XXVI
The rain had ceased, but the wind was blowing with redoubled force—straight into my face. Half-way there, the saddle almost slipped round under me; the girth had got loose; I got off and tried to tighten the straps with my teeth.… All at once I heard someone calling me by my name.… Souvenir was running towards me across the green fields. ‘What!’ he shouted to me from some way off, ‘was your curiosity too much for you? But it’s no use.… I went over there, straight, at Harlov’s heels.… Such a state of things you never saw in your life!’
‘You want to enjoy what you have done,’ I said indignantly, and, jumping on my horse, I set off again at a gallop. But the indefatigable Souvenir did not give me up, and chuckled and grinned, even as he ran. At last, Eskovo was reached—there was the dam, and there the long hedge and willow-tree of the homestead.… I rode up to the gate, dismounted, tied up my horse, and stood still in amazement.
Of one third of the roof of the newer house, of the front part, nothing was left but the skeleton; boards and litter lay in disorderly heaps on the ground on both sides of the building. Even supposing the roof to be, as Kvitsinsky had said, a poor affair, even so, it was something incredible! On the floor of the garret, in a whirl of dust and rubbish, a blackish grey mass was moving to and fro with rapid ungainly action, at one moment shaking the remaining chimney, built of brick, (the other had fallen already) then tearing up the boarding and flinging it down below, then clutching at the very rafters. It was Harlov. He struck me as being exactly like a bear at this moment too; the head, and back, and shoulders were a bear’s, and he put his feet down wide apart without bending the insteps—also like a bear. The bitter wind was blowing upon him from every side, lifting his matted locks. It was horrible to see, here and there, red patches of bare flesh through the rents in his tattered clothes; it was horrible to hear his wild husky muttering. There were a lot of people in the yard; peasant-women, boys, and servant-girls stood close along the hedge. A few peasants huddled together in a separate group, a little way off. The old village priest, whom I knew, was standing, bareheaded, on the steps of the other house, and holding a brazen cross in both hands, from time to time, silently and hopelessly, raised it, and, as it were, showed it to Harlov. Beside the priest, stood Evlampia with her back against the wall, gazing fixedly at her father. Anna, at one moment, pushed her head out of the little window, then vanished, then hurried into the yard, then went back into the house. Sletkin—pale all over, livid—in an old dressing-gown and smoking-cap, with a single-barrelled rifle in his hands, kept running to and fro with little steps. He had completely gone Jewish, as it is called. He was gasping, threatening, shaking, pointing the gun at Harlov, then letting it drop back on his shoulder—pointing it again, shrieking, weeping.… On seeing Souvenir and me he simply flew to us.
‘Look, look, what is going on here!’ he wailed—‘look! He’s gone out of his mind, he’s raving mad … and see what he’s doing! I’ve sent for the police already—but no one comes! No one comes! If I do fire at him, the law couldn’t touch me, for every man has a right to defend his own property! And I will fire!… By God, I’ll fire!’
He ran off toward the house.
‘Martin Petrovitch, look out! If you don’t get down, I’ll fire!’
‘Fire away!’ came a husky voice from the roof. ‘Fire away! And meanwhile here’s a little present for you!’
A long plank flew up, and, turning over twice in the air, came violently to the earth, just at Sletkin’s feet. He positively jumped into the air, while Harlov chuckled.
‘Merciful Jesus!’ faltered some one behind me. I looked round: Souvenir. ‘Ah!’ I thought, ‘he’s left off laughing now!’
Sletkin clutched a peasant, who was standing near, by the collar.
‘Climb up now, climb up, climb up, all of you, you devils,’ he wailed, shaking the man with all his force, ‘save my property!’
The peasant took a couple of steps forward, threw his head back, waved his arms, shouted—‘hi! here! master!’ shifted from one foot to the other uneasily, and then turned back.
‘A ladder! bring a ladder!’ Sletkin addressed the other peasants.
‘Where are we to get it?’ was heard in answer.
‘And if we had a ladder,’ one voice pronounced deliberately, ‘who’d care to climb up? Not such fools! He’d wring your neck for you—in a twinkling!’
‘He’d kill one in no time,’ said one young lad with flaxen hair and a half-idiotic face.
‘To be sure he would,’ the others confirmed. It struck me that, even if there had been no obvious danger, the peasants would yet have been loath to carry out their new owner’s orders. They almost approved of Harlov, though they were amazed at him.
‘Ugh, you robbers!’ moaned Sletkin; ‘you shall all catch it.…’
But at this moment, with a heavy rumble, the last chimney came crashing down, and, in the midst of the cloud of yellow dust that flew up instantly, Harlov—uttering a piercing shriek and lifting his bleeding hands high in the air—turned facing us. Sletkin pointed the gun at him again.
Evlampia pulled him back by the elbow.
‘Don’t interfere!’ he snarled savagely at her.
‘And you—don’t you dare!’ she answered; and her blue eyes flashed menacingly under her scowling brows. ‘Father’s pulling his house down. It’s his own.’
‘You lie: it’s ours!’
‘You say ours; but I say it’s his.’
Sletkin hissed with fury; Evlampia’s eyes seemed stabbing him in the face.
‘Ah, how d’ye do! my delightful daughter!’ Harlov thundered from above. ‘How d’ye do! Evlampia Martinovna! How are you getting on with your sweetheart? Are your kisses sweet, and your fondling?’
‘Father!’ rang out Evlampia’s musical voice.
‘Eh, daughter?’ answered Harlov; and he came down to the very edge of the wall. His face, as far as I could make it out, wore a strange smile, a bright, mirthful—and for that very reason peculiarly strange and evil—smile.… Many years later I saw just the same smile on the face of a man condemned to death.
‘Stop, father; come down. We are in fault; we give everything back to you. Come down.’
‘What do you mean by disposing of what’s ours?’ put in Sletkin. Evlampia merely scowled more angrily.
‘I give you back my share. I give up everything. Give over, come down, father! Forgive us; forgive me.’
Harlov still went on smiling. ‘It’s too late, my darling,’ he said, and each of his words rang out like brass. ‘Too late your stony heart is touched! The rock’s started rolling downhill—there’s no holding it back now! And don’t look to me now; I’m a doomed man! You’d do better to look to your Volodka; see what a pretty fellow you’ve picked out! And look to your hellish sister; there’s her foxy nose yonder thrust out of the window; she’s peering yonder after that husband of hers! No, my good friends; you would rob me of a roof over my head, so I will leave you not one beam upon another! With my own hands I built it, with my own hands I destroy it,—yes, with my hands alone! See, I’ve taken no axe to help me!’
He snorted at his two open hands, and clutched at the centre beam again.
‘Enough, father,’ Evlampia was saying meanwhile, and her voice had grown marvellously caressing, ‘let bygones be bygones. Come, trust me; you always trusted me. Come, get down; come to me to my little room, to my soft bed. I will dry you and warm you; I will bind up your wounds; see, you have torn your hands. You shall live with me as in Christ’s bosom; food shall be sweet to you—and sleep sweeter yet. Come, we have done wrong! yes, we were puffed up, we have sinned; come, forgive!’
Harlov shook his head. ‘Talk away! Me believe you! Never again! You’ve murdered all trust in my heart! You’ve murdered everything! I was an eagle, and became a worm for you … and you,—would you even crush the worm? Have done! I loved you, you know very well,—but now you are no daughter to me, and I’m no father to you … I’m a doomed man! Don’t meddle! As for you, fire away, coward, mighty man of valour!’ Harlov bellowed suddenly at Sletkin. ‘Why is it you keep aiming and don’t shoot? Are you mindful of the law; if the recipient of a gift commits an attempt upon the life of the giver,’ Harlov enunciated distinctly, ‘then the giver is empowered to claim everything back again? Ha, ha! don’t be afraid, law-abiding man! I’d make no claims. I’ll make an end of everything myself.… Here goes!’
‘Father!’ for the last time Evlampia besought him.
‘Silence!’
‘Martin Petrovitch! brother, be generous and forgive!’ faltered Souvenir.
‘Father! dear father!’
‘Silence, bitch!’ shouted Harlov. At Souvenir he did not even glance,—he merely spat in his direction.