Yama (The Pit) Part 32

"There are no inborn tastes, as well as abilities. Otherwise talents would be born only in refined, highly educated society; while artists would be born only to artists, and singers to singers; but we don't see this. However, I won't argue. Well, if not a flower girl, then something else. I, for instance, saw not long ago in a store show window a miss sitting, and some sort of a little machine with foot-power before her."

"V-VA! Again a little machine!" said the prince, smiling and looking at Lichonin.

"Stop it, Nijeradze," answered Lichonin, quietly but sternly. "You ought to be ashamed."

"Blockhead!" Soloviev threw at him, and continued.

"So, then, the machine moves back and forth, while upon it, on a square frame, is stretched a thin canvas, and really, I don't know how it's contrived, I didn't grasp it; only the miss guides some metallic thingamajig over the screen, and there comes out a fine drawing in vari-coloured silks. Just imagine, a lake, all grown over with pond-lilies with their white corollas and yellow stamens, and great green leaves all around. And on the water two white swans are floating toward each other, and in the background is a dark park with an alley; and all this shows finely, distinctly, as on a picture from life. And I became so interested that I went in on purpose to find out how much it costs. It proved to be just the least bit dearer than an ordinary sewing machine, and it's sold on terms. And any one who can sew a little on a common machine can learn this art in an hour. And there's a great number of charming original designs. And the main thing is that such work is very readily taken for fire-screens, alb.u.ms, lamp-shades, curtains and other rubbish, and the pay is decent."

"After all, that's a sort of a trade, too," agreed Lichonin, and stroked his beard in meditation. "But, to confess, here's what I wanted to do. I wanted to open up for her ... to open up a little cook-shop or dining room, the very tiniest to start with, of course, but one in which all the food is cheap, clean and tasty. For it's absolutely all the same to many students where they dine and what they eat. There are almost never enough places to go round in the students' dining room.

And so we may succeed, perhaps, in pulling in all our acquaintances and friends, somehow."

"That's true," said the prince, "but impractical as well; we'll begin to board on credit. And you know what accurate payers we are. A practical man, a knave, is needed for such an undertaking; and if a woman, then one with a pike's teeth; and even then a man must absolutely stick right at her back. Really, it's not for Lichonin to stand at the counter and to watch that somebody shouldn't suddenly wine and dine and slip away."

Lichonin looked straight at him, insolently, but only set his jaws and let it pa.s.s in silence.

Simanovsky began in his measured, incontrovertible tone, toying with the gla.s.ses of his PINCE-NEZ:

"Your intention is splendid, gentlemen, beyond dispute. But have you turned your attention to a certain shady aspect, so to speak? For to open a dining room, to start some business--all this in the beginning demands money, a.s.sistance--somebody else's back, so to speak. The money is not grudged--that is true, I agree with Lichonin; but then, does not such a beginning of an industrious life, when every step is provided for--does it not lead to inevitable laxity and negligence, and, in the very end, to an indifferent disdain for business? Even a child does not learn to walk until it has flopped down some fifty times. No; if you really want to help this poor girl, you must give her a chance of getting on her feet at once, like a toiling being, and not like a drone. True, there is a great temptation here--the burden of labour, temporary need; but then, if she will surmount this, she will surmount the rest as well."

"What, then, according to you, is she to become--a dish-washer?" asked Soloviev with unbelief.

"Well, yes," calmly retorted Simanovsky. "A dish-washer, a laundress, a cook. All toil elevates a human being."

Lichonin shook his head.

"Words of gold. Wisdom itself speaks with your lips, Simanovsky.

Dish-washer, cook, maid, housekeeper ... but, in the first place, it's doubtful if she's capable for that; in the second place, she has already been a maid and has tasted all the sweets of masters' bawlings out, and masters' pinches behind doors, in the corridor. Tell me, is it possible you don't know that ninety per cent, of prost.i.tution is recruited from the number of female servants? And, therefore, poor Liuba, at the very first injustice, at the first rebuff, will the more easily and readily go just there where I have gotten her out of; if not even worse, because for her that's customary and not so frightful; and, perhaps, it will even seem desirable after the masters' treatment. And besides that, is it worth while for me--that is, I want to say--is it worth while for all of us, to go to so much trouble, to try so hard and put ourselves out so, if, after having saved a being from one slavery, we only plunge her into another?"

"Right," confirmed Soloviev.

"Just as you wish," drawled Simanovsky with a disdainful air.

"But as far as I'm concerned," said the prince, "I'm ready, as a friend and a curious man, to be present at this experiment and to partic.i.p.ate in it. But even this morning I warned you, that there have been such experiments before and that they have always ended in ignominious failure, at least those of which we know personally; while those of which we know only by hearsay are dubious as regards authenticity. But you have begun the business--and go on with it. We are your helpers."

Lichonin struck the table with his palm.

"No!" he exclaimed stubbornly. "Simanovsky is partly right concerning the great danger of a person's being led in leading strings. But I don't see any other way out. In the beginning I'll help her with room and board... find some easy work, buy the necessary accessories for her. Let be what may! And let us do everything in order to educate her mind a little; and that her heart and soul are beautiful, of that I am sure. I've no grounds for the faith, but I am sure, I almost know.

Nijeradze! Don't clown!" he cried abruptly, growing pale, "I've restrained myself several times already at your fool pranks. I have until now held you as a man of conscience and feeling. One more inappropriate witticism, and I'll change my opinion of you; and know, that it's forever."

"Well, now, I didn't mean anything... Really, I... Why go all up in the air, me soul? You don't like that I'm a gay fellow, well, I'll be quiet. Give me your hand, Lichonin, let's drink!"

"Well, all right, get away from me. Here's to your health! Only don't behave like a little boy, you Ossetean ram. Well, then, I continue, gentlemen. If we find anything which might satisfy the just opinion of Simanovsky about the dignity of independent toil, unsustained by anything, then I shall stick to my system: to teach Liuba whatever is possible, to take her to the theatre, to expositions, to popular lectures, to museums; to read aloud to her, give her the possibility of hearing music--comprehensible music, of course. It's understood, I alone won't be able to manage all this. I expect help from you; and after that, whatever G.o.d may will."

"Oh, well," said Simanovsky, "the work is new, not threadbare; and how can we know the unknowable--perhaps you, Lichonin, will become the spiritual father of a good being. I, too, offer my services."

"And I! And I!" the other two seconded; and right there, without getting up from the table, the four students worked out a very broad and very wondrous program of education and enlightenment for Liubka.

Soloviev took upon himself to teach the girl grammar and writing. In order not to tire her with tedious lessons, and as a reward for successes, he would read aloud for her artistic fiction, Russian and foreign, easy of comprehension. Lichonin left for himself the teaching of arithmetic, geography and history.

While the prince said simple-heartedly, without his usual facetiousness this time:

"I, my children, don't know anything; while that which I do know, I know very badly. But I'll read to her the remarkable production of the great Georgian poet Rustavelli, and translate it line by line. I confess to you, that I'm not much of a pedagogue: I tried to be a tutor, but they politely chased me out after only the second lesson.

Still, no one can teach better playing on a guitar, mandolin, and the bagpipes!"

Nijeradze was speaking with perfect seriousness, and for that reason Lichonin with Soloviev good-naturedly started laughing; but with entire unexpectedness, to the general amazement of all, Simanovsky sustained him.

"The prince speaks common sense. To have the mastery of an instrument elevates the aesthetic sense, in any case; and is even a help in life.

And I, for my part, gentlemen ... I propose to read with the young person the CAPITAL of Marx, and the history of human culture. And to take up chemistry and physics with her, besides."

If it were not for the customary authority of Simanovsky and the importance with which he spoke, the remaining three would have burst into laughter in his face. They only stared at him, with eyes popping out.

"Well, yes," continued Simanovsky imperturbably, "I'll show her a whole series of chemical and physical experiments, which it is possible to carry on at home; which are always amusing and beneficial to the mind; and which eradicate prejudices. Incidentally, I'll explain something of the structure of the world, of the properties of matter. And as far as Karl Marx is concerned, just remember, that great books are equally accessible to the understanding both of a scholar and an unlettered peasant, if only comprehensibly presented. And every great thought is simple."

Lichonin found Liubka at the place agreed upon, on a bench of the boulevard. She went home with him very unwillingly. Just as Lichonin had supposed, meeting the grumbling Alexandra was a fearful thing to her, who had long since grown unused to every-day actuality; harsh, and plentiful with all sorts of unpleasantnesses. And besides that, the fact that Lichonin did not want to conceal her past acted oppressively upon her. But she, who had long ago lost her will in the establishment of Anna Markovna, deprived of her personality, ready to follow after the call of every stranger, did not tell him a word and walked after him.

The crafty Alexandra had already managed during this time to run to the superintendent of the houses and to complain to him, that, now, Lichonin had come with some miss, had pa.s.sed the night with her in the room; but who she is, that Alexandra don't know; that Lichonin says she is his first cousin, like; but did not present a pa.s.sport. It was necessary to explain things at great length, diffusedly and tiresomely, to the superintendent, a coa.r.s.e and insolent man, who bore himself to all the tenants in the house as toward a conquered city; and feared only the students slightly, because they gave him a severe rebuff at times. Lichonin propitiated him only when he rented on the spot another room, several rooms away from his, for Liubka; under the very slope of the roof, so that it represented on the inside a sharply cut-off, low, four-sided pyramid, with one little window.

"But still, Mr. Lichonin, just you present the pa.s.sport to-morrow without fail," said the superintendent insistently at parting. "Since you're a respectable man, hard-working, and you and I are long acquainted, also you pay punctually, I am willing to do it only for you. You know yourself what hard times these are. If some one tells on me, they'll not only fire me, but they can put me out of town as well.

They're strict now."

In the evening Lichonin strolled with Liubka through Prince Park, listened to the music playing in the aristocratic club, and returned home early. He escorted Liubka to the door of her room and at once took leave of her; kissing her, however, tenderly on the brow, like a father. But after ten minutes, when he was already lying in bed undressed and reading the statutes of state, Liubka, having scratched on his door like a cat, suddenly entered his room.

"Darling, sweetie! Excuse me for troubling you. Haven't you a needle and thread? But don't get angry at me; I'll go away at once."

"Liuba! I beg of you to go away not at once, but this second. Finally, I demand it!"

"My dearie, my pretty," Liubka began to intone laughably and piteously, "well, what are you yelling at me for all the time?" and, in a moment, having blown upon the candle, she nestled up to him in the darkness, laughing and crying.

"No, Liuba, this must not be. It's impossible to go on like this,"

Lichonin was saying ten minutes later, standing at the door, wrapped up in his blanket, like a Spanish hidalgo in a cape. "To-morrow at the latest I'll rent a room for you in another house. And, in general, don't let this occur! G.o.d be with you, and good night! Still, you must give me your word of honour that our relations will be merely friendly."

"I give it, dearie, I give it, I give it, I give it!" she began to prattle, smiling; and quickly smacked him first on the lips and then on his hand.

The last action was altogether instinctive; and, perhaps, unexpected even to Liubka herself. Never yet in her life had she kissed any man's hand, save a priest's. Perhaps she wanted to express through this her grat.i.tude to Lichonin, and a prostration before him as before a higher being.

CHAPTER XV.

Among Russian intelligents, as has already been noted by many, there is a decent quant.i.ty of wonderful people; true children of the Russian land and culture, who would be able heroically, without the quivering of a single muscle, to look straight in the face of death; who are capable for the sake of an idea of bearing unconceivable privations and sufferings, equal to torture; but then, these people are lost before the haughtiness of a doorman; shrink from the yelling of a laundress; while into a police station they enter in an insufferable and timid distress. And precisely such a one was Lichonin. On the following day (yesterday it had been impossible on account of a holiday and the lateness), having gotten up very early and recollecting that to-day he had to take care of Liubka's pa.s.sport, he felt just as bad as when in former times, as a high-school boy, he went to an examination, knowing that he would surely fall through. His head ached, while his arms and legs somehow seemed another's; in addition, a drizzling and seemingly dirty rain had been falling on the street since morning. "Always, now, when there's some unpleasantness in store, there is inevitably a rain falling," reflected Lichonin, dressing slowly.

It was not especially far from his street to the Yamskaya, not more than two-thirds of a mile. In general, he was not infrequently in those parts, but he had never had occasion to go there in the daytime; and on the way it seemed to him all the time that every one he met, every cabby and policeman, was looking at him with curiosity, with reproach, or with disdain, as though surmising the destination of his journey. As always on a nasty and muggy morning, all the faces that met his eyes seemed pale, ugly, with monstrously underlined defects. Scores of times he imagined all that he would say in the beginning at the house; and later at the station house; and every time the outcome was different.

Angry at himself for this premature rehearsal, he would at times stop himself:

"Ah! You mustn't think, you mustn't presuppose what you're going to say. It always turns out far better when it's done right off..."