Twenty-six and One and Other Stories Part 10

Tchelkache gazed at him with astonishment.

"What's the matter with you?" he asked.

"Nothing."

But Gavrilo's face grew red and then ashy pale. The lad moved his feet restlessly as though he would have thrown himself upon Tchelkache, or as though he were torn by Borne secret desire difficult to realize.

His suppressed excitement moved Tchelkache to some apprehension. He wondered what form it would take in breaking out.

Gavrilo gave a laugh, a strange laugh, like a sob. His head was bent, so that Tchelkache could not see the expression of his face; he could only perceive Gavrilo's ears, by turns red and white.

"Go to the devil!" exclaimed Tchelkache, motioning with his hand. "Are you in love with me? Say? Look at you mincing like a young girl. Are you distressed at leaving me? Eh! youngster, speak, or else I'm going!"

"You're going?" cried Gavrilo, in a sonorous voice. The deserted and sandy beach trembled at this cry, and the waves of sand brought by the waves of the sea seemed to shudder. Tchelkache also shuddered.

Suddenly Gavrilo darted from his place, and throwing himself at Tchelkache's feet, entwined his legs with his arms and drew him toward him. Tchelkache tottered, sat down heavily on the sand, and gritting his teeth, brandished his long arm and closed fist in the air. But before he had time to strike, he was stopped by the troubled and suppliant look of Gavrilo.

"Friend! Give me . . . that money! Give it to me, in the name of Heaven. What need have you of it? It is the earnings of one night . . . a single night . . . And it would take me years to get as much as that. . . Give it to me. . . I'll pray for you . . . all my life . . . in three churches . . . for the safety of your soul. You'll throw it to the winds, and I'll give it to the earth. Oh! give me that money. What will you do with it, say? Do you care about it as much as that? One night . . . and you are rich! Do a good deed! You are lost, you! . . . You'll never come back again to the way, while I!

. . . Ah! give it to me!"

Tchelkache frightened, astonished and furious threw himself backward, still seated on the sand, and leaning on his two hands silently gazed at him, his eyes starting from their orbits; the lad leaned his head on his knees and gasped forth his supplications. Tchelkache finally pushed him away, jumped to his feet, and thrusting his hand into his pocket threw the multi-colored bills at Gavrilo.

"There, dog, swallow them!" he cried trembling with mingled feelings of anger, pity and hate for this greedy slave. Now that he had thrown him the money, he felt himself a hero. His eyes, his whole person, beamed with conscious pride.

"I meant to have given you more. I pitied you yesterday. I thought of the village. I said to myself: 'I'll help this boy.' I was waiting to see what you'd do, whether you'd ask me or not. And now, see!

tatterdemalion, beggar, that you are! . . . Is it right to work oneself up to such a state for money . . . to suffer like that?

Imbeciles, greedy devils who forget . . . who would sell themselves for five kopeks, eh?"

"Friend . . . Christ's blessing on you! What is this? What?

Thousands? . . . I'm a rich man, now!" screamed Gavrilo, in a frenzy of delight, hiding the money in his blouse. "Ah! dear man! I shall, never forget this! never! And I'll beg my wife and children to pray for you."

Tchelkache listened to these cries of joy, gazed at this face, irradiated and disfigured by the pa.s.sion of covetousness; he felt that he himself, the thief and vagabond, freed from all restraining influence, would never become so rapacious, so vile, so lost to all decency. Never would he sink so low as that! Lost in these reflections, which brought to him the consciousness of his liberty and his audacity, he remained beside Gavrilo on the lonely sh.o.r.e.

"You have made me happy!" cried Gavrilo, seizing Tchelkache's hand and laying it against his cheek.

Tchelkache was silent and showed his teeth like a wolf. Gavrilo continued to pour out his heart.

"What an idea that was of mine! We were rowing here . . . I saw the money . . . I said to myself:

"Suppose I were to give him . . . give you . . . a blow with the oar . . . just one! The money would be mine; as for him, I'd throw him in the sea . . . you, you understand? Who would ever notice his disappearance? And if you were found, no inquest would be made: who, how, why had you been killed? You're not the kind of man for whom any stir would be made! You're of no use on the earth! Who would take your part? That's the way it would be! Eh?"

"Give back that money!" roared Tchelkache, seizing Gavrilo by the throat.

Gavrilo struggled, once, twice . . . but Tchelkache's other arm entwined itself like a serpent around him . . . a noise of tearing linen,--and Gavrilo slipped to the ground with bulging eyes, catching at the air with his hands and waving his legs. Tchelkache, erect, spare, like a wild beast, showed his teeth wickedly and laughed harshly, while his moustache worked nervously on his sharp, angular face. Never, in his whole life, had he been so deeply wounded, and never had his anger been so great.

"Well! Are you happy, now?" asked he, still laughing, of Gavrilo, and turning his back to him, he walked away in the direction of the town.

But he had hardly taken two steps when Gavrilo, crouching like a cat, threw a large, round stone at him, crying furiously:

"O--one!"

Tchelkache groaned, raised his hands to the back of his neck and stumbled forward, then turned toward Gavrilo and fell face downward on the sand. He moved a leg, tried to raise his head and stiffened, vibrating like a stretched cord. At this, Gavrilo began to run, to run far away, yonder, to where the shadow of that ragged cloud overhung the misty steppe. The murmuring waves, coursing over the sands, joined him and ran on and on, never stopping. The foam hissed, the spray flew through the air.

The rain fell. Slight at first, it soon came down thickly, heavily and came from the sky in slender streams. They crossed, forming a net that soon shut off the distance on land and water. For a long time there was nothing to be seen but the rain and this long body lying on the sand beside the sea . . . But suddenly, behold Gavrilo coming from out the rain, running; he flew like a bird. He went up to Tchelkache, fell upon his knees before him, and tried to turn him over. His hand sank into a sticky liquid, warm and red. He trembled and drew back, pale and distracted.

"Get up, brother!" he whispered amid the noise of the falling rain into the ear of Tchelkache.

Tchelkache came to himself and, repulsing Gavrilo, said in a hoa.r.s.e voice:

"Go away!"

"Forgive me, brother: I was tempted by the devil . . ." continued Gavrilo, trembling and kissing Tchelkache's hand.

"Go, go away!" growled the other.

"Absolve my sin! Friend . . . forgive me!"

"Go, go to the devil!" suddenly cried out Tchelkache, sitting up on the sand. His face was pale, threatening; his clouded eyes closed as though he were very sleepy . . . "What do you want, now? You've finished your business . . . go! Off with you!"

He tried to kick Gavrilo, prostrated by grief, but failed, and would have fallen if Gavrilo hadn't supported him with his shoulders.

Tchelkache's face was now on a level with Gavrilo's. Both were pale, wretched and terrifying.

"Fie!"

Tchelkache spat in the wide opened eyes of his employe.

The other humbly wiped them with his sleeve, and murmured:

"Do what you will . . . I'll not say one word. Pardon me, in the name of Heaven!"

"Fool, you don't even know how to steal!" cried Tchelkache, contemptuously. He tore his shirt under his waistcoat and, gritting his teeth in silence, began to bandage his head.

"Have you taken the money?" he asked, at last.

"I haven't taken it, brother; I don't want it! It brings bad luck!"

Tchelkache thrust his hand into his waistcoat pocket, withdrew the package of bills, put one of them in his pocket and threw all the rest at Gavrilo.

"Take that and be off!"

"I cannot take it . . . I cannot! Forgive me!"

"Take it, I tell you!" roared Tchelkache, rolling his eyes frightfully.

"Pardon me! When you have forgiven me I'll take it," timidly said Gavrilo, falling on the wet sand at Tchelkache's feet.

"You lie, fool, you'll take it at once!" said Tchelkache, confidently, and raising his head, by a painful effort, he thrust the money before his face. "Take it, take it! You haven't worked for nothing! Don't be ashamed of having failed to a.s.sa.s.sinate a man! No one will claim anyone like me. You'll be thanked, on the contrary, when it's learned what you've done. There, take it! No one'll know what you've done and yet it deserves some reward! Here it is!"

Gavrilo saw that Tchelkache was laughing, and he felt relieved. He held the money tightly in his hand.