The Man Who Was Afraid Part 14

"That will be nice!" exclaimed Luba, ironically.

"I shall hold my ground without science," said Foma, sarcastically. "And I'll have a laugh at all the learned people. Let the hungry study. I don't need it."

"Pshaw, how stupid you are, bad, disgusting!" said the girl with contempt and went away, leaving him alone in the garden. Offended and gloomy, he looked after her, moved his eyebrows and lowering his head, slowly walked off into the depth of the garden.

He already began to recognise the beauty of solitude and the sweet poison of contemplation. Oftentimes, during summer evenings, when everything was coloured by the fiery tints of sunset, kindling the imagination, an uneasy longing for something incomprehensible penetrated his breast. Sitting somewhere in a dark corner of the garden or lying in bed, he conjured up before him the images of the fairy-tale princesses--they appeared with the face of Luba and of other young ladies of his acquaintance, noiselessly floating before him in the twilight and staring into his eyes with enigmatic looks. At times these visions awakened in him a mighty energy, as though intoxicating him--he would rise and, straightening his shoulders, inhale the perfumed air with a full chest; but sometimes these same visions brought to him a feeling of sadness--he felt like crying, but ashamed of shedding tears, he restrained himself and never wept in silence. Or suddenly his heart began to tremble with the desire to express his grat.i.tude to G.o.d, to bow before Him; the words of the prayer flashed through his memory, and beholding the sky, he whispered them for a long time, one by one, and his heart grew lighter, breathing into prayer the excess of his power.

The father patiently and carefully introduced him into commercial circles, took him on the Exchange, told him about his contracts and enterprises, about his co-a.s.sociates, described to him how they had made their way, what fortunes they now possessed, what natures were theirs.

Foma soon mastered it, regarding everything seriously and thoughtfully.

"Our bud is blooming into a blood-red cup-rose!" Mayakin smiled, winking to Ignat.

And yet, even when Foma was nineteen years old, there was something childish in him, something naive which distinguished him from the boys of his age. They were laughing at him, considering him stupid; he kept away from them, offended by their relations toward him. As for his father and Mayakin, who were watching him vigilantly, this uncertainty of Foma's character inspired them with serious apprehensions.

"I cannot understand him!" Ignat would say with contrite heart. "He does not lead a dissipated life, he does not seem to run after the women, treats me and you with respect, listens to everything--he is more like a pretty girl than a fellow! And yet he does not seem to be stupid!"

"No, there's nothing particularly stupid about him," said Mayakin.

"It looks as though he were waiting for something--as though some kind of shroud were covering his eyes. His late mother groped on earth in the same way.

"Just look, there's Afrikanka Smolin, but two years older than my boy--what a man he has become! That is, it is difficult to tell whether he is his father's head or his father his. He wants to go to some factory to study. He swears:

"'Eh,' says he, 'papa, you have not taught me enough.' Yes. While mine does not express himself at all. Oh Lord!"

"Look here," Mayakin advised him, "you had better push him head foremost into some active business! I a.s.sure you! Gold is tested in fire. We'll see what his inclinations are when at liberty. Send him out on the Kama--alone."

"To give him a trial?"

"Well, he'll do some mischief--you'll lose something--but then we'll know what stuff he is made of."

"Indeed--I'll send him off," Ignat decided.

And thus in the spring, Ignat sent his son off on the Kama with two barges laden with corn. The barges were led by Gordyeeff's steamer "Philezhny," under the command of Foma's old acquaintance, the former sailor Yefim--now, Yefim Ilyich, a squarely built man of about thirty with lynx-like eyes--a sober-minded, steady and very strict captain.

They sailed fast and cheerfully, because all were contented. At first Foma was proud of the responsible commission with which he had been charged. Yefim was pleased with the presence of the young master, who did not rebuke or abuse him for each and every oversight; and the happy frame of mind of the two most important persons on the steamer reflected in straight rays on the entire crew. Having left the place where they had taken in their cargo of corn in April, the steamer reached the place of its destination in the beginning of May, and the barges were anch.o.r.ed near the sh.o.r.e with the steamer at their side. Foma's duty was to deliver the corn as soon as possible, and receiving the payments, start off for Perm, where a cargo of iron was awaiting him, which Ignat had undertaken to deliver at the market.

The barges stood opposite a large village, near a pine forest, about two versts distant from the sh.o.r.e. On the very next day after their arrival, a big and noisy crowd of women and peasants, on foot and on horses, came up to the sh.o.r.e early in the morning. Shouting and singing, they scattered on the decks and in an instant work started expeditiously.

Having descended into the holds, the women were filling the sacks with rye, the peasants, throwing the sacks upon their shoulders, ran over the gang-planks to the sh.o.r.e, and from the sh.o.r.e, carts, heavily laden with the long-expected corn, went off slowly to the village. The women sang songs; the peasants jested and gaily abused one another; the sailors representing the guardians of peace, scolded the working people now and then; the gang-planks, bending under the feet of the carriers, splashed against the water heavily; while on the sh.o.r.e the horses neighed, and the carts and the sand under the wheels were creaking.

The sun had just risen, the air was fresh and invigorating and densely filled with the odour of pines; the calm water of the river, reflecting the clear sky, was gently murmuring, breaking against the sides of the vessels and the chains of the anchors. The loud and cheerful noise of toil, the youthful beauty of nature, gaily illumined by the sunbeams--all was full of a kind-hearted, somewhat crude, sound power, which pleasantly stirred Foma's soul, awakening in him new and perplexed sensations and desires. He was sitting by the table under the awning of the steamer and drinking tea, together with Yefim and the receiver of the corn, a provincial clerk--a redheaded, short-sighted gentleman in gla.s.ses. Nervously shrugging his shoulders the receiver was telling in a hoa.r.s.e voice how the peasants were starving, but Foma paid little attention to his words, looking now at the work below, now at the other side of the river--a tall, yellow, sandy steep sh.o.r.e, whose edges were covered with pine trees. It was unpeopled and quiet.

"I'll have to go over there," thought Foma. And as though from a distance the receiver's tiresome, unpleasant, harsh voice fell on his ears:

"You wouldn't believe it--at last it became horrible! Such an incident took place! A peasant came up to a certain intelligent man in Osa and brought along with him a girl about sixteen years old.

"'What do you wish?"

"'Here,' he says, 'I've brought my daughter to your Honour.'

"'What for?'

"'Perhaps,' he says, 'you'll take her--you are a bachelor.'

"'That is, how? What do you mean?'

"'I took her around town,' he says. 'I wanted to hire her out as a servant--but n.o.body would have her--take her at least as your mistress!'

"Do you understand? He offered his own daughter--just think of it! A daughter--as a mistress! The devil knows what that is! Eh? The man, of course, became indignant and began abusing the peasant. But the peasant spoke to him reasonably:

"'Your Honour! Of what use is she to me at this time? Utterly useless.

I have,' says he, 'three boys--they will be working men; it is necessary to keep them up. Give me,' says he, 'ten roubles for the girl, and that will improve my lot and that of my boys.'

"How is that? Eh? It is simply terrible, I tell you."

"No good!" sighed Yefim. "As they say--hunger will break through stone walls. The stomach, you see, has its own laws."

This story called forth in Foma a great incomprehensible interest in the fate of the girl, and the youth hastened to enquire of the receiver:

"Well, did the man buy her?"

"Of course not!" exclaimed the receiver, reproachfully.

"Well, and what became of her?"

"Some good people took pity on her--and provided for her."

"A-h!" drawled Foma, and suddenly he said firmly and angrily: "I would have given that peasant such a thrashing! I would have broken his head!"

And he showed the receiver his big tightly-clenched fist.

"Eh! What for?" cried the receiver in a sickly, loud voice, tearing his spectacles from his eyes. "You do not understand the motive."

"I do understand it!" said Foma, with an obstinate shake of his head.

"But what could he do? It came to his mind."

"How can one allow himself to sell a human being?"

"Ah! It is brutal, I agree with you."

"And a girl at that! I would have given him the ten roubles!"

The receiver waved his hand hopelessly and became silent. His gesture confused Foma. He arose from his seat, walked off to the railing and looked down at the deck of the barge, which was covered with an industriously working crowd of people. The noise intoxicated him, and the uneasy something, which was rambling in his soul, was now defined into a powerful desire to work, to have the strength of a giant, to possess enormous shoulders and put on them at one time a hundred bags of rye, that every one looking at him might be astonished.

"Come now, hurry up there!" he shouted down in a ringing voice. A few heads were raised to him, some faces appeared before him, and one of them--the face of a dark-eyed woman--smiled at him a gentle and enticing smile. Something flared up in his breast at this smile and began to spread over his veins in a hot wave. He drew back from the railing and walked up to the table again, feeling that his cheeks were burning.

"Listen!" said the receiver, addressing him, "wire to your father asking him to allow some grain for waste! Just see how much is lost here. And here every pound is precious! You should have understood this! What a fine father you have," he concluded with a biting grimace.

"How much shall I allow?" asked Foma, boldly and disdainfully. "Do you want a hundred puds? [A pud is a weight of 40 Russian pounds.] Two hundred?"