"I again?" shouted Piotr, and his face became covered with red blotches. His anger made him look older. "The third time in two months that I have had to play lackey! Excuse me! I don't want to."
"Don't address me on the subject," said Solovyov affably.
"What does it mean? Why do they choose just me to be a servant?"
"You look like one," said Sasha, with a smile.
"There will be three," Solovyov repeated sighing. "What do you say to having some beer? All right?"
Piotr opened the door, and shouted in an irritated voice:
"Half a dozen beer," and he went to the window clenching his fists and cracking his knuckles.
"There, you see, Maklakov?" said Sasha. "Among us no one wants to work seriously, with enthusiasm. But the revolutionists are pushing right on – banquets, meetings, a shower of literature, open propaganda in the factories!"
Maklakov maintained silence, and did not look at Sasha. Round Solovyov then took up the word, smiling amiably.
"I caught a girl to-day at the railroad station with books. I had already noticed her in a villa in the summer. 'Well,' thought I, 'amuse yourself, my dear.' To-day, as I was walking in the station with no people to track, I was looking about, and there I see her marching along carrying a handbag. I went up to her, and respectfully proposed that she have a couple of words with me. I noticed she started and paled, and hid the bag behind her back. 'Ah,' thinks I, 'my dear little stupid, you've gotten yourself into it.' Well, I immediately took her to the police station, they opened her luggage, and there was the last issue of 'Emancipation' and a whole lot more of their noxious trash. I took the girl to the Department of Safety. What else was I to do? If you can't get Krushin pike, you must eat blinkers. In the carriage she kept her little face turned away from me. I could see her cheeks burned and there were tears in her eyes. But she kept mum. I asked her, 'Are you comfortable, madam?' Not a word in reply."
Solovyov chuckled softly. Trembling rays of wrinkles covered his face.
"Who is she?" asked Maklakov.
"Dr. Melikhov's daughter."
"Ah," drawled Sasha, "I know him."
"A respectable man. He has the orders of Vladimir and Anna," remarked Solovyov.
"I know him," repeated Sasha. "A charlatan, like all the rest. He tried to cure me."
"God alone can cure you now," said Solovyov in his affable tone. "You are ruining your health quickly."
"Go to the devil!" roared Sasha.
Maklakov asked without turning his gaze from the window:
"Did the girl cry?"
"No. But she didn't exactly rejoice. You know it's always unpleasant to me to take girls, because in the first place I have a daughter myself."
"What are you waiting for, Maklakov?" demanded Sasha testily.
"Until he gets through eating his dinner. I have time."
"Say, you, chew faster!" Sasha bawled at Klimkov.
"Yes, yes, hurry," Piotr observed drily.
As he ate his dinner, Klimkov listened to the talk attentively, and observed the people while he himself remained unnoticed. He noted with satisfaction that all of them except Sasha did not seem bad, not worse or more horrible than others. He was seized with a desire to ingratiate himself with them, make himself useful to them. He put down the knife and fork, and quickly wiped his lips with the soiled napkin.
"I am done."
The door was flung open, and a loose-limbed fellow, his dress in disorder, his body bent and stooping, darted into the room, and hissed:
"Ssh! Ssh!"
He thrust his head into the corridor, listened, then carefully closed the door. "Doesn't it lock? Where is the key?" He looked around, and drew a deep breath. "Thank God!" he exclaimed.
"Eh, you dunce," sneered Sasha. "Well, what is it? Do they want to lick you again?"
The man ran up to him. Panting and wiping the sweat from his face, he began, to mutter in a low voice:
"They did, of course. They wanted to kill me with a hammer. Two followed me from the prison. I was there on business. As I walked out, they were standing at the gate, two of them, and one of them had a hammer in his pocket."
"Maybe it was a revolver," suggested Solovyov stretching his neck.
"A hammer."
"Did you see it?" inquired Sasha sarcastically.
"Ah, don't I know? They agreed to do me up with a hammer, without making any noise. One – "
He adjusted his necktie, buttoned his coat, searched for something in his pockets, and smoothed his curly head, which was covered with sweat. His hands incessantly flashed about his body; they seemed ready to break off any moment. His bony grey face was dank with perspiration, his dark eyes rolled from side to side, now screwed up, now opened wide. Suddenly they became fixed. With unfeigned horror depicted in them they rested upon Yevsey's face, as the man backed to the door.
"Who's that? Who's that?" he demanded hoarsely.
Maklakov went up to him, and took his hand.
"Calm yourself, Yelizar. He's one of our own, a new one."
"Do you know him?"
"Jackass!" came Sasha's exasperated voice. "You ought to see a physician."
"Have you ever been pushed under a trolley car? Not yet? Then wait before you call names."
"Just look, Maklakov," began Sasha, but the man continued in extreme excitement:
"Have you ever been beaten at night by unknown people? Do you understand? Unknown people! There are hundreds of thousands such people unknown to me in the city, hundreds of thousands. They are everywhere, and I am a single one. I am always among them, do you understand?"
Now Solovyov began to speak in his soft, reassuring voice, which was drowned, however, by the new burst of words coming from the shattered man, who carried in himself a whirlwind of fear. Klimkov immediately grew dizzy, overwhelmed by the alarming whisper of his talk, blinded by the motion of his broken body, and the darting of his cowardly hands. He expected that now something huge and black would tear its way through the door, would fill the room, and crush everybody.
"It's time for us to go," said Maklakov, touching his shoulder.
When they were sitting in the cab Yevsey sullenly remarked:
"I am not fit for this work."
"Why?" asked Maklakov.
"I am timid."
"That'll pass away."
"Nothing will pass away."
"Everything," rejoined Maklakov calmly.
It was cold and dark, and sleet was falling. The reflections of the lights lay upon the mud in golden patches, which the people and horses tramped upon and extinguished. The two men were silent for a long time. Yevsey, his brain empty, looked into space, and felt that Maklakov was watching his face, in wait for something.
"You'll get used to it," Maklakov went on, "but if you have another position, leave it at once. Have you?"
"No."
"Is it long since you've been in the Department of Safety?"
"Yesterday."
"That accounts for it."
"Now where am I to go?" inquired Yevsey quietly.
Maklakov instead of replying to the question asked:
"Have you relatives?"
"No. I have no one."
The spy leaned over, though without saying anything. His eyes were half shut. As he drew his breath through his nose, the thin hair of his mustache quivered. The thick sounds of a bell floated in the air, soft and warm, and the pensive song of copper crept mournfully over the roofs of the houses without rising under the heavy cloud that covered the city with a solid dark canopy.
"To-morrow is Sunday," said Maklakov in a low tone. "Do you go to church?"
"No."
"Why not?"
"I don't know. Just so. It's close there."
"I do. I love the morning service. The choristers sing, and the sun looks through the windows. That is always good."
Maklakov's simple words emboldened Yevsey. He felt a desire to speak of himself.
"It is nice to sing," he began. "When I was a little boy I sang in the church in our village. When I sang I didn't know where I was. It was just the same as if I didn't exist."
"Here we are," said Maklakov.
Yevsey sighed, and looked sadly at the long structure of the railway station, which all of a sudden loomed up before them and barred the way.
They went to the platform where a large public had already gathered, and leaned up against the wall. Maklakov dropped his lids over his eyes, and seemed to be falling into a doze. The spurs of the gendarmes began to jingle, a well-shaped woman with dark eyes and a swarthy face laughed in a resonant young voice.
"Remember the woman there who is laughing and the man beside her," said Maklakov in a distinct whisper. "Her name is Sarah Lurye, an accoucheure. She lives in the Sadovoy, No. 7, She was in prison and in exile, a very clever woman. The old man is also a former exile, a journalist."
Suddenly Maklakov seemed to become frightened. He pulled his hat down over his face with a quick movement of his hand, and continued in a still lower voice:
"The tall man in the black suit and the shaggy hat, red-haired, do you see him?"
Yevsey nodded his head.
"He's the author Mironov. He has been in prison four times already, in different cities. Do you read books?"
"No."
"A pity. He writes interestingly."
The black iron worm with a horn on its head and three fiery eyes uttered a scream, and glided into the station, the metal of its huge body rumbling. It stopped, and hissed spitefully, filling the air with its thick white breath. The hot steamy odor knocked Yevsey in the face. The black bustling figures of people quickly darted before his eyes, seeming strangely small in contrast with the overwhelming size of the train.
It was the first time Yevsey had seen the mass of iron at such close range. It seemed alive and endowed with feeling. It attracted his attention powerfully, at the same time arousing a hostile, painful premonition. The large red wheels turned, the steel lever glittered, rising and falling like a gigantic knife. Maklakov utter a subdued exclamation.
"What is it?" asked Yevsey.
"Nothing," answered the spy vexed. His cheeks reddened, and he bit his lips. By his look Yevsey guessed that he was following the author, who was walking along without haste, twirling his mustache. He was accompanied by an elderly, thick-set man, with an unbuttoned coat and a summer hat on a large head. This man laughed aloud, and exclaimed as he raised his bearded red face:
"You understand? I rode and rode – "
The author lifted his head, and bowed to somebody. His head was smoothly shorn, his forehead lofty. He had high cheek bones, a broad nose, and narrow eyes. Klimkov found his face coarse and disagreeable. There was something military and harsh in it, due to his large red mustache.
"Come," said Maklakov. "They will probably go together. You must be very careful. The man who just arrived is an experienced man."
In the street they took a cab again.
"Follow that carriage," Maklakov said angrily to the driver. He was silent for a long time, sitting with bent back and swaying body. "Last year in the summer," he finally muttered, "I was in his house making a search."
"The writer's house?" asked Yevsey.
"Yes. Drive on farther," Maklakov ordered quickly noticing that the cab in front had stopped. "Quick!"
A minute later he jumped from the cab, and thrust some money into the driver's hand.
"Wait," he said to Yevsey, and disappeared in the damp darkness. Yevsey heard his voice. "Excuse me, is this Yakovlev's house?"
Someone answered in a hollow voice:
"This is Pertzev's."
"And which is Yakovlev's?"
"I don't know."
"Pardon me."
Yevsey leaned against the fence, counting Maklakov's tardy steps.
"It's a simple thing – just to follow people," he thought.
The spy came up to him, and said in a satisfied tone:
"We have nothing to do here. To-morrow morning you will put on a different suit, and we'll keep an eye on this house."
They walked down the street. The sound of Maklakov's talk kept knocking at Klimkov's ears like the rumble of a drum.
"Remember the faces, the dress, and the gait of the people that pass this house. There are no two people alike. Each one has something peculiar to himself. You must learn at once to seize upon this peculiar something in a person – in his eyes, in his voice, in the way in which he holds out his hands when he walks, in the manner in which he lifts his hat in greeting. Our work above all demands a good memory."
Yevsey felt that the spy talked with concealed enmity toward him; which aggrieved him.
"You have an exceedingly marked face, especially your eyes. That won't do. You mustn't go about without a mask, without the dress peculiar to a certain occupation. Your figure, you in general, resemble a hawker of dry-goods. So you ought to carry about a box of stuffs, pins, needles, tape, ribbon, and all sorts of trifles. I will see that you get such a box. Then you can go into the kitchens and get acquainted with the servants." Maklakov was silent, removed his beard, fixed his hat, and began to walk more slowly. "Servants are always ready to do something unpleasant for the masters. It's easy to get something out of them, especially the women – cooks, nurses, chambermaids. They like to gossip. However, I'm chilled through," he ended in a different voice. "Let's go to a café."
"I have no money."
"That's all right."
In the café he said to the owner in a stern voice:
"Give me a glass of cognac, a large one, and two beers. Will you have some cognac?"
"No, I don't drink," answered Yevsey, embarrassed.
"That's good."
The spy looked carefully into Klimkov's face, smoothed his mustache, closed his eyes for a minute, and stretched his whole body, so that his bones cracked. When he had drunk the cognac, he remarked in an undertone:
"It's good you are such a taciturn fellow. What do you think about, eh?"
Yevsey dropped his head, and did not answer at once.
"About everything, about myself."
"But what in particular?"
Maklakov's eyes gleamed softly.
"I think perhaps it would be better for me to enter a monastery," Yevsey answered sincerely.
"Why?"
"Just so."
"Do you believe in God?"
After a moment's thought Yevsey said as if excusing himself:
"I do. Only I am not for God, but for myself. What am I to God?"
"Well, let's drink."
Klimkov bravely gulped down a glass of beer. It was cold and bitter, and sent a shiver through his body. He licked his lips with his tongue, and suddenly asked:
"Do they beat you often?"
"Me? Who?" the spy exclaimed amazed and offended.
"Not you, but all the spies in general."
"You must say 'agents,' not 'spies,'" Maklakov corrected him smiling. "They get beaten, yes, they get beaten. I have never been beaten."
He became lost in reflection. His shoulders drooped, and a shadow crept over his white face.
"Ours is a dog's occupation. People look upon us in an ugly enough light." Suddenly his face broke into a smile, and he bent toward Yevsey. "Only once in five years did I see a man – human conduct toward me. It was in Mironov's house. I came to him with gendarmes in the uniform of a sergeant-inspector. I was not well at the time. I had fever, and was scarcely able to stand on my feet. He received us civilly, with a smile. He wore a slightly embarrassed air. Such a large man, with long hands and a mustache like a cat's. He walked with us from room to room, addressed us all with the respectful plural 'you,' and if he came in contact with any of us, he excused himself. We all felt awkward in his presence – the colonel, the procurator, and we small fry. Everybody knew the man; his pictures appeared in the newspapers. They say he's even known abroad. And here we were paying him a night visit! We felt sort of abashed. I noticed him look at me. Then he walked up closer to me, and said, 'You ought to sit down. You look as if you were feeling ill. Sit down.' His words upset me. I sat down, and I thought to myself, 'Go away from me.' And he said, 'Will you take a powder?' All of us were silent. I saw that no one looked at me or him." Maklakov laughed quietly. "He gave me quinine in a capsule, and I chewed it. I began to feel an insufferable bitterness in my mouth and a turmoil in my soul. I felt I would drop if I tried to stand. Here the colonel interfered, and ordered me to be taken to the police office. The search just then happened to end. The procurator excused himself to Mironov, and said, 'I must arrest you.' 'Well, what of it?' he said. 'Arrest me. Everyone does what he can.' He said it so simply with a smile."
Yevsey liked the story. It touched his heart softly, as if embracing it with a caress. The desire awoke in him again to make himself useful to Maklakov.
"He's a good man," he thought.
The spy sighed. He called for another glass of cognac, and sipped it slowly. He seemed suddenly to grow thin, and he dropped his head on the table.
Yevsey wanted to speak, to ask questions. Various words darted about in disorder in his brain, for some reason failing to arrange themselves in intelligible and clear language. Finally, after many efforts, Yevsey found what he wanted to ask.
"He, too, is in the service of our enemies?"
"Who?" asked the spy, scarcely raising his head.
"The writer."
"What enemies? What do you mean?" The spy's face was mocking, and his lips curled in aversion. Yevsey grew confused, and Maklakov without awaiting his answer arose, and tossed a silver coin on the table.
"Charge it up," he said to someone.
He put on his hat, and without a word to Klimkov walked to the door. Yevsey followed on tiptoe, not daring to put on his hat.
"Be at the place at nine o'clock to-morrow. You will be relieved at twelve," said Maklakov in the street. He thrust his hands in his coat pockets, and disappeared.
"He didn't say 'good-by,'" thought Yevsey aggrieved, walking along the deserted street.
When he entered within the circles of light thrown by the street lamps, he slackened his pace, and instinctively hastened over the parts enveloped in obscurity. He felt ill. Darkness surrounded him on all sides. It was cold. The gluey, bitter taste of beer penetrated from his mouth into his chest, and his heart beat unevenly. Languid thoughts stirred in his head like heavy flakes of autumn snow.
"There, I've served a day. How they all are – these different days. If only somebody liked me."
At night Yevsey dreamed that his cousin Yashka seated himself on his chest, seized him by the throat, and choked him. He awoke, and heard Piotr's angry dry thin voice in the other room:
"I spit upon the Czar's empire and all this hum-buggery!"
A woman laughed, and someone's thin voice sounded:
"Hush, hush, don't bawl."
"I have no time to calculate who is right, and who is wrong. I am not a fool, I am young, and I ought to live. This rapscallion reads me lectures about autocracy, and I fuss about for three hours as a waiter, near every sort of scamp. My feet ache, my back pains from the bows. If the autocracy is dear to you, then don't be stingy with your money. But I won't sell my pride to the autocracy for a mere penny. To the devil with it!"
Yevsey looked drowsily through the window, his gaze losing itself in the sleepy depth of the autumn morning. Blinded, he quietly flung himself back in bed, and again fell asleep.
Several hours later he was sitting on the curb opposite Pertzev's house. He walked back and forth a long time, counted the windows in the house, measured its width with his steps, studied in all its details the grey front flabby with old age, and finally grew tired. But he had not much time to rest. The writer himself came out of the door with an overcoat flung over his shoulders, no overshoes on his feet, his hat on one side of his head. He walked across the street straight up to Yevsey.
"He will give me a slap in the face," thought Yevsey, looking at the sullen face and the lowering red brows. He tried to rise and go away, but was unable to move, chained to the spot by fear.
"Why are you sitting here?" he heard an angry voice.
"Nothing."
"Get away from here."
"I can't."
"Here's a letter. Go. Give it to him who sent you here."
"I can't."
"Why not?"
The large blue eyes commanded. Yevsey had not the power to disobey the look. Turning his face aside he mumbled:
"I – I – I have no permission – to take anything from you – or to converse with you. I am going away."
"Yes, go away," the author commanded, and for some reason smiled a morose smile.
Klimkov took the grey envelope, and walked away, without asking himself where he was going. He held the envelope in his right hand on a level with his breast, as if it were something murderous, threatening unknown misfortune. His fingers ached as from cold.
"What is going to happen to me?" knocked importunately at his brain.
Suddenly he noticed the envelope was not sealed. This amazed him. He stopped, looked around, and quickly removed the letter.
"Take this dunce away from me. Mironov," he read.
He heaved a sigh of relief.
"I must give this to Maklakov. He will scold me. Maybe I ought to turn back. But it's not necessary. Somebody else will come soon anyway."
Though his fear had disappeared, Yevsey felt sad from the realization of his unfitness for the position, and he felt heavy at the thought that he had again failed to suit the spy, whom he liked so much.
He found Maklakov at dinner in the company of a little squint-eyed man dressed in black.
"Let me introduce you. Klimkov – Krasavin."
Yevsey put his hand in his pocket to get out the letter, and said in an embarrassed tone:
"This is the way it happened – "
Maklakov held up his hand.
"You will tell me later. Sit down, and have your dinner."
His face was weary, his eyes dim, his light straight hair dishevelled.
"Evidently got drunk yesterday," thought Yevsey.
"No, Timofey Vasilyevich," the squint-eyed man said coldly and solemnly. "You are not right. There's something pleasant in every line of work if you love it."
Maklakov looked at him, and drank a large glass of whiskey in one gulp.
"They are people, we are people, that doesn't signify anything. One says this, another says that, and I do just as I please."
The squint-eyed man noticed that Yevsey was looking at his eyeballs as they rolled apart, and put on a pair of glasses with tortoise-shell rims. His movements were soft and alert, like a black cat's. His teeth were small and sharp, his nose straight and thin. When he spoke his rosy ears moved. His crooked fingers kept quickly rolling a crumb of bread into little pellets, which he placed on the edge of his plate.
"An assistant?" he asked, nodding his head toward Yevsey.
"Yes."
"How's business, young man?"
"I just began yesterday."
"Oh, oh!" Krasavin nodded his head. Pinching his thin dark mustache, he began to speak fluently: "Of course, Timofey Vasilyevich, you can't step on the trail of life's destiny. According to God's law, children grow old, people die. Only all this doesn't concern you and me. We received our appointed task. We are told to catch the people who infringe on law and order. That's all. It's a hard business, it's a clever business. To use a figure of speech, it is a kind of hunt."
Maklakov rose from the table, and walked into a corner, from where he beckoned to Yevsey.
"Well, what is it?"
Yevsey gave him the note. The spy read it, looked into Klimkov's face in astonishment, and read it again.
"From whom is this?" he asked in a low voice.
Yevsey answered in an embarrassed whisper.
"He himself gave it to me. He came out into the street."
In the expectation of a rebuke, or even a blow, he bent his neck. But hearing a low laugh he cautiously raised his head, and saw the spy looking at the envelope with a broad smile on his face and a merry gleam in his eyes.
"Oh, you strange fellow," said Maklakov. "Now keep quiet about this, you droll creature."
"Can I congratulate you on a successful piece of work?" asked Krasavin.
"You can. Yes." Maklakov said aloud, walking up to him.
"That's good, young man," remarked Krasavin encouragingly. His pupils with green sparks flashing in them turned inward to the bridge of his nose, and his nostrils quivered and expanded.
"But the Japs licked us after all, Gavrilo," Maklakov exclaimed merrily, rubbing his hands.
"I cannot in the least comprehend your joy in this event," said Krasavin wagging his ears. "Although it was instructive, as many say, still so much Russian blood was shed and the insufficiency of our strength was made so apparent."
"And who is to blame?"
"The Japs. What do they want? Every country ought to live within itself."
They started a discussion, to which Yevsey, rejoiced over Maklakov's attitude, did not pay any attention. He looked into the spy's face, and thought it would be well to live with him instead of Piotr, who scolded at the authorities, and maybe would be arrested as they had arrested the Smokestack.
Krasavin left. Maklakov took out the letter, read it once more, and burst into a laugh, looking at Yevsey.
"Now don't say a word about it to anybody. Do you understand? He came out himself?"
"Yes. He came out, and said, 'Get away from here.'" Yevsey smiled guiltily.
"You see another one in his place would have stroked you with a cat's paw." Screwing up his eyes the spy looked through the window, and said slowly, "Yes, you ought to take to peddling wares. I told you so. To-day you are free. I have no more commissions for you. Be off with you. Have a good time. I'll try one of these days to fix you up differently. Good-by."
Maklakov held out his hand. Yevsey touched it gratefully, and walked away happy.