I.
I MEET HIM.

Stumbling in the dark upon the hurdle fence I valiantly strided over puddles of mud from window to window, tapped, not very loudly, on the window-panes with my fingers, and cried:

"Give a traveller a night\'s lodging!"

In reply they sent me to the neighbours or to the Devil; from one window they promised to let the dog loose upon me, from another they threatened me silently but eloquently with their fists—and big fists too. A woman screamed at me.

"Go away, be off while you are still whole! My husband is at home."

I understood her: she only took in lodgers during the absence of her husband.... Regretting that he was at home I went on to the next window.

"Good people, give a traveller a night\'s lodging!"

They answered me politely:

"In God\'s name go—further on!"

The weather was wretched—a fine, cold rain was falling, and the muddy earth was thickly enveloped in darkness. From time to time a gust of wind blew from some quarter or other; it moaned softly in the branches of the trees, rustled the wet straw on the roofs, and gave birth to many other cheerless noises, breaking in upon the gloomy silence of the night with its miserable music of sighs and groans: Listening to this dolorous prelude to the grim poem which they call Autumn, the people under the roofs were no doubt in a bad humour, and therefore would not give me a night\'s lodging. For a long time I had fought against this resolution of theirs, they as doggedly opposed me and, at last, had annihilated my hopes of a night\'s lodging beneath any roof whatsoever. So I left the village and went forth into the fields, thinking that there, perhaps, I might find a haycock or a rick of straw ... though naught but chance could direct me to them in this thick and heavy darkness.

But lo and behold! I saw, three paces in front of me, something big rising up—something even darker than the darkness. I went thither, and discovered that it was a corn magazine. Corn magazines, you know, are built not right upon the earth but upon piles or stones; between the floor of the magazine and the ground is a space where an ordinary man can easily settle down ... all he has to do is to lie upon his belly and wriggle into it.

Clearly, Destiny desired that I should pass that night not only under a roof but under a floor. Content therewith, I wriggled along the dry ground, feeling with my breast and sides for a somewhat more level place for my night\'s lodging. And suddenly in the darkness resounded a calmly-anticipatory voice:

"A little more to the left, if you please!"

This was not alarming, but unexpected it certainly was.

"Who\'s there?" I inquired.

"A man ... with a stick...."

"I have a stick too."

"And matches?"

"Yes, I have matches also."

"That\'s good."

I didn\'t see anything at all good in this, for, according to my view of the matter, it would only have been good if I had had bread and tobacco and not merely matches.

"I suppose they wouldn\'t let you have a night\'s lodging in the village?" inquired the invisible voice.

"No, they wouldn\'t," I said.

"Me also they would not admit."

This was clear—if only he had asked for a night\'s lodging. But he might not have asked, he might simply have crept in here to await a favourable opportunity for executing some sort of risky operation absolutely desiderating the protection of the night. Every sort of labour is praiseworthy, I know, but for all that I resolved to clutch my stick firmly.

"They wouldn\'t let me in, the Devils!" resumed the voice. "Blockheads! In fine weather they let you in, while in weather like this ... may they howl for it!"

"And whither are you going?" I asked.

"To ... Nikolaiev. And you?"

I told him.

"Fellow-travellers that means. And now strike a match. I\'m going to smoke."

The matches had got damp>—impatiently, it took me a long time, I struck them against the boards above my head. At last a tiny little light spluttered forth, and from out of the darkness stared a pale face with a thick black beard.

The big, sensible eyes looked at me with a smile, presently some white teeth gleamed from beneath the moustaches, and the man said to me: "Like a smoke?"

The match burnt out. We lit another, and by the light of it we stared once more at each other, after which my fellow lodger observed confidentially:

"Well, it seems to me we shan\'t clash ... take a cigarette."

Another cigarette was between his teeth and, brightening as he smoked it, illuminated his face with a faint reddish glimmer. Around his eyes and on the forehead of this man was a lot of deep and finely furrowed wrinkles. Earlier, by the light of the same match, I had observed that he was dressed in the remains of an old wadding paletot, girded with a piece of string, and on his feet were shoes made of a whole piece of leather—porshni as we call them on the Don.

"A pilgrim?" I asked.

"Yes, I go on foot. And you?"

"Likewise."

He moved slightly, and there was a sort of metallic clank—evidently a kettle or tea-pot, that indispensable accessory of the pilgrim to holy places; but in his tone there was not a trace of that foxy unction which always betrays the pilgrim; in his tone there was nothing of the pilgrim\'s obligatory thievish oiliness, and, so far, his words were unaccompanied by any pious groans or quotations from "the Scriptures." In general he did not at all resemble the professional loafers at the holy places—that shoddy and endless variety of "Russian Vagabondage," whose lies and superstitions have such an effect upon the spiritually-hungry and starving rural population. Besides, he was going to Nikolaiev, where there were neither shrines nor relics....

"And where are you coming from?" I inquired.

"From Astrakhan."

Now in Astrakhan also there are no relics. Then I asked him:

"Doesn\'t that mean you are going from sea to sea and not to the holy places at all?"

"Nay, but I go to the holy places too. Why should I not go to the holy places? I go with pleasure ... they always feed you well there ... especially if you get intimate with the monks. Our brother Isaac[1] is much respected by them, because he makes life a little less monotonous for them. What are your views on the subject?"

I explained.

"They are feeding-places," he admitted "And whither then do you go? Aha! you find the way is long, eh? Strike a match and we\'ll smoke a little more. When one smokes one grows a little warmer."

It really was cold, not only because of the wind, which impudently blew right in upon us, but because of our wet clothes.

"Perhaps you\'d like something to eat? I have bread, potatoes, and two roasted ravens ... have some?"

"Ravens?" I inquired inquisitively.

"Never tasted them? They\'re not bad...."

He chucked me a large piece of bread.

I didn\'t try the raven.

"Come, try them! In the autumn they\'re capital. And after all it is much more pleasant to eat raven angled for by your own hands than bread or fat given to you by the hand of a neighbour out of the window of his house, which, after you have accepted it as an alms, you always want to burn."

His remarks were reasonable—reasonable and interesting. The use of raven as an article of food was new to me but did not cause me any surprise I knew that in winter at Odessa "the lower orders" eat rats, and at Rostov—slugs. There was nothing improbable in it Even the Parisians, when in a state of siege, were glad to eat all sorts of rubbish, and there are people who all their life long live in a state of siege.

[1] Himself.

"And how do you catch your ravens?" my desire for information led me to ask.

"Not with your mouth, anyhow. You can knock them down with a stick or a stone, but the surest way is to fish for them! You must tie a piece of fat meat or a bit of bread at the end of a long piece of cord. The raven seizes it, gulps it down, and you haul him in. Then you twist his neck, pluck him, draw him, and, fastening him on to a stick, roast him over a fire."

"Ah! it would be nice to be sitting by a fire now," I sighed.

The cold had become more sensible. It seemed as if the very wind were freezing, it beat against the walls of the magazine with such a painful tremulous whine. Sometimes it was wafted to us along with the howl of some dog, the crowing of a cock, and the melancholy sound of the bell of the village church, hidden in the darkness. Drops of rain fell heavily from the roof of the magazine on to the wet earth.

"\'Tis dull to be silent," observed my fellow night-lodger.

"It\'s rather cold ... to talk," I said.

"Put your tongue in your pocket ... it will warm it up."

"Thanks for the hint!"

"We will go together, eh? When we take the road I mean...?"

"All right!"

"Let us introduce ourselves then ... I, for instance, am Pavel Ignat\'ev Promtov, Esq."

I introduced myself likewise.

"That\'s right, now we know where we are! And now I\'ll ask you how you came to fall into these paths. Was it through a weakness for vodka, eh?"

"It was from disgust of life."

"That\'s possible, too. Do you know that publication of the Senate, entitled: Judicial Investigations?"

"Yes."

"Is your name also printed there?"

At that time I had had nothing printed about me, and so I told him.

"I also am not in print."

"But have you done anything?"

"Everything is in God\'s hands."

"But you are a merry fellow, apparently?"

"What\'s the good of grizzling?"

"Not everyone in your situation would talk like that..." I doubted the sincerity of his words.

"The situation ... is damp and cold, but then you see it will be quite different at dawn of day. The sun will come out, and then we shall creep out of this, have some tea, eat and drink, and warm ourselves. That won\'t be bad, eh?"

"Very good!" I admitted.

"So there, you see, every evil has its good side."

"And every good thing its evil side."

"Amen!" exclaimed Promtov with the voice of a deacon.

God knows he was a merry comrade enough. I regretted that I could not see his face, which, judging from the rich intonation of his voice, must have shown a very expressive play of feature. We talked about trifles for a long time, concealing from each other our mutual desire to be more closely acquainted, and I was inwardly lost in admiration at the dexterity with which he inveigled me into blabbing about myself while he kept his own counsel.

While we were quietly conversing the rain ceased, and the darkness began to melt away; already in the East a rosy strip of dawn was glowing with a vivid radiance. Simultaneously with the dawn the freshness of morning made itself felt—that freshness which is so stimulatingly pleasant when it meets a man dressed in warm and dry clothes.

"I wonder if we could find anything here for a fire—dry twigs for instance?" inquired Promtov.

Crawling on the floor we searched and searched, but could find nothing. Then we decided to drag out one of the boards not very firmly fixed in its place. We pulled it out and converted it into firewood. After that Promtov proposed that we should, if possible, bore a hole in the floor of the magazine in order to get some rye grain—for if rye grain is boiled it makes a very good dish. I protested, observing that it was not proper—for thereby we should waste some hundred-weights of grain for the sake of a pound or two.

"And what business is that of yours?" asked Promtov.

"I have heard that one must respect the property of others."

"That, my dear boy, is only necessary when the property is your own ... and it is only necessary then because your property is not other people\'s property...."

I was silent, but I reflected that this man must have extremely liberal views with regard to property, and that the pleasure of his acquaintance might, conceivably, have its drawbacks.

Soon the sun appeared, bright and cheerful. Blue patches of sky looked out from the broken clouds which were sailing slowly and wearily towards the north. Drops of rain were sparkling everywhere. Promtov and I crept out of the magazine and entered the fields, amidst the bristles of the mown corn, towards the green crooked ribbon of a village far away from us.

"There\'s a stream," said my acquaintance.

I looked at him, and thought that he must be about forty, and that life was no joke for him. His dark blue eyes, deeply sunken in their orbits, glistened calmly and confidently, and whenever he screwed them up a bit his face assumed a cunning and cruel expression. In his steady and combative gait, in the leather knapsack adroitly slung across his back, in his whole figure there could be detected the passion for a vagabond life, lupine experience and vulpine craft.

"We\'ll go along together, then," said he; "straight across the stream, five miles off, is the village of Mauzhelyeya, and from thence the straight road to New Prague. Around this little place live Stundists, Baptists, and other mystical muzhiks.... They\'ll feed us finely if we set about amusing them properly. But not a word about the Scriptures with them. They are at home, as it were, in the Scriptures...."

We chose us a place not far from a group of poplars, selected some stones, numbers of which had been cast upon the shore by the little stream, all turbid with the rain, and on the stones laid our fire. Two versts away from us, on rising ground, stood the village, and on the straw of its roofs shone the rosy glow of dawn. The walls of the white huts were hidden by the sharp pyramids of the poplars coloured by the tints of autumn and the rising sun. The poplars were enveloped by the grey smoke from the chimneys, which darkened the orange and purple hues of the foliage and the patches of fresh blue sky between it.

"I\'m going to bathe," observed Promtov; "that is indispensable after so wretched a night. I advise you to do the same. And while we are refreshing ourselves the tea can be boiling. You know we ought to see to it that our nature should always be clean and fresh."

So saying he began to undress. His body was the body of a gentleman, beautifully shaped, with well-developed muscles. And when I saw him—naked, his dirty rags, which he had cast from him, seemed to me doubly filthy and disgusting—they had never seemed so bad till then. After ducking in the bubbling water of the stream we leaped upon the shore all tremulous and blue with cold, and hastily put on our clothes, which had been warming by the fire. Then we sat down by the fire to drink our tea.

Promtov had an iron pipkin, he poured scalding tea into it, and handed it to me first. But the Devil, who is always ready to mock a man, seized me by one of the lying chords of my heart, and I observed magnanimously:

"Thank you, you drink first, I\'ll wait."

I said this with the firm conviction that Promtov would infallibly vie with me in affability and politeness if I thus offered to surrender to him the first drink of tea, but he simply said: "Very well, then!" —and put the pipkin to his mouth.

I turned aside and began to gaze steadily at the desolate steppe, wishing to convince Promtov that I did not see how venomously his dark eyes were laughing at me. And he, while he sipped his tea, chewed his bread deliberately, smacked his lips with gusto, and did it all with a deliberation that was torture to me. My vitals were already shivering with cold, and I was ready to pour the boiling water in the kettle down my throat.

"Well," laughed Promtov, "it\'s not very profitable to do the polite, is it now?"

"Alas, no!" I said,

"Well, that\'s all right! You\'ll learn to know better in time.... Why yield to another what is profitable or pleasant to yourself?—that\'s what I say. They say all men are brethren, yet nobody has ever attempted to prove it by any system of measurement...."

"Is that really your opinion?"

"And why pray shouldn\'t I speak as I think?"

"Well, you know that a man always tries to brag a little bit whatever he may be..."

"I know not why I should have inspired you with such a distrust of me," and this wolf shrugged his shoulders—"I suppose it is because I gave you some bread and tea? I did this not from any brotherly feeling, but out of curiosity. I see a man not in his proper place and I want to know how and by what means he was chucked out of life...."

"And I, too, wanted to know the same thing. Tell me who and what you are?" I asked.

He looked searchingly at me and said, after a moment\'s silence: "A man never knows exactly who he is. One must be always asking him what he takes himself for."

"Weill, take it like that."

"Well ... I think I am a man who has no room in life. Life is narrow and I—am broad. Possibly this may not be true. But in this world there is a peculiar sort of people who must be descendants of the Wandering Jew. Their peculiarity is that they can never find a place for themselves in the world to which they can stick fast. Inside them lives an unruly aching desire for something new. The small fry of this order of men are never able to work things out to their liking, and for that reason are always discontented and unhappy, while the big fish are never satisfied with anything—whether it be women, money, or honour. Such people are not beloved in this life—they are audacious and unendurable. You see, the majority of people are sixpences in current coin, and all the difference between them is the date when they were struck off. This one is worn out, that one is quite new; but their value is the same, their substance is of the same sort, and in every respect they are absolutely similar. Now I am not of these sixpences ... although perhaps I may be a half-sovereign.... That is all."

He said all this smiling sceptically, and it seemed to me that he did not believe himself. But he excited in me an eager curiosity, and I resolved to go with him till I discovered who he was. It was plain that he was a so-called "intelligent person." There are many of them among the vagabonds, but they are all—dead people, people who have lost all self-respect, who lack the capacity of esteeming themselves, and only manage to live by falling lower every day into filth and nastiness; finally, they dissolve in it and disappear from life.

But there was something substantial and durable about Promtov. And he did not grumble at life as all the others do.

"Well, shall we go on?" he proposed.

"By all means."

We rose from the ground warmed by tea and sunshine, and descended the bank to the current of the stream.

"And how do you manage to get food?" I asked Promtov ... "do you work?"

"Wo-o-rk? No, I am no great lover of that."

"But how then do you manage?"

"You shall see."

He was silent. Presently, after walking a few steps, he began whistling through his teeth some merry song. His eyes keenly and confidently swept the steppe, and he walked firmly like a man sure of his object.

I looked at him, and the desire to know with whom I had to deal burnt still more strongly within me.

The steppe surrounded us, desolate and quiet; above us shone the friendly sun of the south; we breathed with all our lungs the pure stimulating air, and went along in the direction where fragments of clouds jostled one another in a chaos of shapes and colours.

When we came to the street of the village—a little dog from somewhere or other bounded under our very feet, and barking loudly began to turn round and round us. Every time we looked at her, she bounded to one side, like a ball, with a terrified yelp, and again fell upon us barking furiously. Some of her friends then ran out, but they did not distinguish themselves by equal zeal, for after giving a bark or two they retired to some hiding-place. Their indifference seemed, however, to excite still more our little reddish doggie.

"Do you see what a mean nature that dog has?" observed Promtov, shaking his head at the zealous little dog. "And it is all lies too. She knows very well that barking is not necessary here, and she is not spiteful—she is a coward, and only wants to show off before her master. The little devil is purely human, and without doubt she has been educated into it.... People spoil their beasts. The time will soon come when beasts will be as abject and insincere as you and me...."

"Thank you," I said.

"Don\'t mention it. However, now I must take aim."

His expressive countenance now put on a pitiful mien, his eyes grew foolish, he became all bent and crooked, and his rags stood up straight like the fins of a chub.

"We must turn to our neighbour and ask for bread," he said by way of explaining to me his transformation, and he began to look keenly at the windows of the cottages. At the window of one of the cottages stood a woman suckling a child. Promtov did obeisance to her, and said in a supplicating tone:

"My sister, give bread to pilgrim folk!"

"Be not angry!" replied the woman, measuring us with suspicious eyes.

"May your breasts grow dry, then, daughter of a dog!" was the valediction my fellow-traveller sourly threw her.

The woman screamed like one who has been stung, and rushed out to us.

"Oh, you, you...." she began.

Promtov, without moving from the spot, looked her straight in the face with his black eyes, and their expression was savage and malevolent.... The woman grew pale, trembled, and murmuring something, quickly entered the hut.

"Let us go," I proposed to Promtov.

"No, we\'ll wait till she brings out the bread."

"She\'ll bring out the men upon us with pitchforks."

"A lot you know!" observed this wolf with a sceptical smile.

He was right. The woman appeared before us, holding in her hands half a loaf of bread and a solid bit of fat. Bowing low and silently to Promtov, she said to him with the tone of a suppliant:

"Pray take it, oh, man of God! be not angry!"

"God deliver thee from the evil eye, from sorcery, and from the ague!" was the unctuous farewell with which Promtov parted from her, and so we went on our way.

"Listen now!" said I, when we were already a good way from the cottage, "what an odd way of begging alms you have—to say no more."

"It\'s the best way. If you fix your eyes upon the woman for a little, she takes you for a sorcerer, grows scared, and will not only give you bread but the whole concern if necessary. Why should I beg and pray and lower myself before her when I can command? I have always thought that it is better to take than to beg ... but if you cannot take, you must beg, I suppose...."

"And has it never happened that instead of bread you sometimes...."

"Got one for myself, eh? No. Trust to me for that! My dear brother, let me tell you that I have got a magic little bit of paper, and I\'ve only got to show it to a muzhik,[2] and he is instantly my slave. Would you like me to show it to you?"

I held in my hands a pretty dirty and crumpled piece of paper, and perceived that it was a transit certificate issued to Pavel Ignat\'ev Promtov by the administrative authorities of Petersburg, permitting him to journey from Astrakhan to Nikolaiev. The paper bore the seal of the Astrakhan police-office, with the corresponding signatures—all quite regular.

[2] Peasant.

"I don\'t understand," I said, returning this document into the hands of its proprietor. "How is it you are starting from Astrakhan, when your point of departure was St. Petersburg?"

He smiled, his whole face expressed the consciousness of his superiority over me.

"Look now, it\'s quite simple. Think it out. They sent me from Petersburg, and in sending me invited me to choose, for certain reasons, my place of residence Say I choose Kursk, for example. Well, I appear at Kursk, and go to the police-station. I have the honour to present myself there. The Kursk police cannot welcome me amiably—they have their own little brothers there—and are full up. They assume that they have before them a sharper, and a clever sharper too; if they cannot rid themselves of him forcibly with the assistance of the statutes, they must have recourse to administrative measures in order to get shot of him. And they are always glad to send me packing—even if they plunge me into fresh misery. Perceiving their embarrassment I humanely come to their assistance. Well, well, I say, I had already chosen my place of residence, but perhaps you would like me to choose it over again? They are only too glad to get quit of me. I say, too, that I am ready to withdraw myself from the sphere of their duty, which is to preserve the inviolability of person and property, but as a reward for my amiability they must give me some provision for the road. They give me five roubles or ten, a little more or less, as the case may be, having regard to my temperament and character—and they always give gladly. It is always better to lose a fiver than to saddle themselves with grave inconvenience in my person—isn\'t it?"

"Possibly," I said.

"It is really so. And they provide me besides with a little piece of paper in no way resembling a passport. It is in its difference from a passport that the magic power of this little piece of paper consists. On it is written, \'ad-min-is-tra-tive-ly sent from Pet-ers-burg!\' Oh! I show this to the starosta[3] who, generally, is as dull as a clod, and devil a bit of it does he understand. He fears it—there is a seal upon it. I say to him—on the strength of this bit of paper—you are bound to give me a night\'s lodging! He gives it to me. You are bound to feed me! He feeds me. He cannot do otherwise, for on the paper is inscribed—from St Petersburg administratively. What\'s the meaning of this \'administratively\'?—the deuce only knows. It may mean: sent on a secret mission for investigating the condition of the coast industries, or inquiring as to the issue of false coin, or preventing illicit distilling, or carrying out the sale of contraband goods. Or it may imply an inquiry whether the people properly attend the services of the Orthodox Church as prescribed. Or possibly it has something to do with the land. Who can decide what \'administratively from Petersburg\' means? Possibly I may be someone in disguise. The muzhik is stupid, what can he understand?"

[3] Village elder.

"Yes, he does not understand much," I observed.

"And a very good thing too!" declared Promtov with lively satisfaction. "Such he is and ought to be, and such as he is, and only so, he is indispensable to us all like the very air. For what is the muzhik? The muzhik is for us all the means of nutriment, that is to say, he is an edible creature. Look at me for instance! Would it be possible for me to exist upon this earth but for the muzhik? Four things are indispensable for the existence of man: the sun, water, air, and the muzhik.

"And the land?"

"Granted the muzhik—and you have the land as well. You have but to command him. Hie, you there! create the land, and there the land will be. He cannot disobey."

This merry vagrant loved talking! We had long since passed the village, left behind us many farms, and once more another village stood before us, submerged in the orange foliage of autumn. Promtov chattered on—as merrily as a finch—and I listened to him, and thought about the muzhik and this new kind of parasite, unknown to me before, participating in the illusory prosperity of the muzhik.... When will the muzhik be well repaid for all the evil with which he has been so liberally requited? Here, alongside of me, marched the product of town life—a cynical and sensible vagrant, living on the vital juices of this poor muzhik, a wolf fully conscious of his lupine strength.

"Listen now"—a circumstance had suddenly occurred to me—"we meet under conditions which induce me strongly to doubt the efficacy of your bit of paper—how do you explain it?"

"Aye, aye!" laughed Promtov, "very simply. I had already passed through that place, and it is not always convenient to bring yourself back to people\'s recollection as you know."

His candour pleased me. Candour is always a good quality, and it is a great pity that it is so rarely to be met with among respectable people. And I listened attentively to the random chatter of my comrade, trying to make up my mind whether the picture he drew of himself was the real one.

"Here is a village in front of us! If you like I will show you the power of my bit of paper—what do you say?" proposed Promtov.

I objected to the experiment, proposing instead that he should tell me how he had really earned this piece of paper.

"Well, that is a long, long story," said he, waving his hand. "But I\'ll tell you—one day. Meantime let us rest and have a snack. We have an ample store of food, which means that it is not necessary at present to go into the village and trouble our neighbour."

Quitting the road, we sat down on the ground and began to eat. Then, made lazy by the warm beams of the sun and the breath of the soft wind of the steppe, we lay down and slept.... When we awoke, the sun purple and large was already on the horizon, and on the steppe the mists of the southern evening were encamping.

"Now you shall see," declared Promtov. "Fate is content that we should pass the night in that little village."

"Let us go while there is still light," I proposed.

"Don\'t be afraid. To-night we shall have a roof above our heads."

He was right. At the first hut at which we knocked and asked for a night\'s lodging we were hospitably invited to come in.

The "guid man" of the hut, a big, good-natured fellow, had just come in from the fields where he had been ploughing, his "guid wife" was making supper ready. Four grimy little children, huddled into a heap in a corner of the room, peeped out at us from thence with timid, inquisitive eyes. The buxom housewife bustled about from the hut to the outhouse swiftly and silently, bringing bread and water-melons and milk. The master of the house sat down on a bench opposite to us rubbing his stomach with an air of concentration, and fixing penetrating glances upon us. Presently the usual question came from him:

"Where are you going?"

"We\'re going, dear man, from sea to sea, to the city of Kiev," replied Promtov cheerfully in the words of the old cradle song.

"What is there to be seen at Kiev?" inquired the "guid man" meditatively.

"The holy relics."

The "guid man" looked at Promtov in silence and spat. Then after a pause he asked:

"And from whence do you come?"

"I from Petersburg, he from Moscow," answered Promtov.

"All that way?"—the "guid man" raised his brows. "And what\'s Petersburg like? Folks say that it is built upon the sea and that it is often under water."[4]

Here the door opened and two other khokhli[5] came in.

"We want a word with you, Michael," said one of them.

"What have you got to say to me?"

"It\'s this—who are these people?"

[4] The peasant uses the Ruthenian dialect, the effect of which is lost in a translation.

[5] "Tuft-headed," the name given to the Little Russians by the Great Russians, from their mode of wearing their hair.

"These?" asked our host, nodding his head at us.

"Yes."

Our host was silent and thoughtful, he scratched his head a bit.

"I should like to know myself," he explained.

"Maybe you are pilgrims?" they inquired of us.

"Yes!" replied Promtov.

A long silence prevailed, in the course of which the three khokhli regarded us doggedly, suspiciously, and inquisitively. At last they all sat down to table and began, with loud crunching, to consume the crimson water-melons.

"Maybe one of you is a scholar?" said one of the khokhli, turning towards Promtov.

"Both!" curtly replied Promtov

"Then perchance you know what a man ought to do when his backbone smarts and itches to that degree that he cannot sleep o\' nights?"

"We do know," replied Promtov.

"What?"

Promtov went on chewing his bread for a long time, dried his hands on his rags, then pensively regarded the ceiling and, at last, observed decisively and even severely:

"Break up a loaf and get your old woman at night to rub your spine with the crummy part, and afterwards anoint it with hemp-oil and fat ... that\'s all!"

"What will come of it?" inquired the khokhol.[6]

[6] Singular of khokhli.

"Nothing," and Promtov shrugged his shoulders.

"Nothing."

"Why should anything come of it?"

"Yet it\'s a good remedy?"

"Yes, it\'s a good remedy."

"I\'ll try it. Thanks!"

"To your good health!" said Promtov perfectly seriously.

There was a long silence amidst the crunching of the water-melons and the whispering of the children.

"Hark ye," began the owner of the hut, "maybe you have heard all about it at Moscow—I mean about Siberia—is it possible to settle there or not? Our district magistrate said—but no doubt he lies—that it is quite impossible!"

"Impossible!" observed Promtov with an air of astonishment.

The khokhli glanced at each other, and the master of the house murmured in his beard: "May a toad crawl into his stomach!"

"Impossible!" repeated Promtov, and suddenly his face glowed with enthusiasm; "it is impossible, but why go to Siberia at all when there is so much land everywhere—as much as you please?"

"Well, truly there\'s enough for the dead and to spare—but it is the living who stand in need of it," remarked one of the khokhli sadly.

"In Petersburg it has been decided," continued Promtov triumphantly, "to take all the land belonging to the gentry and the peasantry and make crown property of it."

The khokhli looked at him with wild wide-open eyes and were silent Promtov regarded them severely and asked:

"Yes, make crown property of it—and do you know why?"

The silence assumed an intense character, and the poor khokhli, apparently, were almost bursting with anxiety and expectation. I looked at them, and was scarce able to restrain the anger excited in me by the practical joke which Promtov was thus malting at the poor creatures\' expense. But to have betrayed his audacious falsehood to them would have meant a whacking for him, so I held my peace, overwhelmed by this foolish dilemma.

"Speak out, good man, and tell us!" asked one of the khokhli quietly and timidly, with a stifled voice.

"They are going to take away the land in order to redistribute it more fairly among the peasants. It has been decided there"—here Promtov waved his hand vaguely to one side—"that the true owner of the land is the peasant, and so it has been ordered that there shall be no emigration to Siberia, but people are to wait till the land is divided...."

One of the khokhli let his slice of melon fall out of his mouth in his excitement. All of them looked intently at Promtov\'s mouth with greedy eyes and were silent, being much impressed by the strange intelligence. And then—a few seconds afterwards—four expressions were heard almost simultaneously:

"Most holy mother!"—from the woman almost hysterically.

"But ... maybe you are lying!"

"Nay, but tell us more, good man!"

"Ah, that\'s why we have had such bright dawns and sunsets!" exclaimed the khokhol whose backbone had ached, with conviction.

"It is only a rumour," said I. "No doubt all this sounds very much like falsehood...."

Promtov regarded me with genuine amazement and exclaimed fiercely:

"What rumour? What lies? What do you mean?"

And there poured from his lips the melody of a most audacious falsehood—sweet music for all who were listening to him except myself. He liked the fun of spinning yarns. The khokhli, whom he wanted to persuade, were ready to jump into his mouth. But it was abominable to me to listen to his inspired falsehoods, which might very well result in bringing down a great misfortune upon the heads of these simple-minded folks. I left the hut and lay down in the courtyard thinking how best I could spoil the villainous game of my travelling-companion. His voice sounded for a long time in my ears, and then I fell asleep.

I was awakened by Promtov at sunrise.

"Get up! Let\'s be off!" he said.

Beside him stood the sleepy master of the hut, and the knapsack of Promtov was bulging out on all sides. We took our leave and departed. Promtov was merry. He sang, he whistled, and cast ironical sidelong glances at me. I was thinking what I should say to him and walked by his side in silence.

"Well! why don\'t you crucify me?" he suddenly asked.

"And are you aware of what will follow from all this?" I drily inquired.

"Why, of course! I understand you, and I know that you ought to turn the jest against me. I\'ll even tell you how you\'ll do it. Would you like to hear? But better far—chuck it! What harm is there in putting ideas into the heads of these muzhiks? They will be none the wiser for it. And, besides, I\'ve played my game well Look how they\'ve stuffed my knapsack for me!"

"But you may bring them under the stick!"

"Scarcely.... And what if I did? What have I to do with other folks\' backs. God grant we may keep our own backs whole, that\'s all! That\'s not moral I know, but what do I care whether a thing is moral or not moral. You\'ll agree that that\'s nobody\'s business."

"Come," thought I, "the wolf\'s about right."

"Assume that they do suffer through my fault—I suppose the sky will still be blue and the sea salt."

"But are you not sorry?"

"Not a bit ... I am a rolling stone, and everything which the wind casts beneath my feet wounds me in the side."

He was serious and intensely wrathful, and his eyes gleamed vindictively.

"I always do like that and sometimes worse. Once I recommended a muzhik to drink constantly olive oil mixed with blackbeetles for a pain in the stomach, because he was a skin-flint. Not a little evil of a humorous sort have I wrought during my earthly pilgrimage. How many stupid superstitions and mystifications have I not introduced into the spiritual parts of the muzhik?... And in general I am never very particular. Why should I be? For the sake of a few statutes, eh? Are there not other laws within myself? This, my confession of faith, has also the sanction of John Chrysostom, who says: \'the true Shekina—is man.\'"

"But why boast of it?"

"That is wrong, eh?—from your point of view. But I, you see, am no great lover of gentlemanly points of view ... and I assume that if people lift a stick to me it is my duty to respond with a stick and not with an obeisance."

As I listened to him I reflected that it would be well for me to recollect the first Psalm of King David, and depart from the way of this sinner. But then I wanted to know his history.

I spent three more days with him, and during these three days I became convinced of much which I had previously only suspected. Thus, for example, it became quite clear to me in what manner various useless and ancient objects found their way into Promtov\'s knapsack, such as the lower half of a copper candlestick, a chisel, a bit of lace, and a necklace. I understood that I was running the risk of a flogging and perhaps of falling into those places which finally receive collectors similar to Promtov. I should really have to part from him But then, his story!

And lo! one day when the wind was howling savagely, knocking us off our legs, and we found ourselves in a haystack sheltering from the cold, Promtov told me the story of his life.
















II.
THE STORY OF HIS LIFE.

Well—then! let us discourse for your profit and edification ... I\'ll begin with papa. My papa was a stern and conscientious man, just touching upon his sixtieth year, on half-pay, and he settled down in a little country town where he bought himself a little house. My mamma was a woman with a kind heart and generous blood.... For me, at any rate, he had no respect. For every trifle he made me kneel in a corner and lambed into me with a strap. But mamma loved me, and it was pleasant to live with her.... At the time papa moved into the little provincial town, I was in the sixth class of the Gymnasium, but I was expelled from it shortly afterwards for getting mixed up with the teacher of physics.... I ought to have taken my lessons in physics from this teacher, and I took them instead from the head master\'s chambermaid. The head master was very angry with me for this, and drove me away to papa. I appeared before him, and explained that here I was expelled from the Temple of Learning because of a misunderstanding with the head master. But the head master had taken the precaution of informing my father of the whole affair by letter, so that the moment papa beheld me he began scolding me with all sorts of nasty words, and mamma did ditto. When they were tired of scolding me they resolved to send me away to Pskov, where papa had a brother living. So they\'re sending me to Pskov, I said to myself; well, uncle is stupid and savage enough, but my dear little cousins are nice and kind, so life will be possible there anyhow. But even at Pskov it soon appeared that I had no friends at court, so to speak. In three months uncle turned me out, accusing me of immoral conduct, and having a bad influence on his daughters. Again I was scolded, and again I was banished, this time to the country, to the house of an aunt who lived in the Government of Ryazan. My auntie seemed to be a glorious and good-natured old lady, who always had heaps of young people about her. But at that time everyone was infected by the foolish habit of reading forbidden books—and suddenly I found myself in gaol, where I suppose I must have remained three or four months. Mamma thereupon instructed me by letter that I had killed her; papa informed me that I had dishonoured him—what very tiresome parents it was my fate to have!

You know that if a man were free to choose his own parents it would be a much more convenient arrangement than the present order of things—now, wouldn\'t it? Well, well! They let me out of prison, and I went to Nijni-Novgorod, where I had a married sister. But my sister appeared to be overwhelmed by family cares, and very ill-humoured on that account. What was I to do? Just at the nick of time Mass was being celebrated, and I joined the choir of singers. My voice was good, I had a handsome exterior, they promoted me to the rank of solo-singer, and I sang all by myself. You imagine, I suppose, that I must have taken to drink on this occasion. No, even now I hardly ever drink vodka, only sometimes, and that very rarely—by way of warming myself. A drunkard I never was; of course I have had my fill when good wines were going—champagne for instance, and if you gave me Marsala, lots of it I mean, I should undoubtedly get drunk upon it, for I love it as I love women Women I love to frenzy—and perhaps I hate \'em too, for in the end I always feel an irresistible desire to play them some dirty trick.... Well, well! Why I feel so mad with them sometimes I do not know and cannot explain to myself. They have always been gracious to me, for I was handsome and bold. But they\'re such ties! Well, the deuce take them for what I care. I love to hear them cry and groan—for then I always think: Aha! now you are having your deserts.

However, there was I singing away, I cared not what, so long as I had a merry life. Then, one day, I was suddenly accosted by a clean-shaven man who appeared before me and said: "Have you ever tried acting on the stage?" Well, I had played a part in domestic spectacles. "Would you like to earn twenty-five roubles[1] a month for playing light-comedy parts?" "All right!" said I. So off we went to the town of Perm. At Perm I played and sang in comic operas made up as a passionate dark young chap—with a past, the past of a political offender. The ladies were in raptures. Then I took the second lover r?les. "Try the heroic parts," they said to me. So I played the part of Max in "Errant Fires," and it went off capitally—I knew it I played through a whole season That summer our tour was a great success. We played at Vyatka, we played at Ufa, we even played at Elabuga. In the winter we returned to Perm.

[1] ￡2 10s.

And in that winter I felt a hatred and loathing of mankind. You know how it is. You appear on the stage, and you see hundreds of fools and wretches with their eyes fixed full upon you—that slavish cowardly shudder (I know it so well) runs all down your back, and you have the prickly sensation of one who has sat down in an ant heap. They look upon you as their plaything, as a thing which they have purchased for their gratification for a single evening. They have the power to condemn or to approve. And there they sit waiting to see whether you will exert yourself with sufficient diligence to please them And if they think that you have used sufficient diligence, they will bray—bray like tethered asses, and you must listen to them and feel content with their applause. For a time you will forget that you are their property ... then, when you call it to mind, you will smite yourself upon the snout for having found pleasure in their approval.

I hated this "public" to the verge of convulsions. Frequently I should have liked to have spat on them from the stage, to have rowed them with the vilest words. There were times when their eyes—you will feel with me—pricked my body like darning-needles; and how greedily that "public" waits for you to tickle it—waits with the confidence of that lady land-owner whose serf-girls used to scratch the soles of her feet every evening. You are sensible of this expectation of theirs, and you think how pleasant it would be to have in your hand a knife long enough to clean slice off all the noses of the first row of spectators at a single stroke. Devil take the whole lot of them!

But pardon me this outburst! I fear that for the moment I was becoming quite sentimental!—I only meant to say that I was a player, that I hated my public, and wanted to run away from it. In this I was assisted by the wife of a procurator. She did not please me and that did not please her. She set her husband in motion, and I suddenly appeared in the town of Saransk—just as if I were a grain of wheat whirled by the wind from the banks of the Kama. Ah, well! everything in this wretched life of ours is like a dream!

So I settled down in the town of Saransk, and there settled down along with me the young wife of a young Permiak of the mercantile persuasion. She was a determined character and dearly loved my art. So there we were together. We had no money, neither had we any acquaintances. Moreover, I was weary of her. She also, from sheer ennui, began to din it into me that I did not love her. At first I endured it patiently, but after a bit I could stand it no longer: "Be off," I cried! "leave me! go to the devil!" That is exactly what I said to her. She caught up a revolver and fired it at me. The bullet lodged in my left shoulder—a little lower and I should have been in Paradise long ago. Anyhow, down I fell. But she was frightened, and in her terror leaped into a well.

And there she soddened to death.

Me they conducted to the hospital. Well, there of course ladies appeared upon the scene They revolved around me till I was able to stand on my legs again, and when I could do that I got the billet of secretary to the local police-station. Well, say what you will—to be associated with the police is more convenient than to be under police supervision. So there I lived for two or three months.

It was in those days, for the first time in my life, that I had an attack of crushing, overwhelming ennui, that most horrible of all sensations to which humanity is liable.... Everything around you ceases to be of interest, and you desire something new. You cast about hither and thither, you seek and seek, you find something, you seize it, and immediately you discover it is not what you wanted. You feel yourself led captive by something dark, you feel yourself fettered within, you feel yourself incapable of living in the world with yourself, and yet this world is more necessary to a man than everything else. A wretched condition of things!

And it brought me at last to such a pass that I married. Such a step in a man of my character is only possible in case of anguish or drunkard\'s head-ache.

My wife was the daughter of a priest, who lived with her mother—her father was dead—and had the free disposition of her property. She had her own house, you might even say mansion, and she had money besides. She was a handsome girl, no fool, and of a lively disposition, but she was very fond of reading books, and this had a very bad effect both upon me and her. She was constantly fishing for rules of life in all sorts of little books, and whenever she got what she wanted, she immediately proceeded to apply k personally to us both. Now, from my tenderest years morality was a thing I never could endure.... At first I laughed at my wife, but afterwards it became tiresome to listen to her. I saw that she always made a great show of ideas extracted from various little books, and bookish lore is about as suitable for a woman as his master\'s cast-off costume is for a lackey. We began to quarrel.... Then I made the acquaintance of a certain priest—there was one of that sort there—a rogue who could play the guitar and sing, dance the trepak[2] to admiration, and take his skinful like a man. To my mind he was the best fellow in the town, because one could always live a jolly life in his company, and she—that is my wife—was always running him down, and always tried to drag me into the company of the Scribes and Pharisees who surrounded her. For in the evenings all the serious and best people in the town, as she called them, used to assemble at her house; and serious enough they all were, as serious, to my mind, as gallows-birds.... I also loved reading in those days, but I never used to trouble myself about what I read, and I don\'t understand why people should. But they—I mean my wife and those who were with her—whenever they had read through a book, immediately became as restless as if they had hundreds of prickles beneath their skin. Now, I look upon it like this. Here\'s a book. Very well! An interesting book. So much the better. But every book has been written by a man, and a man cannot leap higher than his own head. All books are written with one object: they want to prove that good is good and bad is bad, and it\'s all one whether you have read a hundred of them or a thousand. My wife discussed her little books by the dozen, so that I began to tell her straight out that I should have had a better time of it if I had married the parson instead of her. It was only the parson who saved me from boredom, and but for him I should have bolted from my wife there and then. As soon as the Pharisees called upon her—off I went to the parson. In this way I lived through a year and a half. From sheer boredom I helped the parson in the church services. At one time I read the epistles, at another I stood in the choir and sang:

"From my youth up many passions have fought against me."

[2] A boisterous national dance of Russia.

I went through a good deal in those days, and I shall be justified for many things at the Last Day for this endurance. But now my parson was joined by a young kinswoman, and this woman came to him first because he was a widower, and in the second place because his swine had eaten him, i.e., had not eaten him entirely, but spoilt the look of him. He had, you must know, fallen down drunk in the yard and gone to sleep, and the swine had come into the courtyard and nibbled away at his ears, cheeks, and neck. It is notorious that swine eat all sorts of garbage. This diminution of his person threw my parson into a fever, and caused him to summon his kinswoman that she might cherish him and I might cherish her. Well, she and I set about the business very zealously, and with great success. But my wife found out how the land lay—found out I say, and at last it came to a quarrel. What was I to do? I gave her as good as I got. Then she said to me: "Leave my house!" Well, I thought the matter well over, and I quietly went away—right away from the town. Thus the bonds of my marriage were unloosed. If my consort is still alive she certainly regards me as happily dead to her. I have never felt the slightest desire to see her again. I also think that it is well for her to forget me. May she live in peace! Greatly did she bore me in those days.

So now behold me a free man again, living in the town of Penza! I came to loggerheads with the police; no place could be found for me here or there—no place anywhere in fact. At last I became a psalmsinger in the church. I took up the office and sang and read. In the church I had again a "public" before me, and again a loathing of it arose within me. I was a miserable labourer in a dependent position. It was horrible to me. But a merchant\'s wife was my salvation. She was a stout, God-fearing woman, and had a very dull time of it. And she goes and gets enamoured of me by way of spiritual edification. So I got into the habit of going to see her, and she fed me. Her husband lived at home and was a little dotty, so she had to manage the whole plaguy business. I went to her very courteously, and I said to her: "It is hard for me to be paying visits here, Sekleteya Kirillovna, precious hard," I said; "why don\'t you make me your assistant?" She made some bones about it at first, and said I was much mistaken, but at last she took me as her manager. And now I had a good time of it, but the town itself was a filthy hole. There was no theatre, no decent hotel, no interesting people. Of course I was bored to death, and in the midst of my boredom I wrote a letter to my uncle. During my five years\' absence from Petersburg I had, of course, become very knowing. So I wrote now requesting forgiveness for all that I had done, promised never to do anything like it any more, and asked, among other things, whether it was not possible for me to live at Petersburg. My uncle wrote it was possible, but I must be careful. Then I broke with the merchant\'s wife.

You must know that she was stupid, fat, stodgy, and ugly. I had had mistresses of great repute, elegant and sensible gossips every one of them. Very well! Yet with all my other mistresses I had parted scurvily; either I had driven them away with wrath and contumely, or they had played me some nasty trick or other. But this Sekleteya had inspired me with respect by reason of her very simplicity.

"Farewell," I said to her; "farewell, my dearly-beloved! God grant thee prosperity!"

"And does it not pain thee to part with me?" said she.

"What!" I cried, "how can I help being pained at parting with one so beautiful and wise?"

"I would never have parted from thee," said she, "but I suppose it must be so, nevertheless I will always remember thee. Well, now, thou art a free bird again, and canst fly away whithersoever thou desirest," and she burst into tears.

"Forgive me, Sekleteya, I beg," said I.

"What!" she cried, "I owe thee thanks, not forgiveness."

"Thanks?" I asked, "how and for what?"

"I\'ll tell thee. Thou art this sort of man. Thou wouldst think nothing of casting me adrift in the wide world, I put myself wholly into thy hands, and thou mightest have robbed me as thou didst like, and I would not have prevented thee—and all this thou knewest. But thou hast repaid confidence with confidence, and I know how much of mine thou hast consumed in these days—about four thousand in all. Another in thy place," she said, "would have gobbled up the whole pot and emptied the saucer on the hearth as well."

That\'s what she said. Well, she was a kind-hearted old thing, that I will say.

I gave her a parting kiss, and with a light heart and five thousand roubles in my pocket—no doubt she had taken these also into consideration—I appeared at St. Petersburg. I lived like a baron, went to the theatre, made acquaintances, sometimes from sheer ennui played on the boards, but I played much more frequently at cards. Cards are a capital occupation. You sit down at a table, and in the course of a single night you die and rise again ten times over. It is exciting to know that within the next few moments your last roubles may dribble away, and you yourself may step down into the street a beggar, with nothing but suicide or highway robbery before you. It is also good to know that your neighbour or partner has, with reference to his last rouble, exactly the same ticklish and cruelly poignant sensation as you yourself have had not so very long before him. To see red and pale excited faces, tremulous with the terror of being beaten and with the greed of gain, to look at them and win their cards away, one after the other—ah! how strangely that excites the nerves and the blood!... You win a card—and it is just as if you stole away from the man\'s heart a bit of warm flesh with the nerves and blood.... That\'s being happy if you like! This constant risk of falling is the finest thing in life, and the finest thought in life was well expressed by the poet:

"Fierce contest is a rapturous bliss,
E\'en on the marge of the abyss."

Yes, there is rapture in it, and, in general, it is only possible to feel happy when you are risking something. The more risk—the larger and fuller the life. Have you ever happened to starve? It has been my luck not to eat anything for twice twenty-four hours at a stretch.... And look you, when the belly begins to prey upon itself, when you feel your vitals drying up and dying with hunger—then, for the sake of a bit of bread, you are ready to kill a man, a child; you are ready for anything, and this capacity for crime has its own peculiar poetry, it is a very precious sensation, and, having once experienced it, you have a great respect for yourself.

However, let us continue our varied story. As it is, it is spinning itself out as long as a funeral procession, in which I occupy the place of the dear departed. Ugh! what foolish comparisons do crowd into my head. Yet it is true, I suppose, though it is none the wiser, after all, for being that. Apropos, Mr. Balzac has a very true and timely expression—"It is as stupid as a fact." Stupid? Well, let it pass. What do I care about the difference between stupid and wise? Well, as I was saying, I lived at St. Petersburg. It was a good sort of town, but it would be as good again if one half of its inhabitants were drowned in that tiresome sea which is always flop-flopping around it. I lived a merry, easy life at St Petersburg for two or three years, under the protection of a lady who had taken a great fancy to me; but then, in order to oblige a friend, I seriously offended the police, and they asked me whither I would like to go out of St. Petersburg. I suggested Tsarskoe-Selo. "No," they said, "you must go further." At last we effected a compromise, and Tula was fixed upon. "Very well, let it be Tula then," said they. "You may go even further," they said, "if you like, but you must not appear here till three years have expired. Your documents we will keep by us in the meantime as a memento of you, and permit us to offer you in exchange a transit certificate to Tula. Try within four-and-twenty hours to take your flight from hence." Well, thought I, what am I to do now? One must obey one\'s superiors, how can one help doing so?

Well, there I was. I sold all my property to my landlady for a mere song, and posted off to my protectress. She had given orders that I was not to be admitted, the minx! I then went on to two or three others of my acquaintances—they met me as if I were a leper. I spat upon them all, and repaired to a holy place I knew of, there to spend the last hours of my life at Petersburg. At six o\'clock in the morning I issued from thence without a farthing in my pocket—I had played at cards and was stony broke! So thoroughly had a high official cleared me out that I was even lost in admiration at his talent, without feeling the least humiliation at having been beaten. What was I to do next? I went, why I know not, to the Moscow Station, entered and mingled with the crowd. I saw the train to Moscow come in. I got into a carriage and sat down. We passed two or three stations, and then they drove me out in triumph. They wanted to report me, asked who I was; but when I showed them my testimonial they left me in peace. "Go on further," said they, and I went. Ten versts I traversed, I grew tired, and felt that I must have something to eat. There was a sentry-box, belonging to a sentry of a line regiment. I went up to him: "Give me a bit of bread, dear little friend," I said. He looked at me. He gave me not only bread but a large cup of milk. I passed the night with him, for the first time in my life in vagabond fashion, in the open air, on straw, in the field behind the sentry-box. I awoke next day, the sun was shining, the air like champagne, green things all round, and the birds singing. I took some more bread from the sentry and went on further.

You should understand that in a vagabond life there is something that draws you on and on, something that quite swallows you up. It is pleasant to feel yourself free from obligations, free from the various little fetters tying down your existence when you live among men; free from all those bagatelles obstructing your life to such an extent that it ceases to be a satisfaction, and becomes a weary burden—a heavy basket-like burden in the nature of an obligation to dress becomingly, to speak becomingly, and do everything according to an accepted form and not as you would have it On meeting an acquaintance, for instance, you must use the accepted formula and say: How do you do?—instead of: Be d——d! as you would sometimes like to say.

In general—if I may speak the truth freely—these foolishly-ceremonious usages are such as to turn the mutual relations of respectable citizens into a wearisome comedy. Nay, even into a base comedy, for nobody ever calls anybody a fool or a villain to his face—or if it be done sometimes it is only in an access of that sincerity which we call anger.

Now the vagabond position is clean outside all these tinsel trappings. The very circumstance that you renounce all the earlier conveniences of life without regret, and can exist without them, gives you a pleasant sense of elevation in your own eyes. You take up an unreservedly indulgent attitude towards yourself—though for the matter of that I for one have never been severe towards myself. T have never taken myself to task, the teeth of my conscience have never gnawed me, nor have I ever been scratched by the claws of my reason. You must know that very early, and as if insensibly, I appropriated the most simple and sensible of philosophies: however you may live you must die all the same. Why then come to loggerheads with yourself—why drag yourself by the tail to the left when your nature with all her might pricks you on to the right? Pah! I cannot endure people who are always rending themselves in twain. Why do they strive and strive? Supposing I were to talk to some of these monstrosities, this is what I should ask them: "Why do you go on like this? Why do you make such a fuss?" "I am striving after self-perfection," he would say. "But what for?—what on earth for?" "Because human perfection is the sense of life." "Well, I don\'t understand that at all. Now if you talk about the perfection of a tree, the sense of your words would be quite clear to me. Its perfection is to be measured by its utility; you may use it for making cart shafts or coffins, or anything else useful to man. Very well! But your striving after perfection is entirely your own affair. But tell me, why do you come to me and try to convert me to your faith?" "Because," he would say, "you are a beast, and don\'t seek out the sense of life." "But I have found it if I am a brute, and the consciousness of my brutality does not overwhelm me." "You lie," he would say; "if you are conscious of it you ought to try to improve." "Improve? How? Here I am, you see, living my own life in the world; my mind and my feelings are at one with each other, and word and deed are in perfect harmony." "That," he would say, "is vileness and cynicism." And so the whole lot of them would argue of course. I feel that they are liars and fools—I feel that, I say, and I cannot but despise them. For indeed—I know what people are—if everything which is mean, dirty, and evil to-day, were to be declared by you to-morrow upright, pure, and good—all these snouts, without any effort of their own, would to-morrow be upright, pure, and good. One thing only would be necessary—the cowardice to annihilate self within themselves. That\'s how it is.

That\'s putting it strong, you\'ll say. Bosh! It is so. Let it be strongly put, it\'s none the less right for all that Look now! I\'ll put it like this: Serve God or the Devil, but don\'t serve God and the Devil. A good rascal is always better than a shoddy honest man. There\'s black and there\'s white, but mix them and you only get a dirty smudge. In all my life I have only met with shoddy honest folks—the sort you know whose honesty is piecemeal, as it were, just as if they had picked it up beneath windows as beggars gather crumbs. This sort of honesty is parti-coloured, badly stuck together, as if with pegs; it is the bookish honesty, which is learnt by repetition, and serves men in much the same way as their best trousers, which are trotted out on state occasions. And, in general, the best part of good people is made up for Sunday use; they keep it not in them but by them, for show, to take a rise out of each other.... I have met with people naturally good, but they are rarely to be met with, and only among simple folks outside the walls of towns. You feel at once that these really are good. And you see that they are born good. Yes.

But be that as it may. Deuce take the whole lot of them, good or bad. What\'s Hecuba to me, or I to Hecuba!

I am well aware that I am relating to you the facts of my life briefly and superficially, and that it will be difficult for you to understand the why and the wherefore, but that\'s my affair. It\'s not the facts but the inclinations that are of importance. Facts are rot and rubbish. I can make all sorts of facts if I like. For instance, I can take this knife and stick it in your throat. That would be a fact of the first order. Or if I were to stick myself with it that also would be a fact, and in general you may make all sorts of facts according to inclination. Inclinations—there you have the whole thing. Inclinations produce facts, and they create ideas—and ideals. And you know what ideals are—eh? Ideals are simply crutches, expressly invented for the period when man has become a wretched brute, obliged to walk on his hind paws only. On raising his head from the grey earth he sees above him the blue sky, and is dazzled by the splendour of its brightness. Then, in his stupidity, he says to himself: I will reach it. And thenceforth he hobbles about the earth on these crutches, holding himself upright on his hind paws with their assistance to this very day.

Pray don\'t imagine that I also am climbing up to Heaven—I have never experienced any such desire—I only say it because it sounds well.

But I have let my story get knotted and tangled again. However, it doesn\'t matter. It is only in romances that the skein of events revolves regularly; but our life is an irregular, clueless jumble. Why do they pay money for romances while I grow old in vain? The Devil only knows.

Well, let\'s get on.... This wandering life pleased me—pleased me all the more because I soon discovered a means of subsistence. Once, as I was on the trot, I perceived coming towards me—a Manor House stood forth picturesquely in the distance—three highly genteel figures, a man and two ladies. The man already had some grey in his beard, and looked very genteel about the eyes; the faces of the ladies were somewhat pinched, but they also were highly genteel. I put on the mug of a martyr, drew up level with them, and begged for a night\'s lodging at the Manor House. They looked at one another, and deliberated a long time among themselves as if it were a matter of great importance. I bowed politely, thanked them, and went on without making too much haste. But they turned back and came after me. We entered into conversation. Who was I, whence did I come, what was I about? They were of a human temperament—liberal views, and their very questions suggested such answers to me that by the time we had reached the Manor House I had lied to them—the Devil only knows how much! I had been a student, I had taught the people, my soul was held captive to all manner of ideas, etc., etc. And all this simply because they themselves would have it so. All I did was not to stand in the way of their taking me for what they wanted to take me for. When I began to reflect how hard the part would be that they wanted me to play, I was not a little out of conceit with myself, I can tell you. But after dinner I quite understood that it was for my own interest to play this part, for they ate with a truly divine taste. They ate with feeling, ate like civilised people. After the meal they conducted me to a little apartment, the man provided me with trousers and other requisites—and, speaking generally, they treated me humanely. Well, and I, in return, loosed the reins of my imagination for their behoof.

Queen of Heaven, how I lied! Talk of Khlestakov![3] Khlestakov was an idiot! I lied without ever losing the consciousness that I was lying, although it was my delight to lie my utmost. I lied to such an extent that even the Black Sea would have turned red if it could have heard my lying. These good people listened to me with delight—listened to me and fed me, and looked after me as if I had been a sick child of their own family. And I in return made up all sorts of things for them. Now it was that I profited by all the good little books I had ever read, and by the learned disputations of my wife\'s Scribes and Pharisees.

[3] The hero of Gogol\'s famous comedy, "Revizor."

Believe me, to lie with gumption is a high delight. If you lie and see that folks believe you, you feel yourself on a higher level, and to feel yourself above your fellows is a rare satisfaction. To command their attention and think much of yourself in consequence is foolishness; but to fool a man is always pleasant. And besides, it is pleasant to the man himself to listen to lies—good lies—lies which do not go against the grain. And it is possible that every lie, good or the reverse, is a good lie. There is scarcely anything in the world more worthy of attention than the various popular fables: notions, dreams, and such like. Let us take love for instance. I have always loved in women just that which they have never possessed, and with which I myself have generally requited them. And this, too, is the best thing in them. For instance, you come across a fresh little wench and immediately you think to yourself: such a one must needs embrace you this way, or kiss you that way. If in tears, she must look thus, and if she laughs—thus. And then you persuade yourself that she has all these qualities, and must certainly be exactly as you imagine her to be. And, of course, when you make her acquaintance, and come to know her as she really is—you find yourself sitting triumphantly in a puddle! But that is of no importance. You cannot possibly make an enemy of fire simply because it burns you sometimes, you must remember that it always warms you. Isn\'t that so? Very well. For the same reason you must not call a lie harmful; in every case put up with it and prefer it to truth.... Besides, it is quite uncertain what this thing called Truth is really like. Nobody has ever seen her passport, and possibly if she were called upon to produce her documents the deuce only knows how it would turn out.

But here I am like Socrates, philosophising instead of attending to my business.

Well, I lied to these good people till I had exhausted my imagination, and as soon as I realised the danger of being a bore to them—I went on further, after residing with them for three weeks. I departed well provisioned for the journey, and I directed my footsteps towards the nearest police-station in order that I might go from thence to Moscow. But from Moscow to Tula I arrived in vain, in consequence of the carelessness of my conductors.

Behold me, then, face to face with the Police-master at Tula. He looked at me and inquired:

"What profession do you mean to follow here?"

"I don\'t know," I said.

"And why did they send you away from Petersburg?" he said.

"That also I don\'t know," said I.

"Obviously for some debauch not foreseen by the criminal code—eh?" and he cross-examined me searchingly.

But I remained inscrutable.

"You are a very inconvenient sort of person," he observed.

"Everyone, I suppose, has his own speciality, my good sir," I rejoined.

He thought the matter over, and then he made me a proposition. "As you have chosen your own place of residence, perhaps, if we do not please you, you will go further on. There are many other towns for choice—Orel, Kursk, Smolensk for example. After all it is all the same to you where you live. Wouldn\'t it be agreeable to you if we passed you on? It would be quite a relief to us not to have the bother of looking after your health. We have such a mass of business here, and you—pardon my candour—seem to be a man fully capable of increasing the cares of the police; nay, you even seem to me expressly made for the purpose. Well now," says he, "would you like me to give you a treshnetsa[4] to assist you on your way?"

[4] A small Russian coin.

"You seem to appraise your duties somewhat cheaply," said I, "I think it would be better if you let me remain here under the protection of the laws of Tula."

But he obstinately refused to take me even as a gift. He was an odd sort of chap! Well, I got fifteen roubles out of him, and went on to the town of Smolensk. You see! The most awkward position contains within it the possibility of something better. I affirm this on the basis of solid experience and on the strength of my deep faith in the dexterity of the human mind. Mind—that\'s the power! You are still a young man, and what I say to you is this: believe in mind and you shall never fall! Know that every man holds within him a fool and a rogue; the fool is his senses, the rogue is his mind. His senses are the fool because they are upright, just, and cannot dissemble, and how is it possible to live without dissimulation? It is indispensable to dissemble; it is necessary to do so even from compassion, and most of all when they—your senses of course—pity others.

So I walked into Smolensk, feeling that the ground was firm beneath me, and that on the one hand I could always count upon the support of humane people, and on the other hand I was always sure of the support of the Police. I was necessary to the first for the display of their feelings, and to the second I was unnecessary—therefore they and others were bound to pay me out of their superfluities.

That\'s how it was then!

So I went along and fell quite in love with myself. My prospects were excellent. I fell in with a little muzhik. He looked up and asked:

"You will be one of the Enquiry-Agents, I suppose?"

"Enquiry-Agents," I thought, "what does he mean?"—but I answered:

"Yes, of course I am!"

"Did you come along the Trepovka Road?" he asked.

"Yes, along the Trepovka," I answered.

"And will you hire the folks soon?" he said.

"Very soon," said I.

"Listen, will they take deposits?"

"They will."

"Have you heard how much per head?"

"Yes, about two griveniki[5] per head."

"Laws!" said the little muzhik.

I put two and two together, guessed why he was ploughing there, and asked him whence he came? how many souls[6] there were in his village? how many could go out to work? how many went on foot? how many could go on horseback?

[5] A grivenik = 10 kopecks = about 2?d.

[6] Peasants.

He understood me.

"You are going to take labourers out of our village, eh?" said he.

"It is all the same to me where I take them from," said I.

I took from them a bank-note and promised to give to their village the preference over other villages. I took two griveniki per head from the labourers who had no horses, and thirty kopecks from the labourers who had, on the pretext of giving them a written assurance of employment for a period fixed by myself. They handed me over about a hundred roubles[11] or so. And I wrote out little receipts for them, said a few kind words to them, and so bade them adieu.

I appeared at Smolensk, and as it was already growing cold, I resolved to pass the winter there. I quickly found some good people and stayed with them The winter didn\'t pass half badly, but soon spring came and, would you believe it, it drew me out of the town. I wanted to loaf about—and who was there to prevent me? Off I went and strolled about for a whole summer, and in the winter I plumped down into the city of Elizavetgrad. There I plumped down, I say, and I could not wheedle myself in anywhere. I hunted high and low, and at last I found my way. I got the post of reporter of the local gazette—a petty affair, but it found me my grub and left me a pretty free hand After that I made the acquaintance of some Junkers—there is a school for the Junkers of the cavalry regiment in the town—and established card-parties. We had some capital card play, and in the course of the winter I managed to grab a thousand roubles. And then spring again appeared. She found me with money and the appearance of a gentleman.

Whither should I go? Well, I went to the town of Slavyansk by water. There I played successfully till August, and then I was obliged to quit the town. I passed the winter at Zhitornir with a butterfly—she was wretched trash, but a woman of exquisite beauty.

In this manner I passed the years of my banishment from Petersburg and then returned thither. The devil knows why, but the place has always had an attraction for me. I arrived there a gentleman with means. I sought out my acquaintances, and what do you think I discovered? My adventures with the liberal people of the Moscow Government were notorious. Everything was known—how I had lived three weeks with the Ivanovs at the Manor House, feeding their hungry souls with the fruits of my fancy; how I behaved to the Petrovs, and how I had impoverished Madame Vanteva. Well, and what of it? Necessity knows no law, and if seven doors are closed against you, ten more will open to you. But it was no go. I tried very hard to make for myself a stable position in society, and I could not do it. Was it because I had lost during these three years something of my capacity of consorting with men, or was it because people had grown more artful during that period? And now when the shoe began to pinch the devil put it into my head to offer my services to the Detective Force. I offered myself in the capacity of an agent who keeps his eye upon the play-houses. They accepted me. The terms were good. With this secret profession I combined a public one—that of reporter to a small gazette. I provided them with excellent newsletters, and occasionally composed the feuilletons for them. And then, too, I played. In fact so carried away was I by this card playing that I forgot to report it to the authorities. I completely forgot, you know, that it was my duty to do so. But when I lost I remembered: I must report this, I said to myself. But no, I thought, first let me win back my losings, and then I will make my report. In this way I put off the performance of my duty for a very long time, till at last I was actually grabbed by the police on the very scene of the offence behind a card-table. They abused me publicly as one of their own agents. Next day I was brought up in the usual way, a very savage indictment was laid against me; they told me I had absolutely no conscience whatever; and banished me from the capital—banished me a second time. And this time without the right of re-entry for the space of ten years.

For six years I travelled about without complaining to God of my fate—what did I care! I will relate nothing about this period, for it was too monotonous—and manifold. Life in general is a gay bird. Sometimes, indeed, it hasn\'t a grain to peck at; but it doesn\'t do to be too exacting; even people sitting on thrones, remember, haven\'t always things exactly their own way. In such a life as mine there are no duties—that\'s the first great advantage—and there are no laws except the law of nature—and that\'s the second. We disposers of our lives may have our disquietudes—but then you\'ll find fleas even in the best inns. On the other hand, you can go where you like, to the right, to the left, forwards, backwards, everywhere your fancy draws you; and if your fancy doesn\'t draw you, you can live on a peasant\'s loaf—he is good, and will always give—you can live on the peasant\'s loaf, I say, and lie down till the impulse seizes you to go on further.

Where have I been? I have been in the Tolstoi Colonies, and I have fed in the kitchens of the Moscow merchants. I have lived in the great monastery at Kiev and at New Athos. I have been at Czenstochowa, the holiest shrine in Poland; at Muroma, the favourite place of pilgrimage in Russia. Sometimes it seems to me as if I have traversed every little footpath in the Russian Empire twice over. And as soon as ever I have the opportunity of repairing my exterior I shall cross the frontier. I shall make for Roumania, and there every road lies open before you. For Russia now begins to bore me, and there is nothing to be done in her that I have left undone.

And, indeed, during these six years, it seems to me that I have accomplished a good deal. What a number of wondrous things I have said, and what wonders I have related! You know the sort of thing. You come to a village, you beg for a night\'s lodging, and when they have fed you—you give free reins to your fancy. It is even possible that I may have founded some new Sects, for I have spoken much, very much, concerning the Scriptures. And the muzhik has a fine nose for the Scriptures, and a couple of texts suffices him for the construction of an entirely—new confession of faith which—but you know what I mean. And how many laws have I not composed about the division and repartition of land! Yes, I have infused a great deal of fancy into life.

Well, that\'s how I live. I live and believe: wish for a dwelling-place and it is yours. For I have common-sense and the women prize me. For instance, I come to the town of Nikolaiev, and I go to the suburbs where dwells the daughter of a soldier of Nikolaiev. The woman is a widow, handsome, and well to do. I come in and say: "Well, Kapochka, here I am; warm a bath for me! Wash me and clothe me, and I will abide with thee even from moon to moon!" She immediately does everything for me, and if she was entertaining a lover besides me, she drives him away. And I live with her, a month or more, as long as I like. For three years I lived with her, during the winter for two months, last year I lived with her even three months; I might live with her the whole winter through if she were not so silly and did not bore me. Except her market garden, which brings her in two thousand roubles a year, the woman certainly wants nothing.

And then I go to the Kuban, to the Labinskaya station. There lives the cossack, Peter Cherny, and he accounts me a holy man—many consider me a righteous man. Many simple believing folks say to me: "Little father, take this money and place a candle for me before the Just One when you are there...." I take it. I respect believing folks, and do not want to offend them with the horrible truth. Not for the world would I let them know that I expend their mite, not for a candle for their patron, but in tobacco for my pipe.

There is also much charm in the consciousness of your aloofness from people, in the clear comprehension of the height and stability of that wall of offences committed against them which I myself have freely erected. And there is much, both of sweet and bitter, in the constant risk of being unmasked. Life is a game. I stake on my cards everything, i.e., nothing, and I always win, without the risk of losing anything else except my own ribs. But I am certain that if people, anywhere, were to set about beating me, they would not be content with maiming me but would kill me outright. It is impossible to feel offended at this, and it would be foolish to fear it.

And so, young man, I have told you my story. I\'ve even spun it out a bit, as my story has its own philosophy, and you know that I take a pleasure in telling it. It appears to me that I have told it pretty well. I will go further, and say, very accurately. I have made up a good deal of it, no doubt, but if I have lied I call Heaven to witness that I have lied according to the facts. Look not upon them, but at my talent for exposition—that, I assure you, is faithful to the original—my own soul. I have set before you a dish hot from my fancy served up with the sauce of the purest truth.

But why have I told you all this? I have told it you because, my dear fellow, I feel that you believe in me—a little. It is kind of you. Be it so!—but—believe no man! For whenever he tells you anything about himself he is sure to be lying. If he be unfortunate he lies in order to excite greater sympathy; if he be prosperous he lies in order to make you envy him the more; and in every case, whether he be fortunate or unfortunate, he lies in order to attract greater attention.