[CHAPTER XVIII]
As Yaakov, the stoker, had done in his time, so now Osip grew and grew in my eyes, until he hid all other people from me. There was some resemblance to the stoker in him, but at the same time he reminded me of grandfather, the valuer, Petr Vassiliev, Smouri, and the cook. When I think of all the people who are firmly fixed in my memory, he has left behind a deeper impression than any of them, an impression which has eaten into it, as oxide eats into a brass bell. What was remarkable about him was that he had two sets of ideas. In the daytime, at his work among people, his lively, simple ideas were businesslike and easier to understand than those to which he gave vent when he was off duty, in the evenings, when he went with me into the town to see his cronies, the dealers, or at night when he could not sleep. He had special night thoughts, many-sided like the flame of a lamp. They burned brightly, but where were their real faces? On which side was this or that idea, nearer and dearer to Osip?
He seemed to me to be much cleverer than any one else I had met, and I hovered about him, as I used to do with the stoker, trying to find out about the man, to understand him. But he glided away from me; it was impossible to grasp him. Where was the real man hidden? How far could I believe in him?
I remember how he said to me:
"You must find out for yourself where I am hidden. Look for me!"
My self-love was piqued, but more than that, it had become a matter of life and death to me to understand the old man.
With all his elusiveness he was substantial. He looked as if he could go on living for a hundred years longer and still remain the same, so unchangeably did he preserve his ego amid the instability of the people around him. The valuer had made upon me an equal impression of steadfastness, but it was not so pleasing to me. Osip's steadfastness was of a different kind; although I cannot explain how, it was more pleasing.
The instability of human creatures is too often brought to one's notice; their acrobatic leaps from one position to another upset me. I had long ago grown weary of being surprised by these inexplicable somersaults, and they had by degrees extinguished my lively interest in humanity, disturbed my love for it.
One day at the beginning of July, a rackety hackney cab came dashing up to the place where we were working. On the box-seat a drunken driver sat, hiccuping gloomily. He was bearded, hatless, and had a bruised lip. Grigori Shishlin rolled about in the carriage, drunk, while a fat, red-cheeked girl held his arm. She wore a straw hat trimmed with a red ribbon and glass cherries; she had a sunshade in her hand, and goloshes on her bare feet. Waving her sunshade, swaying, she giggled and screamed:
"What the devil! The market-place is not open; there is no market-place, and he brings me to the market-place. Little mother—"