In despair he covered his face with his hands and shook his head.
"And what moral fortitude!" he continued, each second increasing in anger. "Good, pure, loving soul—not a man, but a crystal! How he served his science, how he's died for it. Worked—day and night—like an ox, sparing himself never; and he, the young scholar, the coming professor, was forced to seek a practice and spend his nights translating to pay for these . . . these dirty rags! "
Korostelev looked fiendishly at Olga Ivanovna, seized the sheet with both hands, and tore it as angrily as if it, and not she, were guilty.
"And he never spared himself . . . nor did others spare him. And for what purpose . . . why?"
"Yes, a man in a hundred!" came a deep voice from the dining-room.
Olga Ivanovna recalled her life with Dymov, from begin- ning to end, in all its details; and suddenly she realised that her husband was indeed an ^xceptional man, a rare—com- pared with all her other friends—a great man. And remem- bering how he was looked up to by her late father and by all his colleagues, she understood that there was indeed good reason to predict for him future fame. The walls, the ceiling, the lamp, the carpet winked at her derisively, as if saying, "You have let it slip by, slip by!" With a cry, she rushed out of the room, slipped past some unknown man in the dining-room, and rushed into her husband's study. Covered with a counterpane to the waist, Dymov lay, motionless, on the couch. His face had grown thin, and was a greyish-yellow never seen on the living; his black eyebrows and his kindly smile were all that remained of Dymov. She felt his chest, his forehead, his hands. His chest was still warm, his fore- head and hands were icy. And his half-closed eyes looked not at Olga Ivanovna, but down at the counterpane.
"Dymov!" she cried loudly. "Dymovl"
She wished to explain to him that the past was but a mistake; that all was not yet lost; that life might yet be happy and beautiful; that he was a rare, an uncommon, a great man; that she would worship him from this day forth, and pray, and torture herself with holy dread. . . .
"Dymov!" she cried, tapping his shoulder, refusing to be- lieve that he would never awaken. "Dymov! Dymov!"
But in the drawing-room Korostelev spoke to the maid- servant.
"Don't ask silly questions! Go at once to the church watchman, and get the women's address. They will wash the body, and lay it out, and do all that's wanted."
GRIEF
"To Whom Shall I Tell My Grief?"
1t is twilight. A thick wet snow is slowly twirling around the newly lighted street-lamps, and lying in soft thin layers on the roofs, the horses' backs, people's shoulders and hats. The cab-driver, Iona Potapov, is quite white, and looks like a phantom; he is bent double as far as a human body can bend double; he is seated on his box, and never makes a move. If a whole snowdrift fell on him, it seems as if he would not find it necessary to shake it off. His little horse is also quite white, and remains motionless; its immobility, its angularity, and its straight wooden-looking legs, even close by give it the appearance of a ginger-bread horse worth a kopeck. It is, no doubt, plunged in deep thought. If you were snatched from the plough, from your usual grey surround- ings, and were thrown into this slough full of monstrous lights, unceasing noise and hurrying people, you too would find it difficult not to think.
Iona and his little horse have not moved from their place for a long while. They left their yard before dinner, and, up to now, not a "fare." The evening mist is descending over the town, the white lights of the lamps are replacing brighter rays, and the hubbub of the street is getting louder. "Cabby, for Viborg way!" suddenly hears Iona. "Cabby!"
Iona jumps, and through his snow-covered eyelashes, sees an officer in a greatcoat, with his hood over his head.
"Viborg way!" the officer repeats. "Are you asleep, eh? Viborg way!"
With a nod of assent Iona picks up the reins, in conse- quence of which layers of snow slip off the horse's back anlt
10-1
neck. The officer seats himself in the sleigh, the cab-driver smacks his lips to encourage his horse, stretches out his neck like a swan, sits up, and, more from habit than necessity, brandishes his whip. The little horse also stretches his neck, bends his wooden-looking legs, and makes a move unde- cidedly.
"What are you doing, were-wolf!" is the exclamation Iona hears, from the dark mass moving to and fro as soon as they started.
"Where the devil are you going? To the r-r-right!"
"You do not know how to drive. Keep to the right!" calls the officer angrily.
A coachman from a private carriage swears at him; a passer-by, who has run across the road and rubbed his shoul- der against the horse's nose, luoks at him furiously as he sweeps the snow from his sleeve. Iona shifts about on his seat as if he were on needles, moves his elbows as if he were trying to keep his equilibrium, and gapes about like someone suffocating, and who does not understand why and where- fore he is there.
"What scoundrels they all are!" jokes the officer; "one would think they had all entered into an agreement to jostle you or fall under your horse."
Iona looks round at the officer, and moves his lips. He evi- dently wants to say something, but the only sound that issues is a snuffle.
"What?" asks the officer.
Iona twists his mouth into a smile, and with an effort says hoarsely:
"My son, barin, died this week."
"Hm! What did he die of?"
Iona turns with his whole body towards his fare, and says:
"And who knows! They say high fever. He was three days in hospital, and then died . . . . God's will be done."
"Turn round! The devil!" sounded from the darkness. "Have you popped off, old doggia. eh? Use your eyes!"
"Go on, go on," said the officer, "otherwise we shall not get there by to-morrow. Hurry a bit!"
The cab-driver again stretches his neck, sits up, and, with a bad grace, brandishes his whip. Several times again he turns to look at his fare, but the latter had closed his eyes, and apparently is not disposed to listen. Having deposited the officer in the Viborg, he stops by the tavern, doubles him- self up on his seat, and again remains motionless, while the snow once more begins to cover him and his horse. An hour, and another. . . . Then, along the footpath, with a squeak of goloshes, and quarrelling, came three young men, two of them tall and lanky, the third one short and hump-backed.
"Cabby, to the Police Bridge!" in a cracked voice calls the hump-back. "The three of us for two griveniks!" (20 kopecks).
Iona picks up his reins, and smacks his lips. Two griveniks is not a fair price, but he does not mind if it is a rouble or five kopecks—to him it is all the same now, so long as they are wayfarers. The young men, jostling each other and using bad language, approach the sleigh, and all three at once try to get on to the seat; then begins a discussion which two shall sit and who shall be the one to stand. After wrangling, abusing each other, and much petulance, it was at last decided that the hump-back should stand, as he was the smallest.
"Now then, hurry up!" says the hump-back in a twanging voice, as he takes his place, and breathes in Iona's neck. "Old furry. Here, mate, what a cap you have got, there is not a worse one to be found in all Petersburg! . . ."
"Hi—hi,—hi—hi," giggles Iona. "Such a ..."
"Now you, 'such a,' hurry up, are you going the whole way at this pace? Are you? . . . Do you want it in the neck?"
"My head feels like bursting," says one of the lanky ones. "Last night at the Donkmasovs, Vaska and I drank the whole of four bottles of cognac."