The Spy

"One was Olga."

"What!"

"Olga. Why?"

"Nothing."

"A little one, thin and jolly. She used to hide my hat, or something else, and I would say, 'Olga, where's my hat?' And she would say, 'Look for it. You're a spy.' She liked to joke, but she was a loose woman. I hardly had my head turned, before she was with somebody else. I was afraid to beat her. She was frail. Still I pulled her hair. You've got to do something."

"Lord!" quietly exclaimed Klimkov. "What am I going to do?"

His comrade was silent for a while, then said dully and slowly:

"That's the way I howl, too, sometimes."

Klimkov buried his head in the pillow, compressing his lips tightly, to restrain the stubborn need to utter cries and complaints.

CHAPTER XXVIII

Yevsey awoke with a certain secret resolution, which held his bosom as with a broad invisible belt. It stifled him. The ends of this band, he felt, were held by some insistent being, who obstinately led him on to an inescapable something. He harkened to this desire and tested it carefully with an awkward, timorous thought. At the same time he did not want it to define itself.

Melnikov dressed and washed, but uncombed, was sitting at the table next to the samovar, munching his bread lazily like an ox.

"You sleep well," he said. "I drowsed a little, then awoke, while it was still night, and suddenly saw a body beside me. I remembered that Tania wasn't here, but I had forgotten about you. Then it seemed to me that that person was lying there. He came and lay down – wanted to warm himself." Melnikov laughed a stupid laugh, which, apparently, embarrassed him the next instant. "However, it's not a joke. I lighted a match and looked at you. It's my idea you're not well. Your face is blue like – " He broke off with a cough, but Yevsey guessed the unspoken word, and thought gloomily:

"Rayisa, too, said I would choke myself."

The thought frightened him, clearly alluding to something he did not want to remember. Then he tried insistently to evoke some desire which might help him to befool himself, to conceal the unavoidable, that which had already been determined.

"What time is it?" he asked.

"Eleven."

"Early still."

"Early," confirmed the host, and both were silent. Then Melnikov proposed:

"Let's live together, eh?"

"I don't know."

"What?"

"What will happen," said Yevsey, after reflecting a moment.

"Nothing will happen. You're a quiet fellow. You speak little, neither do I like to speak always. If it's tiresome I speak, or else I keep quiet all the time. When you ask about something, one says one thing, another says another thing, and a third still another. Well, the devil take you, think I. You have a whole lot of words, but none that are true."

"Yes," said Yevsey for the sake of answering.

"Something must be done," he thought in self-defense. Suddenly he resolved, "At first I will – Sasha – " But he did not wish to represent to himself what would be afterward. "Where are we going to go?" he inquired of Melnikov.

"To the office," Melnikov replied with unconcern.

"I don't want to," declared Yevsey drily and firmly.

Melnikov combed his beard for a time in silence. Then he shoved the dishes from him, and placing his elbows on the table, said meditatively in a subdued voice:

"Our service has become hard. All have begun to rebel, but who are the real rebels here? Make it out, if you can."

"I know who's the first scoundrel and skunk," muttered Klimkov.

"Sasha you mean?" inquired Melnikov.

Yevsey gave no reply. He was quietly beginning to devise a plan of action. Melnikov started to dress, sniffing loudly.

"So we're going to live together?"

"Yes."

"Are you going to bring your things to-day?"

"I don't know."

"Will you sleep here tonight?"

After some reflection Yevsey said:

"Yes."

When the spy had gone, Klimkov jumped to his feet, and looked around frightened, quivering under the stinging blows of suspicion.

"He locked me in, and went to tell Sasha. They'll come soon to seize me. I must escape through the window."

He rushed to the door. It was not locked. He calmed himself, and said with heat, as if convincing somebody:

"Well, is it possible to live this way? You don't believe anybody – there is nobody – "

He sat long behind the table without moving, straining his mind, employing all his cunning to lay a snare for the enemy without endangering himself. Finally he hit upon a plan. He must in some way lure Sasha from the office to the street, and walk with him. When they would meet a large crowd of people, he would shout:

"This is a spy, beat him!" And probably the same thing would happen as had happened to Zarubin and the fair-haired young man. If the people would not turn upon Sasha as seriously as they had yesterday upon the disguised revolutionist, Yevsey would set them an example. He would fire first, as Zarubin had. But he would hit Sasha. He would aim at his stomach.

Klimkov felt himself strong and brave, and made haste to leave. He wanted to do the thing at once. But the recollection of Zarubin hindered him, knotting up the poverty-stricken simplicity of his contrivance. He involuntarily repeated his notion. "It was I who marked him for death."

He did not reproach, he did not blame, himself. Yet he felt that a certain thread bound him to the little black spy, and he must do something to break the thread.

"I didn't say good-by to him – and where will I find him now?"

On putting on his overcoat, he was gladdened to feel the revolver in his pocket. Responding to a fresh influx of power and resolution, he walked out into the street with a firm tread.