The Man Who Was Afraid

“I don’t like them.”

“Aha! But they might nevertheless be of some help to you,” said Taras, and a smile passed across his lips.

“Books? Since men cannot help me in my thoughts books can certainly do nothing for me,” ejaculated Foma, morosely.

He began to feel awkward and weary with this indifferent man. He felt like going away, but at the same time he wished to tell Lubov something insulting about her brother, and he waited till Taras would leave the room. Lubov washed the dishes; her face was concentrated and thoughtful; her hands moved lazily. Taras was pacing the room, now and then he stopped short before the sideboard on which was the silverware, whistled, tapped his fingers against the window-panes and examined the articles with his eyes half shut. The pendulum of the clock flashed beneath the glass door of the case like some broad, grinning face, and monotonously told the seconds. When Foma noticed that Lubov glanced at him a few times questioningly, with expectant and hostile looks, he understood that he was in her way and that she was impatiently expecting him to leave.

“I am going to stay here over night,” said he, with a smile. “I must speak with my godfather. And then it is rather lonesome in my house alone.”

“Then go and tell Marfusha to make the bed for you in the corner room,” Lubov hastened to advise him.

“I shall.”

He arose and went out of the dining-room. And he soon heard that Taras asked his sister about something in a low voice.

“About me!” he thought. Suddenly this wicked thought flashed through his mind: “It were but right to listen and hear what wise people have to say.”

He laughed softly, and, stepping on tiptoe, went noiselessly into the other room, also adjoining the dining-room. There was no light there, and only a thin band of light from the dining-room, passing through the unclosed door, lay on the dark floor. Softly, with sinking heart and malicious smile, Foma walked up close to the door and stopped.

“He’s a clumsy fellow,” said Taras.

Then came Lubov’s lowered and hasty speech:

“He was carousing here all the time. He carried on dreadfully! It all started somehow of a sudden. The first thing he did was to thrash the son-in-law of the Vice-Governor at the Club. Papa had to take the greatest pains to hush up the scandal, and it was a good thing that the Vice-Governor’s son-in-law is a man of very bad reputation. He is a card-sharper and in general a shady personality, yet it cost father more than two thousand roubles. And while papa was busying himself about that scandal Foma came near drowning a whole company on the Volga.”

“Ha-ha! How monstrous! And that same man busies himself with investigating as to the meaning of life.”

“On another occasion he was carousing on a steamer with a company of people like himself. Suddenly he said to them: ‘Pray to God! I’ll fling every one of you overboard!’ He is frightfully strong. They screamed, while he said: ‘I want to serve my country. I want to clear the earth of base people.’”

“Really? That’s clever!”

“He’s a terrible man! How many wild pranks he has perpetrated during these years! How much money he has squandered!”

“And, tell me, on what conditions does father manage his affairs for him? Do you know?”

“No, I don’t. He has a full power of attorney. Why do you ask?”

“Simply so. It’s a solid business. Of course it is conducted in purely Russian fashion; in other words, it is conducted abominably. But it is a splendid business, nevertheless. If it were managed properly it would be a most profitable gold mine.”

“Foma does absolutely nothing. Everything is in father’s hands.”

“Yes? That’s fine.”

“Do you know, sometimes it occurs to me that his thoughtful frame of mind – that these words of his are sincere, and that he can be very decent. But I cannot reconcile his scandalous life with his words and arguments. I cannot do it under any circumstances!”

“It isn’t even worthwhile to bother about it. The stripling and lazy bones seeks to justify his laziness.”

“No. You see, at times he is like a child. He was particularly so before.”

“Well, that’s what I have said: he’s a stripling. Is it worth while talking about an ignoramus and a savage, who wishes to remain an ignoramus and a savage, and does not conceal the fact? You see: he reasons as the bear in the fable bent the shafts.”

“You are very harsh.”

“Yes, I am harsh! People require that. We Russians are all desperately loose. Happily, life is so arranged that, whether we will it or not, we gradually brace up. Dreams are for the lads and maidens, but for serious people there is serious business.”

“Sometimes I feel very sorry for Foma. What will become of him?”

“That does not concern me. I believe that nothing in particular will become of him – neither good nor bad. The insipid fellow will squander his money away, and will be ruined. What else? Eh, the deuce take him! Such people as he is are rare nowadays. Now the merchant knows the power of education. And he, that foster-brother of yours, he will go to ruin.”

“That’s true, sir!” said Foma, opening the door and appearing on the threshold.

Pale, with knitted brow and quivering lips, he stared straight into Taras’s face and said in a dull voice: “True! I will go to ruin and – amen! The sooner the better!”

Lubov sprang up from the chair with frightened face, and ran up to Taras, who stood calmly in the middle of the room, with his hands thrust in his pockets.

“Foma! Oh! Shame! You have been eavesdropping. Oh, Foma!” said she in confusion.

“Keep quiet, you lamb!” said Foma to her.

“Yes, eavesdropping is wrong!” ejaculated Taras, slowly, without lifting from Foma his look of contempt.

“Let it be wrong!” said Foma, with a wave of the hand. “Is it my fault that the truth can be learned by eavesdropping only?”

“Go away, Foma, please!” entreated Lubov, pressing close to her brother.

“Perhaps you have something to say to me?” asked Taras, calmly.

“I?” exclaimed Foma. “What can I say? I cannot say anything. It is you who – you, I believe, know everything.”

“You have nothing then to discuss with me?” asked Taras again.

“I am very pleased.”

He turned sideways to Foma and inquired of Lubov:

“What do you think – will father return soon?”

Foma looked at him, and, feeling something akin to respect for the man, deliberately left the house. He did not feel like going to his own huge empty house, where each step of his awakened a ringing echo, he strolled along the street, which was enveloped in the melancholy gray twilight of late autumn. He thought of Taras Mayakin.

“How severe he is. He takes after his father. Only he’s not so restless. He’s also a cunning rogue, I think, while Lubka regarded him almost as a saint. That foolish girl! What a sermon he read to me! A regular judge. And she – she was kind toward me.” But all these thoughts stirred in him no feelings – neither hatred toward Taras nor sympathy for Lubov. He carried with him something painful and uncomfortable, something incomprehensible to him, that kept growing within his breast, and it seemed to him that his heart was swollen and was gnawing as though from an abscess. He hearkened to that unceasing and indomitable pain, noticed that it was growing more and more acute from hour to hour, and, not knowing how to allay it, waited for the results.

Then his godfather’s trotter passed him. Foma saw in the carriage the small figure of Yakov Mayakin, but even that aroused no feeling in him. A lamplighter ran past Foma, overtook him, placed his ladder against the lamp post and went up. The ladder suddenly slipped under his weight, and he, clasping the lamp post, cursed loudly and angrily. A girl jostled Foma in the side with her bundle and said:

“Excuse me.”

He glanced at her and said nothing. Then a drizzling rain began to fall from the sky – tiny, scarcely visible drops of moisture overcast the lights of the lanterns and the shop windows with grayish dust. This dust made him breathe with difficulty.

“Shall I go to Yozhov and pass the night there? I might drink with him,” thought Foma and went away to Yozhov, not having the slightest desire either to see the feuilleton-writer or to drink with him.