The brunette looked around the room, glanced sidelong at the man and girl, and, shrugging her shoulders, went over and sat at the window. The dark windows trembled in the damp west wind. Outside great flakes of snow, flashing white, darted against the glass, clung to it for a second, and were whirled away by the storm. The wild music grew louder.
There was a long silence. At last the little girl rose sud- denly, and, angrily ringing out every word, exclaimed:
"Lord! Lord! How unhappy I am! 'ihe most miserable being in the world!"
The man rose, and with a guilty air, ill-suited to his gigantic stature and long beard, went to the bench.
"You're not sleeping, dearie? What do you want?" He spoke in the voice of a man who is excusing himself.
"I don't want anything! My shoulder hurts! You are a ,wicked man, father, and God will punish you! Wait! You'll ■see how he'll punish you!"
"I know it's painful, darling . . . but what can I do?" He spoke in the tone employed by husbands when they maka excuses to their angry wives. "If your shoulder hurts it is the long journey that is guilty. To-morrow it will be over, then we shall rest, and the pain will stop. . , ."
"To-morrow! To-morrow! . . . Every day you say to, morrow! We shall go on for another twenty days!"
"Listen, friend, I give you my word of honour that this i. the last day. I never tell you untruths. If the storm delayed us, that is not my fault."
"I can bear it no longer! I cannot! I cannot!"
Sz.sha pulled in her leg sharply, and filled the room with a disagreeable whining cry. Her father waved his arm, and looked absent-mindedly at the brunette. The brunette shrugged her shoulders, and walked irresolutely towards Sasha.
"Tell me, dear," she said, "why are you crying? It is very nasty to have a sore shoulder . . . but what can be done?"
"The fact is, mademoiselle," said the man apologeticallv, "we have had no sleep for two nights, and drove here in a villainous cart. No wonder she is ill and unhappy. A drunken driver . • . the luggage stolen . . . all the time in a snow- storm . • . but what's the good of crying? ... I, too, am tired out with sleeping in a sitting position, so tired that I feel almost drunk. Listen, Sasha . . . even as they are things are bad enough . . . yet you must cry!"
He turned hls l-ead away, waved his arm, and sat down.
"Of course, you mustn't cry!" said the brunette. "Only babies cry. If you are ill, dearie, you must undress and go to sleep. . . . Come, let me undress you!"
With the girl undressed and comforted, silence again took possession of the room. The brunette sat at the window, and looked questioningly at the wall, the ikon, and the stove. Apparently things around seemed very strange to her, the room, the girl with her fat nose and boy's short nightgown, and the girl's father. That strange man sat in the corner, looking vacantly about him like a drunken man, and rubbing his face with his hands. He kept silence, blinked his eyes; and judging from his guilty figure no one would expect that he would be the first to break the silence. Yet it was he who began. He smoothed his trousers, coughed, laughed, and said:
"A comedy, I swear to God! . • . I look around, and can't believe my eyes. Why did destiny bring us to this accursed inn? What did she mean to express by it? But life sometimes makes such a salto mortale, that you look and can't believe your eyes. Are you going far, miss?"
"Not very far," answered the brunette. "I was going from home, about twenty versts away, to a farm of ours where my father and brother are staying. I am Mademoiselle Ilovaisky, and the farm is Ilovaisk. It is twelve versts from this. ^^at disagreeable weather!"
"It could hardly be worse."
The lame potboy entered the room, and stuck a fresh candle end in the pomade jar.
"Get the samovar I " said the man.
"Nobody drinks tea at this hour," grinned the boy. "It is a sin before Mass."
"Don't you mind . . . it is not you that'll bum in beU, but we. . . ."
^^hile they drank their tea the conversation continued. Mdlle. Ilovaisky learned that the stranger's name was Grigori Petrovitch Likhary6ff, that he was a bwther of Likhary6ff, the Marshal of the Nobility in the neighbouring district, that he had himself once been a landed proprietor, but had gone through everything. And in turn Likhary6ff learned that his companion was M^rya Mikhailovna Ilovaisky, that her father had a large estate, and that all the management fell upon her shoulders, as both father and brother were improvident, looked at life through their fingers, and thought of little but greyhounds. . . .
"My father and brother are quite alone on the farm," said Mdlle. Ilovaisky, moving her fingers (she had a habit in conversation of moving her fingers before her stinging face, and after every phrase, licking her lips with a pointed tongue) ; "they are the most helpless creatures on the face of the earth, and can't lift a finger to help themselves. My father is muddleheaded, and my brother every evening tired off his feet. Imagine! . . . who is to get them food after the Fast? Mother is dead, and our servants cannot lay a cloth without my supervision. They will be without proper food, while I spend all night here. It is very funny!"
Mdlle. Ilovaisky shrugged her shoulders, sipped her tea, and said:
"There are certain holidays which have a peculiar smell. Easter, Trinity, and Christmas each has its own smell. Even atheists love these holidays. My brother, for instance, says there is no God, but at Easter he is the first to run off to thP- morning service."
Likhary6ff lifted his eyes, turned them on his companion and laughed.
"They say that there is no God," continued Mdlle. Bovaisky, also laughing, "but why then, be so good as to tell me, do all celebrated writers, scholars, and clever men generally, believe at the close of their lives?"
"The man who in youth has not learnt to believe does not believe in old age, be he a thousand times a writer."
Judged by his cough, Likhary6ff had a bass voice, but now either from fear of speaking too loud, or from a needless bashfulneS!., he spoke in a tenor. After a moment's silence, he sighed and continued:
"This is how I understand it. Faith is a quality of the soul. It is the same as talent . . . it is congenital. As far as I can judge from my own case, from those whom I have met in life, from all that I see around me, this congenital faith is inherent in all Russians to an astonishing degree. . . . May I have tl.nother cup? . . . Rassian life presents itself as a continuous series of faiths and infatuations, but unbelief or negation it has not—if I may so express it—even smelt. That a Russian does not believe in God is merely a way of saying that he believes in something else."
Likhary6ff took from Mdlle. Ilovaisky another cup of tea, 4tJlped down half of it at once, and continued:
"Let me tell you about myself. In my soul Nature planted exceptional capacity for belief. Half my life have I lived an atheist and a Nihilist, yet never was there a single moment when I did not believe. Natural gifts display themselves gen- erally in early childhood, and my capacity for faith showed itself at a time wh?n I could walk upright underneath the table. My mother used to make us children eat a lot, and when she gave us our meals, she had a habit of saying, 'Eat, children; there's nothing on earth like soup!' I believed this; I ate soup ten times a day, swallowed it like a shark to the point of vomiting and disgust. My nurse used to tell me fairy tales, and I believed in ghosts, in fairies, in wood- demons, in every kind of monster. I remember well! I used to steal corrosive sublimate from father's room, sprinkle it on gingerbread, and leave it in the attic, so that the ghosts might eat it and die. But when I learned to read lind to understand what I read, my beliefs got beyond description. I even ran away to America, I joined a gang of robbers, I tried to enter a monastery, I hired boys to torture me for Christ's sake. When I ran away to America I did not go alone, but took with me just such another fool, and I was glad when we froze nearly to death, and when I was flogged. When I ran away to join the robbers, I returned every time with a broken skin. Most untranquil childhood! But when I sent to school, and learned that the earth goes round th» sun, and that white light so far from being white is com- posed of seven primary colours, my head went round entirely. At home everything seemed hideous, my mother, in the name of Elijah, denying lightning conductors, my father indifferent to the truths I preached. My new enlightenment inspired me! Like a madman I rushed about the house; I preached my truths to the stable boys, I was driven to despair by ignorance, I flamed with hatred against all who saw in white light only white. . . . But this is nonsense. . . . Serious, so to speak, manly infatuations began with me only at col- lege. . . . Have you completed a university course?"