The Man Who Was Afraid

“Got anything to eat?” he accosted Foma, turning up his sharp-pointed nose. “Let me have it, for I left the house without eating anything. I slept too long, devil take it! I studied up to two o’clock last night. Have you solved your problems?”

“No, I haven’t.”

“Eh, you lazy bones! Well, I’ll dash them off for you directly!”

Driving his small, thin teeth into the cakes, he purred something like a kitten, stamped his left foot, beating time, and at the same time solved the problem, rattling off short phrases to Foma:

“See? Eight bucketfuls leaked out in one hour. And how many hours did it leak – six? Eh, what good things they eat in your house! Consequently, we must multiply six by eight. Do you like cake with green onions? Oh, how I like it! So that in six hours forty-eight bucketfuls leaked out of the first gauge-cock. And altogether the tub contained ninety. Do you understand the rest?”

Foma liked Yozhov better than Smolin, but he was more friendly with Smolin. He wondered at the ability and the sprightliness of the little fellow. He saw that Yozhov was more clever and better than himself; he envied him, and felt offended on that account, and at the same time he pitied him with the condescending compassion of a satisfied man for a hungry one. Perhaps it was this very compassion that prevented him from preferring this bright boy to the boring red-headed Smolin. Yozhov, fond of having a laugh at the expense of his well-fed friends, told them quite often: “Eh, you are little trunks full of cakes!”

Foma was angry with him for his sneers, and one day, touched to the quick, said wickedly and with contempt:

“And you are a beggar – a pauper!”

Yozhov’s yellow face became overcast, and he replied slowly:

“Very well, so be it! I shall never prompt you again – and you’ll be like a log of wood!”

And they did not speak to each other for about three days, very much to the regret of the teacher, who during these days had to give the lowest markings to the son of the esteemed Ignat Matveyich.

Yozhov knew everything: he related at school how the procurator’s chambermaid gave birth to a child, and that for this the procurator’s wife poured hot coffee over her husband; he could tell where and when it was best to catch perch; he knew how to make traps and cages for birds; he could give a detailed account of how the soldier had hanged himself in the garret of the armoury, and knew from which of the pupils’ parents the teacher had received a present that day and precisely what sort of a present it was.

The sphere of Smolin’s knowledge and interests was confined to the merchant’s mode of life, and, above all, the red-headed boy was fond of judging whether this man was richer than that, valuing and pricing their houses, their vessels and their horses. All this he knew to perfection, and spoke of it with enthusiasm.

Like Foma, he regarded Yozhov with the same condescending pity, but more as a friend and equal. Whenever Gordyeeff quarrelled with Yozhov, Smolin hastened to reconcile them, and he said to Foma one day, on their way home:

“Why do you always quarrel with Yozhov?”

“Well, why is he so self-conceited?” said Foma, angrily.

“He is proud because you never know your lessons, and he always helps you out. He is clever. And because he is poor – is he to blame for that? He can learn anything he wants to, and he will be rich, too.”

“He is like a mosquito,” said Foma, disdainfully; “he will buzz and buzz, and then of a sudden will bite.”

But there was something in the life of these boys that united them all; there were hours when the consciousness of difference in their natures and positions was entirely lost. On Sundays they all gathered at Smolin’s, and, getting up on the roof of the wing, where they had an enormous pigeon-house, they let the pigeons loose.

The beautiful, well-fed birds, ruffling their snow-white wings, darted out of the pigeon-house one by one, and, seating themselves in a row on the ridge of the roof, and, illumined by the sun, cooing, flaunted before the boys.

“Scare them!” implored Yozhov, trembling for impatience.

Smolin swung a pole with a bast-wisp fastened to its end, and whistled.

The frightened pigeons rushed into the air, filling it with the hurried flapping of their wings. And now, outlining big circles, they easily soar upwards, into the blue depths of the sky; they float higher and higher, their silver and snow-white feathers flashing. Some of them are striving to reach the dome of the skies with the light soaring of the falcon, their wings outstretched wide and almost motionless; others play, turn over in the air, now dropping downward in a snowy lump, now darting up like an arrow. Now the entire flock seems as though hanging motionless in the desert of the sky, and, growing smaller and smaller, seems to sink in it. With heads thrown back, the boys admire the birds in silence, without taking their eyes from them – their tired eyes, so radiant with calm joy, not altogether free from envying these winged creatures, which so freely took flight from earth up into the pure and calm atmosphere full of the glitter of the sun. The small group of scarcely visible dots, now mere specks in the azure of the sky, leads on the imagination of the children, and Yozhov expresses their common feeling when, in a low voice, he says thoughtfully:

“That’s the way we ought to fly, friends.”

While Foma, knowing that human souls, soaring heavenward, oftentimes assume the form of pigeons, felt in his breast the rising of a burning, powerful desire.

Unified by their joy, attentively and mutely awaiting the return of their birds from the depths of the sky, the boys, pressing close to one another, drifted far away from the breath of life, even as their pigeons were far from earth; at this moment they are merely children, knowing neither envy nor anger; free from everything, they are near to one another, they are mute, judging their feelings by the light in their eyes – and they feel as happy as the birds in the sky.

But now the pigeons come down on the roof again, and, tired out by their flight, are easily driven into the pigeon-house.

“Friends, let’s go for apples?” suggests Yozhov, the instigator of all games and adventures.

His call drives out of the children’s souls the peacefulness brought into them by the pigeons, and then, like plunderers, carefully listening for each and every sound, they steal quietly across the back yards toward the neighbouring garden. The fear of being caught is balanced by the hope of stealing with impunity. But stealing is work and dangerous work at that, and everything that is earned by your own labour is so sweet! And the more effort required to gain it, the sweeter it is. Carefully the boys climb over the fence of the garden, and, bending down, crawl toward the apple trees and, full of fright, look around vigilantly. Their hearts tremble and their throbbing slackens at the faintest rustle. They are alike afraid of being caught, and, if noticed, of being recognised, but in case they should only see them and yell at them, they would be satisfied. They would separate, each going in a different direction, and then, meeting again, their eyes aglow with joy and boldness, would laughingly tell one another how they felt when they heard some one giving chase to them, and what happened to them when they ran so quickly through the garden, as though the ground were burning under their feet.

Such invasions were more to Foma’s liking than all other adventures and games, and his behaviour during these invasions was marked with a boldness that at once astounded and angered his companions. He was intentionally careless in other people’s gardens: he spoke loud, noisily broke the branches of apple trees, and, tearing off a worm-eaten apple, threw it in the direction of the proprietor’s house. The danger of being caught in the act did not frighten him; it rather encouraged him – his eyes would turn darker, his teeth would clench, and his face would assume an expression of anger and pride.

Smolin, distorting his big mouth contemptibly, would say to him:

“You are making entirely too much fuss about yourself.”

“I am not a coward anyway!” replied Foma.

“I know that you are not a coward, but why do you boast of it? One may do a thing as well without boasting.”

Yozhov blamed him from a different point of view:

“If you thrust yourself into their hands willingly you can go to the devil! I am not your friend. They’ll catch you and bring you to your father – he wouldn’t do anything to you, while I would get such a spanking that all my bones would be skinned.”

“Coward!” Foma persisted, stubbornly.

And it came to pass one day that Foma was caught by the second captain, Chumakov, a thin little old man. Noiselessly approaching the boy, who was hiding away in his bosom the stolen apples, the old man seized him by the shoulders and cried in a threatening voice:

“Now I have you, little rogue! Aha!”

Foma was then about fifteen years old, and he cleverly slipped out of the old man’s hands. Yet he did not run from him, but, knitting his brow and clenching his fist, he said threateningly:

“You dare to touch me!”

“I wouldn’t touch you. I’ll just turn you over to the police! Whose son are you?”

Foma did not expect this, and all his boldness and spitefulness suddenly left him.

The trip to the police station seemed to him something which his father would never forgive him. He shuddered and said confusedly:

“Gordyeeff.”

“Ignat Gordyeeff’s?”

“Yes.”

Now the second captain was taken aback. He straightened himself, expanded his chest and for some reason or other cleared his throat impressively. Then his shoulders sank and he said to the boy in a fatherly tone:

“It’s a shame! The son of such a well-known and respected man! It is unbecoming your position. You may go. But should this happen again! Hm! I should be compelled to notify your father, to whom, by the way, I have the honour of presenting my respects.”

Foma watched the play of the old man’s physiognomy and understood that he was afraid of his father. Like a young wolf, he looked askance at Chumakov; while the old man, with comical seriousness, twisted his gray moustache, hesitating before the boy, who did not go away, notwithstanding the given permission.

“You may go,” repeated the old man, pointing at the road leading to his house.

“And how about the police?” asked Foma, sternly, and was immediately frightened at the possible answer.

“I was but jesting,” smiled the old man. “I just wanted to frighten you.”

“You are afraid of my father yourself,” said Foma, and, turning his back to the old man, walked off into the depth of the garden.

“I am afraid? Ah! Very well!” exclaimed Chumakov after him, and Foma knew by the sound of his voice that he had offended the old man. He felt sad and ashamed; he passed the afternoon in walking, and, coming home, he was met by his father’s stern question:

“Foma! Did you go to Chumakov’s garden?”

“Yes, I did,” said the boy, calmly, looking into his father’s eyes.

Evidently Ignat did not expect such an answer and he was silent for awhile, stroking his beard.

“Fool! Why did you do it? Have you not enough of your own apples?”

Foma cast down his eyes and was silent, standing before his father.

“See, you are shamed! Yozhishka must have incited you to this! I’ll give it to him when he comes, or I’ll make an end of your friendship altogether.”

“I did it myself,” said Foma, firmly.

“From bad to worse!” exclaimed Ignat. “But why did you do it?”

“Because.”

“Because!” mocked the father. “Well, if you did it you ought to be able to explain to yourself and to others the reason for so doing. Come here!”

Foma walked up to his father, who was sitting on a chair, and placed himself between his knees. Ignat put his hand on the boy’s shoulders, and, smiling, looked into his eyes.

“Are you ashamed?”

“I am ashamed,” sighed Foma.

“There you have it, fool! You have disgraced me and yourself.”

Pressing his son’s head to his breast, he stroked his hair and asked again:

“Why should you do such a thing – stealing other people’s apples?”

“I – I don’t know,” said Foma, confusedly. “Perhaps because it is so lonesome. I play and play the same thing day after day. I am growing tired of it! While this is dangerous.”

“Exciting?” asked the father, smiling.

“Yes.”

“Mm, perhaps it is so. But, nevertheless, Foma, look out – drop this, or I shall deal with you severely.”

“I’ll never climb anywhere again,” said the boy with confidence.

“And that you take all the blame on yourself – that is good. What will become of you in the future, only God knows, but meanwhile – it is pretty good. It is not a trifle if a man is willing to pay for his deeds with his own skin. Someone else in your place would have blamed his friends, while you say: ‘I did it myself.’ That’s the proper way, Foma. You commit the sin, but you also account for it. Didn’t Chumakov strike you?” asked Ignat, pausing as he spoke.

“I would have struck him back,” declared Foma, calmly.

“Mm,” roared his father, significantly.

“I told him that he was afraid of you. That is why he complained. Otherwise he was not going to say anything to you about it.”

“Is that so?”

“‘By God! Present my respects to your father,’ he said.”

“Did he?”

“Yes.”

“Ah! the dog! See what kind of people there are; he is robbed and yet he makes a bow and presents his respects! Ha, ha! It is true it might have been worth no more than a kopeck, but a kopeck is to him what a rouble is to me. And it isn’t the kopeck, but since it is mine, no one dares touch it unless I throw it away myself. Eh! The devil take them! Well, tell me – where have you been, what have you seen?”

The boy sat down beside his father and told him in detail all the impressions of that day. Ignat listened, fixedly watching the animated face of his son, and the eyebrows of the big man contracted pensively.

“You are still but floating on the surface, dear. You are still but a child. Eh! Eh!”

“We scared an owl in the ravine,” related the boy. “That was fun! It began to fly about and struck against a tree – bang! It even began to squeak so pitifully. And we scared it again; again it rose and flew about here and there, and again it struck against something, so that its feathers were coming out. It flew about in the ravine and at last hid itself somewhere with difficulty. We did not try to look for it, we felt sorry it was all bruised. Papa, is an owl entirely blind in daytime?”

“Blind!” said Ignat; “some men will toss about in life even as this owl in daytime. Ever searching for his place, he strives and strives – only feathers fly from him, but all to no purpose. He is bruised, sickened, stripped of everything, and then with all his might he thrusts himself anywhere, just to find repose from his restlessness. Woe to such people. Woe to them, dear!”

“How painful is it to them?” said Foma in a low voice.

“Just as painful as to that owl.”

“And why is it so?”

“Why? It is hard to tell. Someone suffers because he is darkened by his pride – he desires much, but has but little strength. Another because of his foolishness. But then there are a thousand and one other reasons, which you cannot understand.”

“Come in and have some tea,” Anfisa called to them. She had been standing in the doorway for quite a long while, and, folding her hands, lovingly admired the enormous figure of her brother, who bent over Foma with such friendliness, and the pensive pose of the boy, who clung to his father’s shoulder.

Thus day by day Foma’s life developed slowly – a quiet, peaceful life, not at all brimful of emotions. Powerful impressions, rousing the boy’s soul for an hour or for a day, sometimes stood out strikingly against the general background of this monotonous life, but these were soon obliterated. The boy’s soul was as yet but a calm lake – a lake hidden from the stormy winds of life, and all that touched the surface of the lake either sank to the bottom, stirring the placid water for a moment, or gliding over the smooth surface, swam apart in big circles and disappeared.

Having stayed at the district school for five years, Foma passed four classes tolerably well and came out a brave, dark-haired fellow, with a swarthy face, heavy eyebrows and dark down on the upper lip. His big dark eyes had a naive and pensive look, and his lips were like a child’s, half-open; but when meeting with opposition to his desires or when irritated by something else, the pupils of his eyes would grow wide, his lips press tight, and his whole face assume a stubborn and resolute expression. His godfather, smiling sceptically, would often say to him:

“To women, Foma, you’ll be sweeter than honey, but as yet not much common sense can be seen in you.”

Ignat would heave a sigh at these words.

“You had better start out your son as soon as possible.”

“There’s time yet, wait.”

“Why wait? He’ll go about the Volga for two or three years and then we’ll have him married. There’s my Lubov.”

Lubov Mayakina was now studying in the fifth class of some boarding school. Foma often met her on the street at which meeting she always bowed condescendingly, her fair head in a fashionable cap. Foma liked her, but her rosy cheeks, her cheerful brown eyes and crimson lips could not smooth the impression of offence given to him by her condescending bows. She was acquainted with some Gymnasium students, and although Yozhov, his old friend, was among them, Foma felt no inclination to be with them, and their company embarrassed him. It seemed to him that they were all boasting of their learning before him and that they were mocking his ignorance. Gathered together in Lubov’s house they would read some books, and whenever he found them reading or loudly arguing, they became silent at his sight. All this removed them further from him. One day when he was at Mayakin’s, Luba called him to go for a walk in the garden, and there, walking by his side, asked him with a grimace on her face:

“Why are you so unsociable? You never talk about anything.”

“What shall I talk about, since I know nothing!” said Foma, plainly.

“Study – read books.”

“I don’t feel like doing it.”

“You see, the Gymnasium students know everything, and know how to talk about everything. Take Yozhov, for instance.”

“I know Yozhov – a chatterbox.”

“You simply envy him. He is very clever – yes. He will soon graduate from the Gymnasium – and then he’ll go to Moscow to study in the University.”

“Well, what of it?” said Foma, indifferently.

“And you’ll remain just an ignorant man.”

“Well, be it so.”

“That will be nice!” exclaimed Luba, ironically.

“I shall hold my ground without science,” said Foma, sarcastically. “And I’ll have a laugh at all the learned people. Let the hungry study. I don’t need it.”

“Pshaw, how stupid you are, bad, disgusting!” said the girl with contempt and went away, leaving him alone in the garden. Offended and gloomy, he looked after her, moved his eyebrows and lowering his head, slowly walked off into the depth of the garden.

He already began to recognise the beauty of solitude and the sweet poison of contemplation. Oftentimes, during summer evenings, when everything was coloured by the fiery tints of sunset, kindling the imagination, an uneasy longing for something incomprehensible penetrated his breast. Sitting somewhere in a dark corner of the garden or lying in bed, he conjured up before him the images of the fairy-tale princesses – they appeared with the face of Luba and of other young ladies of his acquaintance, noiselessly floating before him in the twilight and staring into his eyes with enigmatic looks. At times these visions awakened in him a mighty energy, as though intoxicating him – he would rise and, straightening his shoulders, inhale the perfumed air with a full chest; but sometimes these same visions brought to him a feeling of sadness – he felt like crying, but ashamed of shedding tears, he restrained himself and never wept in silence. Or suddenly his heart began to tremble with the desire to express his gratitude to God, to bow before Him; the words of the prayer flashed through his memory, and beholding the sky, he whispered them for a long time, one by one, and his heart grew lighter, breathing into prayer the excess of his power.

The father patiently and carefully introduced him into commercial circles, took him on the Exchange, told him about his contracts and enterprises, about his co-associates, described to him how they had made their way, what fortunes they now possessed, what natures were theirs. Foma soon mastered it, regarding everything seriously and thoughtfully.

“Our bud is blooming into a blood-red cup-rose!” Mayakin smiled, winking to Ignat.

And yet, even when Foma was nineteen years old, there was something childish in him, something naive which distinguished him from the boys of his age. They were laughing at him, considering him stupid; he kept away from them, offended by their relations toward him. As for his father and Mayakin, who were watching him vigilantly, this uncertainty of Foma’s character inspired them with serious apprehensions.

“I cannot understand him!” Ignat would say with contrite heart. “He does not lead a dissipated life, he does not seem to run after the women, treats me and you with respect, listens to everything – he is more like a pretty girl than a fellow! And yet he does not seem to be stupid!”

“No, there’s nothing particularly stupid about him,” said Mayakin.

“It looks as though he were waiting for something – as though some kind of shroud were covering his eyes. His late mother groped on earth in the same way.

“Just look, there’s Afrikanka Smolin, but two years older than my boy – what a man he has become! That is, it is difficult to tell whether he is his father’s head or his father his. He wants to go to some factory to study. He swears:

“‘Eh,’ says he, ‘papa, you have not taught me enough.’ Yes. While mine does not express himself at all. Oh Lord!”

“Look here,” Mayakin advised him, “you had better push him head foremost into some active business! I assure you! Gold is tested in fire. We’ll see what his inclinations are when at liberty. Send him out on the Kama – alone.”

“To give him a trial?”

“Well, he’ll do some mischief – you’ll lose something – but then we’ll know what stuff he is made of.”

“Indeed – I’ll send him off,” Ignat decided.

And thus in the spring, Ignat sent his son off on the Kama with two barges laden with corn. The barges were led by Gordyeeff’s steamer “Philezhny,” under the command of Foma’s old acquaintance, the former sailor Yefim – now, Yefim Ilyich, a squarely built man of about thirty with lynx-like eyes – a sober-minded, steady and very strict captain.

They sailed fast and cheerfully, because all were contented. At first Foma was proud of the responsible commission with which he had been charged. Yefim was pleased with the presence of the young master, who did not rebuke or abuse him for each and every oversight; and the happy frame of mind of the two most important persons on the steamer reflected in straight rays on the entire crew. Having left the place where they had taken in their cargo of corn in April, the steamer reached the place of its destination in the beginning of May, and the barges were anchored near the shore with the steamer at their side. Foma’s duty was to deliver the corn as soon as possible, and receiving the payments, start off for Perm, where a cargo of iron was awaiting him, which Ignat had undertaken to deliver at the market.

The barges stood opposite a large village, near a pine forest, about two versts distant from the shore. On the very next day after their arrival, a big and noisy crowd of women and peasants, on foot and on horses, came up to the shore early in the morning. Shouting and singing, they scattered on the decks and in an instant work started expeditiously. Having descended into the holds, the women were filling the sacks with rye, the peasants, throwing the sacks upon their shoulders, ran over the gang-planks to the shore, and from the shore, carts, heavily laden with the long-expected corn, went off slowly to the village. The women sang songs; the peasants jested and gaily abused one another; the sailors representing the guardians of peace, scolded the working people now and then; the gang-planks, bending under the feet of the carriers, splashed against the water heavily; while on the shore the horses neighed, and the carts and the sand under the wheels were creaking.