The Spy

"You needn't clean this one. How about your mistress? Was she a good woman?"

The old man's eyes looked directly and kindly, and seemed to say:

"Speak the truth."

"I don't know," said Yevsey, dropping his head, and for the first time feeling that he used the phrase very often.

"So?" said the Smokestack. "So?"

"I don't know anything," said Yevsey, disappointed with himself. Suddenly he grew bold. "I see this and that; but what it is, what for, why, I cannot understand. And there must be another life."

"Another?" repeated the Smokestack, screwing up his eyes.

"Yes. It would be impossible otherwise."

The Smokestack smiled quietly. He hit his knife on the table, and shouted to the waiter:

"A bottle of beer. So it can't be otherwise? That's curious. Yes – we'll see who will do whom."

"Do, please, let me live with you," Yevsey repeated.

"Well, we'll live together. All right."

"I'll come to you to-day."

"Come on."

The Smokestack began to drink his beer in silence.

When they returned to the office, they found Dorimedont Lukin there, who hastened up to Yevsey. His bandages had loosened, the one eye visible was suffused with blood.

"Did you hear about Rayisa?" he inquired gravely.

"Yes, I did."

"She did it out of – it was drink that did it, upon my word," whispered the spy, putting his uninjured hand to his breast.

"I won't go back there any more," said Yevsey.

"What then? Where will you go?"

"I am going to live with Kapiton Ivanovich."

"Um-m-m!"

Dorimedont suddenly became embarrassed, and looked around.

"Take care! He's not in his right senses. They keep him here from pity. He's even a dangerous man. Be careful with him. Keep mum about all you know."

Yevsey thought the spy would fly into a passion. He was surprised at his whispering, and listened attentively to what he said.

"I am going to leave the city. Good-by. I am going to tell my chief about you, and when he needs a new man, he will take you, rest assured. Move your bed and whatever there is in my rooms to your new quarters. Take the things to-day, do you hear? I'll go from there this evening to a hotel. Here are five rubles for you. They'll be useful to you. Now, keep quiet, do you understand?"

He continued to whisper long and rapidly, his eyes running about suspiciously on all sides, and when the door opened he started from his chair as if to run away. The smell of an ointment emanated from him. He seemed to have grown less bulky and lower in stature, and to have lost his importance.

"Good-by," he said, placing his hand on Yevsey's shoulder. "Live carefully, don't trust people, especially women. Know the value of money. Buy with silver, save the gold, don't scorn copper, defend yourself with iron – a Cossack saying. I am a Cossack, you know."

It was hard and tiresome for Yevsey to listen to his softened voice. He did not believe one word of the spy's, and, as always, feared him. Klimkov felt relieved when he walked away, and went eagerly at his work, trying to use it as a shield against the recollection of Rayisa and all other troublesome thoughts. Something turned and bestirred itself within him that day. He felt he was standing on the eve of another life, and gazed after the Smokestack from the corners of his eyes. The old man bent over his table in a cloud of grey smoke. Yevsey involuntarily thought:

"How everything happens at once. There she cut her throat, and now maybe I will – "

He could not picture to himself what might be; in fact, he did not understand what he wanted, and impatiently awaited the evening, working quickly in an endeavor to shorten the time.

In the evening as he walked along the street at the Smokestack's side, he remarked that almost everybody noticed the old man, some even stopping to look at him. He walked not rapidly but in long strides, swinging his body and thrusting his head forward like a crane. He held his hands behind his back, and his open jacket spreading wide flapped against his sides like broken wings. In Klimkov's eyes the attention the old man attracted seemed to sever him from the rest of the world.

"What is your name?"

"Yevsey."

"John is a good name," observed the old man, arranging his crumpled hat with his long hand. "I had a son named John."

"Where is he?"

"That doesn't concern you," answered the old man calmly. After taking several steps he added in the same tone, "If I say 'had,' that means I have him no longer, no longer." He stuck out his lower lip, and pinched it with his little finger. "We shall see who will do whom." Now he inclined his head on one side, and looked into Klimkov's eyes. "To-day a friend will come to me," he said solemnly, shaking his finger. "I have a certain friend. What we speak about and what we do, does not concern you. What you know I do not know, and what you do I do not want to know. The same applies to you. Absolutely."

Yevsey nodded his head.

"You must make this a general rule. Apply it to everybody. No one knows anything about you. That's the way it should be. And you do not know anything about others. The path of human destruction is knowledge sown by the devil. Happiness is ignorance. That's plain."

Yevsey listened attentively, looking into his face. The old man observed his regard, and grumbled:

"There is something human in you. I noticed it." He stopped unexpectedly, then went on, "But there's something human even in a dog."

They climbed a narrow wooden stairway with several windings to a stifling garret, dark and smelling of dust. At the Smokestack's request Yevsey held up burning matches while he fumbled a long time over opening the door. As Yevsey held up the matches, which scorched his fingers, a new hope flickered in his breast.

At last the old man opened the door, covered with torn oilcloth and ragged felt, and they entered a long, narrow white room, with a ceiling resembling the roof of a tomb. Opposite the door a wide window gleamed dimly. In the corner to the right of the entrance stood a little stove, which was scarcely noticeable. The bed extended along the left wall, and opposite sprawled a sunken red sofa. The room smelled strongly of camphor and dried herbs. The old man opened the window, and heaved a noisy breath.

"It's good to have pure air. You will sleep on the sofa. What is your name? I've forgotten. Aleksey?"

"Yevsey."

"Oh, yes." He raised the lamp, and pointed to the wall. "There's my son John."

A portrait made in thin pencil strokes and set in a narrow white frame hung inconspicuously upon the wall. It was a young but stern face, with a large forehead, a sharp nose, and stubbornly compressed lips. The lamp shook in the old man's hands, the shade knocked against the chimney, filling the room with a gentle whining sound.

"John," he repeated, setting the lamp back on the table. "A man's name means a great deal."

He thrust his head through the window, breathed in the cold air noisily, and without turning to Yevsey asked him to prepare the samovar.