The Spy

"You don't know? Think!"

Klimkov drew more air into his lungs, and began to tell of Rayisa and how she had suffocated the old man.

"Lukin?" the man with the blue goggles queried, yawning indifferently. "Aha, that's why your name is familiar to me."

He walked over to Yevsey, lifted his chin with his finger, and looked into his face for a few seconds. Then he rang.

A heavy tramp was heard, and a big pockmarked fellow with huge wrists appeared at the door, and looked at Yevsey. He had a terrifying way of spreading his red fingers like claws.

"Take him, Semyonov."

"To the corner cell?" asked the fellow in a hollow voice.

"Yes."

"Come," said Semyonov.

Klimkov wanted to drop on his knees. He was already bending his legs, when the fellow seized him under the arm, and pulled him through the long corridor, down the stone stairway.

"What's the matter, brat? Frightened?" he said, pushing Yevsey through a small door. "Such a spider, no face, no skin, yet a rebel!"

His words completely crushed Yevsey. He walked forward with out-stretched hands, and bumped against the wall. When he heard the heavy clang of the iron door behind him, he squatted on the floor, putting his hands about his knees and raising his knees to his drooping head. A heavy silence descended upon him. It seemed to him he would die instantly. Suddenly he jumped from the floor, and ran about the room like a mouse. His groping hands felt the palette covered with a rough blanket, a table, a chair. He ran to the door, touched it, noticed in the wall opposite a little square window, and rushed toward the window. It was below the level of the ground. The area between the ground and the outer wall was laid over with horizontal bars through which the snow sifted with a soft swish, creeping down the dirty panes. Klimkov turned noiselessly toward the door, and leaned his forehead upon it.

"Forgive me. Let me out," he whispered in his anguish.

Then he dropped on the floor again, and lost consciousness, drowned in a wave of despair.

CHAPTER XIII

The days and nights dragged along in black and grey stripes, slowly poisoning Yevsey's soul, biting into it and enfeebling it. They crept by in dumb stillness, filled with ominous threats and forebodings. They said nothing of when they would end their slow racking course. In Yevsey's soul everything grew silent and numb. He did not dare, was unable to, think; and when he paced his cage, he tried to make his steps inaudible.

On the tenth day he was again set before the man in the blue glasses. The man who had brought him there the first time was also present.

"Not very pleasant, eh, Klimkov?" the dark man asked, smacking his thick red lower lip. His high voice made an odd splashing sound as if he were laughing inside himself. The reflection of the electric light upon the blue glass of his spectacles sent strong rays into Yevsey's empty breast, and filled him with slavish readiness to do everything necessary to end these slimy days which sank into darkness and threatened madness.

"Let me go," he said quietly.

"Yes, I will, and more besides. I will take you into the service. Now you will yourself put people into the place from which you have just been taken – into the same place and into other cosy little rooms." He laughed, smacking his lip. Klimkov bowed. "The late Lukin interceded for you; and in memory of his honest service I will give you a position. You will receive twenty-five rubles a month to begin with."

His words entered Yevsey's breast and memory, and disposed themselves in a row, as if a commanding hand had written them there. He bowed again.

"This man, Piotr Petrovich, will be your chief and teacher. You must do everything he tells you. Do you understand?" He turned to the other man. "So it's decided – he will live with you."

"Very well," came the response with unexpected loudness. "That will be more convenient for me."

"All right."

The dark man turning again to Yevsey began to speak to him in a softened voice, telling him something soothing and promising. Yevsey tried to take in his words, and followed the heavy movement of the red lip under the mustache without winking.

"Remember, you will now guard the sacred person of the Czar from attempts upon his life and upon his sacred power. You understand?"

"I thank you humbly," said Yevsey quietly.

Piotr Petrovich pushed his hat up on his forehead.

"I will explain everything to him," he interjected hastily. "It is time for me to go."

"Go, go. Well, Klimkov, off with you. Serve well, brother, and you will be satisfied. You will be happy. All the same don't forget that you took part in the murder of the secondhand book-dealer Raspopov. You confessed to it yourself, and I took your testimony down in writing. Do you understand? Well, so long."

Filip Filippovich nodded his head, and his stiff beard, which seemed to be cut from wood, moved in unison with it. Then he held out to Yevsey a white bloated hand with a number of gold rings on the short fingers.

Yevsey closed his eyes, and started.

"What a scarey fellow you are, brother!" Filip Filippovich ejaculated in a thin voice, and laughed a glassy laugh. "Now you have nothing and nobody to fear. You are now the servant of the Czar, and ought to be self-assured and bold. You stand on firm ground. Do you comprehend?"

When Yevsey walked out into the street, he could not catch his breath. He staggered, and almost fell. Piotr, raising the collar of his overcoat, looked around and waved to a cab.

"We will ride home – to my house," he said in a low tone.

Yevsey looked at him from the corners of his eyes, and almost uttered a cry. Piotr's smooth-shaven face had suddenly grown a small light mustache.

"Well, why are you gaping at me in that fashion?" he asked gruffly, in annoyance.

Yevsey dropped his head, trying in spite of his wish to do so, not to look into the face of the new master of his destiny. Piotr did not speak to him throughout the ride, but kept counting something on his fingers, bending them one after the other and knitting his brows and biting his lips. Occasionally he called out angrily to the driver:

"Hurry!"

It was cold, sleet was falling, and splashing sounds floated in the air. It seemed to Yevsey that the cab was quickly rolling down a steep mountain into a black dirty ravine.

They stopped at a large three-storied house. Most of the windows in three rows were dark and blind. Only a few gleamed a sickly yellow from the illumination within. Streams of water poured from the roof sobbing.

"Go up the steps," commanded Piotr, who was now sans mustache.

They ascended the steps and walked through a long corridor past a number of white doors. Yevsey thought the place was a prison, but the thick odor of fried onion and blacking did not accord with his conception of a prison. Piotr quickly opened one of the white doors, turned on two electric lights, and carefully scrutinized all the corners of the room.

"If anybody asks you who you are," he said drily and quickly while removing his hat and overcoat, "say you are my cousin. You came from the Tzarskoe Selo to look for a position. Remember – don't make a break."

Piotr's face wore a preoccupied expression, his eyes were cheerless, his speech abrupt, his thin lips twitched. He rang, and thrust his head out of the door.

"Ivan, bring in the samovar," he called.

Yevsey standing in a corner of the room looked around dismally, in vague expectation.

"Take off your coat, and sit down. You will have the next room to yourself," said the spy, quickly unfolding a card table. He took from his pocket a note-book and a pack of cards, which he laid out for four hands.

"You understand, of course," he went on without looking at Klimkov, "you understand that ours is a secret business. We must keep under cover, or else they'll kill us as they killed Lukin."

"Was he killed?" asked Yevsey quietly.