The Man Who Was Afraid

“I don’t know!” replied Foma, nodding his head mournfully.

“Think of it – search.”

“I am unable to think. Nothing comes out of my thinking.”

“Eh, you, my child!” said Sasha, softly and disdainfully, moving away from him. “Your head is superfluous to you.”

Foma neither caught her tone nor noticed her movement. Leaning his hands against the bench, he bent forward, looked at the floor, and, swaying his body to and fro, said:

“Sometimes I think and think – and the whole soul is stuck round with thoughts as with tar. And suddenly everything disappears, without leaving any trace. Then it is dark in the soul as in a cellar – dark, damp and empty – there is nothing at all in it! It is even terrible – I feel then as though I were not a man, but a bottomless ravine. You ask me what I want?”

Sasha looked at him askance and pensively began to sing softly:

“Eh, when the wind blows – mist comes from the sea.”

“I don’t want to carouse – it is repulsive! Always the same – the people, the amusements, the wine. When I grow malicious – I’d thrash everybody. I am not pleased with men – what are they? It is impossible to understand them – why do they keep on living? And when they speak the truth – to whom are we to listen? One says this, another that. While I – I cannot say anything.”

“Eh, without thee, dear, my life is weary,”

sang Sasha, staring at the wall before her. And Foma kept on rocking and said:

“There are times when I feel guilty before men. Everybody lives, makes noise, while I am frightened, staggered – as if I did not feel the earth under me. Was it, perhaps, my mother that endowed me with apathy? My godfather says that she was as cold as ice – that she was forever yearning towards something. I am also yearning. Toward men I am yearning. I’d like to go to them and say: ‘Brethren, help me! Teach me! I know not how to live!. And if I am guilty – forgive me!’ But looking about, I see there’s no one to speak to. No one wants it – they are all rascals! And it seems they are even worse than I am. For I am, at least, ashamed of living as I am, while they are not! They go on.”

Foma uttered some violent, unbecoming invectives and became silent. Sasha broke off her song and moved still farther away from him. The wind was raging outside the window, hurling dust against the window-panes. Cockroaches were rustling on the oven as they crawled over a bunch of pine wood splinters. Somewhere in the yard a calf was lowing pitifully.

Sasha glanced at Foma, with a sarcastic smile, and said:

“There’s another unfortunate creature lowing. You ought to go to him; perhaps you could sing in unison. And placing her hand on his curly head she jestingly pushed it on the side.

“What are people like yourself good for? That’s what you ought to think of. What are you groaning about? You are disgusted with being idle – occupy yourself, then, with business.”

“Oh Lord!” Foma nodded his head. “It is hard for one to make himself understood. Yes, it is hard!” And irritated, he almost cried out: “What business? I have no yearning toward business! What is business? Business is merely a name – and if you should look into the depth, into the root of it – you’ll find it is nothing but absurdity! Do I not understand it? I understand everything, I see everything, I feel everything! Only my tongue is dumb. What aim is there in business? Money? I have plenty of it! I could choke you to death with it, cover you with it. All this business is nothing but fraud. I meet business people – well, and what about them? Their greediness is immense, and yet they purposely whirl about in business that they might not see themselves. They hide themselves, the devils. Try to free them from this bustle – what will happen? Like blind men they will grope about hither and thither; they’ll lose their mind – they’ll go mad! I know it! Do you think that business brings happiness into man? No, that’s not so – something else is missing here. This is not everything yet! The river flows that men may sail on it; the tree grows – to be useful; the dog – to guard the house. There is justification for everything in the world! And men, like cockroaches, are altogether superfluous on earth. Everything is for them, and they – what are they for? Aha! Wherein is their justification? Ha, ha, ha!”

Foma was triumphant. It seemed to him that he had found something good for himself, something severe against men. And feeling that, because of this, there was great joy in him, he laughed loudly.

“Does not your head ache?” inquired Sasha, anxiously, scrutinizing his face.

“My soul aches!” exclaimed Foma, passionately. “And it aches because it is upright – because it is not to be satisfied with trifles. Answer it, how to live? To what purpose? There – take my godfather – he is wise! He says – create life! But he’s the only one like this. Well, I’ll ask him, wait! And everybody says – life has usurped us! Life has choked us. I shall ask these, too. And how can we create life? You must keep it in your hands to do this, you must be master over it. You cannot make even a pot, without taking the clay into your hands.”

“Listen!” said Sasha, seriously. “I think you ought to get married, that’s all!”

“What for?” asked Foma, shrugging his shoulders.

“You need a bridle.”

“All right! I am living with you – you are all of a kind, are you not? One is not sweeter than the other. I had one before you, of the same kind as you. No, but that one did it for love’s sake. She had taken a liking to me – and consented; she was good – but, otherwise, she was in every way the same as you – though you are prettier than she. But I took a liking to a certain lady – a lady of noble birth! They said she led a loose life, but I did not get her. Yes, she was clever, intelligent; she lived in luxury. I used to think – that’s where I’ll taste the real thing! I did not get her – and, it may be, if I had succeeded, all would have taken a different turn. I yearned toward her. I thought – I could not tear myself away. While now that I have given myself to drink, I’ve drowned her in wine – I am forgetting her – and that also is wrong. O man! You are a rascal, to be frank.”

Foma became silent and sank into meditation. And Sasha rose from the bench and paced the hut to and fro, biting her lips. Then she stopped short before him, and, clasping her hands to her head, said:

“Do you know what? I’ll leave you.”

“Where will you go?” asked Foma, without lifting his head.

“I don’t know – it’s all the same!”

“But why?”

“You’re always saying unnecessary things. It is lonesome with you. You make me sad.”

Foma lifted his head, looked at her and burst into mournful laughter.

“Really? Is it possible?”

“You do make me sad! Do you know? If I should reflect on it, I would understand what you say and why you say it – for I am also of that sort – when the time comes, I shall also think of all this. And then I shall be lost. But now it is too early for me. No, I want to live yet, and then, later, come what will!”

“And I – will I, too, be lost?” asked Foma, indifferently, already fatigued by his words.

“Of course!” replied Sasha, calmly and confidently. “All such people are lost. He, whose character is inflexible, and who has no brains – what sort of a life is his? We are like this.”

“I have no character at all,” said Foma, stretching himself. Then after a moment’s silence he added:

“And I have no brains, either.”

They were silent for a minute, eyeing each other.

“What are we going to do?” asked Foma.

“We must have dinner.”

“No, I mean, in general? Afterward?”

“Afterward? I don’t know?”

“So you are leaving me?”

“I am. Come, let’s carouse some more before we part. Let’s go to Kazan, and there we’ll have a spree – smoke and flame! I’ll sing your farewell song.”

“Very well,” assented Foma. “It’s quite proper at leave taking. Eh, you devil! That’s a merry life! Listen, Sasha. They say that women of your kind are greedy for money; are even thieves.”

“Let them say,” said Sasha, calmly.

“Don’t you feel offended?” asked Foma, with curiosity. “But you are not greedy. It’s advantageous to you to be with me. I am rich, and yet you are going away; that shows you’re not greedy.”

“I?” Sasha thought awhile and said with a wave of the hand: “Perhaps I am not greedy – what of it? I am not of the very lowest of the street women. And against whom shall I feel a grudge? Let them say whatever they please. It will be only human talk, not the bellowing of bulls. And human holiness and honesty are quite familiar to me! Eh, how well I know them! If I were chosen as a judge, I would acquit the dead only l” and bursting into malicious laughter, Sasha said: “Well, that will do, we’ve spoken enough nonsense. Sit down at the table!”

On the morning of the next day Foma and Sasha stood side by side on the gangway of a steamer which was approaching a harbour on the Ustye. Sasha’s big black hat attracted everybody’s attention by its deftly bent brim, and its white feathers, and Foma was ill at ease as he stood beside her, and felt as though inquisitive glances crawled over his perplexed face. The steamer hissed and quivered as it neared the landing-bridge, which was sprinkled by a waiting crowd of people attired in bright summer clothes, and it seemed to Foma that he noticed among the crowd of various faces and figures a person he knew, who now seemed to be hiding behind other people’s backs, and yet lifted not his eye from him.

“Let’s go into the cabin!” said he to his companion uneasily.