreds of heavy marching feel, and the beat of a base drum keeping them in step, came floating in from the street.

Stepakha said to her daughter:

“Why don’t you run out and look at the soldiers?” don’t want to.”

“This is fine!” exclaimed Sashka, throwing the dog a piece of pie crust. “I don’t think I need anything more!”

Stepakha looked at him with motherly eyes, and straightening her blouse over her high breast she said with a sigh:

“No, that’s not true. There’s a lot more things you need.”

“What I just said was quite true.” answered Sash-ka. “I don’t need anything more now, if only Pashka would stop boring through me with her eyes.”

“A fat lot I care about you,” the girl retorted softly and contemptuously. Her mother angrily raised her eyebrows, but pursed her lips and said nothing.

Sashka moved in his scat uneasily and looking sideways at the girl said ardently:

“I feel as though I have a hole in my soul. So help me God! I would like my soul to be full, and calm, but I cannot fill it! Do you understand me, Maximich? When I feel bad I want to feel good. And when I get a happy hour I begin to feel bored! Why is that?”

He was already “feeling bored.” I could see that. His eyes were roaming restlessly round the room as if taking in its squalor; a critical and ironical spark flashed in them. Obviously, he felt out of place here, and had only just realized it.

He talked warmly about the wrongs that were done in the world, and about the blindness of men who had grown accustomed to these wrongs and failed to see them. His thoughts flitted about like frightened mice, and it was difficult to keep pace with their rapid changes.

“Everything is all wrong – that’s what I see! You have a church in one place and next to it you have the devil knows what! Innokenti Vassilievich Zemskov writes poetry like this:

 

Thanks for those few flashes

Which lit up the gloom of my heart, For those sweet moments of contact

With your body divine.

 

But it did not prevent him from cheating his sister out of her house by a lawsuit; and the other day he pulled his parlour maid Nastya by the hair.”

“What did he do that for?” asked Stepakha, glancing at her rough hands, which were as red as the feet of a goose. Her face had suddenly become hard and she lowered her eyes.

“I don’t know… Nastya wanted to take him to court for it, but he gave her three roubles and she let it drop, the fool!”

Suddenly Sashka jumped up and said:

“It’s time for us to go!”

“Where to?” the hostess asked.

“We have some business to do,” said Sashka untruthfully. “I’ll look in in the evening.”

He offered Pasha his hand, but the girl looked at his fingers for a moment or so, not daring to touch them, and then she took Sashka’s hand and shook it in a way that seemed as if she were pushing it away.

We went out. In the yard Sashka mumbled as he pulled his cap tightly over his head:

“The devil! That girl doesn’t like me… and I feel ashamed in her presence. I won’t go there tonight.”

Unpleasant thoughts appeared on his face, like a rash. He blushed.

“I must give Stepakha up,” he said. “It’s not a nice business! She’s twice my age, and…”

But by the time we turned the corner he was already laughing and saying to himself cheerfully, without a trace of boastfulness:

“She loves me. She tends me like a flower. So help me God! It makes me feel ashamed. Sometimes I feel so good being with her… better than with my own mother! It’s simply wonderful. I tell you, brother, they are troublesome things, are women. But they’re a good lot for all that. They deserve all our love… But is it possible to love them all?”

“It would be good if you loved at least one well,” I suggested.

“One, one,” he mumbled pensively. “But try loving only one!..

He gazed into the distance, beyond the blue strip of the river, at the yellowing meadows, at the black bushes stripped by the autumn wind and sparsely clothed with golden leaves. Sashka’s face looked kind and thoughtful. It was evident that he was full of pleasant recollections, which played upon his soul as sunbeams played upon a river.

“Let’s sit down,” he suggested, halting at the edge of a gully near the nunnery wall.

The wind was driving the clouds across the sky. Shadows were flitting across meadow. On the river a fisherman was tapping away, caulking his boat.

“Listen,” said Sashka. “Let’s go to Astrakhan.”

“What for?”

“Oh, just like that. Or else, let’s go to Moscow.”

“But what about Liza?”

“Liza… Y-e-ss…”

He looked straight into my eyes and asked me:

“Have I fallen in love with her yet, or not?”

“Ask a policeman,” I answered.

He laughed freely and heartily, like a child. He glanced up at the sun and then at the shadows flitting across meadow, and jumping to his feet he said:

“Those confectionary girls will be coming out soon, come along!”

He strode rapidly down the street. There was a look of concern on his face, he had his hands in his pockets, and his cap was drawn low over his forehead. From the gates of a one-story, barrack-like building, girls came running, one after another, in kerchiefs and grey aprons. One of them was Zina, a dark, graceful girl with Mongolian features and almond eyes, wearing a red blouse fitting tightly round her bust.

“Come and have some coffee,” said Sashka to her, clutching her by the arm. Then he went on to say hurriedly:

“Do you mean to tell me you intend to marry that mangy cur? Why, he’ll be jealous of you…”

“Every husband ought to be jealous.” answered Zina gravely. “Do you want me to marry you?”

“No, don’t marry me either!”

“Drop that,” the girl said, frowning. “Why aren’t you at work?”

“I’ve taken a holiday.”

“Ekh, you!.. I don’t want any coffee.”

“What do you mean?” exclaimed Sasha, pulling her into a pastry shop.

When they sat down at a small table by the window, he asked her:

“Do you believe me?”

“I believe every animal, the fox and the hedgehog. As for you – I’ll wait a bit,” the girl answered slowly.

“Well, without you I shall go to the dogs!”

At that moment Sashka really believed that he was passing through a tragedy – his lips trembled, his eyes were moist. He was sincerely moved.

“Well, I’m a lost man, drowned in my own tears. But it serves me right, since I can’t catch fortune by the hem of her cloak. But it won’t be easy for you either! I shall give you no rest. Let him have a business and own horses, but you’ll not be able to eat a thing, thinking of me. Mark my words…”

“It’s time I stopped playing with dolls.” the girl said softly but angrily.

“Oh, so I am a doll to you, eh?”’

“I wasn’t speaking of you.”

“There, look at them. Maximich! They are a race of snakes. They have no feeling. She slings me in the heart, and I suffer. But she says: Oh, you are a doll!”

Sashka was indignant. His bands trembled, and his eyes grew dark with anger.

“How can one live with creatures like that?” he demanded.

“A fine actor,” I thought to myself, watching him almost with admiration.

His acting obviously captivated the girl, touched her. Wiping her lips with a corner of her kerchief, she asked in a kindly voice;

“Will you be free on Sunday?”

“Free from what? From you?”

“Don’t play the fool… Come over here…”

They went over to a corner, and Sashka, with flashing eyes, talked long and ardently to the girl in an undertone. Finally, she exclaimed with sad vexation:

“Good Lord! What kind of husband will you make?”

“I?” shouted Sashka. “This kind!”

And without being in the least embarrassed by the presence of the fat pastry cook, he tightly hugged the girl and kissed her on the lips.

“What are you doing, are you mad?” the girl exclaimed in confusion, tearing herself out of his arms.

She fled out of the door like a bird, and Sashka, wearily sitting down at the table shook his head and said disapprovingly:

“What a temper! She’s a wild animal, not a girl!”

“What do you want of her?”

“I don’t want her to marry that bald droshky driver. It’s a scandal. I won’t allow it. I can’t bear it!”

Finishing his coffee, now quite cold, he seemed to have forgotten the tragedy he had just passed through and began to reflect lyrically:

“Do you know? On holidays, or even on week days, when a lot of girls are out together strolling, or going home from work, or from high school, my very heart trembles. Good Lord! I think to myself. What a lot of them there are! Each one must love somebody; and if they don’t they certainly will love someone tomorrow, or within a month, it makes no difference. Now this is what I understand. This is life! Is there anything better in life than love? Just think – what is night? Everybody is embracing and kissing – oh, brother! that’s something, d’you know… It’s something you can’t even find a name for! It is really a heaven-sent joy.”

Jumping up he said:

“Come along, let’s go for a walk!”

The sky was overcast with grey clouds, the rain was coming down in a fine drizzle, like dust. It was cold, raw and miserable. But Sashka, oblivious to everything, strolled along in his light summer jacket and chattered without ceasing about everything in the shop windows that caught his greedy eye – about neckties, revolvers, toys, and ladies’ frocks, about machines, confectionary and church vestments. He caught sight of the bold type of a theatrical poster.

“Uriel Acosta! I have seen that! Have you? Those Jews talk well don’t they? Do you remember? Only it’s all lies. There’s one kind of people on the stage and another kind in the street, or in the market place. I love jolly people – Jews and Tatars. Look how heartily the Tatars laugh… It’s a good thing they don’t show you real life on the stage, but something remote – boyars and foreigners. As for real life – thank you very much. We have quite enough of our own! But if they do show you real life, let it be all true, and without pity! Children ought to play on the stage, because when they play, it’s real!”

“But you don’t like what is real?”

“Why not? I do if it’s interesting.”

The sun peeped out again, reluctantly lighting up the rain-drenched town. We roamed through the streets until vespers, when the church bells called for prayers. Sashka pulled me to a waste lot to the fence of an orchard that belonged to a stern government official named Renkin, the father of beautiful Liza.

“Wait for me here, will you?” he begged of me, leaping onto the fence like a cat. He sat down on a post and whistled softly. Then, raising his cap with a pleased and polite gesture, he began to talk to a girl, who was invisible to me, wriggling so restlessly that he was in danger of falling off the fence.

“Good evening, Elizaveta Yakovlevna!”

I did not hear what the answer was on the other side of the fence, but through a chink between two boards I saw a lilac skirt, and the thin wrist of a white hand holding a large pair of gardener’s clippers.

“No,” Sashka went on to say sadly, but untruthfully. “I haven’t managed to read it yet. You know how hard I work. And I work at night. In the daytime I have to sleep – and my churns give me no rest. As I set the type, letter by letter, I think only of you… Yes, of course! Only I don’t like full lines of type; verse is much easier to read… May I come down? Why not? Nekrassov? Yes… very, only he doesn’t write much about love… Why are you angry? Wait a minute – is there anything offensive about that? You asked me what I liked, and I said that most of all I liked love – everybody likes it… Elizaveta Yakovlevna… wait…”

He stopped talking, hung over the fence like an empty sack, and then, sitting up straight, he sat there for several seconds like a mournful raven, tapping his knee with the peak of his cap. His red hair was beautifully lit up by the setting sun, and tenderly ruffled by the wind.

“She’s gone!” he said angrily, jumping to the ground. “She’s offended because I didn’t read some book – a book, the devil take it! She gave me something that was more like a flat iron than a book! It was about an inch and a half thick… Let’s go!”

“Where to?”

“What does it matter.”

He walked on slowly, barely dragging his feet along. His face looked tired, and he glanced with vexation at the windows that were lit up by the slanting rays of the sun.

“After all, she must love somebody,” he said plaintively. “Why doesn’t she love me? But no! She wants me to read books! Thinks I’m a fool! Her eyes are brighter than the light of day – and she wants me to read books! It’s ridiculous. Of course, I’m no match for her… but good Lord, you don’t always fall in love with your equal!”

After remaining silent for a moment, he softly muttered:

 

And long she languished in the world,

Filled with strange desires,

 

and remained an old maid, the fool!”

I laughed. He looked at me in surprise and asked:

“What, am I talking nonsense? Ekh, brother Maximich! My heart is swelling and swelling without end, and I feel as if I am all heart!”

We reached the edge of the town, but the other side this time. Before us spread a field, and in the distance loomed the Young Ladies Institute, a tall white building surrounded by trees, standing behind a brick wall, and with brick columns running along the porch.

“I’ll read books for her, it won’t kill me,” mused Sashka. Prospectives… like hell! I’ll tell you what, brother. I’ll go and see Stepakha… I’ll put my head in her lap and go to sleep. Then I’ll wake up, we’ll have a drink, and then go to sleep again. I’ll stay the night with her. We haven’t spent a bad day, the two of us, have we?”

He squeezed my hand lightly and looked tenderly into my eyes.

“I like to walk with you,” he said. “You are by my side, and yet you seem not to be there. You don’t hinder me in the least. Now that’s what I call being a real chum!”

Having paid me this doubtful compliment, Sashka turned on his heel and rapidly walked back to town. His hands were thrust into his pockets, his cap was balanced precariously on the back of his head, and he went along whistling. He looked so thin and sharp, like a nail with a golden head. I was sorry he was going back to Stepakha, but I understood that he had to give himself to somebody, he had to spend the richness of his soul on someone!

The red rays of the sun struck his back and seemed to be pushing him along.

The ground was coldish, the field deserted, the town seemed to murmur softly. Sashka stooped down, picked up a stone, and swinging his arm threw it far away.

Then he shouted to me: “So long!”

1917