HE had passed the summer waiting for a place. That night, in the orchard at Kazakovo, it became clear to him that his dreams of orchards were foolish. On his return to the town, after carefully thinking over his situation he began to hunt for a position as a shop or counting-house clerk; then he began to reconcile himself to anything that offered, provided only that it furnished him a morsel of bread. But his searches, efforts, and entreaties were vain. Despair seized upon him. How was it he had failed to see that he had nothing to hope for? In the town he had long borne the reputation of being a very eccentric person. Drunkenness and lack of employment had converted him into a laughing-stock. In the beginning his manner of life had amazed the town; later on, it had come to seem suspicious. And, of a truth, who had ever heard of such a thing as a petty burgher at his age living in a lodging-house, being unmarried and poor as an organ-grinder? All his property consisted of a chest and a ponderous old umbrella! Kuzma began to look at himself in the mirror: really, now, what sort of man was the one he beheld before him? He slept in the “common room,” among strangers, chance people who came and went; in the morning he crawled in the heat about the bazaar and to the eating-houses, where he picked up rumours concerning jobs; after dinner, he took a nap, then seated himself at the window and read Kostomaroff’s History, gazed at the dusty, glaring white street and at the sky, pale blue with sultriness. For whom and for what was he living in the world—that petty burgher, broad of bone though lean, and already grey-haired from hunger and austere thinking; who called himself an anarchist and was not able to explain intelligently what an anarchist is? He sat and read; he sighed and paced to and fro in the room; he squatted down on his heels and unlocked his small chest; he arranged in more orderly fashion his tattered little books and manuscripts, two or three faded shirts, an old long-skirted great-coat, a waistcoat, the much worn certificates of his birth and his baptism. And he dropped his hands forlornly. What meaning was there to all this? Such poverty, such loneliness! And he shuddered at the thought of what lay ahead of him. Tikhon was childless, and rich—but Tikhon wouldn’t give so much as a copper coin to bury him....
The summer stretched out in endless length. The Duma was dissolved, but that did not break the monotony of the long, hot days. A vast revolt in the country districts was expected, but no one so much as lifted an eyebrow so long as absolutely nothing of any magnitude took place. Fresh and savage attacks on the Jews were contrived; day after day executions and shootings took place; but the town ceased to take the slightest interest in them. In the country, at the manor-houses, terror reigned—especially after that famous day when the peasants rose in rebellion at the “order” of some one or other. But what cared the town for the country districts? Kazakoff sent an extra company of kazaks. The local newspaper was closed down three times, and at last they made an end of the whole business by prohibiting the sale of the newspapers from the capitals. Once more poster advertisements began to bear the inscription: “By permission of the Authorities, temporarily in this Town,” and the posters themselves again became abominable. Little Russians arrived, attracted by the presentation of “the famous historical drama ‘Taras Bulba, the murderer of his own son,’” and by the announcement that “the entire company will take part” in the national dance, the Hopak, “in sumptuous costumes,” and that there would be “free presents”—a milch cow and a tea set “worth seventy-five rubles.” Swift runners and fortune-tellers reappeared, as well as certain knaves who exhibited human monstrosities—twins, a bearded lady, a young girl who weighed five hundred and seventy-six pounds, “the marvel of the XX century—a live freak captured in the Red Sea,” which lay dead in a zinc bathtub behind a cotton print curtain.
“Cursed be the day I was born into this thrice-accursed country!” Kuzma said at times, as he hurled his newspaper on to the table, closed his eyes, and gritted his teeth. “People ought now to be shouting so that it could be heard throughout the whole world: ‘To arms, ye who believe in God.’”
“And you’ll go on shouting until you make yourself heard,” some one quietly answered him.
Then he turned the conversation to the crops, the drought. And Kuzma relapsed into silence: the events which were taking place were so atrocious that the human mind was unable to grasp them.
Rain fell now and then in the countryside, but in town, day after day from May until August, an infernal drought held uninterrupted sway. The lodging-house, a corner building, baked in the sun. At night one’s blood hammered in one’s head from the stifling heat, and every noise which came through the open windows wakened one with a start. It was impossible to sleep in the hayloft because of the fleas, the crowing of the young cocks, and the odour of the manure-yard. Moreover, smoking was prohibited there: the landlord was fat, weak, and nervous as an old woman. All summer long Kuzma never abandoned the hope of getting to Voronezh. Akh, how little he had prized the days of his youth! If now he might only saunter between trains through the streets of Voronezh, gaze at the familiar poplar trees, at the tiny blue house outside the town—! But what was the use? Should he spend ten or fifteen rubles, and then have to deny himself a candle or a roll of white bread? More than that, it was shameful for an old man to surrender himself to memories of love. And how about Klasha? Was she really his daughter? He had seen her a couple of years ago: she was sitting at the window, weaving lace; she had a charming, modest face, but resembled only her mother. What could he say to her, even if he should make up his mind to go? How could he look old Ivan Semyonitch in the face?
Time flowed on in intolerable boredom. There were not even any visitors at the inn. During the whole of July the only person who put up there was a youthful deacon, rather a queer fellow, after the pattern of seminary queer sticks. A relative of his came to see him, but the visit ended in nothing: the deacon was absent in the bazaar, and his name, Krasnobaeff, was written up on the board after the Latin fashion: Benedictoff.
As autumn drew near, Kuzma persuaded himself that it was indispensable for him to make a pilgrimage to the holy places, to some monastery, or—to give up the struggle for good and all and take to drinking again in order to spite some one or other. One day, having unlocked his chest, he found Tolstoy’s “Confession,” opened it, and read the pencilled inscription which he had written while in a state of intoxication, during his services with Kasatkin: “It is impossible to wean all men from vodka.” A couple of months earlier he would merely have contracted his brows in a frown—what a stupid inscription!—but now he grinned and said to himself: “Why not consign everything to the devil’s mother, burn everything to the last thread, and draw a razor across my throat?”
Autumn set in. In the bazaar there was a fragrance of apples and plums. The schoolboys were brought back to the gymnasium from their vacation in the country. The horse races began. The sun began to set behind Chips Square. If one emerged from the gate in the evening and crossed the intersection of the streets, one was blinded: to the left the whole street, ending at the square in the distance, was flooded with a low, mournful light. The gardens, behind their fences, were full of dust and spiders’ webs. Polozoff came to meet one, wearing a coat with sleeve-flaps, but he had already exchanged his hat for a peaked cap with military insignia. There was not a soul in the town park. The band-stand for the musicians was boarded up; so was the kiosk where, in summer, kumys and lemonade were sold; the wooden refreshment counter was closed. And one day, as he sat near the band-stand, Kuzma was so overwhelmed with depression that he seriously meditated committing suicide. The sun had set; its light was reddish; thin, rose-hued foliage was drifting along the alley; a cold wind was blowing. The cathedral bells were ringing the summons to the All-Night Vigil Service, and one’s soul ached unbearably at this closely set, methodical peal, executed in countrified Saturday fashion.
All at once, from under the band-stand, a cough became audible, and a clearing of the throat. “Motka,” Kuzma said to himself. And sure enough, from under the stairs crawled Duck-Headed Matty. He wore rusty soldier’s boots, an extremely long uniform from the shoulders of a second-school boy, besprinkled with flour—evidently the bazaar had been making merry—and a straw hat which had once been run over by wheels. With his eyes still closed, spitting and staggering with intoxication, he stalked past, without so much as asking for a smoke. Kuzma, repressing his tears, shouted to him: “Mot! Come, let’s have a chat, and a smoke—”