People seemed better and kinder in the church than in the street. They looked more beautiful too in the golden candlelight that illuminated their dark forms, standing in reverent silence. Whenever the inner door opened there streamed out on the steps the solemn, deep-toned waves of song, warm, heavy with incense; gently they wrapped the lad round, and he breathed in the sweet-scented air, with delight. It was good to him to stand there beside old Jeremy, as he murmured prayers. He heard the glorious, solemn song that flooded the house of God, and waited impatiently for the door to open again and let the loud, joyful sound sweep over him, and the warm balsam-laden air cling round his being. He knew that up there in the church choir Grishka Bubnov was singing, one of the worst of his tormentors in the school, and Fedka Dolganov, too, a strong, quarrelsome lout, who had thrashed him more than once. But now he felt no hate towards them nor desire for revenge, only a little envy. He would have liked to sing in the choir and see the faces of the people. It must be so beautiful to sing there at the middle door by the altar, high above the people, and see their quiet, peaceful faces. When he left the church, he felt as though he had grown better and was ready to be reconciled to Bubnov and Dolganov and all his schoolfellows. But on the following Monday, he came home from school sombre and affronted even as before.
Everywhere, where men are gathered together in any numbers, there will be one who is ill at ease among them, and it is not at all necessary that he should be either worse or better than the rest. The ill-will of a crowd can be aroused by a lack of intelligence or by a ridiculous nose. It simply chooses some one as the object of its sport, inspired by nothing but the wish to amuse itself. In this case the lot had fallen on Ilya Lunev. No doubt in the course of time, he would have ceased to fill the rôle that his comrades had allotted to him, but now there came into Ilya's life, events that shook his soul profoundly with their terrible impressions, and so far lessened his interest in the school, that he became indifferent to its small unpleasantnesses.
The beginning came one day when Ilya, returning with Jakov from an excursion, noticed a crowd in the gateway of the house.
"Look!" said Jakov to his friend, "they're fighting again. Come along, let's get in quick!"
They hurried full speed to the house, and as they came into the courtyard, saw that there were strange men gathered there who called out:
"Send for the police! Tie his hands!"
Pressing round the smithy was a dense crowd of men, silent, motionless, with frightened faces. Children who had crept to the front, struggled away terrified. At their feet on the snow lay a woman, with her face to the ground. Her neck and the back of her head were covered with blood, and a pasty mass of something, and the snow round about her was reddened with blood. By her lay a crumpled white kerchief and a pair of big smith's tongs. Savel crouched in the smithy door and stared dumbly at the woman's hands. They were outstretched, buried deep in the snow, and the head lay between them as though she had tried to take refuge from him in the earth and hide there. The smith's brows were drawn gloomily, his face convulsed, his teeth clenched fast, the cheek bones stood out like great swellings. He supported himself with his right hand against the door post, his black fingers moved quiveringly like a cat's claws, and except for his fingers he was motionless. But to Ilya it seemed as though his close-locked lips must open, and his mighty breast cry out with all its strength. The crowd gazed without a sound; their faces were stern and earnest and though noise and tumult filled the courtyard, by the smithy all was still and motionless.
Suddenly old Jeremy crept with heavy steps from the crowd, all torn and covered with sweat, with trembling hand he held out to the smith a cup of water and said: "There! drink!"
"Don't give him water, the murderer! It's a rope round his neck he deserves," said some one, half aloud.
Savel took the cup in his left hand and drank—drank deep, and when all was gone, he looked into the empty vessel and said in a dull voice: