‘What does he do?’
‘He’s a sick man; he lives, says his prayers – that’s about it.’
‘And what about his wife?’
‘What wife?’
‘The woman who lives with him.’
‘His wife… yes, if he says she’s his wife, then she is. Goodbye, master.’
The Tatar touched his cap and went off to his kennel-like lair.
Ordynov went into his room. The old woman, toothlessly muttering something to herself, opened the door for him, closed it again, setting it on the latch, and climbed back up on to the stove on which she spent her days. It was already getting dark. On his way to fetch some matches, Ordynov saw that the door to the room of the master and mistress was locked. He called the old woman who, raising herself on one elbow, was watching him keenly from the stove, apparently wondering why he was interested in the locked door; she silently threw him a box of matches. He returned to his room and again, for the hundredth time, set about the work of organizing his books and belongings. Gradually, however, becoming perplexed at what was happening to him, he sat down on the cupboard, and it seemed to him that he fell asleep. Occasionally he regained consciousness and then he would realize that it was not sleep that was overcoming him, but a kind of agonizing, morbid oblivion. He heard a door rattle and then open, and guessed that this was the master and mistress returning from vespers. At that point he suddenly had the idea that he had to go and see them for some reason. He got to his feet, and it seemed to him that he was already on his way through to them, but he missed his footing and tripped on a pile of firewood which the old woman had thrown down in the middle of the room. Then he completely lost consciousness; opening his eyes again after a very long interval, he noticed to his surprise that he was till lying on the cupboard, just as he had been, fully clothed, and that a woman’s face, wonderfully beautiful and seemingly drenched with quiet, motherly tears, was leaning over him with tender concern. He felt a pillow being put under his head and a warm covering being placed over him, and someone’s soft hand being laid against his hot brow. He wanted to thank whoever it was, he wanted to take this hand, place it against his parched lips, drench it in tears and kiss it, kiss it for all eternity. He had a desire to say a great many things, but he did not know what they were; at that moment he wanted to die. But his hands felt like lead and he could not move them; he seemed to have gone numb, and all he could hear was the blood thumping through his veins and seeming to lift him from his bed. Someone gave him water… At last he sank into oblivion.
He woke up at about eight the following morning. The sun was showering its rays in a golden burst through the mould-green windows of his room; a sense of comfort flowed through the sick man’s limbs. He was peaceful and quiet, boundlessly happy. It seemed to him that someone had just been standing by the head of his bed. He had awoken, anxiously searching around him for that invisible being; he longed so much to embrace his friend and say, for the first time in his life:’Good day to you, my sweet.’
‘What a long sleep you’ve had!’ a woman’s soft voice said. Ordynov looked round, and the face of his beautiful landlady leaned over him with a smile as radiant and welcoming as the sun.
‘You’ve been ill for such a long time,’ she said.’Enough now, get up; why deprive yourself of freedom? “Freedom is sweeter than bread, and brighter than the sun.” Get up, my pigeon, get up.’
Ordynov seized her hand and pressed it tightly. He had a feeling that he was still dreaming.
‘Wait, I’ve made you some tea; would you like some? Do have some; it’ll do you good. I’ve been ill myself, and I know.’
‘Yes, give me something to drink,’ Ordynov said in a faint voice, and he got to his feet. He was still veryweak. Could shivers were running down his spine, all his limbs ached and seemed drained of energy. But there was a brightness in his heart, and the rays of the sun seemed to warm him with a radiant, majestic joy. He felt that a new, powerful, hidden life was beginning for him. His head was slightly dizzy.
‘You’re called Vasily, aren’t you?’ she said.’Perhaps I misheard, but I think that was the name the master addressed you by yesterday.’
‘Yes, my name’s Vasily. What’s yours?’ Ordynov asked, going close to her, but barely able to stand upright. He reeled slightly. She caught him by both hands, and laughed.
‘Katerina,’ she said, looking straight at him with her large, clear, blue eyes. They both stood holding each other by the hands.
‘Is there something you want to tell me?’ she said, at last.
‘I don’t know,’ Ordynov replied. His eyes had grown dim.
‘Just look at you. It’s all right, my pigeon, it’s all right; don’t fret, don’t grieve; sit down here at the table with your face to the sun; sit quietly, and don’t try to come after me,’ she added, observing that the young man made a movement as though to detain her. ‘I’ll be back in a moment; you’ll be able to see all you want of me.’ A minute later she brought in the tea, put it on the table and sat down opposite him.
‘Here you are, drink this,’ she said.’What’s the matter, have you a headache?’
‘No, it’s gone now,’ he said.’I don’t know, perhaps it hasn’t… I don’t want… I’ll be all right… I don’t know what’s wrong with me,’ he said, gasping for breath and finally reaching out for her hand.’Stay here, don’t leave me; give me your hand again… My eyes are dim; you are like the sun to them,’ he said; he spoke as if he were tearing the words out of his heart, thrilling with ecstasy as he uttered them. Sobs constricted his throat.
‘You poor man! You’ve obviously not been living with the right sort of people. You’re all alone; haven’t you any family?’
‘No, I’ve no one; I’m alone… but never mind, it doesn’t matter! It’s better now… I feel all right!’ Ordynov said, as though in delirium. The room seemed to be spinning round him.
‘I haven’t seen anyone for years, either. You know, you look at me as though…’ she said, after a short silence.
‘Yes?’
‘As though my eyes were warming you! You know, when you like someone… I took you to my heart from the first words I heard you say. If you fall ill again I’ll look after you. But don’t fall ill. Once you’re up and about again we shall live together like brother and sister. Would you like that? I mean, it’s hard to find a sister if God hasn’t given you one.’
‘Who are you? Where are you from?’ Ordynov said in a faint voice.
‘I’m not from this part of the world… what difference does it make? You know, there’s a story people tell about twelve brothers who live in a dark forest, and about a beautiful maiden who loses her way in it. She goes into their house and set it in order, putting all her love into her task. The brothers return and discover that a sisterhas spent the day in their home. They shout to her to come out, and she does. They call her “sister”, let herdo as she pleased, and she is their equal. Do you know that story?’
‘Yes, I do,’ Ordynov whispered.
‘Life is good; do you enjoy life?’
‘Oh, yes – to live one’s life properly one must live long,’ Ordynov replied.
‘I don’t know,’ Katerina said, thoughtfully. ‘I’d like to die, too. It’s good to love life and to love good people, but… Look, you’ve gone as white as a sheet again!’
‘Yes, my head’s going round…’
‘Wait, I’ll bring you my bedding and another pillow; I’ll make you up a bed right here. You’ll fall asleep and dream about me; your illness will pass. Our old servantwoman is ill, too…’
As she began to make up the bed she continued to talk, looking over her shoulder at Ordynov with a smile from time to time.
‘What a lot of books you have!’ she said, as she moved the chest out of the way.
She went up to him, took him by the right arm, led him over to the bed, helped him under the blankets and placed the bedspread on top.
‘They say that books spoil a man,’ she said
, shaking her head thoughtfully.’Do you like reading?’
‘Yes,’ Ordynov replied, unsure whether he was asleep or not, and pressing Katerina’s hand all the harder, in order to convince himself that he was awake.
‘My master has a lot of books; you should see them! He says they’re religious books. He’s forever reading bits of them aloud to me. I’ll show you them later on; later on will you explain to me the meaning of all those things he reads to me?’
‘I will,’ Ordynov whispered, staring at her relentlessly.
‘Do you like praying?’ she asked, after a moment’s silence.’Do you know something? I’m afraid, I’m always afraid…’
She did not finish her sentence, apparently thinking about something. At length, Ordynov raised her hand to his lips.
‘Why are you kissing my hand?’ she said, and her cheeks went slightly red.’All right, here you are, kiss it,’ she went on, laughing and giving him both of her hands; then she pulled one of them free and placed it against his hot brow; after that, she began to straighten and smooth his hair. She was blushing redder and redder; finally she got down on the floor by his bedside and put her cheek against his; her warm, moist breathing rustled across his face… Suddenly Ordynov felt hot tears welling from her eyes and falling on to his cheeks like molten lead. He was growing weaker and weaker; by now he was unable to lift a finger. Just then there came a knocking at the door, and the crash of the bolt. Ordynov was still awake enough to hear the old man, his landlord, going into the room behind the partition. Then he sensed Katerina rising to her feet, without hurry or fuss, picking up her books and making the sign of the cross over him as she left; he closed his eyes. Suddenly a long, hot kiss burned on his inflamed lips; it was as though he had been stabbed in the heart with a knife. He gave a faint cry and lost consciousness…
After that a strange life began for him.
At times, in moments of hazy wakefulness, the thought flickered through his mind that he had been condemned to live in a sort of long and endless dream, full of strange, fruitless anxieties, struggles and sufferings. With horror he tried to resist the doom-laden sense of fatalism that oppressed him; then, in a moment of the most intense and desperate struggle some unknown force struck him down once more and he felt himself clearly losing consciousness again, as again the impenetrable, bottomless gloom opened up before him and he fell into it with a howl of anguish and despair. At times he experienced moments of unbearable, annihilating happiness, when his vital energies intensified convulsively throughout his whole metabolism, his past stood out clearly, the bright moment of the here and now resounded with majesty and revelry, and he had a waking dream of a mysterious, unknowable future; when an inexpressible hope fell on his soul like a reviving dew; when he wanted to scream with ecstasy; when he felt that his flesh was powerless under such a weight of impressions, that the very thread of existence itself was in danger of snapping, and when at the same time he congratulated his life on its renewal and resurrection. At times he would again fall into a hypnotic state, and then everything that had happened to him during the recent days would repeat itself, passing through his mind in an obscure, restless swarm; but the vision would appear to him in a strange, enigmatic form. At times the sick man would forget what had happened to him, and he would be struck with surprise that he was not in his old room, not in the house of his former landlady. He would wonder why the old woman did not come, as she had always done at the late hour of twilight, to the dying stove, which at intervals suffused every dark corner of the room with a faint, shimmering rathance, and why she did not, as she usually did while waiting for the fire to go out, warm her trembling, bony hands at the fading embers, constantly chattering and whispering to herself, and occasionally looking in bewilderment at him, her strange lodger, whom she belived to have gone insane from sitting so long over his books. At other times he would remember that he had moved into another room; but how this had come about, what it was that had happened to him and why he had had to move – this he could not fathom, even though his spirit thrilled with a ceaseless, irrepressible striving… And what was it that called him and tormented him, and why? Who had ignited this unendurable flame, a flame which was choking and devouring his very life-blood? Again he did not know and could not remember. Often he would clutch avidly at some shadow, hear the rustle of light footsteps close to his bed and the whisper, sweet as music, of someone’s kind, tender words; someone’s moist, impetuous breathing would float across his face, and his entire being would be riven with love; someone’s scalding tears would burn his inflamed cheeks, and suddenly someone’s kiss, long and tender, would fasten itself on his lips; then his life would pine away in inextinguishable torment; it would seem as though all of creation, all the world around him had stopped, died for whole aeons, as though the long night of the millennium had enshrouded everything…
Then there would seem to begin for him once again the soft, tranquil years of his early childhood with their luminousjoy, their inextinguishable happiness, their first sweet wonder at life, their hosts of radiant spirits which flew out from every flower he plucked, which played with him on the succulent green meadow in front of the little house surrounded with acacia, which smiled to him from the crystal waters of the vast lake by which he sat for hours on end, listening to wave lapping upon wave, and which rustled about him with their wings, lovingly strewing his little cradle-cot with bright, rainbow-coloured dreams, as his mother leaned over him, making the sign of the cross over him, kissing him and lulling him to sleep with a quiet lullaby in the long, peaceful nights. But then, suddenly, a being had started to appear which had disturbed him with an unchildlike horror, and had infused his life with the first, slow poison of bitterness and tears; he sensed obscurely that a mysterious old man held all his future years in his power and, trembling, he was unable to take his eyes off him. The evil old man followed him everywhere. The old man would look out from behind every bush in the shrubbery, deceitfully nodding his head, laughing, and teasing him; he would come to life in every one of the boy’s dolls, making faces and chortling with laughter in his hands, like an evil, ugly gnome; he would incite every one of the boy’s heartless schoolfellows against him or, as he sat with those urchins on the schoolroom bench, pull yet more faces, and look out from behind every letter in his grammar-book. Later, as he slept, the evil old man would sit by the head of his bed… He chased away the swarms of bright spirits that rustled about his cradle-cot with their gold and sapphire wings, took his poor mother from him for ever and began at nights to whisper to him a long, strange story, unintelligible to the heart of a child, but tormenting and arousing him with horror and unchildlike passion. But the evil old man would not listen to his pleas and sobs, and would continue to talk to him until he sank into numbness and oblivion. Then the urchin suddenly woke up a man; whole years had passed over him unseen and unheeded. He suddenly realized his true position, suddenly began to understand that he was alone and estranged from the whole world, alone in an alien place among mysterious, suspicious people, among enemies, who kept huddling together and whispering in the corners of his dark room, nodding to the old woman who sat squatting on her heels by the fire as she warmed her decrepit old hands and pointed to him. He fell into confusion, into alarm; he kept wanting to know who these people were, why they were here, why he was in this room, and guessed that he had strayed into some dark den of villains, having been lured there by some powerful but inscrutable force, and having neglected to perceive who and what manner of people were those who lodged here, and who his landlords were. Suspicion began to gnaw at him – and suddenly in the darkness of the night the long, whispered story began once more, this time quietly, barely audibly, through the mouth of an old woman who was telling it to herself, sadly shaking her white and grey head in front of the dying fire. But – once again he was attacked by a sense of horror; the story came to life before him in forms and faces. He saw everything, beginning with the vague dreams of his childhood, and progressing to every tho
ught and dream he had ever had, all that he had experienced in his life, that he had read in books, things he had long ago forgotten about – all of this came to life, acquired flesh and structure, arose before him in colossal forms and images, moving and swarming about him; he saw magic, luxuriant gardens unfolding before him, whole cities being created and destroyed in his sight, whole cemeteries giving up to him their dead,* who began to live their lives all over again, whole peoples and races coming into being and dying away, and finally, around his sickbed, every one of his thoughts, every incorporeal daydream he had ever had being embodied almost at the moment of its conception; at last he saw himself thinking not in disembodies ideas, but in whole worlds, whole universes, saw himself floating along like a grain of dust in this strange, infinite world from which there was no escape, and all this life, in its rebellious independence, crushing hi, weighing him down and pursuing him with its eternal, infinite irony; he sensed himself dying, being reduced to dust and ashes, without resurrection, to the end of time; he wanted to run away, but there was no refugefor him in the entire universe. At last, in a fit of despair, straining every nerve in his body, he uttered a shriek and woke up.
He woke up drenched in cold, icy sweat. Dead silence reigned all about him; it was deepest night. Yet still he fancied that somewhere his wonderful story was still continuing, that someone’s hoarse voice was telling a long narrative about a subject that seemed familiar to him. He heard the voice talking about dark forests, about fearless bandits, aboutsome daring young blood who was possibly even Stenka Razin* himself, about merry, drunken barge-haulers, about a certain beautiful maiden, and about Old Mother Volga. Was it not a fantasy? Could he really hear it? For a whole hour he lay with his eyes open, not moving a limb, in a state of agonized numbness. At last he got cautiously to his feet and with joy felt some strength in his body – it has not all been exhausted by his cruel illness. His delirium had passed, and now reality was at hand. He observed that he was still dressed as he had been at the time of his conversation with Katerina and that, consequently, only a short time could have passed since the morning when she had left him. The fire of resolve coursed through his veins. Mechanically he groped with his hands towards a large nail which had for some reason been hammered into the top of the partition against which his bed had been made up, seized hold of it and, letting it take all his weight, somehow managed to pull himself up to the chink through which a barely perceptible glow of light entered his room. He put an eye to the opening and began to look, hardly able to breathe from excitement.
Poor Folk and Other Stories Page 20