No doubt he thought that I would carry out his wish, and without saying another word, he ran in front of me on his short legs.
When I reached the house, I told Sitanov what the shopman had proposed to me. Evgen frowned.
“You have been chattering purposely.
Now he will give some one instructions to steal both our note-books. Give me yours — I will hide it.
And he will turn you out before long — you see!”
I was convinced of that, too, and resolved to leave as soon as grandmother returned to the town. She had been living at Balakhania all the winter, invited by some one to teach young girls to make lace.
Grandfather was again living in Kunavin Street, but I did not visit him, and when he came to the town, he never came to see me.
One day we ran into each other in the street. He was walking along in a heavy racoon pelisse, importantly and slowly. I said “How do you do” to him. He lifted his hands to shade his eyes, looked at me from under them, and then said thoughtfully:
“Oh, it is you; you are an image-painter now. Yes, yes; all right; get along with you.”
Pushing me out of his way, he continued his walk, slowly and importantly.
I saw grandmother seldom. She worked unweariedly to feed grandfather, who was suffering from the malady of old age — senile weakness — and had also taken upon herself the care of my uncle’s children.
The one who caused her the most worry was Sascha, Mikhail’s son, a handsome lad, dreamy and book-loving.
He worked in a dyer’s shop, frequently changed his employers, and in the intervals threw himself on grandmother’s shoulders, calmly waiting until she should find him another place.
She had Sascha’s sister on her shoulders, too. She had made an unfor — tunate marriage with a drunken workman, who beat her and turned her out of his house.
Every time I met grandmother, I was more consciously charmed by her personality; but I felt already that that beautiful soul, blinded by fanciful tales, was not capable of seeing, could not understand a revelation of the bitter reality of life, and my disquietude and restlessness were strange to her.
“You must have patience, Oleshal”
This was all she had to say to me in reply to my stories of the hideous lives, of the tortures of people, of sorrow — of all which perplexed me, and with which I was burning.
I was unfitted by nature to be patient, and if occasionally I exhibited that virtue which belongs to cattle, trees, and stones, I did so in the cause of self-discipline, to test my reserves of strength, my degree of stability upon earth.
Sometimes young people, with the stupidity of youth, will keep on trying to lift weights too heavy for their muscles and bones; will try boastfully, like full-grown men of proved strength, to cross themselves with heavy weights, envious of the strength of their elders.
I also did this in a double sense, physically and spiritually, and it is only due to some chance that I did not strain myself dangerously, or deform myself for the rest of my life.
Besides, nothing disfigures a man more terribly than his patience, the submission of his strength to external conditions.
And though in the end I shall lie in the earth disfigured, I can say, not without pride, to my last hour, that good people did their best for forty years to disfigure my soul, but that their labors were not very successful.
The wild desire to play mischievous pranks, to amuse people, to make them laugh, took more and more hold upon me.
I was successful in this. I could tell stories about the merchants in the market-place, impersonating them; I could imitate the peasant men and women buying and selling icons, the shopman skilfully cheating them; the valuers disputing amongst themselves.
The workshop resounded with laughter. Often the workmen left their work to look on at my impersonations, but on all these occasions Larionich would say:
“You had better do your acting after supper; otherwise you hinder the work.”
When I had finished my performance I felt myself easier, as if I had thrown off a burden which weighed upon me. For half an hour or an hour my head felt pleasantly clear, but soon it felt again as if it were full of sharp, small nails, which moved about and grew hot.
It seemed to me that a sort of dirty porridge was boiling around me, and that I was being gradually boiled away in it.
I wondered: Was life really like this?
And should I have to live as these people lived, never finding, never seeing anything better?
“You are growing sulky, Maximich,” said Jikharev, looking at me attentively.
Sitanov often asked me:
“What is the matter with you?”
And I could not answer him.
Life perseveringly and roughly washed out from my soul its most delicate writings, maliciously changing them into some sort of indistinct trash, and with anger and determination I resisted its violence. I was floating on the same river as all the others, only for me the waters were colder and did not support me as easily as it did the others. Sometimes it seemed to me that I was gently sinking into unfathomable depths.
People behaved better to me; they did not shout at me as they did at Pavl, nor harass me; they called me by my patronymic in order to emphasize their more respectful attitude toward me.
This was good; but it was torturing to see how many of them drank vodka, how disgustingly drunk they became, and how injurious to them were their relations with women, although I understood that vodka and women were the only diversions that life afforded.
I often called to mind with sorrow that that most intelligent, courageous woman, Natalia Kozlovski, was also called a woman of pleasure.
And what about grandmother?
And Queen Margot?
I used to think of my queen with a feeling almost of terror; she was so removed from all the others, it was as if I had seen her in a dream.
I began to think too much about women, and I had already revolved in my own mind the question: Shall I go on the next holiday where all the others go?
This was no physical desire. I was both healthy and fastidious, but at times I was almost mad with a desire to embrace some one tender, intelligent, and frankly, unrestrainedly, as to a mother, speak to her of the disturbances of my soul.
I envied Pavl when he told me at night of his affair with a maidservant in the opposite house.
“It is a funny thing, brother! A month ago I was throwing snowballs at her because I did not like her, and now I sit on a bench and hug her. She is dearer to me than any one!”
“What do you talk about?”
“About everything, of course!
She talks to me about herself, and I talk to her about myself.
And then we kiss — only she is honest.
In fact, brother, she is so good that it is almost a misfortune!