We realized that the soldier had been put on his high ropes and that Tanya was in danger. Yet, while realizing this, we were all gripped by a tense but thrilling curiosity as to what would be the outcome of it. Would Tanya hold her own against the soldier? We almost unanimously voiced the conviction:
“Tanya? She’ll hold her ground! She ain’t easy prey!”
We were terribly keen on testing our idol; we assiduously tried to convince each other that our idol was a staunch idol and would come out on top in this engagement. We ended up by expressing our doubts as to whether we had sufficiently goaded the soldier, fearing that he would forget the wager and that we would have to prick his conceit some more. Henceforth a new exciting interest had come into our lives, something we had never known before. We argued among ourselves for days on end; we all somehow seemed to have grown cleverer, spoke better and more. It seemed as though we were playing a sort of game with the devil, and the stake on our side was Tanya. And when we had learned from the bun bakers that the soldier had started to “make a dead set for Tanya” our excitement rose to such a furious pitch and life became such a thrilling experience for us that we did not even notice how the boss had taken advantage of our wrought up feelings to throw in extra work by raising the daily knead to fourteen poods of dough. We didn’t even seem to tire of the work. Tanya’s name was all day long on our lips. And we awaited her morning visits with a peculiar impatience. At times we fancied that when she came in to see us it would be a different Tanya, not the one we always knew.
We told her nothing, however, about the wager. We never asked her any questions and treated her in the same good-natured loving way. But something new had crept into our attitude, something that was alien to our former feelings for Tanya—and that new element was keen curiosity, keen and cold like a blade of steel....
“Boys! Time’s up today!” said the baker one morning as he began work.
We were well aware of it without his reminder. Yet we all started.
“You watch her.... She’ll soon come in!” suggested the baker. Some one exclaimed in a tone of regret:
“It’s not a thing the eye can catch!”
And again a lively noisy argument sprang up. Today, at length, we would know how clean and incontaminate was the vessel in which we had laid all the treasure that we possessed. That morning we suddenly realized for the first time that we were gambling for high stakes, that this test of our idol might destroy it for us altogether. All these days we had been hearing that the soldier was doggedly pursuing Tanya with his attentions, but for some reason none of us asked her what her attitude was towards him. She continued regularly to call on us every morning for her pretzels and was always her usual self.
On that day, too, we soon heard her voice:
“Jail-birdies! I’ve come....”
We hastened to let her in, and when she came in we greeted her, contrary to our custom, with silence. We looked hard at her and were at a loss what to say to her, what to ask her. We stood before her in a silent sullen crowd. She was obviously surprised at the unusual reception, and suddenly we saw her turn pale, look anxious and stir restlessly. Then in a choky voice she asked:
“Why are you all so ... strange!”
“What about you?” threw in the baker in a grim tone, his eyes fixed on her face.
“What about me?”
“Nothing....”
“Well, give me the pretzels, quick....”
“Plenty of time!” retorted the baker without stirring, his eyes still glued on her face.
She suddenly turned and disappeared through the door.
The baker picked up his shovel, and turning to the oven, let fall calmly:
“Well—she’s fixed! The soldier’s done it ... the blighter! ...”
We shambled back to the table like a herd of jostling sheep, sat down in silence and apathetically set to our work. Presently some one said:
“Maybe it isn’t....”
“Shut up! Enough of that!” shouted the baker.
We all knew him for a clever man, cleverer than any of us. And that shout of his we understood as meaning that he was convinced of the soldier’s victory.... We felt sad and perturbed....
At twelve o’clock—the lunch hour—the soldier came in. He was, as always, clean and spruce and—as always—looked us straight in the eyes. We felt too ill at ease to look at him.
“Well, my dear sirs, d’you want me to show you what a soldier can do?” he said with a proud sneer. “You go out into the passage and peep through the cracks ... get me?”
We trooped into the passage, and tumbling over each other, pressed our faces to the chinks in the wooden wall looking onto the yard. We did not have to wait long. Soon Tanya came through the yard with a hurried step and anxious look, skipping over puddles of thawed snow and mud. She disappeared through the door of the cellar. Presently the soldier sauntered past whistling, and he went in too. His hands were thrust into his pockets and he twitched his moustache....
It was raining and we saw the drops falling into the puddles which puckered up at the impacts. It was a grey wet day—a very bleak day. Snow still lay on the roofs, while on the ground dark patches of slush stood out here and there. On the roofs too the snow was covered with a brownish coating of dirt. It was cold and disagreeable, waiting in that passage....
The first to come out of the cellar was the soldier. He walked leisurely across the yard, twitching his moustache, his hands deep in his pockets—much the same as he always was.
Then Tanya came out. Her eyes ... her eyes shone with joy and happiness, and her lips smiled. And she walked as though in a dream, swaying, with uncertain gait....
It was more than we could endure. We all made a sudden rush for the door, burst into the yard and began yelling and whistling at her in a fierce, loud, savage uproar.
She started when she saw us and stood stock-still, her feet in a dirty puddle. We surrounded her and cursed her with a sort of malicious glee in a torrent of profanity and shameless taunts.
We did it unhurriedly, quietly, seeing that she had no way of escape from the circle around her and that we could jeer at her to our heart’s content. It is strange, but we did not hit her. She stood amid us and turned her head from side to side, listening to our insults. And we ever more fiercely, ever more furiously, flung at her the dirt and poison of our wrath.
Her face drained of life. Her blue eyes, which the moment before had looked so happy, were dilated, her breath came in gasps and her lips quivered.
And we, having surrounded her, were wreaking our vengeance on her—for had she not robbed us? She had belonged to us, we had spent our best sentiments on her, and though that best was a mere beggar’s pittance, we were twenty-six and she was one, and there was no anguish we could inflict that was fit to meet her guilt! How we insulted her! ... She said not a word, but simply gazed at us with a look of sheer terror and a long shudder went through her body.
We guffawed, we howled, we snarled.... Other people joined us.... One of us pulled the sleeve of Tanya’s blouse....
Suddenly her eyes blazed; she raised her hands in a slow gesture to put her hair straight, and said loudly but calmly, straight into our faces:
“Oh, you miserable jail-birds! ...”
And she bore straight down on us, just as if we had not been there, had not stood in her path. Indeed, that is why none of us proved to be in her path.
When she was clear of our circle she added just as loudly without turning round, in a tone of scorn and pride:
“Oh, you filthy swine.... You beasts....” And she departed—straight, beautiful, and proud.
We were left standing in the middle of the yard amid the mud, under the rain and a grey sky that had no sun in it....
Then we too shuffled back to our damp stony dungeon. As of old, the sun never peered through our window, and Tanya came never more! ...
1 A merchant shipping company.—Trans.
2 Cossack village. —Trans.
Maxim Gorky, Chelkash and Other Stories
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