“And what do you mean by my throwing it about purposely?
It falls about itself.”
He forbade me to read the books in the shop, saying:
“That is not for you to trouble your head about I
What! Have you an idea of becoming a valuer, sluggard?’
He did not cease his attempts to catch me in the theft of small money, and I realised that if, when I was sweeping the floor, the coin should roll into a crevice between the boards, he would declare that I had stolen it.
Then I told him again that he had better give up that game, but that same day, when I re — turned from the tavern with the boiling water, I heard him suggesting to the newly engaged assistant in the neighboring shop:
“Egg him on to steal psalters. We shall soon be having three hampers of them.”
I knew that they were talking about me, for when I entered the shop they both looked confused; and besides these signs, I had grounds for suspecting them of a foolish conspiracy against me.
This was not the first time that that assistant had been in the service of the man next door. He was accounted a clever salesman, but he suffered from alco — holism; in one of his drinking bouts the master had dismissed him, but had afterwards taken him back. He was an anaemic, feeble person, with cunning eyes.
Apparently amiable and submissive to the slightest gesture of his master, he smiled a little, clever smile in his beard all the time, was fond of uttering sharp sayings, and exhaled the rotten smell which comes from people with bad teeth, although his own were white and strong.
One day he gave me a terrible surprise; he came towards me smiling pleasantly, but suddenly seized my cap off my head and took hold of my hair.
We began to struggle. He pushed me from the gallery into the shop, trying all the time to throw me against the large images which stood about on the floor. If he had succeeded in this, I should have broken the glass, or chipped the carving, and no doubt scratched some of the costly icons.
He was very weak, and I soon overcame him; when to my great amazement the bearded man sat on the floor and cried bitterly, rubbing his bruised nose.
The next morning when our masters had both gone out somewhere and we were alone, he said to me in a friendly manner, rubbing the lump on the bridge of his nose and under his eyes with his finger:
“Do you think that it was of my own will or desire that I attacked you?
I am not a fool, you know, and I knew that you would be more than a match for me. I am a man of little strength, a tippler.
It was your master who told me to do it. ‘Lead him on,’ he said, ‘and get him to break something in the shop while he is fighting you. Let him damage something, anyhow!’
I should never have done it of my own accord; look how you have ornamented my phiz for me.”
I believed him, and I began to be sorry for him. I knew that he lived, half-starved, with a woman who knocked him about.
However, I asked him:
“And if he told you to poison a person, I suppose you would do it?”
“He might do that,” said the shopman with a pitiful smile; “he is capable of it.”
Soon after this he asked me:
“Listen, I have not a farthing; there is nothing to eat at home; my missus nags at me. Couldn’t you take an icon out of your stock and give it to me to sell, like a friend, eh?
Will you”?
Or a breviary?”
I remembered the boot-shop, and the beadle of the church, and I thought: “Will this man give me away?”
But it was hard to refuse him, and I gave him an icon. To steal a breviary worth several rubles, that I could not do; it seemed, to me a great crime.
What would you have?
Arithrnetic always lies concealed in ethics; the holy ingenuousness of “Regula — tions for the Punishment of Criminals” clearly gives away this little secret, behind which the great lie of property hides itself.
When I heard my shopman suggesting that this miserable man should incite me to steal psalters I was afraid.
It was clear that he knew how charitable I had been on the other’s behalf, and that the man from next door had told him about the icon.
The abominableness of being charitable at another person’s expense, and the realization of the rotten trap that had been set for me — both these things aroused in me a feeling of indignation and disgust with myself and every one else.
For several days I tormented myself cruelly, waiting for the arrival of the hamper with the books. At length they came, and when I was putting them away in the store-room, the shopman from next door came to me and asked me to give him a breviary.
Then I asked him:
“Did you tell my master about the icon?”
“1 did,” he answered in a melancholy voice; “I can keep nothing back, brother.”
This utterly confounded me, and I sat on the floor staring at him stupidly, while he muttered hurriedly, confusedly, desperately miserable:
“You see your man guessed — or rather, mine guessed and told yours — ”
I thought I was lost. These people had been conspiring against me, and now there was a place ready for me in the colony for youthful criminals!
If that were so, nothing mattered!
If one must drown, it is better to drown in a deep spot.
I put a breviary into the hands of the shopman; he hid it in the sleeves of his greatcoat and went away. But he returned suddenly, the breviary fell at my feet, and the man strode away, saying:
“I won’t take it!
It would be all over with you.”
I did not understand these words. Why should it be all over with me?
But I was very glad that he had not taken the book.
After this my little shop-man began to regard me with more disfavor and sus — picion than ever.
I remembered all this when Larionich went upstairs. He did not stay there long, and came back more depressed and quiet than usual, but before supper he said to me privately: