What happiness it was to be educated!
The magnificent stories of Pushkin touched me more closely, and were more intelligible to me than anything I had read. When I had read them a few times I knew them by heart, and when I went to bed I whispered the verses to myself, with my eyes closed, until I fell asleep.
Very often I told these stories to the orderlies, who listened and laughed, and abused me jokingly. Sidorov stroked my head and said softly:
“That’s fine, isn’t it?
O Lord —”
The awakening which had come to me was noticed by my employers. The old lady scolded me.
“You read too much, and you have not cleaned the samovar for four days, you young monkey!
I shall have to take the rolling-pin to you — ”
What did I care for the rolling-pin?
I took refuge in verses.
Loving black evil with all thy heart, O old witch that thou art!
The lady rose still higher in my esteem. See what books she read!
She was not like the tailor’s porcelain wife.
When I took back the book, and handed it to her with regret, she said in a tone which invited confidence:
“Did you like it?
Had you heard of Pushkin before?”
I had read something about the poet in one of the newspapers, but I wanted her to tell me about him, so I said that I had never heard of him.
Then she briefly told me the life and death of Pushkin, and asked, smiling like a spring day:
“Do you see how dangerous it is to love women?”
All the books I had read had shown me it was really dangerous, but also pleasant, so I said:
“It is dangerous, yet every one falls in love.
And women suffer for love, too.”
She looked at me, as she looked at every one, through her lashes, and said gravely:
“You think so?
You understand that?
Then the best thing I can wish you is that you may not forget it.”
And then she asked me what verses I liked best.
I began to repeat some from memory, with gesticulations.
She listened silently and gravely, then rose, and, walking up and down the room, said thoughtfully:
“We shall have to have you taught, my little wild animal.
I must think about it.,Your employers — are they relatives of yours?”
When I answered in the affirmative she exclaimed:
“Oh!” as if she blamed me for it.
She gave me
“The Songs of Beranger,” a special edition with engravings, gilt edges, and a red leather binding.
These songs made me feel giddy, with their strange mixture of bitter grief and boisterous happiness.
With a cold chill at my heart I read the bitter words of “The Old Beggar.”
Homeless worm, have I disturbed you?
Crush me under your feet!
Why be pitiful?
Crush me quickly!
Why is it that you have never taught me,
Nor given me an outlet for my energy?
From the grub an ant might have come.
I might have died in the love of my fellows.
But dying as an old tramp,
I shall be avenged on the world!
And directly after this I laughed till I cried over the
“Weeping Husband.”
I remembered especially the words of Beranger: