II

At one of the fore oars stood Silan Petrov in a red shirt open at the throat, revealing a powerful neck and a strong hairy chest, as hard as an anvil. A mop of raven-black hair tumbled over his brows, and from under them gleamed a pair of smiling hazel eyes. His sleeves, rolled up to the elbows, bared his muscular hands that were gripping the oar. Leaning slightly forward, he peered intently into the murky distance.

Masha stood within three paces of him, sideways to the current, and regarded the broad-chested figure of her man with a smile. Both were silent engrossed with their observations – he gazing into the distance, she studying the play of his vivacious bearded face.

“A fisherman’s campfire, I suppose!” he said at length, facing her. “It’s all right then. We’re keeping straight! Oo-ooch!” he puffed, sending out a column of hot air, as he dipped his oar to larboard and gave a powerful tug.

“Don’t overdo it, Masha dear!” he observed, seeing her make the same dexterous movement with her oar.

Plump and round, with black impudent eyes and rosy cheeks, barefooted, wearing only a wet sarafan that clung to her body, she turned her face to Silan and said with a tender smile:

“You take too much care of me. I’m pretty strong, thank God!”

“I don’t when I kiss you,” said Silan with a shrug.

“You shouldn’t!” she whispered provokingly.

They said nothing for a while, devouring each other with hungry eyes.

The water rippled dreamily beneath the rafts. Somewhere far away on the lee the cocks began to crow.

The rafts sailed on with a faint rocking motion towards the thinning, melting darkness, where the clouds now stood out in sharper contours and lighter shades.

“Silan! D’you know what they were squealing about there? I know, honestly I do! Mitya must have been complaining about us to Sergei, and started whining for misery, and Sergei swore at us.”

Masha searched his face, which at her words had grown grim, cold and hard.

“Well, what of it?” he asked drily.

“Oh, nothing.”

“If it’s nothing, there was nothing to talk about.”

“Don’t be angry!”

“What, at you? I’d like to at times, but I just couldn’t.”

“Do you love your Masha?” she whispered playfully, bending towards him.

“Oo-ooch!” he ejaculated with an expressive grunt, and holding out his powerful arms to her, he said between clenched teeth:

“Come here… Don’t tease…”

She curved her lithe body like a cat and slipped softly into his arms.

“We’ll throw the rafts off it lie course again!” he whispered, kissing her face that flamed under his lips.

“Enough! It’s getting light… They can see us from the other end.”

She tried to wriggle free, but his arm tightened about her.

“Can they? Let ’em see! Let everybody see! To hell with them all. I’m committing a sin, that’s a fact. I know it. What of it? I’ll answer for it before God. You haven’t been his wife anyway. That means you’re free to do anything you like with yourself. It’s hard on him? I know it is. What about me? D’you think there’s anything flattering in living with a son’s wife? Though, it’s true, you’re not his wife… Still! Taking my social position, what do I look like now? And isn’t it a sin before God? It is! I know it all! And I’ve gone against it all. And damme, it’s worth it! We live once on this earth, and may die any day. Ah, Maria! If only I’d have waited another month before marrying off Mitya! Things would ha’ been different. As soon as Anfisa died. I’d have sent a matchmaker down to you – and the things done! All lawful and proper! No sin and no shame! It was my mistake. It’ll eat the heart out o’ me for five or ten years, that mistake will. Kill you before you die…”

“Oh, come, drop it, don’t worry about it. We’ve talked it over plenty and enough,” whispered Masha, and gently twisting out of his arms, she went back to her oar. He began jerkily and violently plying his oar as if desirous of shaking off the weight that pressed on his chest and cast a sudden shadow across his handsome face.

Day was breaking.

The clouds, growing thinner, straggled across the sky as if reluctant to make way for the rising sun. The water assumed the cold lint of steel.

“He mentioned it again the other day. ‘Dad,’ he says. ‘isn’t it a shame and disgrace for both you and me? Give her up’ – meaning you,” said Silan Petrov with a wry smile. “’Give her up and come to your senses.’ ‘My son.’ I says, ‘my dear son, get out o’ the way if you wish to keep alive! I’ll tear you to pieces like a rotten rag. There’ll be nothing left of your virtue. Cursed be the day that I brought such a degenerate like you into the world.’ He stood trembling. ‘Dad, is it my fault?’ he says. ‘It is your fault, you whimpering mongrel, ’cause you’re a stone in my path. It’s your fault ’cause you can’t stand up for yourself. You’re just carrion, that’s what you are – a stinking garbage. At least if you were strong one could kill you – but one can’t even do that to you, you miserable scarecrow.’ He started howling! Ah, Maria! Men haven’t got any gumption nowadays! Another fellow in my place – ugh! We’d soon shake off the noose! And we’re only putting our heads into it! Who knows but we’ll draw it tight about each other.”

“What do you mean?” Masha asked timidly, gazing fearfully at the grim face of the man, whose whole personality emanated a cold tremendous force.

“I mean if he died… that’s what I mean. If only he’d die… wouldn’t it be wonderful! Everything’d drop into its rut. I’d give your folks the land – that would keep their mouths shut – and you and I’d go to Siberia… or to the Kuban! Who’s she? She’s my wife. D’you get me? We’d obtain the necessary document… I’d open a shop in some village. And we’d live our lives together, and pray off our sin to God. We don’t need much. We’d help people, and they’d help us to ease our conscience… How’d you like it? Eh? Masha?!”

“Y-yes,” she sighed, and with eyes tightly screwed up, she became lost in thought.

They were silent for a while… There was no sound but the rippling of the water…

“He’s a sickly fellow… Maybe he’ll die soon…” said Silan Petrov in a muffled voice.

“I hope to God it happens soon!” murmured Masha in a fervid voice, and made a sign of the cross.

The beams of the spring sun streamed in a flood of sparkling gold and rainbow on the water. A wind rose, and everything quivered into life, stirred and smiled… The blue sky amid the clouds smiled too at the sun-kissed waters. The clouds were now left behind the rafts.

There, gathered in a dark heavy cluster, they hung irresolute and motionless over the broad river, as if contemplating a way of escape from the living spring sun, rich with joy and lustre, the inveterate enemy of these mothers of winter blizzards who had tarried before the onset of spring.

In front of the rafts the clear blue sky shone brightly, and the sun, still matutinally fresh but vernally brilliant, mounted majestically into the azure depths of the heavens out of the purple-gold waves of the river.

To the right loomed the tawny ridge of the hilly bank in a green girdle of forests, and to the left the pale emerald carpet of the meadows gleamed in a diamond spangle of dew.

The succulent smell of the earth, of new-born grass and the resinous odours of the pine were wafted on the air.

Silan Petrov threw a look at the oarsmen behind.

Sergei and Mitya stood motionless at their oars, but it was loo far to discern the expression on their faces.

He shafted his glance to Masha.

She was chilled. Standing by her oar, she shrank into a small round ball. All bathed in sunlight, she grazed before her with wistful eyes, her lips parted in that elusive alluring smile that makes even an unattractive woman seem fascinating and adorable.

’’Keep a lookout there, lads! Oho!” roared Silan Petrov with all the power of his lungs, feeling a mighty surge of elation rising in his broad chest.

His shout seemed to send everything rocking, and long did the startled echoes resound over the hilly bank.

1895

Twenty-Six Men and a Girl

We were twenty-six: men, twenty-six living machines cooped up in a dark hole of a basement where from morn till night we kneaded dough, making pretzels and cracknels. The windows of our basement faced a sunken area lined with bricks that were green with slime; the windows outside were encased in a close-set iron grating, and no ray of sunshine could reach us through the panes which were covered with meal. Our boss had fenced the windows off to prevent any of his bread going to beggars or to those of our comrades who were out of work and starving – our boss called us a bunch of rogues and gave us tainted tripe for dinner instead of meat…

Stuffy and crowded was life in that stony dungeon beneath a low-hanging ceiling covered by soot and cobwebs. Life was hard and sickening within those thick walls smeared with dirt stains and mildew… We got up at five in the morning, heavy with lack of sleep, and at six, dull and listless, we sat down to the table to make pretzels and cracknels out of the dough our comrades had prepared while we were sleeping. And all day long, from morning till ten o’clock at night some of us feat at the table kneading the stiff dough and swaying the body to fight numbness, while others were mixing flour and water. And all day long the simmering water in the cauldron where the pretzels were cooking gurgled pensively and sadly, and the baker’s shovel clattered angrily and swiftly on the hearthstone, throwing slippery cooked pieces of dough onto the hot bricks. From morning till night the wood burned at one end of the oven, and the ruddy glow of the flames flickered on the bakery walls, as though grinning at us. The huge oven resembled the ugly head of some fantastic monster thrust up from under the floor, its wide-open jaws ablaze with glowing lire breathing incandescent flames and heat at us, and watching our ceaseless toil through two sunken air-holes over its forehead. These two hollows were like eyes – the pitiless impassive eyes of a monster; they looked at us with an invariable dark scowl, as though weary with looking at slaves of whom nothing human could be expected, and whom they despised with the cold contempt of wisdom.

Day in, day out, amid the meal dust and the grime that we brought in on our feet from the yard, in the smelly stuffiness of the hot basement, we kneaded the dough and made pretzels which were sprinkled with our sweat, and we hated our work with a fierce hatred, and never ate what our hands had made, preferring black rye bread to pretzels. Sitting at a long table facing one another – nine men on each side – our hands and fingers worked mechanically through the long hours, and we had grown so accustomed to our work that we no longer watched our movements. And we had grown so accustomed to one another that each of us knew every furrow on his comrades’ faces. We had nothing to talk about, we were used to that, and were silent all the time – unless we swore, for there is always something one can swear at a man for, especially one’s comrade. But we rarely swore at each other – is a man to blame if he is half-dead, if he is like a stone image, if all his senses are blunted by the crushing burden of toil? Silence is awful and painful only for those who have said all there is to say; but to people whose words are still unspoken, silence is simple and easy… Sometimes we sang, and this is how our song would begin: during the work somebody would suddenly heave a deep sigh, like a weary horse, and begin softly to sing one of those long-drawn songs whose mournfully tender melody always lighten the heavy burden of the singer’s heart. One of the men would sing while we listened in silence to the lonely song, and it would fade and die away beneath the oppressive basement ceiling like the languishing flames of a campfire in the steppe on a wet autumn night, when the grey sky hangs over the earth like a roof of lead. Then another singer would join the first, and two voices would float drearily and softly in the stuffy heat of our crowded pen. And then suddenly several voices at once would take up the song – it would be lashed up like a wave, grow stronger and louder, and seem to break open the damp, heavy walls of our stony prison…

All the twenty-six are singing; loud voices, brought to harmony by long practice, fill the workshop; the song is cramped for room; it breaks against the stone walls, moaning and weeping, and stirs the heart with a gentle prickly pain, reopening old wounds and wakening anguish in the soul… The singers draw deep and heavy sighs; one will suddenly break off and sit listening for a long time to his comrades singing, then his voice will mingle again in the general chorus. Another will cry out dismally: “Ach!” singing with closed eyes, and maybe he sees the broad torrent of sound as a road leading far away, a wide road lit up by the brilliant sun, and he himself walking along it…

The flames in the oven still flicker, the baker’s shovel still scrapes on the brick, the water in the cauldron still bubbles and gurgles, the firelight on the wall still flutters in silent laughter… And we chant out, through words not our own, the dull ache within us, the gnawing grief of living men deprived of the sun, the grief of slaves. And so we lived, twenty-six men, in the basement of a big stone house, and so hard was our life, that it seemed as though the three stories of the house were built on our shoulders…

Besides our songs there was something else that we loved and cherished, something that perhaps filled the place of the sun for us. On the second floor of our house there was a gold embroidery workshop, and there, among many girl hands, lived sixteen-year old Tanya, a housemaid. Every morning a little pink face with blue merry eyes would be pressed to the pane of the little window cut into the door of our workshop leading into the passage, and a sweet ringing voice would call out to us:

“Jail-birdies! Give me some pretzels!”

We would all turn our heads to the sound of that clear voice and look kindly and joyfully at the pure girlish face that smiled at us so sweetly. We liked to see the nose squashed against the glass, the little white teeth glistening from under rosy lips parted in a smile. We would rush to open the door for her, jostling each other, and there she would be, so winsome and sunny, holding out her apron, standing before us with her little head slightly tilted, and her face all wreathed in smiles. A thick long braid of chestnut hair hung over her shoulder on her breast. We grimy, ignorant, ugly men look up at her – the threshold rises four steps above the floor – look up at her with raised heads and wish her good morning, and our words of greeting are special words, found only for her, When we speak to her our voices are softer, our joking lighter. Everything we have for her is special. The baker draws out of the oven a shovelful of the crustiest browned pretzels and shoots them adroitly into Tanya’s apron.

“Mind the boss doesn’t catch you!” we warn her. She laughs roguishly and cries merrily:

“Good-bye jail-birdies!” and vanishes in a twinkling like a little mouse.

And that is all… But long after she has gone we talk about her – we say the same things we said the day before and earlier, because she, and we, and everything around us are the same they were the day before and earlier… It is very painful and hard when a man lives, and nothing around him changes, and if it doesn’t kill the soul in him, the longer he lives the more painful does the immobility of things surrounding him become… We always talked of women in a way that sometimes made us feel disgusted with ourselves and our coarse shameless talk. That is not surprising, since the women we knew did not probably deserve to be talked of in any other way. But of Tanya we never said a bad word; no one of us ever dared to touch her with his hand and she never heard a loose joke from any of us. Perhaps it was because she never stayed long – she would flash before our gaze like a star falling from the heavens and vanish. Or perhaps it was because she was small and so very beautiful, and everything that is beautiful inspires respect, even with rough men. Moreover, though hard labour was turning us into dumb oxen, we were only human beings, and like all human beings, could not live without an object of worship. Finer than she there was nobody about us, and nobody else paid attention to us men living in the basement – though there were dozens of tenants in the house. And finally – probably chiefly – we regarded her as something that belonged to us, something that existed thanks only to our pretzels; we made it our duty to give her hot pretzels, and this became our daily sacrifice to the idol, almost a holy rite, that endeared her to us ever more from day to day. Besides pretzels we gave Tanya a good deal of advice – to dress warmly, not to run quickly upstairs, not to carry heavy bundles of firewood. She listened to our counsels with a smile, retorted with a laugh and never obeyed them, but we did not take offence – we were satisfied to show our solicitude for her.

Often she asked us to do things for her. She would, for instance, ask us to open a refractory door in the cellar or chop some wood, and we would gladly and with a peculiar pride do these things for her and anything else she asked.

But when one of us asked her to mend his only shirt, she sniffed scornfully and said:

“Catch me! Not likely!”

We enjoyed a good laugh at the silly fellow’s expense, and never again asked her to do anything. We loved her – and there all is said. A man always wants to foist his love on somebody or other, though it frequently oppresses, sometimes sullies, and his love may poison the life of a fellow creature, for in loving he does not respect the object of his love. We had to love Tanya, for there was no one else we could love.

At times one of us would suddenly begin to argue something like this:

“What’s the idea of making such a fuss over the kid? What’s there so remarkable about her anyway?”

We’d soon brusquely silence the fellow who spoke like that – we had to have something we could love: we found it, and loved it, and what we twenty-six loved stood for each of us, it was our holy of holies, and anybody who went against us in this matter was our enemy. We love, perhaps, what is not really good, but then there are twenty-six of us, and we therefore want the object of our adoration to be held sacred by others.

Our love is no less onerous than hate… and, perhaps, that is why some stiff-necked people claim that our hate is more flattering than love… But why do they not shun us if that is so?

* * *

In addition to the pretzel bakehouse our boss had a bun bakery. It was situated in the same house, and only a wall divided it from our hole. The bun bakers, however, of whom there were four, held themselves aloof from us, considered their work cleaner than ours, and themselves, therefore, better men; they never visited our workshop, and treated us with mocking scorn whenever they met us in the yard. Neither did we visit them – the boss banned such visits for fear we would steal buns. We did not like the bun bakers, because we envied them – their work was easier than ours, they got better wages, they were fed better, they had a roomy, airy workshop, and they were all so clean and healthy, and hence so odious. We, on the other hand, were all a yellow grey-faced lot; three of us were ill with syphilis, some were scabby, and one wag crippled by rheumatism. On holidays and off-days they used to dress up in suits and creaking high boots, two of them possessed accordions, and all used to go out for a stroll in the park, whilst we were dressed in filthy tatters, with rags or bast shoes on our feet, and the police wouldn’t let us into the park – now, could we love the bun bakers?

And one day we learned that their chief baker had taken to drink, that the boss had dismissed him and taken on another in his place, and that the new man was an ex-soldier who went about in a satin waistcoat and had a watch on a gold chain. We were curious to have a look at that dandy, and every now and then one of us would run out into the yard in the hope of seeing him.

But he came to our workshop himself. Kicking open the door he stood in the doorway, smiling, and said to us:

“Hullo! How do you do, boys!”

The frosty air rushing through the door in a smoky cloud eddied round his feet, while he stood in the doorway looking down at us, his large yellow teeth flashing from under his fair swaggering moustache. His waistcoat was indeed unique – a blue affair, embroidered with flowers, and all glittering, with buttons made of some kind of red stone. The chain was there too…

He was a handsome fellow, was that soldier – tall, strong, with ruddy cheeks and big light eyes that had a nice look in them – a kind, clean look. On his head he wore a white stiffly starched cap, and from under an immaculately clean apron peeped the pointed toes of a highly polished pair of fashionable boots.

Our chief baker politely asked him to close the door. He complied unhurriedly and began questioning us about the boss. We fell over each other telling him that the boss was a skinflint, a crook, a scoundrel and a tormentor – we told him everything there was to tell about the boss that couldn’t be put in writing here. The soldier listened, twitching his moustache and regarding us with that gentle, clear look of his.

“You’ve a lot of girls around here…” he said suddenly.

Some of us laughed politely, others pulled sugary faces, and some one informed the soldier that there were nine bits in the place.

“Use ’em?” asked the soldier with a knowing wink.

Again we laughed, a rather subdued, embarrassed laugh… Many of us would have liked to make the soldier believe they were as gay lads as he was. but they couldn’t do it, none of us could do it. Somebody confessed as much, saying quietly:

“How comes we…”

“M’yes, you’re a long way off!” said the soldier convincedly, subjecting us to a close scrutiny. “You’re not… er, up to the mark… Ain’t got the character… the proper shape… you know, looks! Looks is what a woman likes about a man! Give her a regular body… everything just so! Then of coarse she likes a bit of muscle… Likes an arm to be art arm, here’s the stuff!”

The soldier pulled his right hand out of his pocket, with the sleeve rolled back to the elbow, and held it up for us to see… He had a strong, white arm covered with shining golden hair.

“The leg, the chest – everything must be firm… And then a man’s got to be properly dressed… in shipshape form… Now, the women just fall for me. Mind you, I don’t call ’em or tempt ’em – they hang about my neck five at a time…”

He sat down on a sack of flour and spent a long time in telling us how the women loved him and how dashingly he treated them. Then be took his leave, and when the door closed behind him with a squeak, we sat on in a long silence, meditating over him and his stories. Then suddenly everybody spoke up at once, and it transpired that we had all taken a liking to him. Such a simple, nice fellow, the way he came in. sat down, and chatted. Nobody ever came to see us, nobody talked to us like that, in a friendly way… And we kept on talking about him and his future success with the seamstresses, who, on meeting us in the yard, either steered clear of us with lips offensively pursed, or bore straight down on us as though we did not stand in their path at all. And we only admired them, in the yard or when they passed our windows, dressed in cute little caps and fur coats in the winter, and in flowery hats with bright coloured parasols in the summer. But among ourselves we spoke of these girls in a way that, had they heard us, would have made them mad with shame and insult.

“I hope he doesn’t… spoil little Tanya!” said the chief baker suddenly in a tone of anxiety.

We were all struck dumb by this statement. We had somehow forgotten Tanya – the soldier seemed to have blotted her out with his large, handsome figure. Then a noisy argument broke out: some said that Tanya would not stand for it, some asserted that she would be unable to resist the soldier’s charms, and others proposed to break the fellow’s bones in the event of him making love to Tanya. Finally, all decided to keep a watch on the soldier and Tanya, and warn the kid to beware of him… That put a stop to the argument.

About a month passed. The soldier baked buns, went out with the seamstresses, frequently dropped in to see us, but never said anything about his victories – all he did was to turn up his moustache and lick his chops.

Tanya came every morning for her pretzels and was invariably gay, sweet and gentle. We tried to broach the subject of the soldier with her – she called him “a pop-eyed dummy” and other funny names and that set our minds at rest. We were proud of our little girl when we saw how the seamstresses clung to the soldier. Tanya’s attitude towards him bucked us all up, and under her influence as it were, we ourselves began to evince towards him an attitude of scorn. We loved her more than ever, and greeted her more gladly and kindly in the mornings.

One day, however, the soldier dropped in on us a little the worse for drink, sat down and began to laugh, and when we asked him what he was laughing at he explained:

“Two of them have had a fight over me… Lida and Grusha… You should have seen what they did to each other! A regular scream, ha-ha! One of ’em grabbed the other by the hair, dragged her all over the floor into the passage, then got on top of her… ha-ha-ha! Scratched each other’s mugs, tore their clothes… Wasn’t that funny! Now, why can’t these females have a straight fight? Why do they scratch, eh?”

He sat on a bench, looking so clean and healthy and cheerful, laughing without a stop. We said nothing. Somehow he was odious to us this time.

“Why am I such a lucky devil with the girls? It’s a scream! Why. I just wink my eye and the trick’s done!”

He raised his white hands covered with glossy hairs and brought them down on his knees with a slap. He surveyed us with a look of pleased surprise, as though himself genuinely astonished at the lucky turn of his affairs with the ladies. His plump ruddy physiognomy shone with smug pleasure and he repeatedly passed his tongue over his lips.

Our chief baker angrily rattled his shovel on the hearth and suddenly said sarcastically:

“It’s no great fun felling little fir trees – I’d like to see what you’d do with a pine!”

“Eh, what? Were you talking to me?” asked the soldier.

“Yes, you…

“What did you say?”

“Never mind… Let it lay…”

“Here, hold on! What’s it all about? What d’you mean – pine?”

Our baker did not reply. His shovel moved swiftly in the oven, tossing in boiled pretzels and discharging the baked ones noisily onto the floor where boys sat threading them on bast strings. He seemed to have forgotten the soldier. But the latter suddenly got excited. He rose to his feet and stepped up to the oven, exposing himself to the imminent danger of being struck in the chest by the shovel handle that whisked spasmodically in the air.

“Now, look here – who d’you mean? That’s an insult… Why, there ain’t a girl that could resist me! No fear! And here are you, hinting things against me…”

Indeed, he appeared to be genuinely offended. Evidently the only source of his self-respect was his ability to seduce women; perhaps this ability was the only living attribute he could boast, the only thing that made him feel a human being.

There are some people for whom life holds nothing better or higher than a malady of the soul or flesh. They cherish it throughout life, and it is the sole spring of life to them. While suffering from it they nourish themselves on it. They complain about it to people and in this manner command the interest of their neighbours. They exact a toll of sympathy from people, and this is the only thing in life they have. Deprive them of that malady, cure them of it, and they will be utterly miserable, because they will lose the sole sustenance of their life and become empty husks. Sometimes a man’s life is so poor that he is perforce obliged to cultivate a vice and thrive on it. One might say that people are often addicted to vide through sheer boredom. The soldier was stung to the quick. He bore down on our baker, whining:

“No, you tell me – who is it?”

“Shall I tell you?” said the baker, turning on him suddenly. “Well?”

“D’you know Tanya?”

“Well?”

“Well, there you are! See what you can do there…”

“Me?”

“Yes, you.”

“Her? Easier’n spitting!”

“We’ll see!”

“You’ll see! Ha-a!”

“Why, she’ll…”

“It won’t take a month!”

“You’re cocky, soldier, ain’t you?”

“A fortnight! I’ll show you! Who did you say? Tanya? Pshaw!”

“Come on, get out, you’re in the way!”

“A fortnight, and the trick’s done! Oh, you!..”

“Get out!”

The baker suddenly flew into a rage and brandished his shovel. The soldier fell back in amazement, then regarded us all for a while in silence, muttered grimly “All right!” and went out.

All through this argument we had kept our peace, our interest having been engaged in the conversation. But when the soldier left we all broke out into loud and animated speech.

Somebody cried out to the baker:

“That’s a bad business you’ve started, Pavel!”

“Get on with your work!” snapped the baker.

We realized that the soldier had been put on his high ropes and that Tanya was in danger. Yet, while realizing this, we were all gripped by a tense but thrilling curiosity as to what would be the outcome of it. Would Tanya hold her own against the soldier? We almost unanimously voiced the conviction:

“Tanya? She’ll hold her ground! She ain’t easy prey!”

We were terribly keen on testing our idol; we assiduously tried to convince each other that our idol was a staunch idol and would come out on top in this engagement. We ended up by expressing our doubts as to whether we had sufficiently goaded the soldier, fearing that he would forget the wager and that we would have to prick his conceit some more. Henceforth a new exciting interest had come into our lives, something we had never known before. We argued among ourselves for days on end; we all somehow seemed to have grown cleverer, spoke better and more. It seemed as though we were playing a sort of game with the devil, and the stake on our side was Tanya. And when we had learned from the bun bakers that the soldier had started to “make a dead set for Tanya” our excitement rose to such a furious pitch and life became such a thrilling experience for us that we did not even notice how the boss had taken advantage of our wrought up feelings to throw in extra work by raising the daily knead to fourteen poods of dough. We didn’t even seem to tire of the work. Tanya’s name was all day long on our lips. And we awaited her morning visits with a peculiar impatience. At times we fancied that when she came in to see us it would be a different Tanya, not the one we always knew.

We told her nothing, however, about the wager. We never asked her any questions and treated her in the same good-natured loving way. But something new had crept into our attitude, something that was alien to our former feelings for Tanya – and that new element was keen curiosity, keen and cold like a blade of steel…

“Boys! Time’s up today!” said the baker one morning as he began work.

We were well aware of it without his reminder. Yet we all started.

“You watch her… She’ll soon come in!” suggested the baker. Some one exclaimed in a tone of regret:

“It’s not a thing the eye can catch!”

And again a lively noisy argument sprang up. Today, at length, we would know how clean and incontaminate was the vessel in which we had laid all the treasure that we possessed. That morning we suddenly realized for the first time that we were gambling for high stakes, that this test of our idol might destroy it for us altogether. All these days we had been hearing that the soldier was doggedly pursuing Tanya with his attentions, but for some reason none of us asked her what her attitude was towards him. She continued regularly to call on us every morning for her pretzels and was always her usual self.

On that day, too, we soon heard her voice:

“Jail-birdies! I’ve come…”

We hastened to let her in, and when she came in we greeted her, contrary to our custom, with silence. We looked hard at her and were at a loss what to say to her. what to ask her. We stood before her in a silent sullen crowd. She was obviously surprised at the unusual reception, and suddenly we saw her turn pale, look anxious and stir restlessly. Then in a choky voice she asked:

“Why are you all so… strange!”

“What about you?” threw in the baker in a grim tone, his eyes fixed on her face.

“What about me?”

“Nothing…”

“Well, give me the pretzels, quick…”

“Plenty of time!” retorted the baker without stirring, his eyes still glued on her face.

She suddenly turned and disappeared through the door.

The baker picked up his shovel, and turning to the oven, let fall calmly:

“Well – she’s fixed! The soldier’s done it… the blighter!..”

We shambled back to the table like a herd of jostling sheep, sat down in silence and apathetically set to our work. Presently some one said: “Maybe it isn’t…”

“Shut up! Enough of that!” shouted the baker.

We all knew him for a clever man, cleverer than any of us. And that shout of his we understood as meaning that he was convinced of the soldier’s victory… We felt sad and perturbed…

At twelve o’clock – the lunch hour – the soldier came in. He was as always, clean and spruce and – as always – looked us straight in the eyes. We felt too ill at ease to look at him.

“Well, my dear sirs, d’you want me to show you what a soldier can do?” he said with a proud sneer. “You go out into the passage and peep through the cracks… get me?”

We trooped into the passage, and tumbling over each other, pressed our faces to the chinks in the wooden wall looking onto the yard. We did not have to wait long. Soon Tanya came through the yard with a hurried step and anxious look, skipping over puddles of thawed snow and mud. She disappeared through the door of the cellar. Presently the soldier sauntered past whistling, and he went in too. His hands were thrust into his pockets and he twitched his moustache…

It was raining and we saw the drops falling into the puddles which puckered up at the impacts. It was a grey wet day – a very bleak day. Snow still lay on the roofs, while on the ground dark patches of slush stood out here and there. On the roofs too the snow was covered with a brownish coating of dirt. It was cold and disagreeable, waiting in that passage…

The first to come out of the cellar was the soldier. He walked leisurely across the yard, twitching his moustache, his hands deep in his pockets – much the same he always was.

Then Tanya came out. Her eves… her eyes shone with joy and happiness, and her lips smiled. And she walked as though in a dream, swaying, with uncertain gait…

It was more than we could endure. We all made a sudden rush for the door, burst into the yard and began yelling and whistling at her in a fierce, loud, savage uproar.

She started when she saw us and stood stock-still, her feet in a dirty puddle. We surrounded her and cursed her with a sort of malicious glee in a torrent of profanity and shameless taunts.

We did it unhurriedly, quietly, seeing that she had no way of escape from the circle around her and that we could jeer at her to our heart’s content. It is strange, but we did not hit her.

She stood amid us and turned her head from side to side, listening to our insults. And we ever more fiercely, ever more furiously, flung at her the dirt and poison of our wrath.

Her face drained of life. Her blue eyes, which the moment before had looked so happy, were dilated, her breath came in gasps and her lips quivered.

And we, having surrounded her, were wreaking our vengeance on her – for had she not robbed us? She had belonged to us, we had spent our best sentiments on her, and though that best was a mere beggar’s pittance, we were twenty-six and she was one, and there was no anguish we could inflict that was fit to meet her guilt! How we insulted her!.. She said not a word, but simply gazed at us with a look of sheer terror and a long shudder went through her body.

We guffawed, we howled, we snarled… Other people joined us… One of us pulled the sleeve of Tanya’s blouse…

Suddenly her eyes blazed: she raised her hands in a slow gesture to put her hair straight, and said loudly but calmly, straight into our faces:

“Oh, you miserable jail-birds!..”

And she bore straight down on us, just as if we had not been there, had not stood in her path. Indeed, that is why none of us proved to be in her path.

When she was clear of our circle she added just as loudly without turning round, in a tone of scorn and pride “Oh, you filthy swine… You beasts… And she departed – straight, beautiful, and proud.

We were left standing in the middle of the yard amid the mud, under the rain and a grey sky that had no sun in it…

Then we too shuffled back to our damp stony dungeon. As of old, the sun never peered through our window, and Tanya came never more!..

1899