CHAPTER I

Almost every Saturday, just before supper-time, the dirty old house of the merchant Petounukoff was the scene of a violent and murderous attack. From the two cellar windows there rang forth into the narrow courtyard, surrounded by old tumble-down hovels, and filled with all sorts of rubbish, the horrible screams of a woman.

"Let me alone! Let me alone! you devil!" she shrieked in a high treble voice.

"Leave go of me then!" answered the tenor voice of a man.

"I won't let go of you, you wretch! you monster!"

"Shut up, and leave go of me!"

"Not if you kill me—I won't let you go!"

"What, you won't? Then take that, you heretic!"

"Help! He is killing me! Help!"

"Will you let go of me then?"

"You may go on beating me, you dog, till you have killed me!"

"I can't do that in a hurry—you take more killing than that!"

At the first words of such a dialogue, the painter Soutchkoff's apprentice, Senka Tschischik, who from one day's end to the other was busy in one of the sheds in the yard rubbing and mixing colours, used to rush out in hot haste, and whilst his little black mouse eyes flashed, he would shout with all his might, so that his voice rang right across the court—

"There's another row up at Orloff's the cobbler."

The little Tschischik was an ardent lover of every sort of adventure and story. As soon as there appeared to be trouble at the Orloffs he would run quickly to the window of their dwelling, lie down on his stomach, poke his mischievous shock head of hair and his thin face, smeared with ochre and vermilion, as far as he could into the gloom of the cellar, and watch with curiosity all that went on in the dark, damp hole, from which arose a smell of musty cobbler's wax and of sour batter. There, on the floor of this hole were to be seen two figures, rolling over each other on the ground, groaning and cursing.

"You want to kill me, then?" gasped at this moment, in a warning, breathless voice, the woman.

"Don't be afraid!" the man mockingly reassured her in a tone of suppressed violence.

Heavy dull blows were then heard, falling on something soft; then sobs and sighs, and the panting of a man, who seemed to be making efforts to move a heavy object.

"Blast it all! Now he has given her a good one!—with the boot-last," cried Tschischik, watching what was going on in the cellar, whilst the public who had gathered round—the porter, Lewtschenko, the accordion-player Kisljakoff, a couple of tailor's apprentices, and other amateurs of gratuitous amusement,—were all impatient to get news from Senka, and pulled him, now by his legs and now by his many-coloured trousers.

"Well, what's going on now? what's he doing to her this time?" they would ask.

"Now he is sitting astride of her, and is banging her nose into the ground," explained Senka, who with true enjoyment was taking in every action of the play.

The public pushed nearer to the windows of the Orloffs' dwelling. They burned with curiosity to see with their own eyes all the developments of the struggle, and although they knew well of old every point in the attack and defence in the war which Grischka Orloff waged against his wife, they always appeared equally surprised and astonished.

"No, but what a devil he is! He has beaten her again, has he not, till she is bleeding?" asked one of them.

"Her nose is all over blood.... It is running down," Senka informed them.

"Ah! good heavens! What a terror, what a wretch he is!" cried some women, full of sympathy.

The men regarded the matter from a more abstract and philosophic point of view.

"He will certainly end by killing her," they said.

The accordion-player remarked in a prophetic voice—

"He'll stick a knife into her some day; you take my word for it He'll get tired of always knocking her about, and some day will put an end to the whole business in a hurry."

"Now he has let go of her," said Senka in a whisper, springing up from the ground, and bounding on one side like an india-rubber ball. Immediately afterwards he took up another post of observation in a corner of the court, for he knew that Grischka Orloff would now appear above ground.

Most of the spectators went off rapidly, for they had no desire to come face to face with the enraged cobbler. Now that the fight was over Grischka had lost all interest in their eyes, and besides it was not without danger to come across him under these circumstances.

So it happened that when Orloff emerged from his cellar, there was generally, with the exception of Senka, no living soul to be seen in the courtyard. Breathing heavily, his shirt torn, his hair tumbled, with fresh scratches on his still excited and perspiring face, Grischka Orloff, with bloodshot eyes would glance suspiciously round the court. With his hands behind his back, he would walk slowly towards an old sledge which was leaning against the wall of a dilapidated wool-shed. Sometimes he would whistle and throw threatening glances around, as if he were challenging all the dwellers in Petounukoff's house to battle. Then he would sit down on the sledge, and with the sleeve of his shirt wipe the blood away from his face. He would remain for a long time motionless, glowering darkly at the wall of the opposite house, where the plaster was crumbling away, and where a variety of colours had been smeared on by the house-painter Soutchkoff's apprentices, who had the habit, when they left off work, of cleaning their brushes on this part of the wall.

The cobbler Orloff was about thirty years old. His dark, nervous, finely-cut face was adorned with a black moustache, under which showed full red lips. Above a prominent nose thick black eyebrows were drawn close together; dark restless flashing eyes looked out from under them. The curly hair that hung forward on his forehead fell behind over his brown strong neck in thick ringlets. Orloff was of middle height, a little bent with a slight stoop—the result of his special work,— muscular and full-blooded; but now he sat on the sledge as if in a dull state of stupor, and gazed blankly at the variegated wall, his breath coming in heavy gasps and throbs.

The sun had already gone off the courtyard, in which there still reigned a dull twilight; a mingled smell of oil-paint, of tar, of sauerkraut and of rotting vegetable matter hung heavy on the sultry evening air. From the windows of the two-storied dwelling there came a sound of song and of oaths, which rang through the court, whilst a drunken man thrust an inquiring head out of a window from behind a corner, looked across at Orloff, and then disappeared with a mocking laugh.

The time came for the painters to leave their work; they passed by Orloff, throwing mocking glances at him, winking meaningly at one another, and filled the courtyard with the sounds of their Kostroma dialect Then they separated—each going his own way, the one to the bath, the other to the vodka-shop.

Later on, the tailors came down from the second storey into the courtyard; half-dressed, bow-legged fellows who were making merry over the dialect of their painter comrades. The whole court was once more filled with noise, jovial laughter and jokes. Orloff sat silent in his corner, taking no notice of any one. No one went near him, no one dared to joke with him, for all knew that at these moments he was like a raging animal.

Completely swayed by his dark desperate mood, which seemed to weigh on his breast and oppress his breathing, he sat there as if rooted to the spot.

From time to time his nostrils swelled and his lips parted, showing two rows of big yellow teeth. A dark indescribable feeling of anguish seemed to hold him inexorably; red spots swam before his eyes. A sense of utter melancholy took possession of him, and to this was added a burning thirst for vodka. He knew that he would feel more lighthearted when he had had something to drink, but he was ashamed while it was still light to show his torn and ragged condition in the street, where every one knew him personally as Grigori Orloff the cobbler. He had a feeling of his own dignity, and would not expose himself as a butt for general mirth. But neither could he go home to wash and dress himself,—for there, lying bleeding on the ground, was his wife whom he had greviously ill-used, and whom, at any price, he must not look on at present.

There, no doubt, she is lying groaning, and he feels that she is a martyr, and that he has been a thousand times guilty towards her. All this he realizes quite clearly and distinctly. He knows well that where she is concerned he has much to blame himself, and this consideration increases even more the hatred which he feels towards her. A vague but dominating feeling of anger gnaws his soul, prevailing over every other feeling, whilst an inconsolable melancholy overwhelms his inmost being, and he gives way consciously to the dull heavy misery which has taken possession of him, but against which he knows no other remedy than—a pint of vodka....

The accordion-player Kisljakoff crosses the yard. He is wearing a velvet tunic without sleeves; a red silk shirt and wide trousers tucked into his stockings; on his feet are smartly-polished shoes. Under his arm he carries in a green bundle his accordion; he has twisted up his black moustache, his cap is worn jauntily on one side, and his whole countenance beams with the joy of living. Orloff liked his brisk liveliness, his cordial ways, and his playing, and he envied him his bright, happy-go-lucky life, free from all care.

"I greet thee, Grischka, proud conqueror, returning blood-stained from the fray!" cried jokingly the accordion-player.

Orloff did not feel angry with Kisljakoff's joke, though he had heard it already for the fiftieth time. He knew that the accordion-player meant no harm, but only wanted to have a little innocent fun with him.

"Well, brother; so you have been acting Plevna again?" Kisljakoff asked the cobbler, as he remained for a moment standing before him.

"Ah! Grischka, you are indeed a melancholy-looking swain!... Come along with me to the only place which is of any good to such as you and me ... we will go and have a drop together!"

"It's too early yet," objected Orloff, without moving his head.

"I shall await thee then with silent longing!..." said Kisljakoff, turning away.

After a time Orloff followed him. As soon as he had left, there issues from the cellar a short, plump woman's form. A handkerchief is bound tightly round her head, allowing only one eye and a piece of her cheek to be seen; she walks with tottering steps, leaning for support against the wall, crosses the courtyard, going straight to the place where a short time before her husband had sat, and sits down precisely in the same spot No one is surprised at her appearance, they are all accustomed to it, and they know she will sit there till Grischka, drunk and repentant, returns from the dram-shop. She has come up into the courtyard, because the air is too heavy in the cellar, and because she will have to guide the drunken steps of Grischka on his return.

The steps are very steep and half broken away; once before, when Grischka returned from the dram-shop he fell down, and sprained his arm, so that he could not work for a fortnight, and she, in order that they might live, had been obliged to pawn everything they possessed. From that time Matrona had taken good care of him. Sometimes one of the inhabitants of the house would come and speak to her; generally it was Lewtschenko, a retired, bearded non-commissioned officer, a very sensible worthy "Little Russian," with a smooth shaven head and a purple nose.

He would sit down, with a yawn and a stretch, and remark—"Well, have you been catching it again?"

"What's that to you?" Matrona would reply in an unfriendly tone.

"Nothing in the world!" said the "Little Russian," and then they both remained silent for a while.

Matrona would gasp; something seemed to be choking her breath.

"What a pity it is to think that you are always at loggerheads with one another! Can't you alter things?" the "Little Russian" would begin again.

"That's our business," replied Orloff's wife shortly.

"Of course it is! Of course it's your business..." agreed Lewtschenko, nodding his head to show that he was entirely at one with her on this point.

"What are you driving at?" continued Matrona in an angry voice.

"La! la! la! What a bad temper you are in! You won't let one say a word to you! Whenever I see you and Grischka, I say to myself, what a pair they are! They worry each other like two dogs! You ought both to be beaten twice a day, morning and evening—then perhaps the desire for quarrelling would be knocked out of you." And he went away angrily and Matrona was glad; for several times there had been whisperings and gossipings in die court, caused by Lewtschenko's attempts to be friendly; so she was vexed with him, as she was with everybody who mixed themselves up with her affairs.

Lewtschenko, in spite of his forty years, walked with a soldierly stride to a corner of the yard, when suddenly Tschischik, the painter's apprentice, ran like a ball between his legs.

"That was a nasty one she gave you, little uncle!" he whispered with a precocious air to the non-commissioned officer, winking cunningly in the direction of Matrona.

"You'll get something nasty from me, if you don't look out! do you understand!" the "Little Russian" threatened him, though he was really laughing behind his moustache. He liked the lively little lad, who knew all the secrets of the court, and he really enjoyed having a gossip with him.

"There is nothing to be done with her," continued Senka, without paying any attention to Lewtschenko's threat, and going on with his revelations. "Maximka, the painter, has also tried—but what did he get for his pains?... a box on the ear!... I saw it myself...."

The, but half grown, lively little lad of twelve absorbed greedily all the filth and evil with which his life was surrounded, just as a sponge absorbs the water in which it lies; and the delicate wrinkles on his forehead showed that Senka Tschischik had already begun to think.

In the courtyard it grew dark. Overhead was stretched a square patch of dark blue sky on which twinkled the shimmering glory of the stars. The courtyard itself with its steep walled sides looked like a deep pit, at the bottom of which sat, huddled up in a corner, the form of Matrona, resting after the beating she had received, and awaiting the return of her drunken husband....