The Spy

She shrugged her shoulders.

"Well, what of it?" After a pause she added calmly, "Not to believe a man means not to respect him. It means to think him beforehand a liar, an ugly person. Is that possible?"

"That's what is necessary," mumbled Yevsey.

"What?"

"I can furnish the type." He sighed. The task was accomplished. He was silent for several minutes, sitting with his head bowed, his hands pressed tight between his knees, while he listened suspiciously to the rapid beating of his heart.

Olga leaned her elbows on the table, and in a low voice told him when and where the promised type must be brought. He made a mental note of her words, and repeated them to himself, desiring by this repetition to hinder the growth of the painful feeling in his empty breast. Now that he had fulfilled his duty a stifling nausea slowly arose from the depths of his soul; and that feeling of an alien inside himself, of a constantly widening cleft in his being, came over him in a tormenting wave.

"You noticed," the girl said quietly, "how rapidly the people are changing, how faith in other persons is growing, how quickly one gets to know the other, how everybody seeks friends and finds them. All have become simpler, more trusting, more willing to open up their souls. See how good it is."

Her words trembled before him like moths, each with its own character. Simple, kind, joyous, they all seemed fairly to smile. Unable to make up his mind to look Olga in the face, Klimkov took to watching her shadow on the wall over his shoulders, and drew upon it her blue eyes, the medium-sized mouth with the pale lips, her face somewhat weary and serious, but soft and kind.

"Shall I tell her now that all this is a hocus-pocus? That she will be ruined?"

He answered himself:

"They'll drive me out. They'll swear at me, and drive me out."

"Do you know Zimin the joiner?" he suddenly asked.

"No, why?"

Yevsey sighed painfully.

"Just so. He's a good man, too, a Socialist."

"We are many," observed Olga with assurance.

"If she knew the joiner," Klimkov thought slowly, "I would tell her to ask him about me. Then – "

The chair seemed to be giving way beneath him, the nausea, he thought, would immediately gush into his throat. He coughed, and examined the clean little room, which small and poor though it was, once more gripped at his heart. The moon looked into the room round as Yakov's face, and the light in the lamp seemed irritatingly superfluous.

"More and more people come into being who realize that they are called upon by destiny to order life differently – upon truth and intellect," said Olga dreamily and simply.

Yevsey, yielding more and more to the power of the triumphant feeling the girl and the quiet contracted room inspired in him, thought:

"I'll put out the light, fall on my knees before her, embrace her feet, and tell her everything – and she will give me a kick."

But the fear of ill treatment did not deter him. He raised himself heavily from his chair, and put out his hand to the lamp. Then his hand dropped lazily, drowsily, his legs shook. He started.

"What are you doing?" demanded Olga.

He tried to answer, but a soft gurgle came instead of words. He dropped to his knees, and seized her dress with trembling hands. She pressed one hot hand against his forehead, and with the other grasped his shoulder, at the same time hiding her legs under the table with a powerful movement.

"No, no, get up!" she exclaimed sternly. "Oh my, how dreadful this is! My dear, I understand, you are worn out, I am sorry for you, you are an honorable man – I cannot – why, you don't ask for charity – then get up."

The warmth of her strong body roused in him a sharp sensual desire, and he took the pushing of her hand as an encouraging caress.

"She's not a saint," darted through his mind, and he embraced the girl's knees more vigorously.

"I tell you, get up!" she exclaimed in a muffled voice, no longer persuasively, but in a tone of command.

He rose without having succeeded in saying anything. The girl had confused his desires, his words, and feelings. She had put into his breast something insulting and stinging.

"Understand – " he mumbled, spreading out his hands.

"Yes, yes, I understand – my God, always this on the road!" she exclaimed. Looking into his face she went on harshly, "I am sick of it. I am insulted. I can't be only a woman to everybody. Oh, God! How pitiful you all are, after all."

She went to the window, and the table now separated her from Yevsey. A dim, cold perplexity took hold of his heart; an insulting shame quietly burned him.

"I tell you what – don't come to me – I beg of you. I'll feel awkward in your presence, and you, too – please."

Yevsey took up his hat, flung his coat over his shoulders, and walked away with bowed head. Several minutes later he was sitting on a bench at the gate of a house, mumbling as if drunk:

"The baggage!" But he had to strain himself to bring out the epithet. It was not genuine. He ransacked all the shameful names for a woman, all ugly oaths, and poured them over the tall, shapely figure of Olga, desiring to sully every bit of her with mud, to darken her from head to foot, in order not to see her face and eyes. But oaths did not cling to her. She stood before his eyes, stretching out her hands, pushing him away, serene and white. Her image robbed his oaths of their force, and though Yevsey persistently roused anger within himself, he felt only shame.

He looked for a long time at the round solitary ball of the moon, which moved in the sky in bounds, as if leaping like a large bright rubber ball; and he heard the quiet sound of its motion, resembling the beatings of a heart.

He did not love this pale melancholy disk, which always seemed to watch him with cold obstinacy in the heavy movements of his life. It was late, but the city was not yet asleep. From all sides floated sounds.

"Formerly the nights were quieter," thought Klimkov. He rose, and walked away, without putting his arms into the sleeves of his coat, his hat pushed back on his neck.

"Well, all right, wait," he thought, doing violence to himself. Finally he decided, "I'll deliver them over, and as a reward I'll ask to be transferred to another city. That's all."

He reluctantly surrendered himself to the desires to revenge himself upon Olga, and strengthened the feeling with a supreme effort. Nevertheless it continued to cover his heart with a thin scale, and was constantly breaking down so that he had to fortify it again. Beneath this desire unexpectedly appeared another, not strong, but restless. He wanted to see the girl once more, wanted to listen in silence to her talk, to sit with her in her room. He quenched the longing with thoughts that designedly lowered Olga.

"If I had a lot of money, you would dance naked before me. I know your lewd set." But to himself he said obdurately, "You won't sully her, you won't attain it."

He wanted this or the other, but neither this nor the other was attainable. In calmer moments he realized this truth, which fairly crushed him, and plunged him into a heavy sleep troubled by nightmares.

CHAPTER XXII

But Yevsey pursued his work precisely. He gave Makarov a few heavy bundles of type in three instalments, and cleverly found out from him where the printing-press would be established. This elicited public commendation from Sasha.

"Good boy! Now we have six in our hands – that's not so bad, Klimkov. You will receive a reward."

Yevsey treated his praise indifferently. When Sasha was gone, the sharp face of Maklakov, which had grown thin, leaped into his eyes. The spy, sitting in a dark corner of the room on a sofa, looked into Yevsey's face, twirling his mustache, frowning, and vexed. Something in his look provoked Yevsey, who turned aside.

"Klimkov, come here," the spy called out.

Klimkov turned back, and seated himself next to Maklakov.

"Is it true that you delivered up your brother?" asked Maklakov in a low voice.

"My cousin."