The Man Who Was Afraid Part 70

"Sometimes I feel very sorry for Foma. What will become of him?"

"That does not concern me. I believe that nothing in particular will become of him--neither good nor bad. The insipid fellow will squander his money away, and will be ruined. What else? Eh, the deuce take him!

Such people as he is are rare nowadays. Now the merchant knows the power of education. And he, that foster-brother of yours, he will go to ruin."

"That's true, sir!" said Foma, opening the door and appearing on the threshold.

Pale, with knitted brow and quivering lips, he stared straight into Taras's face and said in a dull voice: "True! I will go to ruin and--amen! The sooner the better!"

Lubov sprang up from the chair with frightened face, and ran up to Taras, who stood calmly in the middle of the room, with his hands thrust in his pockets.

"Foma! Oh! Shame! You have been eavesdropping. Oh, Foma!" said she in confusion.

"Keep quiet, you lamb!" said Foma to her.

"Yes, eavesdropping is wrong!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Taras, slowly, without lifting from Foma his look of contempt.

"Let it be wrong!" said Foma, with a wave of the hand. "Is it my fault that the truth can be learned by eavesdropping only?"

"Go away, Foma, please!" entreated Lubov, pressing close to her brother.

"Perhaps you have something to say to me?" asked Taras, calmly.

"I?" exclaimed Foma. "What can I say? I cannot say anything. It is you who--you, I believe, know everything."

"You have nothing then to discuss with me?" asked Taras again.

"I am very pleased."

He turned sideways to Foma and inquired of Lubov:

"What do you think--will father return soon?"

Foma looked at him, and, feeling something akin to respect for the man, deliberately left the house. He did not feel like going to his own huge empty house, where each step of his awakened a ringing echo, he strolled along the street, which was enveloped in the melancholy gray twilight of late autumn. He thought of Taras Mayakin.

"How severe he is. He takes after his father. Only he's not so restless.

He's also a cunning rogue, I think, while Lubka regarded him almost as a saint. That foolish girl! What a sermon he read to me! A regular judge.

And she--she was kind toward me." But all these thoughts stirred in him no feelings--neither hatred toward Taras nor sympathy for Lubov.

He carried with him something painful and uncomfortable, something incomprehensible to him, that kept growing within his breast, and it seemed to him that his heart was swollen and was gnawing as though from an abscess. He hearkened to that unceasing and indomitable pain, noticed that it was growing more and more acute from hour to hour, and, not knowing how to allay it, waited for the results.

Then his G.o.dfather's trotter pa.s.sed him. Foma saw in the carriage the small figure of Yakov Mayakin, but even that aroused no feeling in him.

A lamplighter ran past Foma, overtook him, placed his ladder against the lamp post and went up. The ladder suddenly slipped under his weight, and he, clasping the lamp post, cursed loudly and angrily. A girl jostled Foma in the side with her bundle and said:

"Excuse me."

He glanced at her and said nothing. Then a drizzling rain began to fall from the sky--tiny, scarcely visible drops of moisture overcast the lights of the lanterns and the shop windows with grayish dust. This dust made him breathe with difficulty.

"Shall I go to Yozhov and pa.s.s the night there? I might drink with him,"

thought Foma and went away to Yozhov, not having the slightest desire either to see the feuilleton-writer or to drink with him.

At Yozhov's he found a s.h.a.ggy fellow sitting on the lounge. He had on a blouse and gray pantaloons. His face was swarthy, as though smoked, his eyes were large, immobile and angry, his thick upper lip was covered with a bristle-like, soldier moustache. He was sitting on the lounge, with his feet clasped in his huge arms and his chin resting on his knees. Yozhov sat sideways in a chair, with his legs thrown across the arm of the chair. Among books and newspapers on the table stood a bottle of vodka and there was an odour of something salty in the room.

"Why are you tramping about?" Yozhov asked Foma, and, nodding at him, said to the man on the lounge: "Gordyeeff!"

The man glanced at the newcomer and said in a harsh, shrill voice: "Krasnoshchokov."

Foma seated himself on a corner of the lounge and said to Yozhov:

"I have come to stay here over night."

"Well? Go on, Vasily."

The latter glanced at Foma askance and went on in a creaking voice:

"In my opinion, you are attacking the stupid people in vain. Masaniello was a fool, but what had to be performed was done in the best way possible. And that Winkelried was certainly a fool also, and yet had he not thrust the imperial spears into himself the Swiss would have been thrashed. Have there not been many fools like that? Yet they are the heroes. And the clever people are the cowards. Where they ought to deal the obstacle a blow with all their might they stop to reflect: 'What will come of it? Perhaps we may perish in vain?' And they stand there like posts--until they breathe their last. And the fool is brave! He rushes headforemost against the wall--bang! If his skull breaks--what of it? Calves' heads are not dear. And if he makes a crack in the wall the clever people will pick it open into gates, will pa.s.s and credit themselves with the honour. No, Nikolay Matveyich, bravery is a good thing even though it be without reason."

"Vasily, you are talking nonsense!" said Yozhov, stretching his hand toward him.

"Ah, of course!" a.s.sented Vasily. "How am I to sip cabbage soup with a bast shoe? And yet I am not blind. I can see. There is plenty of brains, but no good comes of it. During the time the clever people think and reflect as to how to act in the wisest way, the fools will down them.

That's all."

"Wait a little!" said Yozhov.

"I can't! I am on duty today. I am rather late as it is. I'll drop in tomorrow--may I?"

"Come! I'll give a roasting!"

"That's exactly your business."

Vasily adjusted himself slowly, rose from the lounge, took Yozhov's yellow, thin little hand in his big, swarthy paw and pressed it.

"Goodbye!"

Then he nodded toward Foma and went through the door sideways.

"Have you seen?" Yozhov asked Foma, pointing his hand at the door, behind which the heavy footsteps still resounded.

"What sort of a man is he?"

"a.s.sistant machinist, Vaska Krasnoshchokov. Here, take an example from him: At the age of fifteen he began to study, to read and write, and at twenty-eight he has read the devil knows how many good books, and has mastered two languages to perfection. Now he's going abroad."

"What for?" inquired Foma.

"To study. To see how people live there, while you languish here--what for?"

"He spoke sensibly of the fools," said Foma, thoughtfully.

"I don't know, for I am not a fool."

"That was well said. The stupid man ought to act at once. Rush forward and overturn."