VII
He was immediately allotted a special room, and also immediately, as the first measure, taken to the bath, which was absolutely indispensable. All his garments, and his dagger and tall kazák cap and hole-ridden shoes, were carefully laid away in the storehouse; clean linen was put on him, slippers, and some of my clothing, which, as is always the case with paupers, exactly fitted his build and stature. When he came to the table, washed, neat, fresh, he seemed so much touched, and so happy, he was beaming all over with such joyful gratitude, that I felt emotion and joy…. His face was completely transfigured. Little boys of twelve wear such faces at Easter, after the Communion, when, thickly pomaded, clad in new round-jackets and starched collars, they go to exchange the Easter greeting with their parents. Mísha kept feeling of himself cautiously and incredulously, and repeating:—"What is this?… Am not I in heaven?"—And on the following day he announced that he had not been able to sleep all night for rapture!
In my house there was then living an aged aunt with her niece. They were both greatly agitated when they heard of Mísha's arrival; they did not understand how I could have invited him to my house! He bore a very bad reputation. But, in the first place, I knew that he was always very polite to ladies; and, in the second place, I trusted to his promise to reform. And, as a matter of fact, during the early days of his sojourn under my roof Mísha not only justified my expectations, but exceeded them; and he simply enchanted my ladies. He played picquet with the old lady; he helped her to wind yarn; he showed her two new games of patience; he accompanied the niece, who had a small voice, on the piano; he read her French and Russian poetry; he narrated diverting but decorous anecdotes to both ladies;—in a word, he was serviceable to them in all sorts of ways, so that they repeatedly expressed to me their surprise, while the old woman even remarked: "How unjust people sometimes are!… What all have not they said about him … while he is so discreet and polite … poor Mísha!"
It is true that at table "poor Mísha" licked his lips in a peculiarly-hasty way every time he even looked at a bottle. But all I had to do was to shake my finger, and he would roll up his eyes, and press his hand to his heart … as much as to say: "I have sworn…."
"I am regenerated now!" he assured me.—"Well, God grant it!" I thought to myself…. But this regeneration did not last long.
During the early days he was very loquacious and jolly. But beginning with the third day he quieted down, somehow, although, as before, he kept close to the ladies and amused them. A half-sad, half-thoughtful expression began to flit across his face, and the face itself grew pale and thin.
"Art thou ill?" I asked him.
"Yes," he answered;—"my head aches a little."
On the fourth day he became perfectly silent; he sat in a corner most of the time, with dejectedly drooping head; and by his downcast aspect evoked a feeling of compassion in the two ladies, who now, in their turn, tried to divert him. At table he ate nothing, stared at his plate, and rolled bread-balls. On the fifth day the feeling of pity in the ladies began to be replaced by another—by distrust and even fear. Mísha had grown wild, he avoided people and kept walking along the wall, as though creeping stealthily, and suddenly darting glances around him, as though some one had called him. And what had become of his rosy complexion? It seemed to be covered with earth.
"Art thou still ill?" I asked him.
"No; I am well," he answered abruptly.
"Art thou bored?"
"Why should I be bored?"—But he turned away and would not look me in the eye.
"Or hast thou grown melancholy again?"—To this he made no reply.
On the following day my aunt ran into my study in a state of great excitement, and declared that she and her niece would leave my house if Mísha were to remain in it.
"Why so?"
"Why, we feel afraid of him…. He is not a man,—he is a wolf, a regular wolf. He stalks and stalks about, saying never a word, and has such a wild look…. He all but gnashes his teeth. My Kátya is such a nervous girl, as thou knowest…. She took a great interest in him the first day…. I am afraid for her and for myself…."
I did not know what reply to make to my aunt. But I could not expel
Mísha, whom I had invited in.
He himself extricated me from this dilemma.
That very day—before I had even left my study—I suddenly heard a dull and vicious voice behind me.
"Nikolái Nikoláitch, hey there, Nikolái Nikoláitch!"
I looked round. In the doorway stood Mísha, with a terrible, lowering, distorted visage.
"Nikolái Nikoláitch," he repeated … (it was no longer "dear uncle").
"What dost thou want?"
"Let me go … this very moment!"
"What?"
"Let me go, or I shall commit a crime,—set the house on fire or cut some one's throat."—Mísha suddenly fell to shaking.—"Order them to restore my garments, and give me a cart to carry me to the highway, and give me a trifling sum of money!"
"But art thou dissatisfied with anything?" I began.
"I cannot live thus!" he roared at the top of his voice.—"I cannot live in your lordly, thrice-damned house! I hate, I am ashamed to live so tranquilly!… How do you manage to endure it?!"
"In other words," I interposed, "thou wishest to say that thou canst not live without liquor…."
"Well, yes! well, yes!" he yelled again.—"Only let me go to my brethren, to my friends, to the beggars!… Away from your noble, decorous, repulsive race!"
I wanted to remind him of his promise on oath, but the criminal expression of Mísha's face, his unrestrained voice, the convulsive trembling of all his limbs—all this was so frightful that I made haste to get rid of him. I informed him that he should receive his clothing at once, that a cart should be harnessed for him; and taking from a casket a twenty-ruble bank-note, I laid it on the table. Mísha was already beginning to advance threateningly upon me, but now he suddenly stopped short, his face instantaneously became distorted, and flushed up; he smote his breast, tears gushed from his eyes, and he stammered, —"Uncle!—Angel! I am a lost man, you see!—-Thanks! Thanks!"—He seized the bank-note and rushed out of the room.
An hour later he was already seated in a cart, again clad in his Circassian coat, again rosy and jolly; and when the horses started off he uttered a yell, tore off his tall kazák cap, and waving it above his head, he made bow after bow. Immediately before his departure he embraced me long and warmly, stammering:—"Benefactor, benefactor!… It was impossible to save me!" He even ran in to see the ladies, and kissed their hands over and over again, went down on his knees, appealed to God, and begged forgiveness! I found Kátya in tears later on.
But the coachman who had driven Mísha reported to me, on his return, that he had taken him to the first drinking establishment on the highway, and that there he "had got stranded," had begun to stand treat to every one without distinction, and had soon arrived at a state of inebriation.
Since that time I have never met Mísha, but I learned his final fate in the following manner.