All the twenty-six are singing; loud voices, brought to harmony by long practice, fill the workshop; the song is cramped for room; it breaks against the stone walls, moaning and weeping, and stirs the heart with a gentle prickly pain, reopening old wounds and wakening anguish in the soul.... The singers draw deep and heavy sighs; one will suddenly break off and sit listening for a long time to his comrades singing, then his voice will mingle again in the general chorus. Another will cry out dismally: “Ach!” singing with closed eyes, and maybe he sees the broad torrent of sound as a road leading far away, a wide road lit up by the brilliant sun, and he himself walking along it....
The flames in the oven still flicker, the baker’s shovel still scrapes on the brick, the water in the cauldron still bubbles and gurgles, the firelight on the wall still flutters in silent laughter.... And we chant out, through words not our own, the dull ache within us, the gnawing grief of living men deprived of the sun, the grief of slaves. And so we lived, twenty-six men, in the basement of a big stone house, and so hard was our life, that it seemed as though the three stories of the house were built on our shoulders....
Besides our songs there was something else that we loved and cherished, something that perhaps filled the place of the sun for us. On the second floor of our house there was a gold embroidery workshop, and there, among many girl hands, lived sixteen-year-old Tanya, a housemaid. Every morning a little pink face with blue merry eyes would be pressed to the pane of the little window cut into the door of our workshop leading into the passage, and a sweet ringing voice would call out to us:
“Jail-birdies! Give me some pretzels!”
We would all turn our heads to the sound of that clear voice and look kindly and joyfully at the pure girlish face that smiled at us so sweetly. We liked to see the nose squashed against the glass, the little white teeth glistening from under rosy lips parted in a smile. We would rush to open the door for her, jostling each other, and there she would be, so winsome and sunny, holding out her apron, standing before us with her little head slightly tilted, and her face all wreathed in smiles. A thick long braid of chestnut hair hung over her shoulder on her breast. We grimy, ignorant, ugly men look up at her—the threshold rises four steps above the floor—look up at her with raised heads and wish her good morning, and our words of greeting are special words, found only for her. When we speak to her our voices are softer, our joking lighter. Everything we have for her is special. The baker draws out of the oven a shovelful of the crustiest browned pretzels and shoots them adroitly into Tanya’s apron.
“Mind the boss doesn’t catch you!” we warn her. She laughs roguishly and cries merrily:
“Good-bye jail-birdies!” and vanishes in a twinkling like a little mouse.
And that is all.... But long after she was gone we talk about her—we say the same things we said the day before and earlier, because she, and we, and everything around us are the same they were the day before and earlier.... It is very painful and hard when a man lives, and nothing around him changes, and if it doesn’t kill the soul in him, the longer he lives the more painful does the immobility of things surrounding him become.... We always talked of women in a way that sometimes made us feel disgusted with ourselves and our coarse shameless talk. That is not surprising, since the women we knew did not probably deserve to be talked of in any other way. But of Tanya we never said a bad word; no one of us ever dared to touch her with his hand and she never heard a loose joke from any of us. Perhaps it was because she never stayed long—she would flash before our gaze like a star falling from the heavens and vanish. Or perhaps it was because she was small and so very beautiful, and everything that is beautiful inspires respect, even with rough men. Moreover, though hard labour was turning us into dumb oxen, we were only human beings, and like all human beings, could not live without an object of worship. Finer than she there was nobody about us, and nobody else paid attention to us men living in the basement—though there were dozens of tenants in the house. And finally—probably chiefly—we regarded her as something that belonged to us, something that existed thanks only to our pretzels; we made it our duty to give her hot pretzels, and this became our daily sacrifice to the idol, almost a holy rite, that endeared her to us ever more from day to day. Besides pretzels we gave Tanya a good deal of advice—to dress warmly, not to run quickly upstairs, not to carry heavy bundles of firewood. She listened to our counsels with a smile, retorted with a laugh and never obeyed them, but we did not take offence—we were satisfied to show our solicitude for her.
Often she asked us to do things for her. She would, for instance, ask us to open a refractory door in the cellar or chop some wood, and we would gladly and with a peculiar pride do these things for her and anything else she asked.
But when one of us asked her to mend his only shirt, she sniffed scornfully and said:
“Catch me! Not likely!”
We enjoyed a good laugh at the silly fellow’s expense, and never again asked her to do anything. We loved her—and there all is said. A man always wants to foist his love on somebody or other, though it frequently oppresses, sometimes sullies, and his love may poison the life of a fellow creature, for in loving he does not respect the object of his love. We had to love Tanya, for there was no one else we could love.
At times one of us would suddenly begin to argue something like this:
“What’s the idea of making such a fuss over the kid? What’s there so remarkable about her anyway?”
We’d soon brusquely silence the fellow who spoke like that—we had to have something we could love: we found it, and loved it, and what we twenty-six loved stood for each of us, it was our holy of holies, and anybody who went against us in this matter was our enemy. We love, perhaps, what is not really good, but then there are twenty-six of us, and we therefore want the object of our adoration to be held sacred by others.
Our love is no less onerous than hate ... and, perhaps, that is why some stiff-necked people claim that our hate is more flattering than love.... But why do they not shun us if that is so?
In addition to the pretzel bakehouse our boss had a bun bakery. It was situated in the same house, and only a wall divided it from our hole. The bun bakers, however, of whom there were four, held themselves aloof from us, considered their work cleaner than ours, and themselves, therefore, better men; they never visited our workshop, and treated us with mocking scorn whenever they met us in the yard. Neither did we visit them—the boss banned such visits for fear we would steal buns. We did not like the bun bakers, because we envied them—their work was easier than ours, they got better wages, they were fed better, they had a roomy, airy workshop, and they were all so clean and healthy, and hence so odious. We, on the other hand, were all a yellow grey-faced lot; three of us were ill with syphilis, some were scabby, and one was crippled by rheumatism. On holidays and off-days they used to dress up in suits and creaking high boots, two of them possessed accordions, and all used to go out for a stroll in the park, whilst we were dressed in filthy tatters, with rags or bast shoes on our feet, and the police wouldn’t let us into the park—now, could we love the bun bakers?
And one day we learned that their chief baker had taken to drink, that the boss had dismissed him and taken on another in his place, and that the new man was an ex-soldier who went about in a satin waistcoat and had a watch on a gold chain. We were curious to have a look at that dandy, and every now and then one of us would run out into the yard in the hope of seeing him.
But he came to our workshop himself. Kicking open the door he stood in the doorway, smiling, and said to us:
“Hullo! How do you do, boys!”
The frosty air rushing through the door in a smoky cloud eddied round his feet, while he stood in the doorway looking down at us, his large yellow teeth flashing from under his fair swaggering moustache. His waistcoat was indeed unique—a blue affair, embroidered with flowers, and all glittering, with buttons made of some kind of red stone. The chain was there too....
/> He was a handsome fellow, was that soldier—tall, strong, with ruddy cheeks and big light eyes that had a nice look in them—a kind, clean look. On his head he wore a white stiffly starched cap, and from under an immaculately clean apron peeped the pointed toes of a highly polished pair of fashionable boots.
Our chief baker politely asked him to close the door. He complied unhurriedly and began questioning us about the boss. We fell over each other telling him that the boss was a skinflint, a crook, a scoundrel and a tormentor—we told him everything there was to tell about the boss that couldn’t be put in writing here. The soldier listened, twitching his moustache and regarding us with that gentle, clear look of his.
“You’ve a lot of girls around here ...” he said suddenly.
Some of us laughed politely, others pulled sugary faces, and some one informed the soldier that there were nine bits in the place.
“Use ’em?” asked the soldier with a knowing wink.
Again we laughed, a rather subdued, embarrassed laugh.... Many of us would have liked to make the soldier believe they were as gay lads as he was, but they couldn’t do it, none of us could do it. Somebody confessed as much, saying quietly:
“How comes we....”
“M’yes, you’re a long way off!” said the soldier convincedly, subjecting us to a close scrutiny. “You’re not . . . er, up to the mark. . . . Ain’t got the character . . . the proper shape ... you know, looks! Looks is what a woman likes about a man! Give her a regular body . . . everything just so! Then of course she likes a bit of muscle.... Likes an arm to be an arm, here’s the stuff!”
The soldier pulled his right hand out of his pocket, with the sleeve rolled back to the elbow, and held it up for us to see. . . . He had a strong, white arm covered with shining golden hair.
“The leg, the chest—everything must be firm. . . . And then a man’s got to be properly dressed . . . in shipshape form. . . . Now, the women just fall for me. Mind you, I don’t call ‘em or tempt ’em—they hang about my neck five at a time. . . .”
He sat down on a sack of flour and spent a long time in telling us how the women loved him and how dashingly he treated them. Then he took his leave, and when the door closed behind him with a squeak, we sat on in a long silence, meditating over him and his stories. Then suddenly everybody spoke up at once, and it transpired that we had all taken a liking to him. Such a simple, nice fellow, the way he came in, sat down, and chatted. Nobody ever came to see us, nobody talked to us like that, in a friendly way.... And we kept on talking about him and his future success with the seamstresses, who, on meeting us in the yard, either steered clear of us with lips offensively pursed, or bore straight down on us as though we did not stand in their path at all. And we only admired them, in the yard or when they passed our windows, dressed in cute little caps and fur coats in the winter, and in flowery hats with bright coloured parasols in the summer. But among ourselves we spoke of these girls in a way that, had they heard us, would have made them mad with shame and insult.
“I hope he doesn’t ... spoil little Tanya!” said the chief baker suddenly in a tone of anxiety.
We were all struck dumb by this statement. We had somehow forgotten Tanya—the soldier seemed to have blotted her out with his large, handsome figure. Then a noisy argument broke out: some said that Tanya would not stand for it, some asserted that she would be unable to resist the soldier’s charms, and others proposed to break the fellow’s bones in the event of him making love to Tanya. Finally, all decided to keep a watch on the soldier and Tanya, and warn the kid to beware of him.... That put a stop to the argument.
About a month passed. The soldier baked buns, went out with the seamstresses, frequently dropped in to see us, but never said anything about his victories—all he did was to turn up his moustache and lick his chops.
Tanya came every morning for her pretzels and was invariably gay, sweet and gentle. We tried to broach the subject of the soldier with her—she called him “a pop-eyed dummy” and other funny names and that set our minds at rest. We were proud of our little girl when we saw how the seamstresses clung to the soldier. Tanya’s attitude towards him bucked us all up, and under her influence as it were, we ourselves began to evince towards him an attitude of scorn. We loved her more than ever, and greeted her more gladly and kindly in the mornings.
One day, however, the soldier dropped in on us a little the worse for drink, sat down and began to laugh, and when we asked him what he was laughing at, he explained:
“Two of them have had a fight over me.... Lida and Grusha.... You should have seen what they did to each other! A regular scream, ha-ha! One of ’em grabbed the other by the hair, dragged her all over the floor into the passage, then got on top of her ... ha-ha-ha! Scratched each other’s mugs, tore their clothes.... Wasn’t that funny! Now, why can’t these females have a straight fight? Why do they scratch, eh?”
He sat on a bench, looking so clean and healthy and cheerful, laughing without a stop. We said nothing. Somehow he was odious to us this time.
“Why am I such a lucky devil with the girls? It’s a scream! Why, I just wink my eye and the trick’s done!”
He raised his white hands covered with glossy hairs and brought them down on his knees with a slap. He surveyed us with a look of pleased surprise, as though himself genuinely astonished at the lucky turn of his affairs with the ladies. His plump ruddy physiognomy shone with smug pleasure and he repeatedly passed his tongue over his lips.
Our chief baker angrily rattled his shovel on the hearth and suddenly said sarcastically:
“It’s no great fun felling little fir trees—I’d like to see what you’d do with a pine!”
“Eh, what? Were you talking to me?” asked the soldier.
“Yes, you....”
“What did you say?”
“Never mind.... Let it lay....”
“Here, hold on! What’s it all about? What d’you mean—pine?”
Our baker did not reply. His shovel moved swiftly in the oven, tossing in boiled pretzels and discharging the baked ones noisily onto the floor where boys sat threading them on bast strings. He seemed to have forgotten the soldier. But the latter suddenly got excited. He rose to his feet and stepped up to the oven, exposing himself to the imminent danger of being struck in the chest by the shovel handle that whisked spasmodically in the air.
“Now, look the—who d’you mean? That’s an insult.... Why, there ain’t a girl that could resist me! No fear! And here are you, hinting things against me....”
Indeed, he appeared to be genuinely offended. Evidently the only source of his self-respect was his ability to seduce women: perhaps this ability was the only living attribute he could boast, the only thing that made him feel a human being.
There are some people for whom life holds nothing better or higher than a malady of the soul or flesh. They cherish it throughout life, and it is the sole spring of life to them. While suffering from it they nourish themselves on it. They complain about it to people and in this manner command the interest of their neighbours. They exact a toll of sympathy from people, and this is the only thing in life they have. Deprive them of that malady, cure them of it, and they will be utterly miserable, because they will lose the sole sustenance of their life and become empty husks. Sometimes a man’s life is so poor that he is perforce obliged to cultivate a vice and thrive on it. One might say that people are often addicted to vice through sheer boredom.
The soldier was stung to the quick. He bore down on our baker, whining:
“No, you tell me—who is it?”
“Shall I tell you?” said the baker, turning on him suddenly.
“Well?”
“D’you know Tanya?”
“Well?”
“Well, there you are! See what you can do there....”
“Me?”
“Yes, you.”
“Her? Easier’n spitting!”
“We’ll see!”
“You’ll see! Ha-a!”
“Why, she’ll....”
“It won’t take a month!”
“You’re cocky, soldier, ain’t you?”
“A fortnight! I’ll show you! Who did you say? Tanya? Pshaw!”
“Come on, get out, you’re in the way!”
“A fortnight, and the trick’s done! Oh, you! ...”
“Get out!”
The baker suddenly flew into a rage and brandished his shovel. The soldier fell back in amazement, then regarded us all for a while in silence, muttered grimly “All right!” and went out.
All through this argument we had kept our peace, our interest having been engaged in the conversation. But when the soldier left we all broke out into loud and animated speech.
Somebody cried out to the baker:
“That’s a bad business you’ve started, Pavel!”
“Get on with your work!” snapped the baker.