On the advice of a former fellow-clerk, who had managed to get himself a job with an army contractor, I set out to a certain café on the Nevsky, where business men were known to gather. Luck would depend entirely on an easygoing self-confident manner. I should have to tell a few lively stories, introduce myself to people, and then worm my way in.
It turned out quite differently, though. I told no stories, nor could I put on a self-confident manner. I merely smiled, in the hope of attracting some sympathetic eye. I ordered some tea and a meat pie in an offhand way, and when they were brought to me, I lapsed into a stony silence; I seemed to lose the power of speech. I was stunned by the voices around me, by the alertness of the men to whom they belonged. It was a sight to see them walk in and roll their eyes about till they settled on the individual approaching them. They would be seated together in a moment, smoking and chatting like veritable old cronies, abusing each other one moment, and ready to fall on each other’s necks the next. Though their talk was sufficiently loud and communicative at times, it was difficult to gather what they were driving at. One thing, however, seemed clear—something was being bought and sold, someone was being robbed, ruined, or betrayed. That was the way the money was made.
They hadn’t an air of money about them to look at. Most of them were shabby; only two wore real diamonds in scarf-pins, studs and rings, the rest wore imitation ones. Their pocketbooks, however, which most took out now and again, were all fat, and stuffed not with common paper, but with banknotes. The sordidness may have been a matter of form, the livery essential to these men’s service. Disgusting crowd!
I will say frankly that I set out to the café with my mind fully made up, and without any moral scruples. Had one of them said to me, “Look here, Ilya Petrovitch, we want to break open a safe tonight,” or, “We want to counterfeit money, will you join us for good pay?” I should have accepted the commission without the smallest hesitation. At any rate, that is what I thought, but when I had been sitting there for an hour in stony silence, looking at their ties and faces, their dirty finger nails and diamond rings, I was filled with a loathing towards these men—not so much to what they stood for—I had no clear knowledge of that—as to the men themselves, to the infamy in their faces. Horrible crowd!
I was so struck by a certain black moustached man among them that I forgot, for a time, the hopelessness of my own position. He was not old, robust and strong, and the only one among the rabble who was well-dressed; he held himself with a calmness and dignity that inspired awe. He listened more than he spoke, smiling now and again, and refused to shake hands with a grubby man who approached him. Neither the man nor anyone else paid any heed to that; it was taken as a matter of course. Once he let his black eye fall on me, cruel and indifferent; and, knowing him by instinct to be the rogue and swindler he was, still felt the servile impulse to incline my head in an ingratiating way. I don’t suppose he noticed me, or if he did, he must have soon sized me up at my true value, and turned his attention to someone else. He allowed no one to pay for his tea when he got up to go; but five men followed him to the door, deferential even to his back. I learned afterwards from the remarks of the others, that the man had made several millions. Three or four was the figure mentioned, but even if half had been exaggerated, it still left the sufficient sum of two millions.
I thought of the man for the rest of the day after I had left the café. What had he done to earn two millions? What robberies and treacheries did they represent? What manner of man must he be? What kind of soul must he possess to be so calm, to fear neither the bloodshed, nor God, nor the devil? I found it hard to believe that he was made of the same stuff as myself. I marvelled as I tried to recall his face, his powerful, robust figure, his calmness. I compared him to mother during dinner—mother who grudged herself every morsel she ate. I tried to recall Pavel, and the awful moment when informed her of his death, and still more did I marvel at the mysteries of human life.
No amount of reflection on the rights and wrongs of it could have so completely killed the desire to take my share of the plunder as the sight of that man. To be a big rogue, you must be born a big rogue, and I haven’t the quickness, the ease of manner, nor lightness of heart to make a small one. It is given to some men to possess millions, to others a conscience—a truly wise division of wealth!