CHAPTER IX

I was inspecting one day the technical school of the town of N——. One of the founders of the school, a personal friend of mine, was showing me round. He pointed out all the new and model arrangements and gave me an account of everything.

"As you see, we may be proud of our work.... Our school, which we planted at first like a small seed, has grown into a well-developed and splendid institution. We have been exceedingly fortunate in the choice of our teachers. In the shoemaking class, for instance, we have a woman-teacher, who was formerly the wife of a shoemaker, a charming bright little creature, simple in her nature, and irreproachable as to character. And how she works!... She is indeed a wonder!... Her way of teaching her trade too is quite astonishing; she has such patience and love for the children. She gets only twelve roubles a month besides her lodging, and at the price she is a treasure.... Out of her scanty earnings she herself supports two orphan children!... She's a most interesting person, I can tell you!..."

He said so much in praise of the shoemaker's wife that I became quite curious to see her. It was not long before my wish was fulfilled, and one day Matrona Ivanovna Orlova told me the sad story of her life. At first, after her separation from her husband, he gave her no peace—he would arrive drunk, make a terrible row, watch her whenever she went out, and if he succeeded in catching her, would beat her pitilessly. She bore it all. When the Infirmary was closed, the lady doctor promised to get her a situation in the school, and protect her from her husband. This she succeeded in doing, and henceforth a peaceful industrious life began for Matrona. With the help of the assistants, whom she had known in the Infirmary, she learnt to read and write; later on she adopted two orphans, a boy and a girl, whom she found in the Orphanage,—she made a home for herself and grew happier, only looking back with sadness and horror on her former life. She loved her pupils, and realized the importance of the work that was entrusted to her, and to which she devoted absolutely her life. She had gained the affection and respect of all the managers of the school. But a dry painful cough troubled her, and a hectic flush on her thin cheeks was an omen of the disease which was undermining her strength. Her grey eyes burned with an expression of fathomless grief. Her married life with the restless Grischka had left these traces behind....

Grischka had, however, for the last three years left his wife entirely alone. He came sometimes to N——, but never showed his face to his wife. "He had gone on the tramp," that was the expression Matrona used to describe the kind of life her husband led.

I had the opportunity later on of making his acquaintance. I came across him in one of the slum quarters of the town, and after we had met two or three times we became friends. He told me the story of his married life—the same story indeed that I had already heard from Matrona. After telling it he seemed lost for a time in reflection, and then added—

"Yes, Maxime Sawatjeitsch, that's how it all happened ... that's the way I seem to have been lifted up, and then cruelly dashed down again. I never managed to do anything heroic after all. But I still feel the intense desire to do something out of the common, something extraordinary. I should like to crush everything on earth to dust ... or gather together a band of boon companions, and destroy every Jew in the world—every single one! To do something that would raise me to a higher level than all the rest of mankind ... so that from my heights I could spit down on all of them. Something that would give me the right to say to them all, 'You reptiles, you! what are you living for? And how are you living? You are a set of hypocrites and rogues, and nothing else!' ... After that I should not mind falling head foremost from my heights, even if I got smashed to pieces on the ground!... Hm?.. yes!... Devil take it all!... How dull and flat life is! It has always seemed to me narrow and cramped! Once I had got the weight of Matrona off my shoulders I thought to myself, 'Now, Grischka, the anchor is up, you can sail away freely wherever you like!' But it all turned out different from what I thought it would; my boat got caught in the shallows, and here I am aground!... But, never fear, I shall get off some day, and shall yet make a name for myself ... My wife?... Oh, she is nothing to me now!... Let her goto the devil!... What does a man like me want with a wife?... How can I be tied to a wife when I feel as if I were constantly being attracted towards the four quarters of the earth?... I was born with the spirit of unrest in my heart ... and fate marked me out for a tramp, for a wanderer over the face of the earth.... It's the best life there is after all.... It's free, though it's not without its discomforts.... I have tramped all over the place, and never yet have found comfort for my soul.... I drink, you say.... Well, I sup pose that's true; but what else is there to do?... Vodka is the only thing that really soothes the soul; and there is an inextinguishable flame, which is burning up my soul.... Everything seems in opposition to me; the towns, the villages, people in every condition of life.... I am sick of it all! Would it not have been possible to have invented something better than all this?... Half the world seems to be preying on the other half.... There is nothing for it but to destroy them all! Ah! life, life, what an invention of the devil it is!"

The heavy door of the vodka-shop, where Orloff and I sat talking, swung backwards and forwards from time to time with a creaking, suggestive sound. As one glanced at the dark interior it appeared like the huge jaws of a giant, slowly but surely swallowing up, one after the other, these poor wretched Russian souls ... both the restless and the quiet alike....