It did not take me long to recover myself; everything came back to me at once, without effort, instantly, as if it had just been lying in wait to pounce on me again. And even in my oblivion there had still constantly remained some point, as it were, in my memory that simply refused to be forgotten, around which my drowsy reveries turned heavily. Yet it was strange: everything that had happened to me that day seemed to me now, on awakening, to have happened long, long ago, as if I had long, long ago outlived it all.
There were fumes in my head. Something was as if hovering over me, brushing against me, agitating and troubling me. Anguish and bile were again boiling up in me and seeking a way out. Suddenly I saw two open eyes beside me, peering at me curiously and obstinately. Their expression was coldly indifferent, sullen, as if utterly alien; it gave one a heavy feeling.
A sullen thought was born in my brain and passed through my whole body like some vile sensation, similar to what one feels on entering an underground cellar, damp and musty. It was somehow unnatural that these two eyes had only decided precisely now to begin peering at me. It also occurred to me that in the course of two hours I had not exchanged a single word with this being and had not considered it at all necessary; I had even liked it for some reason. But now, all of a sudden, there appeared before me the absurd, loathsomely spiderish notion of debauchery, which, without love, crudely and shamelessly begins straight off with that which is the crown of true love. We looked at each other like that for a long time, but she did not lower her eyes before mine, nor did she change their expression, and in the end, for some reason, this made me feel eerie.
"What's your name?" I asked curtly, so as to put a quick end to it.
"Liza," she replied, almost in a whisper, but somehow quite unpleasantly, and looked away.
I paused.
"The weather today… the snow… nasty!" I said, almost to myself, wearily putting my hand behind my head and looking at the ceiling.
She did not reply. The whole thing was hideous.
"Do you come from around here?" I asked after a minute, almost exasperated, turning my head slightly towards her.
"No."
"Where, then?"
"From Riga," she said reluctantly.
"German?"
"Russian."
"Been here long?"
"Where?"
"In this house."
"Two weeks." She spoke more and more curtly. The candle went out altogether; I could no longer make out her face.
"Do you have a father and mother?"
"Yes… no… I do."
"Where are they?"
"There… in Riga."
"What are they?"
"Just…"
"Just what? What are they, socially?"
"Tradespeople."
"You were living with them?"
"Yes."
"How old are you?"
"Twenty."
"Why did you leave them?"
"Just…"
This "just" meant: let me alone, this is sickening. We fell silent.
God knows why I wouldn't leave. I myself felt more and more sickened and anguished. Images of the whole past day began to pass confusedly through my memory, somehow of themselves, without my will. I suddenly recalled a scene I had witnessed that morning in the street, as I was trotting along, preoccupied, to work.
"They were carrying a coffin out today and almost dropped it," I suddenly said aloud, not at all wishing to start a conversation, but just so, almost accidentally.
"A coffin?"
"Yes, in the Haymarket; they were carrying it out of a basement."
"Out of a basement?"
"Not a basement, but the basement floor… you know… down under… from a bad house… There was such filth all around… Eggshells, trash… stink… it was vile."
Silence.
"A bad day for a burial!" I began again, just not to be silent.
"Why bad?"
"Snow, slush…" (I yawned.)
"Makes no difference," she said suddenly, after some silence.
"No, it's nasty…" (I yawned again.) "The gravediggers must have been swearing because the snow was making it wet. And there must have been water in the grave."
"Why water in the grave?" she asked with a certain curiosity, but speaking even more rudely and curtly than before. Something suddenly began egging me on.
"There'd be water in the bottom for sure, about half a foot. Here in the Volkovo you can never dig a dry grave."
"Why not?"
"Why not? Such a watery place. It's swamp all around here. They just get put down in the water. I've seen it myself… many times…"
(I had never once seen it, and had never been in the Volkovo cemetery, but had only heard people talk.)
"It makes no difference to you how you die?"
"But why should I die?" she answered, as if defending herself.
"You'll die someday, and just the same way as that one today. She was also… a girl… She died of consumption."
"A jill would have died in the hospital…" (She already knows about that, I thought, and she said jill, not girl.)
"She owed money to the madam," I objected, egged on more and more by the argument, "and worked for her almost to the end, even though she had consumption. The cabbies around there were talking with the soldiers and told them about it. Probably her old acquaintances. They were laughing. They wanted to go and commemorate her in a pot-house." (Here, too, I was laying it on thick.)
Silence, deep silence. She did not even stir.
"So it's better to die in a hospital, is it?"
"What's the difference… Anyway, who says I'm going to die?" she added irritably.
"If not now, then later?"
"Well, and later…"
"That's easy to say! You're young now, good-looking, fresh -so you're worth the price. But after a year of this life you won't be the same, you'll fade."
"In a year?"
"At any rate, in a year you'll be worth less," I went on, gloatingly. "So you'll go from here to somewhere lower, another house. A year later - to a third house, always lower and lower, and in about seven years you'll reach the Haymarket and the basement. That's still not so bad. Worse luck will be if on top of that some sickness comes along, say, some weakness of the chest… or you catch cold, or something. Sickness doesn't go away easily in such a life. Once it gets into you, it may not get out. And so you'll die."
"Well, so I'll die," she answered, very spitefully now, and stirred quickly.
"Still, it's a pity."
"For who?"
"A pity about life."
Silence.
"Did you have a fiance? Eh?"
"What's it to you!"
"But I'm not questioning you. It's nothing to me. Why get angry? Of course, you may have had your own troubles. What's that to me? It's just a pity."
"For who?" "For you.
"Don't bother…" she whispered, barely audibly, and stirred again.
This immediately fueled my anger even more. What! I was trying to be so gentle, and she…
"But what do you think? Is it a good path you're on, eh?"
"I don't think anything."
"And that's what's bad, that you don't think. Wake up while you have time. And you do have time. You're still young, good-looking; you could find love, marry, be happy…"
"Not all the married ones are happy," she snapped, in the same rude patter.
"Not all, of course - but even so it's much better than here. A whole lot better. And with love one can live even without happiness. Life is good even in sorrow, it's good to live in the world, no matter how. And what is there here except… stench. Phew!"
I turned to her with loathing; I was no longer reasoning coldly. I myself began to feel what I was saying, and became excited. I already thirsted to expound my cherished "little ideas," lived out in my corner. Something in me suddenly lit up, some goal "appeared."
"Never mind my being here, I'm no example for you. Maybe I'm even worse than you. Anyway, I was drunk when I stopped here," I still hastened to justify myself. "Besides, a man is no sort of example for a woman. It's a different thing; I may dirty and befoul myself, but all the same I'm nobody's slave; I'm here, then I'm gone, and that's all. I've shaken it off, and it's no longer me. But let's admit that you're a slave from the first beginning. Yes, a slave! You give up everything, all your will. Later you may want to break these chains, but no: they'll ensnare you more and more strongly. That's how this cursed chain is. I know it. I won't even speak about other things, you perhaps wouldn't understand me, but just tell me: no doubt you're already in debt to the madam? So, you see!" I added, though she did not answer me, but only listened silently, with her whole being; "there's a chain for you! Now you'll never get it paid off. That's how they do it. The same as selling your soul to the devil…