The Man Who Was Afraid Part 67

"Gold mining, of course, is a solid business," said Taras, calmly, with importance, "but it is a rather risky operation and one requiring a large capital. The earth says not a word about what it contains within it. It is very profitable to deal with foreigners. Dealings with them, under any circ.u.mstances, yield an enormous percentage. That is a perfectly infallible enterprise. But a weary one, it must be admitted.

It does not require much brains; there is no room in it for an extraordinary man; a man with great enterprising power cannot develop in it."

Lubov entered and invited them all into the dining-room. When the Mayakins stepped out Foma imperceptibly tugged Lubov by the sleeve, and she remained with him alone, inquiring hastily:

"What is it?"

"Nothing," said Foma, with a smile. "I want to ask you whether you are glad?"

"Of course I am!" exclaimed Lubov.

"And what about?"

"That is, what do you mean?"

"Just so. What about?"

"You're queer!" said Lubov, looking at him with astonishment. "Can't you see?"

"What?" asked Foma, sarcastically.

"What's the trouble with you?" said Lubov, looking at him uneasily.

"Eh, you!" drawled out Foma, with contemptuous pity. "Can your father, can the merchant cla.s.s beget anything good? Can you expect a radish to bring forth raspberries? And you lied to me. Taras is this, Taras is that. What is in him? A merchant, like the other merchants, and his paunch is also that of the real merchant. He-he!" He was satisfied, seeing that the girl, confused by his words, was biting her lips, now flushing, now turning pale.

"You--you, Foma," she began, in a choking voice, and suddenly stamping her foot, she cried:

"Don't you dare to speak to me!"

On reaching the threshold of the room, she turned her angry face to him, and e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed in a low voice, emphatically:

"Oh, you malicious man!"

Foma burst into laughter. He did not feel like going to the table, where three happy people were engaged in a lively conversation. He heard their merry voices, their contented laughter, the rattle of the dishes, and he understood that, with that burden on his heart, there was no place for him beside them. Nor was there a place for him anywhere. If all people only hated him, even as Lubov hated him now, he would feel more at ease in their midst, he thought. Then he would know how to behave with them, would find something to say to them. While now he could not understand whether they were pitying him or whether they were laughing at him, because he had lost his way and could not conform himself to anything.

As he stood awhile alone in the middle of the room, he unconsciously resolved to leave this house where people were rejoicing and where he was superfluous. On reaching the street, he felt himself offended by the Mayakins. After all, they were the only people near to him in the world.

Before him arose his G.o.dfather's face, on which the wrinkles quivered with agitation, and illuminated by the merry glitter of his green eyes, seemed to beam with phosphoric light.

"Even a rotten trunk of a tree stands out in the dark!" reflected Foma, savagely. Then he recalled the calm and serious face of Taras and beside it the figure of Lubov bowing herself hastily toward him. That aroused in him feelings of envy and sorrow.

"Who will look at me like that? There is not a soul to do it."

He came to himself from his broodings on the sh.o.r.e, at the landing-places, aroused by the bustle of toil. All sorts of articles and wares were carried and carted in every direction; people moved about hastily, care-worn, spurring on their horses excitedly, shouting at one another, filling the street with unintelligible bustle and deafening noise of hurried work. They busied themselves on a narrow strip of ground, paved with stone, built up on one side with tall houses, and the other side cut off by a steep ravine at the river, and their seething bustle made upon Foma an impression as though they had all prepared themselves to flee from this toil amid filth and narrowness and tumult--prepared themselves to flee and were now hastening to complete the sooner the unfinished work which would not release them. Huge steamers, standing by the sh.o.r.e and emitting columns of smoke from their funnels, were already awaiting them. The troubled water of the river, closely obstructed with vessels, was softly and plaintively splashing against the sh.o.r.e, as though imploring for a minute of rest and repose.

"Your Honour!" a hoa.r.s.e cry rang out near Foma's ears, "contribute some brandy in honour of the building!"

Foma glanced at the pet.i.tioner indifferently; he was a huge, bearded fellow, barefooted, with a torn shirt and a bruised, swollen face.

"Get away!" muttered Foma, and turned away from him.

"Merchant! When you die you can't take your money with you. Give me for one gla.s.s of brandy, or are you too lazy to put your hand into your pocket?"

Foma again looked at the pet.i.tioner; the latter stood before him, covered more with mud than with clothes, and, trembling with intoxication, waited obstinately, staring at Foma with blood-shot, swollen eyes.

"Is that the way to ask?" inquired Foma.

"How else? Would you want me to go down on my knees before you for a ten-copeck piece?" asked the bare-footed man, boldly.

"There!" and Foma gave him a coin.

"Thanks! Fifteen copecks. Thanks! And if you give me fifteen more I'll crawl on all fours right up to that tavern. Do you want me to?" proposed the barefooted man.

"Go, leave me alone!" said Foma, waving him off with his hand.

"He who gives not when he may, when he fain would, shall have nay," said the barefooted man, and stepped aside.

Foma looked at him as he departed, and said to himself:

"There is a ruined man and yet how bold he is. He asks alms as though demanding a debt. Where do such people get so much boldness?"

And heaving a deep sigh, he answered himself:

"From freedom. The man is not fettered. What is there that he should regret? What does he fear? And what do I fear? What is there that I should regret?"

These two questions seemed to strike Foma's heart and called forth in him a dull perplexity. He looked at the movement of the working people and kept on thinking: What did he regret? What did he fear?

"Alone, with my own strength, I shall evidently never come out anywhere.

Like a fool I shall keep on tramping about among people, mocked and offended by all. If they would only jostle me aside; if they would only hate me, then--then--I would go out into the wide world! Whether I liked or not, I would have to go!"

From one of the landing wharves the merry "dubinushka" ["Dubinushka,"

or the "Oaken Cudgel," is a song popular with the Russian workmen.] had already been smiting the air for a long time. The carriers were doing a certain work, which required brisk movements, and were adapting the song and the refrain to them.

"In the tavern sit great merchants Drinking liquors strong,"

narrated the leader, in a bold recitative. The company joined in unison:

"Oh, dubinushka, heave-ho!"

And then the ba.s.sos smote the air with deep sounds:

"It goes, it goes."

And the tenors repeated:

"It goes, it goes."

Foma listened to the song and directed his footsteps toward it, on the wharf. There he noticed that the carriers, formed in two rows, were rolling out of the steamer's hold huge barrels of salted fish. Dirty, clad in red blouses, unfastened at the collar, with mittens on their hands, with arms bare to the elbow, they stood over the hold, and, merrily jesting, with faces animated by toil, they pulled the ropes, all together, keeping time to their song. And from the hold rang out the high, laughing voice of the invisible leader:

"But for our peasant throats There is not enough vodka."