The Man Who Was Afraid Part 17

"This very wantonness of ours. Our steamer is perfect, clean--and suddenly there is a woman there! And if it were at least the right sort of a woman! But as it is, she merely bears the name of woman."

Foma frowned insinuatingly and addressed the captain, imperiously emphasizing his words:

"Yefim, I want you to bear it in mind, and to tell it to everybody here, that if anyone will utter an obscene word about her, I'll strike him on the head with a log of wood!"

"How terrible!" said Yefim, incredulously, looking into the master's face with curiosity. But he immediately made a step backward. Ignat's son, like a wolf, showed his teeth, the apples of his eyes became wider, and he roared:

"Laugh! I'll show you how to laugh!"

Though Yefim lost courage, he nevertheless said with dignity:

"Although you, Foma Ignatyich, are the master, yet as I was told, 'Watch, Yefim,' and then I am the captain here."

"The captain?" cried Foma, shuddering in every limb and turning pale.

"And who am I?"

"Well, don't bawl! On account of such a trifle as a woman."

Red spots came out on Foma's pale face, he shifted from one foot to the other, thrust his hands into the pockets of his jacket with a convulsive motion and said in a firm and even voice:

"You! Captain! See here, say another word against me--and you go to the devil! I'll put you ash.o.r.e! I'll get along as well with the pilot!

Understand? You cannot command me. Do you see?"

Yefim was dumfounded. He looked at his master and comically winked his eyes, finding no reply to his words.

"Do you understand, I say?"

"Yes. I understand!" drawled Yefim. "But what is all this noise about?

On account of--"

"Silence!"

Foma's eyes, which flashed wildly, and his face distorted with wrath, suggested to the captain the happy thought to leave his master as soon as possible and, turning around quickly, he walked off.

"Pshaw! How terrible! As it seems the apple did not fall too far from the tree," he muttered sneeringly, walking on the deck. He was angry at Foma, and considered himself offended for nothing, but at the same time he began to feel over himself the real, firm hand of a master. For years accustomed to being subordinate, he rather liked this manifestation of power over him, and, entering the cabin of the old pilot, he related to him the scene between himself and his master, with a shade of satisfaction in his voice.

"See?" he concluded his story. "A pup coming from a good breed is an excellent dog at the very first chase. From his exterior he is so-so. A man of rather heavy mind as yet. Well, never mind, let him have his fun. It seems now as though nothing wrong will come out of this. With a character like his, no. How he bawled at me! A regular trumpet, I tell you! And he appointed himself master at once. As though he had sipped power and strictness out of a ladle."

Yefim spoke the truth: during these few days Foma underwent a striking transformation. The pa.s.sion now kindled in him made him master of the soul and body of a woman; he eagerly absorbed the fiery sweetness of this power, and this burned out all that was awkward in him, all that gave him the appearance of a somewhat stupid, gloomy fellow, and, destroying it, filled his heart with youthful pride, with the consciousness of his human personality. Love for a woman is always fruitful to the man, be the love whatever it may; even though it were to cause but sufferings there is always much that is rich in it. Working as a powerful poison on those whose souls are afflicted, it is for the healthy man as fire for iron, which is to be transformed into steel.

Foma's pa.s.sion for the thirty-year-old woman, who lamented in his embraces her dead youth, did not tear him away from his affairs; he was never lost in the caresses, or in his affairs, bringing into both his whole self. The woman, like good wine, provoked in him alike a thirst for labour and for love, and she, too, became younger from the kisses of the youth.

In Perm, Foma found a letter waiting for him. It was from his G.o.dfather, who notified him that Ignat, out of anxiety for his son, had begun to drink heavily, and that it was harmful to drink thus, for a man of his age. The letter concluded with advice to hurry up matters in order to return home the sooner. Foma felt alarmed over this advice, and it clouded the clear holiday of his heart. But this shadow soon melted in his worries over his affairs, and in the caresses of Pelageya. His life streamed on with the swiftness of a river wave, and each day brought to him new sensations, awakening in him new thoughts. Pelageya's relations with him contained all the pa.s.sion of a mistress, all that power of feeling which women of her age put into their pa.s.sion when drinking the last drops from the cup of life. But at times a different feeling awoke in her, a feeling not less powerful, and by which Foma became still more attached to her--something similar to a mother's yearning to guard her beloved son from errors, to teach him the wisdom of life. Oftentimes at night, sitting in his embraces on the deck, she spoke to him tenderly and sadly:

"Mind me as an older sister of yours. I have lived, I know men. I have seen a great deal in my life! Choose your companions with care, for there are people just as contagious as a disease. At first you cannot tell them even when you see them; he looks to be a man like everybody else, and, suddenly, without being aware of it yourself, you will start to imitate him in life. You look around--and you find that you have contracted his scabs. I myself have lost everything on account of a friend. I had a husband and two children. We lived well. My husband was a clerk at a volost." She became silent and looked for a long time at the water, which was stirred by the vessel. Then she heaved a sigh and spoke to him again:

"May the Holy Virgin guard you from women of my kind--be careful. You are tender as yet, your heart has not become properly hardened. And women are fond of such as you--strong, handsome, rich. And most of all beware of the quiet women. They stick to a man like blood-suckers, and suck and suck. And at the same time they are always so kind, so gentle.

They will keep on sucking your juice, but will preserve themselves.

They'll only break your heart in vain. You had better have dealings with those that are bold, like myself. These live not for the sake of gain."

And she was indeed disinterested. In Perm Foma purchased for her different new things and what-not. She was delighted, but later, having examined them, she said sadly:

"Don't squander your money too freely. See that your father does not get angry. I love you anyway, without all this."

She had already told him that she would go with him only as far as Kazan, where she had a married sister. Foma could not believe that she would leave him, and when, on the eve of their arrival at Kazan, she repeated her words, he became gloomy and began to implore her not to forsake him.

"Do not feel sorry in advance," she said. "We have a whole night before us. You will have time to feel sorry when I bid you good-bye, if you will feel sorry at all."

But he still tried to persuade her not to forsake him, and, finally--which was to be expected--announced his desire to marry her.

"So, so!" and she began to laugh. "Shall I marry you while my husband is still alive? My darling, my queer fellow! You have a desire to marry, eh? But do they marry such women as I am? You will have many, many mistresses. Marry then, when you have overflowed, when you have had your fill of all sweets and feel like having rye bread. Then you may marry!

I have noticed that a healthy man, for his own peace, must not marry early. One woman will not be enough to satisfy him, and he'll go to other women. And for your own happiness, you should take a wife only when you know that she alone will suffice for you."

But the more she spoke, the more persistent Foma became in his desire not to part with her.

"Just listen to what I'll tell you," said the woman, calmly. "A splinter of wood is burning in your hand, and you can see well even without its light--you had better dip it into water, so that there will be no smell of smoke and your hand will not be burned."

"I do not understand your words."

"Do understand. You have done me no wrong, and I do not wish to do you any. And, therefore, I am going away."

It is hard to say what might have been the result of this dispute if an accident had not interfered with it. In Kazan Foma received a telegram from Mayakin, who wrote to his G.o.dson briefly: "Come immediately on the pa.s.senger steamer." Foma's heart contracted nervously, and a few hours later, gloomy and pale, his teeth set together, he stood on the deck of the steamer, which was leaving the harbour, and clinging to the rail with his hands, he stared motionlessly into the face of his love, who was floating far away from him together with the harbour and the sh.o.r.e.

Pelageya waved her handkerchief and smiled, but he knew that she was crying, shedding many painful tears. From her tears the entire front of Foma's shirt was wet, and from her tears, his heart, full of gloomy alarm, was sad and cold. The figure of the woman was growing smaller and smaller, as though melting away, and Foma, without lifting his eyes, stared at her and felt that aside from fear for his father and sorrow for the woman, some new, powerful and caustic sensation was awakening in his soul. He could not name it, but it seemed to him as something like a grudge against someone.

The crowd in the harbour blended into a close, dark and dead spot, faceless, formless, motionless. Foma went away from the rail and began to pace the deck gloomily.

The pa.s.sengers, conversing aloud, seated themselves to drink tea; the porters bustled about on the gallery, setting the tables; somewhere below, on the stern, in the third cla.s.s, a child was crying, a harmonica was wailing, the cook was chopping something with knives, the dishes were jarring--producing a rather harsh noise. Cutting the waves and making foam, shuddering under the strain and sighing heavily, the enormous steamer moved rapidly against the current. Foma looked at the wide strip of broken, struggling, and enraged waves at the stern of the steamer, and began to feel a wild desire to break or tear something; also to go, breast foremost, against the current and to ma.s.s its pressure against himself, against his breast and his shoulders.

"Fate!" said someone beside him in a hoa.r.s.e and weary voice.

This word was familiar to him: his Aunt Anfisa had often used it as an answer to his questions, and he had invested in this brief word a conception of a power, similar to the power of G.o.d. He glanced at the speakers: one of them was a gray little old man, with a kind face; the other was younger, with big, weary eyes and with a little black wedge-shaped beard. His big gristly nose and his yellow, sunken cheeks reminded Foma of his G.o.dfather.

"Fate!" The old man repeated the exclamation of his interlocutor with confidence, and began to smile. "Fate in life is like a fisherman on the river: it throws a baited hook toward us into the tumult of our life and we dart at it with greedy mouths. Then fate pulls up the rod--and the man is struggling, flopping on the ground, and then you see his heart is broken. That's how it is, my dear man."

Foma closed his eyes, as if a ray of the sun had fallen full on them, and shaking his head, he said aloud:

"True! That is true!"

The companions looked at him fixedly: the old man, with a fine, wise smile; the large-eyed man, unfriendly, askance. This confused Foma; he blushed and walked away, thinking of Fate and wondering why it had first treated him kindly by giving him a woman, and then took back the gift from him, so simply and abusively? And he now understood that the vague, caustic feeling which he carried within him was a grudge against Fate for thus sporting with him. He had been too much spoiled by life, to regard more plainly the first drop of poison from the cup which was just started, and he pa.s.sed all the time of the journey without sleep, pondering over the old man's words and fondling his grudge. This grudge, however, did not awaken in him despondency and sorrow, but rather a feeling of anger and revenge.

Foma was met by his G.o.dfather, and to his hasty and agitated question, Mayakin, his greenish little eyes flashing excitedly, said when he seated himself in the carriage beside his G.o.dson:

"Your father has grown childish."

"Drinking?"

"Worse--he has lost his mind completely."