III
Years passed after years. The bold and pushing children who once had gathered on Lesha Semiboyarinov’s birthday became bold and pushing men and women, and the urchin who had fooled Grisha, it goes without saying, found his way in life—while Grisha, of course, became a failure. As in his childhood, he went on dreaming, and in his dreams he conquered his kingdom; but in real life he could not protect himself from any enterprising person who pushed him unceremoniously out of his way. His relations with women were equally unsuccessful, and his fainthearted attentions were not once rewarded by a responsive feeling. He had no friends. His mother alone loved him.
Igumnov rejoiced when he found a position at a small salary, because his mother could live calmly now without worrying about a crust of bread. But his happiness was of short duration; soon his mother died. Grisha fell into depression, lost his spirits. Life seemed to him to be aimless. Apathy took hold of him; he had no interest in his work. He lost his place, and was soon in great need.
Igumnov finally pawned his last possession, his mother’s ring; as he walked out of the place he smiled—and his smile kept him from bursting into tears of self-pity.
He had to see various people and to ask them for work. But Igumnov was not good at this. He was backward and quiet, and he experienced a helpless confusion that prevented him from persisting in his dealings with men. While yet on the stairway of a man’s house a fear would seize him, his heart would beat painfully, his legs would grow heavy, and his hand would stretch toward the bell irresolutely.
During one of his most depressing and hungry days Igumnov sat in the sumptuous private office of Aleksei Stepanovich Semiboyarinov, the father of the same Lesha whose birthday party remained memorable to him. Igumnov had already sent a letter to Aleksei Stepanovich: after all it was much easier to ask on paper than by word of mouth. And now he came for his answer.
From the restless, solicitous manner of Semiboyarinov, a small, dry, old man, with closely-cut, silver-grey hair, he guessed that he would have a refusal. This made him feel wretched, but he could not help smiling an artless pleasant smile, as though he wished to show that it did not matter in the least, that he really did not count on anything. The smile evidently irritated Semiboyarinov.
“I’ve got your letter, my dear fellow,” said he at last in his dry, deliberate voice. “But there’s nothing that I can see just now.”
“Nothing?” mumbled Igumnov, growing red.
“Absolutely nothing, my dear fellow. Every place is taken. And I don’t see anything in prospect for the near future. Perhaps something might be done for you at New Year.”
“I’ll be glad of a chance even then,” said Igumnov, smiling in such a way as to suggest that a mere eight months was of no account to him.
“Yes, I’ll be very glad to do something then. If it depended upon me you’d get your place today. I’d like very much to be of use to you, my good man.”
“Thank you,” said Igumnov.
“But tell me,” asked Semiboyarinov sympathetically, “why did you leave your old place?”
“They found no use for me,” answered Igumnov, confused.
“No use for you? Well, I hope we’ll find some use for you. Let me have your address, my good fellow.”
Semiboyarinov began to rummage on his table for a piece of paper. Igumnov just then caught sight of his own letter under a marble paperweight.
“My address is in the letter,” he said.
“So it is!” said his host briskly. “I’ll make a note of it.”
“I have the habit,” observed Igumnov, rising from his place, “always to write my address at the beginning of a letter.”
“A European habit,” commended his host.
Igumnov took his leave and went out smiling, proud of his European habits, which, however, did not prevent him from feeling hungry. He was almost glad that the unpleasant conversation was at an end. He recalled all the polite words, and especially those that contained the promise; foolish hopes awakened in him. But a few minutes later, as he was walking in the street, he realized that the promise would come to nothing. Besides, it was made for the future, and he had need of food now, and he must go to his lodgings with a heavy heart—what would his landlady say? What could he say to her?
Igumnov began to walk more slowly, then he turned in the opposite direction. Lost in gloom, he walked on, pale and hungry, through the noisy streets of the capital, past busy satiated people. His smile vanished. The look of dark despair gave a certain significance to his usually little expressive features.
He was now close to the Niva. The huge dome of the Isakiyevski Cathedral glowed golden in the wide expanse of blue sky. The large open squares and streets were enveloped in the gentle, scarcely perceptible, dust-like haze of the rays of the setting sun. The din of carriages was softened in these magnificent open spaces. Everything seemed strange and hostile to the hungry, helpless man. The beautiful, rich-coloured fruits behind the shop windows could not have been more inaccessible if they were under the watch of a strong guard.
Children were playing merrily in the green square. Igumnov looked at them and smiled. Unpleasant memories of his own childhood tormented him with an intense pity for himself. He reflected that it was only left to him to die. The thought frightened him. And again he reflected: “Why shouldn’t I die? Wasn’t there a time when I did not exist? I shall have rest, eternal oblivion.”
Fragments of wise strange thoughts came to him and soothed him.
Igumnov was now on the embankment. He leant against the granite parapet and watched the restless waters of the river. A single move, he thought, and everything would be ended. But it was terrible to think of drowning, of struggling with one’s mouth full of water, of being strangled by these heavy, cold sweeps of water, of battling helplessly, and of at last sinking from sheer exhaustion to the bottom, there to be carried by the undercurrents, and at last to be cast out, a shapeless corpse, upon some coast of the sea.
Igumnov shivered and moved away from the river. He suddenly espied not far away his former colleague Kurkov. Smartly dressed, cheerful and self-satisfied, Kurkov was walking slowly and swinging a thin cane with a fancy handle.
“Ah, Grigory Petrovich!” he exclaimed, as though he were glad of the meeting. “Are you strolling, or are you on business?”
“Yes, I’m strolling, that is on business,” said Igumnov.
“I think we are going the same way?”
They walked on together. Kurkov’s cheerful chatter only intensified Igumnov’s mood. Moving his shoulders nervously he addressed Kurkov with sudden resolution: “Nikolai Sergeyevich, do you happen to have a rouble on you?”
“A rouble?” said Kurkov in astonishment. “Why do you want it?”
Igumnov flushed, and began to explain in stammers. “You see, I … just one rouble is lacking. … I have to get something … something, you see. …”
He breathed heavily in his agitation. He grew silent, and smiled a pitiful, fixed smile.
“That means I shan’t get it back,” thought Kurkov.
And now he spoke no longer in the same careless tone as before.
“I’d like to, but I haven’t any spare cash, not a copeck. I had to borrow some yesterday myself.”
“Well, if you haven’t it, you can’t help it,” mumbled Igumnov, and continued to smile. “I’ll simply have to get along without it.”
His smile irritated Kurkov, perhaps because it was such a pitiful, helpless affair.
“Why does he smile?” thought Kurkov in vexation. “Doesn’t he believe me? Well, I don’t care if he doesn’t—I don’t own the Government exchequer.”
“Why don’t you come in sometimes and see us?” he asked Igumnov in a careless, dry manner, as he looked elsewhere.
“I am always meaning to. Of course I’ll come in,” answered Igumnov in a trembling voice. “What about today?”
There rose before him a picture of the cosy dining-room of the Kurkovs, the hospitable hostess, the samovar on the table and the various tasty titbits.
“Today?” asked Kurkov in the same careless, dry voice. “No, we shan’t be home today. But do step in some day before long. Well, I must turn up this lane. Goodbye!”
And he made haste to cross the wooden walk of the embankment. Igumnov looked after him, and smiled. Slow, incoherent thoughts crept through his brain.
As Kurkov disappeared up the lane Igumnov again approached the granite parapet, and, trembling in cold terror, began slowly and awkwardly to climb over it.
There was no one near.