“Well, he is in the Kingdom of Heaven now!”
Some one suggested:
“Let us carry him into the vestibule.”
Kapendiukhin climbed down from the loft and glanced through the window.
“Let him lie where he is till the morning; he never hurt any one while he was alive.”
Pavl, hiding his head under the pillow, sobbed.
But Sitanov did not even wake!
CHAPTER XV
THE snow melted away from the fields; the wintry clouds in the sky passed away; wet snow and rain fell upon the earth; the sun was slower and slower in performing his daily journey; the air grew warmer; and it seemed that the joyful spring had already arrived, sportively hiding herself behind the fields, and would soon burst upon the town itself.
In the streets there was brown mud; streams ran along the gutters; in the thawed places of Arestantski Square the sparrows hopped joyfully.
And in human creatures, also, was apparent the same excitement as was shown by the sparrows.
Above the sounds of spring, almost uninterruptedly from morning to night, rang out the Lenten bells, stirring one’s heart with their muffled strokes. In that sound, as in the speech of an old man, there was hidden something of displeasure, as if the bells had said with cold melancholy:
“Has been, this has been, has been — ” On my nameday the workmen gave me a small, beautifully painted image of Alexei, the man of God, and Jikharev made an impressive, long speech, which I remember very well.
“What are you?” said he, with much play of finger and raising of eyebrows. “Nothing more than a small boy, an orphan, thirteen years old — and I, nearly four times your age, praise you and approve of you, because you always stand with your face to people and not sideways!
Stand like that always, and you will be all right!”
He spoke of the slaves of God, and of his people, but the difference between people and slaves I could never understand, and I don’t believe that he understood it himself.
His speech was long-winded, the workshop was laughing at him, and I stood, with the image in my hand, very touched and very confused, not knowing what I ought to do.
At length Kapendiukhin called out irritably:
“Oh, leave off singing his praises; his ears are already turning blue!”
Then clapping me on the shoulder, he began to praise me himself:
“What is good in you is what you have in common with all human creatures, and not the fact that it is difficult to scold and beat you when you have given cause for it!”
They all looked at me with kind eyes, making good-natured fun of my confusion. A little more and I believe I should have burst out crying from the unexpected joy of finding myself valued by these people.
And that very morning the shopman had said to Petr Vassilich, nodding his head toward me:
“An unpleasant boy that, and good for nothing!”
As usual I had gone to the shop in the morning, but at noon the shopman had said to me:
“Go home and clear the snow off the roof of the warehouse, and clean out the cellar.”
That it was my name-day he did not know, and I had thought that no one knew it.
When the ceremony of congratulations had finished in the work — shop, I changed my clothes and climbed up to the roof of the shed to throw off the smooth, heavy snow which had accumulated during that winter.
But being excited, I forgot to close the door of the cellar, and threw all the snow into it.
When I jumped down to the ground, I saw my mistake, and set myself at once to get the snow away from the door. Being wet, it lay heavily; the wooden spade moved it with difficulty; there was no iron one, and I broke the spade at the very moment when the shopman appeared at the yard-gate. The truth of the Russian proverb, “Sorrow follows on the heels of joy,” was proved to me.
“So — o — o!” said the shopman derisively, “you are a fine workman, the devil take you!
If I get hold of your senseless blockhead — “ He flourished the blade of the shovel over me. I move away, saying angrily:
“I wasn’t engaged as a yardman, anyhow.”
He hurled the stick against my legs. I took up a snowball and threw it right in his face. He ran away snorting, and I left off working, and went into the workshop.
In a few minutes his fiancee came running downstairs. She was an agile maiden, with pim — ples on her vacant face.
“Maximich, you are to go upstairs!”
“I am not going!” I said.
Larionich asked in an amazed undertone:
“What is this? You are not going “?”
I told him about the affair. With an anxious frown he went upstairs, muttering to me:
“Oh, you impudent youngster — ” The workshop resounded with abuse ©f the shop-man, and Kapendiukhin said:
“Well, they will kick you out this time!”
This did not alarm me.
My relations with the shopman had already become unbearable. His hatred of me was undisguised and became more and more acute, while, for my part, I could not endure him. But what I wanted to know was: why did he behave so absurdly to me”?
He would throw coins about the floor of the shop, and when I was sweeping, I found them, and laid them on the counter in the cup which contained the small money kept for beggars.
When I guessed what these frequent finds meant I said to him:
“You throw money about in my way on purpose!”
He flew out at me and cried incautiously:
“Don’t you dare to teach me! I know what I am doing!”
But he corrected himself immediately: