“Don’t!” she whispered, gazing at him tearfully. “Don’t, Andryusha…”
Pavel came up slowly, gazing at his comrade moist-eyed. He was pale and, with a smile, said in a low voice, slowly:
“My mother’s afraid it was you…”
“No, I’m not! I don’t believe that! Even if I’d seen it, I wouldn’t believe it!”
“Wait!” said the Ukrainian without looking at them, shaking his head and still trying to free his hand. “It wasn’t me, but I could have prevented it…”
“Leave it alone, Andrei!” said Pavel.
Squeezing Andrei’s hand in one of his own, Pavel put his other one on the Ukrainian’s shoulder, as if trying to stop his tall body trembling. The Ukrainian bent his head towards him and said quietly, between pauses:
“I didn’t want it – you know that, Pavel, don’t you? This is how it happened: when you went on ahead and I stopped at the corner with Dragunov, Isai came round the corner and stood some distance away. He’s looking at us, grinning… Dragunov said: ‘You see? It’s him that’s been following me all night. I’m going to give him a beating.’ And off he went, as I thought, home… And Isai came over to me…”
The Ukrainian sighed.
“Nobody’s offended me in such a vile way as him, the dog.”
Silently, the mother drew Andrei by the hand towards the table, and she finally managed to sit him down on a chair. And she herself sat next to him, shoulder to shoulder. Pavel stood in front of him, plucking gloomily at his beard.
“He told me he knew us all, that the gendarmes were keeping an eye on all of us and would fish us all out ahead of May Day. I didn’t answer, I laughed, but my heart was beginning to seethe. He started saying I was an intelligent lad and I shouldn’t be going down such a path, that I’d do better…”
He stopped, wiped his face with his left hand, and his eyes had a dry sparkle.
“I understand!” said Pavel.
“‘Better,’ he says, ‘to enter the service of the law, eh?’”
The Ukrainian waved an arm and shook a clenched fist.
“Of the law, damn his soul!” he said through his teeth. “Better if he’d struck me on the cheek… it would have been easier for me and, perhaps, for him too. But when he spat his stinking spittle into my heart, I ran out of patience.”
Andrei tried spasmodically to pull his hand out of Pavel’s, and said, in a more muffled voice and with repulsion:
“I struck him on the cheek and started walking. Behind me I hear Dragunov saying, quietly like: ‘Got you, eh?’ He must have been standing round the corner…”
After a pause the Ukrainian said:
“I didn’t turn around, although I sensed… I heard a blow… I’m walking along calmly, as though I’d just kicked a toad. I arrived at work, and they’re shouting: ‘Isai’s been murdered!’ I couldn’t believe it. But my arm started aching – it’s awkward to control – it doesn’t hurt, but it’s as though it had got shorter…”
He gave his arm a sidelong glance and said:
“I’ll probably never in my whole life wash the vile stain of this away now…”
“As long as your heart’s innocent, my sweet!” said the mother quietly.
“No, I don’t blame myself!” the Ukrainian said firmly. “But I find all this repulsive! I could do without it.”
“I don’t really understand you!” said Pavel, shrugging his shoulders. “You weren’t the one who killed him, but even if—”
“Brother, knowing someone’s killing, and not preventing it…”
Pavel said firmly:
“I don’t understand that at all…”
And after some thought he added:
“That’s to say, I can understand it, but feel it – no.”
The siren began singing. The Ukrainian cocked his head to one side, listened to the commanding roar and then, rousing himself, said:
“I’m not going to work…”
“Nor me,” responded Pavel.
“I’m going to the bathhouse!” said the Ukrainian with a grin and, when he had quickly collected his things in silence, he left, gloomy.
After seeing him off with a compassionate gaze, the mother said to her son:
“As you wish, Pasha! I know it’s a sin to kill a man, but I don’t think anyone’s to blame. I feel sorry for Isai, he’s such a little nail of a man, and I looked at him and remembered how he threatened to hang you – and there was no malice towards him, no joy that he was dead. I simply felt sorry. But now I don’t even feel sorry…”
She fell silent, had a think and, smiling in surprise, remarked:
“Lord Jesus, do you hear what I’m saying, Pasha?…”
Pavel could not have heard. Slowly pacing around the room with his head lowered, he said thoughtfully and glumly:
“There it is, life! You see how people are set against one another? You don’t want to, but, go on, hit someone! And which one? One just as short of rights. He’s even more unfortunate than you, because he’s stupid. The police, the gendarmes, spies – they’re all our enemies, but they’re all people just the same as we are, the blood’s sucked out of them in just the same way, and in just the same way they’re not considered people. Everything’s the same! But they’ve set people against one another, blinded them with stupidity and fear, bound everyone hand and foot; they’ve squeezed them and they’re sucking them dry, crushing and beating some of them with others. They’ve turned people into guns, into sticks, into stones, and they say ‘This is the state!…’”
He went closer to his mother.
“It’s a crime, Mother! The vilest murder of millions of people, the murder of souls… Do you understand? They’re murdering your soul. You see the difference between us and them – he struck a man, and he feels repulsion, shame, pain. The main thing is repulsion! But they murder in thousands, calmly, without pity, without heartache, they murder with pleasure! And they crush everyone and everything to death merely to preserve the silver, the gold, the worthless bits of paper, all the pitiful rubbish that gives them power over people. Just think: it’s not themselves that these people are protecting when they defend themselves by murdering the people, when they pervert men’s souls, it’s not for their own sake they do it – it’s for the sake of their property. They’re not looking after what’s on the inside of themselves, but on the outside…”
He took her hands, leant forward and, giving them a shake, said:
“If you could sense all that loathsomeness and shameful rottenness, you’d understand our truth, you’d see how great and bright it is!…”
The mother rose, agitated, filled with the desire to fuse her own heart in a single fire with the heart of her son.
“Wait, Pasha, wait!” she murmured, gasping for breath. “I can sense it – wait!…”
XXV
Someone began bustling about noisily in the lobby. They both gave a start and exchanged glances.
The door opened slowly, and through it with a heavy tread came Rybin.
“There!” he said, raising his head and smiling. “Our Foma comes drawn from afar to wine and to bread, so let grace be said!…”
He was wearing a sheepskin coat covered in tar and bast shoes, there were black mittens sticking out from under his belt, and on his head was a shaggy hat.
“Are you well? They let you out, Pavel? Right. How’re you getting on, Nilovna?” He was smiling broadly, showing his white teeth, his voice sounded softer than before and his face was even more densely overgrown with beard.
The mother was delighted, went up to him and squeezed his big black hand and, inhaling the healthy, strong smell of tar, said:
“Oh my… well, I am glad!…”
Pavel smiled as he scrutinized Rybin.
“What a fine-looking peasant!”
Taking his things off
slowly, Rybin said:
“Yes, I’ve turned into a peasant again; you’re gradually becoming a gentleman, while I’m reverting… there!”
Straightening his rough cotton shirt, he went through into the other room, cast an attentive gaze over it and announced:
“You’ve got no extra belongings, that’s clear, but there are more books – right! Well, tell me, how are things?”
He sat down with his feet set wide apart, rested the palms of his hands on his knees and, running his dark eyes over Pavel enquiringly, waited with a genial smile for a reply.
“Things are going briskly!” said Pavel.
“We plough and we scatter, boasting’s not our matter, but when we get the harvest in, we’ll brew us some ale and sleep without fail – right?” Rybin jested.
“How are you getting on, Mikhailo Ivanych?” asked Pavel, sitting down opposite him.
“All right. I’m getting on fine. I’m staying in Yegildeyevo for a bit, have you heard of it, Yegildeyevo? It’s a good village. Two fairs a year, over two thousand inhabitants – an angry lot! They’ve no land of their own, they rent it from the crown, and it’s really poor. I’ve hired myself out as a labourer to a bloodsucker – they’re like flies on a dead body there. We make tar, burn charcoal. I get a quarter of what I did for my work here, but break my back twice as much – there! There are seven of us with him, the bloodsucker. They’re all right – all youngsters, all from round there except for me, and all literate. One lad, Yefim, he’s so enthusiastic it’s awful!”
“And what, do you talk with them?” asked an animated Pavel.
“I’m not silent. I’ve got all the leaflets from here with me – thirty-four of them. But I work with the Bible more, there’s things to be had there, and it’s a solid book, official, printed by the Synod, so you can believe it!”
He winked at Pavel and continued with a grin:
“Only it’s not enough. I’ve come to you for books. There are two of us here – I’ve got this Yefim with me. We’ve been delivering tar, and so, well, we’ve made a detour and dropped in on you! Let me have some books before Yefim arrives – he doesn’t need to know too much…”
The mother looked at Rybin, and it seemed to her that something else had gone from him along with his worker’s jacket. He looked less reliable, and his eyes had a slyer look, not as open as before.
“Mama,” said Pavel, “go and bring some books. The people there know the ones to give you. Tell them it’s for the countryside.”
“Very well!” said the mother. “When the samovar’s ready, I’ll go.”
“And have you got mixed up in this business too, Nilovna?” asked Rybin with a grin. “Right. We’ve got lots of book lovers there. The teacher gives them the taste – they say he’s a good lad, even if he does come from the clergy. There’s a woman who teaches too, about seven versts away. Well, they won’t work with a forbidden book, they’re official folk, they’re afraid. But I’ve a need for a forbidden book, a provocative one, and it’ll be as if it’s theirs… If the district superintendent or the priest sees the book’s a forbidden one, they’ll think it’s the teachers that are sowing it! And I’ll keep my distance till the time’s right.”
And pleased with his wisdom, he bared his teeth cheerfully.
“How about you, then!” the mother thought. “You look like a bear, but act like a fox…”
“What do you think,” asked Pavel, “if the teachers are suspected of distributing forbidden books, will they be put in jail for it?”
“They will – what of it?” asked Rybin.
“It was you giving out the books, not them! It’s you that ought to go to jail…”
“You’re crazy!” laughed Rybin, slapping a hand on his knee. “Who’ll think of me? A simple peasant doing such a thing, since when does that happen? A book’s a gentleman’s business, it’s for them to answer for it…”
The mother sensed that Pavel did not understand Rybin and saw he had narrowed his eyes, which meant he was getting angry. Gently and cautiously she said:
“Mikhail Ivanovich wants to be doing something, but others to take the punishment for him…”
“That’s it!” said Rybin, stroking his beard. “Till the time’s right.”
“Mama!” cried Pavel drily. “If one of us, Andrei, for example, does something pretending it was me, and I’m put in prison, what will you say to that?”
The mother winced, glanced at her son in bewilderment and said with a negative shake of the head:
“How could you act against a comrade like that?”
“Aha-a!” drawled Rybin. “I’ve got you, Pavel!”
With a mocking wink he turned to the mother:
“This here’s a subtle matter, Mother.”
And once again, edifyingly, to Pavel:
“Your thinking’s green, Brother! In secret work there’s no honour. Consider this: the first thing is, to begin with they’ll imprison the lad in whose home they find the book, not the teachers – that’s one. The second thing is, although the teachers give out a permitted book, the gist of it is the same as in the forbidden one: it’s just the words that are different, and there’s less truth – that’s two. So they want the same as I do, only they’re going along a country road, while I’m on the highway; but before the authorities we’re equally guilty, true? And the third thing, Brother, is that I don’t care about them – a sow’s no match for a goose. Maybe I wouldn’t want to do the same thing to a peasant. But them – one’s a priest’s son, the other’s a landowner’s daughter, and what they need to rouse the people for I don’t know. Their gentlefolk’s ideas are a mystery to me, a peasant. What I do myself, I know, but what they want, that’s unknown to me. For a thousand years people were tidy about being gentlefolk – they fleeced the peasant – then suddenly they’ve woken up and start rubbing the peasant’s eyes. I’m no lover of fairy tales, Brother, and to me that seems like a fairy tale. All gentlefolk are a long way away from me. You’re riding through the fields in winter, up ahead there’s some creature scurrying around, but what is it? A wolf, a fox or simply a dog – I can’t see! It’s a long way away.”
The mother glanced at her son. His face was sad.
But Rybin’s eyes shone with a dark lustre; he looked at Pavel with self-satisfaction and, combing his beard excitedly with his fingers, said:
“I haven’t the time to stand on ceremony. Life looks on sternly; the kennel isn’t the sheepfold, every pack barks in its own way…”
“There are some gentlefolk,” began the mother, remembering familiar faces, “who sacrifice themselves for the people, suffer all their lives in prison…”
“They’re a special case and get a different sort of respect!” said Rybin. “If a peasant grows rich, he wants to be a master, if a master grows poor, he becomes a peasant. Like it or not, pure is the soul if empty’s the purse. Do you remember, Pavel, you explained to me how the way someone lived was the way he thought, and if a worker said yes, then his boss ought to say no, and if the worker said no, then his boss, by his very nature, would be sure to cry yes! And so it is that a peasant and his master have different natures. If the peasant’s well fed, the master’s wakeful in his bed. Of course, every social rank has its sons of bitches, and I don’t agree with defending all of the peasants…”
He rose to his feet, dark and strong. His face grew dim, his beard twitched as though he had inaudibly snapped his teeth together, and in a lowered voice he continued:
“I spent five years loafing around factories and grew unused to the countryside – there! I went back, had a look, and I can see I can’t live like that! Do you understand? I can’t! You live here and you don’t see injury of the same kind. But there, hunger creeps after a man like a shadow and there’s no hope of bread, none! Hunger has gobbled up souls, wiped out human faces, people don’t live, they rot in inescapable need… And al
l around, like carrion crows, the authorities are keeping watch to see if you might have one morsel too many. If they see one, they’ll tear it away and give you a smack in the mug…”
Rybin looked around and then leant down towards Pavel, resting an arm on the table.
“I even began to feel sick when I looked at that life once again. I saw I couldn’t take it! I overcame myself, though: ‘No,’ I thought, ‘don’t try it on, soul! I’m going to stay. I won’t be getting you bread, but I’m going to cook up some trouble.’ And I am going to cook it up, Brother! I carry inside me a sense of grievance on behalf of people and against people. It’s stuck, rocking in my heart like a knife.”
His forehead was sweating, and moving slowly towards Pavel, he put his hand on his shoulder. The hand was quivering.
“Give me some help! Give me books, the sort that, when a man’s read them he can find no peace. A hedgehog needs to be put inside people’s skulls, a prickly hedgehog! Tell your townsfolk who write for you they should write for the countryside too! Let them do it for all they’re worth, so the countryside gets a scalding, so the people are prepared to die!”
He raised a hand and, pronouncing each word distinctly, said in a low voice:
“Right death with death – there! That is, die, so that people can be reborn. And let thousands die, so that loads of people all over the earth can be reborn! There. Dying’s easy. If only they’re reborn! If only people rise!”
The mother brought in the samovar, looking askance at Rybin. His words, heavy and powerful, overwhelmed her. And there was something about him that reminded her of her husband: he had bared his teeth and moved his hands in the same way when rolling up his sleeves; in him there had been the same impatient malice, impatient, but mute. This one spoke. And was less frightening.
“It does need to be done!” said Pavel with a toss of his head. “Give us the material and we’ll print a newspaper for you…”
The mother gazed at her son with a smile, shook her head and, putting on her things in silence, left the house.
“Do it! We’ll deliver everything. Write simply, so that the calves could understand!” Rybin was yelling.