'Your books have given me wisdom. All that man's tireles brain has created over the centuries has been compreued into a small nodule inside my head. I know I'm cleverer than you al.
'I despise your books, I despise all the blesings and the wisdom of this world. Everything is wonhless, fleeting, ghostly, illusory as a mirage. Proud, wise and handsome though you be, death will wipe you from the face of the eanh along with the mice burrowing under the floor. Your posterity, your history, your deathles geniuses-—all will freeze or b^ro along with the terrestrial globe.
'You have lost your se^rc and are on the wrong path. You take lies for truth, and uglines for beauty. You would be surprised if apple and orange trees somehow sprouted with frogs and lizards instead of fruit, or if roses smelt like a sweating horse. No less surprised am I at you who have exchanged heaven for I do not want to understand you.
'To give you a practical demonstration of my contempt for what you live by, I hereby renounce the two million that I once yearned for as one might for paradise, but which I now scorn. To disqualify myself from receiving it I shall leave here five hours before the time fxed, thus breaking the contract.'
After reading this tl1e banker laid the paper on the table, kiued the strange man on the head and left the lodge in tears. At no other time— not even after losing heavily on the stock exchange—had he felt such contempt for himself. Ret^ing to his house, he went to bed, but excitement and tears kept him awake for hours.
Next morning the watchmen ran up, white-faced, and told the banker that they had seen the man from the lodge climb out of his window into the garden, go to the gate and vanish. The banker went over at once with his servants and made sure that the captive had indeed fled. To forestall wmecesary argument he took the document of renunciation from the table, went back to the house and locked it in his fireproof safe.
THIEVES
One evening in Christmas week the medical orderly Yergunov, a nonentity known in his district as a great braggart and drunkard, was returning from the township of Repino where he had been making purchases for his hospital. Since he might be late, the doctor had lent him his best horse to get him home in good time.
The evening was not bad at fi.rst—quite calm—but at about eight o'clock a violent snow-storm blew up, and the orderly completely lost his way only four miles or so from home.
Not knowing the road or how to guide his horse, he was riding at random, haphazardly, hoping that the horse would find its o^ way. Two hours passed, the horse was exhausted, Yerg^ov himself was cold—and now fancied that he was not on his way home any more, but returning to Repino. But then the muffled barking of dogs was heard through the storm's roar, and a vague red blur appeared ahead of him. A high gate gradually emerged in outline, then a long fence surmounted by nails, point uppermost, after which the slanted sweep ofa well jutted out behind the fence. The wind chased away the snowy murk before his eyes, and a small, squat cottage with a high thatched roof loomed up where the red blur had been. There was a light in one of its three small windows, which had something red hanging inside.
What household was this? On the right of the road—four or five miles from the hospital—should be Andrew Chirikov's inn, Yergunov remembered. He remembered, too, that this Chirikov had been murdered by sledge-drivers recently, leaving an elderly widow and a daughter Lyubka, who had come to the hospital for treatment about two years previously. The in h.ad a bad name. Riding up late at night —and on someone else's horse at that—was a risky business, but that could not be helped. Yergunov fumbled for the revolver in his bag, coughed grimly, and rapped his whip butt on the window frame.
'Hey, anyone there?' he shouted. 'For God's sake let me in for a warm, old woman.'
Raucously barking, a black dog whizzed tmder the horse's hoofs, followed by a white one, then another black one—there must have been a dozen. Yergunov singled out the biggest, swung his whip, and lashcd out with all his might, whereupon a small, long-legged tyke raised its sharp muzzle, setting up a shrill, piercing howl.
Yergunov stood by the window for some time, knocking. Then, beyond the fence, hoar-frost glowed pink on the trees by the house, the gate creaked and a muffled woman's figure appeared carrying a lantern.
'Let me in for a warm, old woman,' said Yergunov. 'I'm going back to hospital and I've lost my way. What weather, God help us! Never fear, old woman, we know each other.'
'Them we know's all at home, we've invited no strangers,' said the figure sternly. 'And why knock ? The gate ain't bolted.'
Yergunov rode into the yard and stopped by the porch.
'Ask your man to stable my horse, old woman,' he said.
'I'm no old woman.'
Nor was she, indeed. As she put out the lantern the light fell on her face, and Yergunov knew Lyubka by the black eyebrows.
'None of the men are here now,' she said, going indoors. 'Some are drunk and asleep, the others went off to Repino this morning. Today's a holiday.'
Tethering his horse in an outhouse, Yergunov heard a neigh, and saw another horse in the dark. He felt the saddle—a Cossack's. So there must be someone else about besides the women ofthe house. To be on the safe side, the orderly unsaddled his horse, taking his saddle and purchases with him as he went indoors.
The first room he entered was large and wdl-heated, smelling of newly scrubbed floors. At the table under the icons sat a short, thin peasant, about forty years old, with a small, fair beard and navy-blue shirt. It was Kalashnikov, an arrant rogue and horse-thief whose father and uncle kept the tavern at Bogalyovka, dealing in stolen horses when they had the chance. He too had been to the hospital several times—not as a patient, but to talk horses with the doctor. Was there one for sale ? Would 'Mister Doctor, sir' care to swap a bay mare for a dun gelding ? Now his hair was greased, a silver ear-ring glittered in one ear, and altogether he had a festive look. He was poring over a large, dog-eared picture-book, fro^ing and dropping his lower lip. Stretched on the floor near the stove was another peasant, who had a short fur coat over his face, shoulders and chest, and who must be asleep. Near his new boots with shiny metal heel-plates melted snow had left two dark puddles.
Seeing the orderly, Kalashnikov bade him good day.
'Yes, what weather!' said Yergunov, rubbing his cold knecs with the palms of his hands. 'I have snow inside my collar, I'm soaked—a proper drowned rat, I feel. My revolver too, I think, er '
He took out his revolver, looked it all over and put it back in his bag, but the gun llUde no impreaion at all, and the peasant went on looking at his book.
'Yes, what weather! I lost my way, and I do believe it would have bcen the death of me but for the dogs here. It would have been quite a business. But where are the women of the house?'
'The old woman's gone to Repino, and the girl's cooking supper,' Kalashnikov answered.
Silence followed. Shivering, gulping, Yergunov blew on his palnu and cringed, !1Uking a show of being very cold and exhausted. The dogs, still restless, were heard howling outside. This was becoming boring.