“Thirty rubles there were!
Give them here!”
His head was enveloped in a turban formed of a towel. Looking yellow and wasted, he blinked at me angrily with his swollen eyes, and refused to believe that I had found the purse empty.
Ermokhin came in and backed him up, shaking his head at me.
“It is he who has stolen it. Take him to his master.
Soldiers do not steal from soldiers.”
These words made me think that he had stolen the money himself and had thrown the purse into my shed. I called out to his face, without hesitation:
“Liar! You stole it yourself!”
I was convinced that I had guessed right when I saw his wooden face drawn crooked with fear and rage. As he writhed, he cried shrilly:
“Prove it!”
How could I prove it?
Ermokhin dragged me, with a shout, across the yard. Sidorov followed us, also shouting. Several people put their heads out of the windows. The mother of Queen Margot looked on, smoking calmly.
I realized that I had fallen in the esteem of my lady, and I went mad.
I remember the soldiers dragging me by the arms and my employers standing before them, sympathetically agreeing with them, as they listened to the com plaint. Also the mistress saying:
“Of course he took it!
He was courting the washerwoman at the gate last evening, and he must have had some money. No one gets anything from her without money.”
“That’s true,” cried Ermokhin.
I was swept off my feet, consumed by a wild rage. I began to abuse the mistress, and was soundly beaten.
But it was not so much the beating which tortured me as the thought of what my Queen Margot was now thinking of me.
How should I ever set myself right in her eyes?
Bitter were my thoughts in that dreadful time.
I did not strangle myself only because I had not the time to do so. Fortunately for me, the soldiers spread the story over the whole yard, the whole street, and in the evening, as I lay in the attic, I heard the loud voice of Natalia Kozlovski below.
“No! Why should I hold my tongue?
No, my dear fellow, get away! Get along with you!
Go away, I say!
If you don’t, I will go to your gentleman, and he will give you something!”
I felt at once that this noise was about me.
She was shouting near our steps; her voice rang out loudly and triumphantly.
“How much money did you show me yesterday?
Where did you get it from? Tell us!”
Holding my breath with joy, I heard Sidorov drawl sadly:
“Ate, aze! Ermokhin — ”
“And the boy has had the blame for it? He has been beaten for it, eh?”
I felt like running down to the yard, dancing there for joy, kissing the washerwoman out of gratitude; but at that moment, apparently from the window, my mistress cried:
“The boy was beaten because he was insolent. No one believed that he was a thief except you, you slut!”
“Slut yourself, madam! You are nothing better than a cow, if you will permit me to say so.”
I listened to this quarrel as if it were music. My heart burned with hot tears of self-pity, and gratitude to Natalia. I held my breath in the effort to keep them back.
Then the master came slowly up to the attic, sat on a projecting beam near me, and said, smoothing his hair:
“Well, brother Pyeshkov, and so you had nothing to do with it?”
I turned my face away without speaking.
“All the same, your language was hideous,” he went on. I announced quietly:
“As soon as I can get up I shall leave you.”
He sat on in silence, smoking a cigarette. Looking fixedly at its end, he said in a low voice:
“What of it? That is your business.
You are not a little boy any longer; you must look about and see what is the best thing for yourself.”
Then he went away.
As usual, I felt sorry for him.
Four days after this I left that house.
I had a passionate desire to say good-by to Queen Margot, but I had not the audacity to go to her, though I confess I thought that she would have sent for me herself.
When I bade good-by to the little girl I said: