Only towards the evening our wanderers return to the village. The children go for the night to a deserted barn, where the corn of the commune used to be kept, while Terenty, leaving them, goes to the tavern. The children lie huddled together on the straw, dozing.
The boy does not sleep. He gazes into the darkness, and it seems to him that he is seeing all that he has seen in the day: the storm-clouds, the bright sunshine, the birds, the fish, lanky Terenty. The number of his impressions, together with exhaustion and hunger, are too much for him; he is as hot as though he were on fire, and tosses from side to side. He longs to tell someone all that is haunting him now in the darkness and agitating his soul, but there is no one to tell. Fyokla is too little and could not understand.
"I'll tell Terenty to-morrow," thinks the boy.
The children fall asleep thinking of the homeless cobbler, and, in the night, Terenty comes to them, makes the sign of the Cross over them, and puts bread under their heads. And no one sees his love. It is seen only by the moon which floats in the sky and peeps caressingly through the holes in the wall of the deserted barn.
OLD AGE
State-Councillor Uzelkov, architect, arrived in his native town, where he had been summoned to restore the cemetery church. He was born in the town, he had grown up and been married there, and yet when he got out of the train he hardly recognised it. Everything was changed. For instance, eighteen years ago, when he left the town to settle in Petersburg, where the railway station is now boys used to hunt for marmots: now as you come into the High Street there is a four storied "Hotel Vienna," with apartments, where there was of old an ugly grey fence. But not the fence or the houses, or anything had changed so much as the people. Questioning the hall-porter, Uzelkov discovered that more than half of the people he remembered were dead or paupers or forgotten.
"Do you remember Uzelkov?" he asked the porter. "Uzel- kov, the architect, who divorced his wife . . . . He had a house in Sviribev Street. .. . Surely you remember.'
"No, I don't remember anvone of the name/'
"Why, it's impossible not to remember. It was an exciting case. All the cabmen knew, even. Try to remember. His divorce was managed by the attorney, Shapkin, the swindler . . . the notorious sharper, the man who was thrashed at the club. .
"You mean Ivan Nikolaich?"
"Yes.. . . Is he alive? dead?"
"Thank heaven, his honour's alive. His Iionour's a notary now, with an office. Well-to-do. Two houses in Kirpichny Street. Just lately married his daughter off/'
Uzelkov strode from one corner of the room to another.
8
An idea flashed into his mir.d. From boredom, he decided to see Shapkin. It was afternoon when he left the hotel and quietly walked to Kirpichny Street. He found Shapkm iii his office and hardly recognised him. From the well-built, alert attorney with a quick, impudent, perpetually tipsy ex- pression, Shapkin had become a modest, grey-haired shrunkeo old man.
"You don't recognise me . . . You have forgotten . . ." Uzelkov began. "I'm your old client, Uzelkov/'
"Uzelkov? Which Uzelkov? Ah!"
Remembrance came to Shapkin: he recognised him and -:vas confused. Began exclamations, questions, recollections.
"Never expected . . . never thought . . ." chuckled Shap- kin. "What will you have? Would you like champagne? Perhaps you'd like oysters. My dear man, what a lot of money I got out of you in the old days—so much that I can't think what I ought to stand you."
"Please don't trouble, said Uzelkov. "I haven't time. I must go to the cemetery and examine the church. I have a commission."
"Splendid. We'll have something to eat and a drink and go together. I've got some splendid horses! I'll take you there and introduce you to the churchwarden. . . . l'll fix up everything. . . . But what's the matter, my dearest man? You're not avoiding me, not afraid? Please sit nearer. There's nothing to be afraid of now.. . . Long ago, I really was pretty sharp, a bit of a rogue .. . but now I'm quieter than water, humbler thaa grass. I've grown old; got a family. There are children. . . . Time to die!"
The friends had something to eat and drink, and went in a coach and pair to the cemetery.
"Yes, it was a good time," Shapkin was reminiscent, sit- ting in the sledge. "I remember, but I simply can't believe it. Do you remember how you divorced your wife? It's al- most twenty years ago, and you've probably forgotten every- thing, but I remember it as though I conducted the petition yesterday. My Goa, bow rotten I was! Then I was a smart, casuistical devil, full of sharp practice and devilry . . . and I used to run into some shady affairs, particularly when there was a good fee, as in your case, for instance. What was it you paid me then? Five—six hundred. Enough to upset anybody! By the time you left for Petersburg you'd left the whole affair completely in my hands. 'Do what you like!' And your former wife, Sofya Mikhailovna, though she did come from a merchant family, was proud and selfish. To bribe her to take the guilt on herself was difficult—extremely difficult. I used to come to her for a business talk, and when she saw me, she would say to her maid: 'Masha, surely I told you I wasn't at home to scoundrels.' I tried one way, then another . . . wrote letters to her, tried to meet her accidentally—no good. I had to work through a third person. For a long time I had trouble with her, and she only yielded when you agreed to give her ten thousand. She suc- cumbed . . .. She began to weep, spat in my face, but she yielded and took the guilt on herself.''
"If I remember it vas fifteen, not ten thousand she took from me/' said Uzlekov.
"Yes, of course . . . fifteen, my mistake.'' Shapkin was disconcerted. "Anyway it's all past and done with now. Why shouldn't I confess, frankly? Ten I gave to her, and the remaining five I bargained out of you for my own share. I deceived both of you. . . . It's all past, why be ashamed of it? And who else was there to take from, Boris Petrovich, if not from you? I ask you. . . . You were rich and well- to-do. You married in caprice: you were divorced in caprice. You were making a fortune. I remember you got twenty thousand out of a single contract. Whom was I to tap, if not you? And I must confess, I was tortured by envy. If you got hold of a nice lot of money, people would take off their hats to you: but the same people would beat me for shillings and smack my face in the club. But why recall it? It's time to forget."
"Tell me, please, how did Sofya Mikhailovna live after- wards?"
"With her ten thousand? On ne peut plus badly. . . . ^^ knows whether it was frenzy or pride and conscience that tortured her, because she had sold herself for money—' or perhaps she loved you; but, she took to drink, you know. She received the money and began to gad about with officers in troikas. . . . Drunkenness, philandering, debauchery . . . • She would come into a tavern with an officer, and instead of port or a light wine, she would drink the strongest cognac to drive her into a frenzy."
"Yes, she was eccentric. I suffered enough with her. Sha would take offence at some trifle and then get nervous. . . . And what happened afterwards?"
"A week passed, a fortnight. ... I was sitting at home writing. Suddenly, the door opened and she comes in. 'Take your cursed money,' she said and threw the parcel in my face. . . . She could not resist it. .. . Five hundred were missing. She had only got rid of five hundred."
"And what did you do with the money?"
"It's all past and done with. What's the good of conceal- ing it? .. .I certainly took it. What are you staring at me like that for? Wait for the sequel. It's a complete novel, the sickness of a soul! Two months passed by. One night I (;arne home drunk, in a wicked mood.. ..I turned on the light and saw Sofya Mikhailovna sitting on my sofa, drunk too, wandering a bit, with something savage in her face as if she had just escaped from the mad-house. 'Give me my money back,' she said. 'I've changed my mind. If I'm going to the dogs, I want to go madly, passionately. Make haste, you scoundrel, give me the money.' How indecent it was!"