The Man Who Was Afraid

“You boys, keep quiet, every one of you! Who gives you to drink and to eat? Have you forgotten it? I’ll bring you in order! I’ll show you how to respect me! Convicts! When I speak you must all keep quiet!”

And, indeed, all became silent; either for fear lest they might lose his good will, or, perhaps, afraid that he, that healthy and strong beast, might beat them. They sat in silence about a minute, concealing their anger at him, bending over the plates and attempting to hide from him their fright and embarrassment. Foma measured them with a self-satisfied look, and gratified by their slavish submissiveness, said boastfully:

“Ah! You’ve grown dumb now, that’s the way! I am strict! I – ”

“You sluggard!” came some one’s calm, loud exclamation.

“Wha-at?” roared Foma, jumping up from his chair. “Who said that?”

Then a certain, strange, shabby-looking man arose at the end of the table; he was tall, in a long frock-coat, with a heap of grayish hair on his large head. His hair was stiff, standing out in all directions in thick locks, his face was yellow, unshaven, with a long, crooked nose. To Foma it seemed that he resembled a swab with which the steamer decks are washed, and this amused the half-intoxicated fellow.

“How fine!” said he, sarcastically. “What are you snarling at, eh? Do you know who I am?”

With the gesture of a tragic actor the man stretched out to Foma his hand, with its long, pliant fingers like those of a juggler, and he said in a deep hoarse basso:

“You are the rotten disease of your father, who, though he was a plunderer, was nevertheless a worthy man in comparison with you.”

Because of the unexpectedness of this, and because of his wrath, Foma’s heart shrank. He fiercely opened his eyes wide and kept silent, finding no words to reply to this insolence. And the man, standing before him, went on hoarsely, with animation, beastlike rolling his large, but dim and swollen, eyes:

“You demand of us respect for you, you fool! How have you merited it? Who are you? A drunkard, drinking away the fortune of your father. You savage! You ought to be proud that I, a renowned artist, a disinterested and faithful worshipper at the shrine of art, drink from the same bottle with you! This bottle contains sandal and molasses, infused with snuff-tobacco, while you think it is port wine. It is your license for the name of savage and ass.”

“Eh, you jailbird!” roared Foma, rushing toward the artist. But he was seized and held back. Struggling in the arms of those that seized him, he was compelled to listen without replying, to the thundering, deep and heavy bass of the man who resembled a swab.

“You have thrown to men a few copecks out of the stolen roubles, and you consider yourself a hero! You are twice a thief. You have stolen the roubles and now you are stealing gratitude for your few copecks! But I shall not give it to you! I, who have devoted all my life to the condemnation of vice, I stand before you and say openly: ‘You are a fool and a beggar because you are too rich! Here lies the wisdom: all the rich are beggars.’ That’s how the famous coupletist, Rimsky-Kannibalsky, serves Truth!”

Foma was now standing meekly among the people that had closely surrounded him, and he eagerly listened to the coupletist’s thundering words, which now aroused in him a sensation as though somebody was scratching a sore spot, and thus soothing the acute itching of the pain. The people were excited; some attempted to check the coupletist’s flow of eloquence, others wanted to lead Foma away somewhere. Without saying a word he pushed them aside and listened, more and more absorbed by the intense pleasure of humiliation which he felt in the presence of these people. The pain irritated by the words of the coupletist, caressed Foma’s soul more and more passionately, and the coupletist went on thundering, intoxicated with the impurity of his accusation:

“You think that you are the master of life? You are the low slave of the rouble.”

Someone in the crowd hiccoughed, and, evidently displeased with himself for this, cursed each time he hiccoughed:

“Oh devil.”

And a certain, unshaven, fat-faced man took pity on Foma, or, perhaps, became tired of witnessing that scene, and, waving his hands, he drawled out plaintively:

“Gentlemen, drop that! It isn’t good! For we are all sinners! Decidedly all, believe me!”

“Well, speak on!” muttered Foma. “Say everything! I won’t touch you.”

The mirrors on the walls reflected this drunken confusion, and the people, as reflected in the mirrors, seemed more disgusting and hideous than they were in reality.

“I do not want to speak!” exclaimed the coupletist, “I do not want to cast the pearls of truth and of my wrath before you.”

He rushed forward, and raising his head majestically, turned toward the door with tragic footsteps.

“You lie!” said Foma, attempting to follow him. “Hold on! you have made me agitated, now calm me.”

They seized him, surrounded him and shouted something to him while he was rushing forward, overturning everybody. When he met tactile obstacles on his way the struggle with them gave him ease, uniting all his riotous feelings into one yearning to overthrow that which hindered him. And now, after he had jostled them all aside and rushed out into the street, he was already less agitated. Standing on the sidewalk he looked about the street and thought with shame:

“How could I permit that swab to mock me and abuse my father as a thief?”

It was dark and quiet about him, the moon was shining brightly, and a light refreshing breeze was blowing. Foma held his face to the cool breeze as he walked against the wind with rapid strides, timidly looking about on all sides, and wishing that none of the company from the tavern would follow him. He understood that he had lowered himself in the eyes of all these people. As he walked he thought of what he had come to: a sharper had publicly abused him in disgraceful terms, while he, the son of a well-known merchant, had not been able to repay him for his mocking.

“It serves me right!” thought Foma, sadly and bitterly. “That serves me right! Don’t lose your head, understand. And then again, I wanted it myself. I interfered with everybody, so now, take your share!” These thoughts made him feel painfully sorry for himself. Seized and sobered by them he kept on strolling along the streets, and searching for something strong and firm in himself. But everything within him was confused; it merely oppressed his heart, without assuming any definite forms. As in a painful dream he reached the river, seated himself on the beams by the shore, and began to look at the calm dark water, which was covered with tiny ripples. Calmly and almost noiselessly flowed on the broad, mighty river, carrying enormous weights upon its bosom. The river was all covered with black vessels, the signal lights and the stars were reflected in its water; the tiny ripples, murmuring softly, were gently breaking against the shore at the very feet of Foma. Sadness was breathed down from the sky, the feeling of loneliness oppressed Foma.

“Oh Lord Jesus Christ!” thought he, sadly gazing at the sky. “What a failure I am. There is nothing in me. God has put nothing into me. Of what use am I? Oh Lord Jesus!”

At the recollection of Christ Foma felt somewhat better – his loneliness seemed alleviated, and heaving a deep sigh, he began to address God in silence:

“Oh Lord Jesus Christ! Other people do not understand anything either, but they think that all is known to them, and therefore it is easier for them to live. While I – I have no justification. Here it is night, and I am alone, I have no place to go, I am unable to say anything to anybody. I love no one – only my godfather, and he is soulless. If Thou hadst but punished him somehow! He thinks there is none cleverer and better on earth than himself. While Thou sufferest it. And the same with me. If some misfortune were but sent to me. If some illness were to overtake me. But here I am as strong as iron. I am drinking, leading a gay life. I live in filth, but the body does not even rust, and only my soul aches. Oh Lord! To what purpose is such a life?”

Vague thoughts of protest flashed one after another through the mind of the lonely, straying man, while the silence about him was growing deeper, and night ever darker and darker. Not far from the shore lay a boat at anchor; it rocked from side to side, and something was creaking in it as though moaning.

“How am I to free myself from such a life as this?” reflected Foma, staring at the boat. “And what occupation is destined to be mine? Everybody is working.”

And suddenly he was struck by a thought which appeared great to him:

“And hard work is cheaper than easy work! Some man will give himself up entire to his work for a rouble, while another takes a thousand with one finger.”

He was pleasantly roused by this thought. It seemed to him that he discovered another falsehood in the life of man, another fraud which they conceal. He recalled one of his stokers, the old man Ilya, who, for ten copecks, used to be on watch at the fireplace out of his turn, working for a comrade eight hours in succession, amid suffocating heat. One day, when he had fallen sick on account of overwork, he was lying on the bow of the steamer, and when Foma asked him why he was thus ruining himself, Ilya replied roughly and sternly:

“Because every copeck is more necessary to me than a hundred roubles to you. That’s why!”

And, saying this, the old man turned his body, which was burning with pain, with its back to Foma.

Reflecting on the stoker his thoughts suddenly and without any effort, embraced all those petty people that were doing hard work. He wondered, Why do they live? What pleasure is it for them to live on earth? They constantly do but their dirty, hard work, they eat poorly, are poorly clad, they drink. One man is sixty years old, and yet he keeps on toiling side by side with the young fellows. And they all appeared to Foma as a huge pile of worms, which battled about on earth just to get something to eat. In his memory sprang up his meetings with these people, one after another – their remarks about life – now sarcastic and mournful, now hopelessly gloomy remarks – their wailing songs. And now he also recalled how one day in the office Yefim had said to the clerk who hired the sailors:

“Some Lopukhin peasants have come here to hire themselves out, so don’t give them more than ten roubles a month. Their place was burned down to ashes last summer, and they are now in dire need – they’ll work for ten roubles.”

Sitting on the beams, Foma rocked his whole body to and fro, and out of the darkness, from the river, various human figures appeared silently before him – sailors, stokers, clerks, waiters, half-intoxicated painted women, and tavern-loungers. They floated in the air like shadows; something damp and brackish came from them, and the dark, dense throng moved on slowly, noiselessly and swiftly, like clouds in an autumn sky. The soft splashing of the waves poured into his soul like sadly sighing music. Far away, somewhere on the other bank of the river, burned a wood-pile; embraced by the darkness on all sides, it was at times almost absorbed by it, and in the darkness it trembled, a reddish spot scarcely visible to the eye. But now the fire flamed up again, the darkness receded, and it was evident that the flame was striving upward. And then it sank again.

“Oh Lord, Oh Lord!” thought Foma, painfully and bitterly, feeling that grief was oppressing his heart with ever greater power. “Here I am, alone, even as that fire. Only no light comes from me, nothing but fumes and smoke. If I could only meet a wise man! Someone to speak to. It is utterly impossible for me to live alone. I cannot do anything. I wish I might meet a man.”

Far away, on the river, two large purple fires appeared, and high above them was a third. A dull noise resounded in the distance, something black was moving toward Foma.

“A steamer going up stream,” he thought. “There may be more than a hundred people aboard, and none of them give a single thought to me. They all know whither they are sailing. Every one of them has something that is his own. Every one, I believe, understands what he wants. But what do I want? And who will tell it to me? Where is such a man?”

The lights of the steamer were reflected in the river, quivering in it; the illumined water rushed away from it with a dull murmur, and the steamer looked like a huge black fish with fins of fire.

A few days elapsed after this painful night, and Foma caroused again. It came about by accident and against his will. He had made up his mind to restrain himself from drinking, and so went to dinner in one of the most expensive hotels in town, hoping to find there none of his familiar drinking-companions, who always selected the cheaper and less respectable places for their drinking bouts. But his calculation proved to be wrong; he at once came into the friendly joyous embrace of the brandy-distiller’s son, who had taken Sasha as mistress.

He ran up to Foma, embraced him and burst into merry laughter.

“Here’s a meeting! This is the third day I have eaten here, and I am wearied by this terrible lonesomeness. There is not a decent man in the whole town, so I have had to strike up an acquaintance with newspaper men. They’re a gay lot, although at first they played the aristocrat and kept sneering at me. After awhile we all got dead drunk. They’ll be here again today – I swear by the fortune of my father! I’ll introduce you to them. There is one writer of feuilletons here; you know, that some one who always lauded you, what’s his name? An amusing fellow, the devil take him! Do you know it would be a good thing to hire one like that for personal use! Give him a certain sum of money and order him to amuse! How’s that? I had a certain coupletist in my employ, – it was rather entertaining to be with him. I used to say to him sometimes: ‘Rimsky! give us some couplets!’ He would start, I tell you, and he’d make you split your sides with laughter. It’s a pity, he ran off somewhere. Have you had dinner?”

“Not yet. And how’s Aleksandra?” asked Foma, somewhat deafened by the loud speech of this tall, frank, red-faced fellow clad in a motley costume.

“Well, do you know,” said the latter with a frown, “that Aleksandra of yours is a nasty woman! She’s so obscure, it’s tiresome to be with her, the devil take her! She’s as cold as a frog, – brrr! I guess I’ll send her away.”