The Man Who Was Afraid Part 27

"Understand me, I am suffocating! It is close here. Is this life? Is this the way how to live? What am I? I am a hanger-on in my father's house. They keep me here as a housekeeper. Then they'll marry me! Again housekeeping. It's a swamp. I am drowning, suffocating."

"And what have I to do with it?" asked Foma.

"You are no better than the others."

"And therefore I am guilty before you?"

"Yes, guilty! You must desire to be better."

"But do I not wish it?" exclaimed Foma.

The girl was about to tell him something, but at this time the bell began to ring somewhere, and she said in a low voice, leaning back in her chair:

"It's father."

"I would not feel sorry if he stayed away a little longer," said Foma.

"I wish I could listen to you some more. You speak so very oddly."

"Ah! my children, my doves!" exclaimed Yakov Tarasovich, appearing in the doorway. "You're drinking tea? Pour out some tea for me, Lugava!"

Sweetly smiling, and rubbing his hands, he sat down near Foma and asked, playfully jostling him in the side:

"What have you been cooing about?"

"So--about different trifles," answered Luba.

"I haven't asked you, have I?" said her father to her, with a grimace.

"You just sit there, hold your tongue, and mind your woman's affairs."

"I've been telling her about the dinner," Foma interrupted his G.o.dfather's words.

"Aha! So-o-o. Well, then, I'll also speak about the dinner. I have been watching you of late. You don't behave yourself sensibly!"

"What do you mean?" asked Foma, knitting his brow, ill pleased.

"I just mean that your behaviour is preposterous, and that's all. When the governor, for instance, speaks to you, you keep quiet."

"What should I tell him? He says that it is a misfortune to lose a father. Well, I know it. What could I tell him?"

"But as the Lord willed it so, I do not grumble, your Excellency. That's what you should have said, or something in this spirit. Governors, my dear, are very fond of meekness in a man."

"Was I to look at him like a lamb?" said Foma, with a smile.

"You did look like a lamb, and that was unnecessary. You must look neither like a lamb, nor like a wolf, but just play off before him as though saying: 'You are our father, we are your children,' and he will immediately soften."

"And what is this for?"

"For any event. A governor, my dear, can always be of use somewhere."

"What do you teach him, papa?" said Luba, indignantly, in a low voice.

"Well, what?"

"To dance attendance."

"You lie, you learned fool! I teach him politics, not dancing attendance; I teach him the politics of life. You had better leave us alone! Depart from evil, and prepare some lunch for us. Go ahead!"

Luba rose quickly and throwing the towel across the back of the chair, left the room. Mayakin, winking his eyes, looked after her, tapped the table with his fingers and said:

"I shall instruct you, Foma. I shall teach you the most genuine, true knowledge and philosophy, and if you understand them, your life will be faultless."

Foma saw how the wrinkles on the old man's forehead were twitching, and they seemed to him like lines of Slavonic letters.

"First of all, Foma, since you live on this earth, it is your duty to think over everything that takes place about you. Why? That you may not suffer for your own senselessness, and may not harm others by your folly. Now, every act of man is double-faced, Foma. One is visible to all--this is the wrong side; the other is concealed--and that is the real one. It is that one that you must be able to find in order to understand the sense of the thing. Take for example the lodging-asylums, the work-houses, the poor-houses and other similar inst.i.tutions. Just consider, what are they for?"

"What is there to consider here?" said Foma, wearily "Everybody knows what they are for--for the poor and feeble."

"Eh, dear! Sometimes everybody knows that a certain man is a rascal and a scoundrel, and yet all call him Ivan or Peter, and instead of abusing him they respectfully add his father's name to his own."

"What has this to do with it?"

"It's all to the point. So you say that these houses are for the poor, for beggars, consequently, in accordance with Christ's commandment.

Very well! But who is the beggar? The beggar is a man, forced by fate to remind us of Christ; he is a brother of Christ; he is the bell of the Lord and he rings in life to rouse our conscience, to arouse the satiety of the flesh of man. He stands by the window and sings out: 'For the sake of Christ!' and by his singing he reminds us of Christ, of His holy commandment to help the neighbour. But men have so arranged their life that it is impossible for them to act according to the teachings of Christ, and Jesus Christ has become altogether unnecessary to us. Not one time, but perhaps a hundred thousand times have we turned Him over to the cross, and yet we cannot drive Him altogether out of life, because His poor brethren sing His Holy name on the streets and thus remind us of Him. And now we have arranged to lock up these beggars in separate houses that they should not walk around on the streets and should not rouse our conscience.

"Cle-ver!" whispered Foma, amazed, staring fixedly at his G.o.dfather.

"Aha!" exclaimed Mayakin, his eyes beaming with triumph.

"How is it that my father did not think of this?" asked Foma, uneasily.

"Just wait! Listen further, it is still worse. So you see, we have arranged to lock them up in all sorts of houses and that they might be kept there cheaply, we have compelled those old and feeble beggars to work and we need give no alms now, and since our streets have been cleared of the various ragged beggars, we do not see their terrible distress and poverty, and we may, therefore, think that all men on earth are well-fed, shod and clothed. That's what all these different houses are for, for the concealment of the truth, for the banishment of Christ from our life! Is this clear to you?"

"Yes!" said Foma, confused by the old man's clever words.

"And this is not all. The pool is not yet baled out to the bottom!"

exclaimed Mayakin, swinging his hand in the air with animation.

The wrinkles of his face were in motion; his long, ravenous nose was stirring, and in his voice rang notes of irritability and emotion.

"Now, let us look at this thing from the other side. Who contributes most in favour of the poor, for the support of these houses, asylums, poor-houses? The rich people, the merchants, our body of merchants.

Very well! And who commands our life and regulates it? The n.o.bles, the functionaries and all sorts of other people, not belonging to our cla.s.s.

From them come the laws, the newspapers, science--everything from them.

Before, they were land-owners, now their land was s.n.a.t.c.hed away from them--and they started out in service. Very well! But who are the most powerful people today? The merchant is the supreme power in an empire, because he has the millions on his side! Isn't that so?"

"True!" a.s.sented Foma, eager to hear the sooner that which was to follow, and which was already sparkling in the eyes of his G.o.dfather.

"Just mark this," the old man went on distinctly and impressively. "We merchants had no hand in the arrangement of life, nor do we have a voice or a hand in it today. Life was arranged by others, and it is they that multiplied all sorts of scabs in life--idlers and poor unfortunates; and since by multiplying them they obstructed life and spoilt it--it is, justly judging, now their duty to purify it. But we are purifying it, we contribute money for the poor, we look after them--we, judge it for yourself, why should we mend another's rags, since we did not tear them?

Why should we repair a house, since others have lived in it and since it belongs to others? Were it not wiser for us to step aside and watch until a certain time how rottenness is multiplying and choking those that are strangers to us? They cannot conquer it, they have not the means to do it. Then they will turn to us and say: 'Pray, help us, gentlemen!' and we'll tell them: 'Let us have room for our work! Rank us among the builders of this same life!' And as soon as they do this we, too, will have to clear life at one sweep of all sorts of filth and chaff. Then the Emperor will see with his clear eyes who are really his faithful servants, and how much wisdom they have saved up while their hands were idle. Do you understand?"