i have sad and ludicrous reasons for remembering the burdensomehumiliations, insults, and alarms which my swiftly developed passion forreading brought me.
the books of the tailor’s wife looked as if they were terribly expensive,and as i was afraid that the old mistress might burn them in the stove, i triednot to think of them, and began to buy small colored books from the shopwhere i bought bread in the mornings.
the shopkeeper was an ill-favored fellow with thick lips. he was given tosweating, had a white, wizen face covered with scrofulous scars and pimples,and his eyes were white. he had short, clumsy fingers on puffy hands. hisshop took the place of an evening club for grown-up people; also for thethoughtless young girls living in the street. my master’s brother used to gothere every evening to drink beer and play cards. i was often sent to call himto supper, and more than once i saw, in the small, stuffy room behind theshop, the capricious, rosy wife of the shopkeeper sitting on the knee ofvictorushka or some other young fellow. apparently this did not offend theshop-keeper ; nor was he offended when his sister, who helped him in theshop, warmly embraced the drunken men, or soldiers, or, in fact any onewho took her fancy. the business done at the shop was small. he explainedthis by the fact that it was a new business, al — though the shop had beenopen since the autumn. he showed obscene pictures to his guests andcustomers, allowing those who wished to copy the disgraceful verses beneaththem.
i read the foolish little books of mischa evstignev, paying so manycopecks for the loan of them. this was dear, and the books afforded me nopleasure at all. “guyak, or, the unconquerable truth,” “franzl, the venitian,”
“the battle of the russians with the kabardines,” or “the beautifulmahomedan girl, who died on the grave of her husband,” — all that kind ofliterature did not interest me either, and often aroused a bitter irritation. thebooks seemed to be laughing at me, as at a fool, when they told in dull wordssuch improbable stories.
“the marksmen,” “youri miloslavski,” “monks’ secrets,” “yapacha, thetatar freebooter,” and such books i like better. i was the richer for readingthem; but what i liked better than all was the lives of the saints. here wassomething serious in which i could believe, and which at times deeply stirredme. all the martyrs somehow reminded me of “good business,” and thefemale martyrs of grandmother, and the holy men of grandfather in his bestmoments.
i used to read in the shed when i went there to chop wood, or in the attic,which was equally uncomfortable and cold. sometimes, if a book interestedme or i had to read it quickly, i used to get up in the night and light thecandle; but the old mistress, noticing that my candle had grown smallerduring the night, began to measure the candles with a piece of wood, whichshe hid away somewhere. in the morning, if my candle was not as long as themeasure, or if i, having found the measure, had not broken it to the length ofthe burned candle, a wild cry arose from the kitchen. sometimes victorushkacalled out loudly from the loft :
“leave off that howling, mamasha! you make life unbearable. of coursehe burns the candles, because he reads books. he gets them from the shop. iknow. just look among his things in the attic.”
the old woman ran up to the attic, found a book, and burned it to ashes.
this made me very angry, as you may imagine, but my love of readingincreased. i understood that if a saint had entered that household, myemployers would have set to work to teach him, tried to set him to their owntune. they would have done this for something to do. if they had left offjudging people, scolding them, jeering at them, they would have forgottenhow to talk, would have been stricken with dumbness, and would not havebeen themselves at all. when a man is aware of himself, it must be throughhis relations with other people. my employers could not behave themselvestoward those about them otherwise than as teachers, always ready tocondemn; and if they had taught somebody to live exactly as they livedthemselves, to think and feel in the same way, even then they would havecondemned him for that very reason. they were that sort of people.
i continued to read on the sly. the old woman destroyed books severaltimes, and i suddenly found my — self in debt to the shopkeeper for theenormous amount of forty-seven copecks. he demanded the money, andthreatened to take it from my employers’ money when they sent me to makepurchases.
“what would happen then?” he asked jeeringly.
to me he was unbearably repulsive. apparently he felt this, and torturedme with various threats from which he derived a peculiar enjoyment. when iwent into the shop his pimply face broadened, and he would ask gently :
“have you brought your debt?”
“no.”
this startled him. he frowned.
“how is that? am i supposed to give you things out of charity? i shallhave to get it from you by sending you to the reformatory.”
i had no way of getting the money, my wages were paid to grandfather. ilost my presence of mind. what would happen to me? and in answer to myentreaty that he wait for settlement of the debt, the shopkeeper stretched outhis oily, puffy hand, like a bladder, and said:
“kiss my hand and i will wait.”
but when i seized a weight from the counter and brandished it at him, heducked and cried :
“what are you doing? what are you doing? i was only joking.”
knowing well that he was not joking, i resolved to steal the money to getrid of him. in the morning when i was brushing the master’s clothes, moneyjingled in his trousers’ pockets, and sometimes it fell out and rolled on thefloor. once some rolled into a crack in the boards under the staircase. iforgot to say anything about this, and remembered it only several daysafterward when i found two greven between the boards. when i gave it backto the master his wife said to him :
“there, you see! you ought to count your money when you leave it inyour pockets.”
but my master, smiling at me, said:
“he would not steal, i know.”
now, having made up my mind to steal, i remembered these words andhis trusting smile, and felt how hard it would be for me to rob him. severaltimes i took silver out of the pockets and counted it, but i could not take it.
for three days i tormented myself about this, and suddenly the whole affairsettled itself quickly and simply. the master asked me unexpectedly:
“what is the matter with you, pyeshkov? you have become dull lately.
aren’t you well, or what?”
i frankly told him all my troubles. he frowned.
“now you see what books lead to! from them, in some way or another,trouble always comes.”
he gave me half a ruble and admonished me sternly :
“now look here; don’t you go telling my wife or my mother, or there willbe a row.”
then he smiled kindly and said :
“you are very persevering, devil take you! never mind; it is a good thing.
anyhow, give up books. when the new year comes, i will order a goodpaper, and you can read that.”
and so in the evenings, from tea-time till supper-time, i read aloud tomy employers “the moscow gazette,” the novels of bashkov, rokshnin,rudinskovski, and other literature, for the nourishment of people whosuffered from deadly dullness.
i did not like reading aloud, for it hindered me from understanding whati read. but my employers listened attentively, with a sort of reverentialeagerness, sighing, amazed at the villainy of the heroes, and saying proudlyto one another :
“and we live so quietly, so peacefully; we know nothing of such things,thank god!”
they mixed up the incidents, ascribed the deeds of the famous brigandchurkin to the post-boy thoma kruchin, and mixed the names. when icorrected their mistakes they were surprised.
“what a memory he has!”
occasionally the poems of leonide grave appeared in “the moscowgazette.” i was delighted with them. i copied several of them into a notebook,but my employers said of the poet:
“he is an old man, you know; so he writes poetry.” “a drunkard or animbecile, it is all the same.”
i liked the poetry of strujkin, and the count memento mori, but both thewomen said the verses were clumsy.
“only the petrushki or actors talk in verse.”
it was a hard life for me on winter evenings, under the eyes of myemployers, in that close, small room. the dead night lay outside the window,now and again the ice cracked. the others sat at the table in silence, likefrozen fish. a snow-storm would rattle the windows and beat against thewalls, howl down the chimney, and shake the flue-plate. the children criedin the nursery. i wanted to sit by myself in a dark corner and howl like a wolf.
at one end of the table sat the women, knitting socks or sewing. at theother sat victorushka, stooping, copying plans unwillingly, and from time totime calling out :
“don’t shake the table! goats, dogs, mice!”
at the side, behind an enormous embroidery-frame, sat the master,sewing a tablecloth in cross-stitch. under his fingers appeared red lobsters,blue fish, yellow butterflies, and red autumn leaves. he had made the designhimself, and had sat at the work for three winters. he had grown very tiredof it, and often said to me in the daytime, when i had some spare time :
“come along, pyeshkov; sit down to the tablecloth and do some of it!”
i sat down, and began to work with the thick needle.
i was sorry for my master, and always did my best to help him. i had anidea that one day he would give up drawing plans, sewing, and playing atcards, and begin doing something quite different, something interesting,about which he often thought, throwing his work aside and gazing at it withfixed, amazed eyes, as at something unfamiliar to him. his hair fell over hisforehead and cheeks ; he looked like a laybrother in a monastery.
“what are you thinking of?” his wife would ask him.
“nothing in particular,” he would reply, returning to his work.
i listened in dumb amazement. fancy asking a man what he wasthinking of. it was a question which could not be answered. one’s thoughtswere always sudden and many, about all that passed before one’s eyes, ofwhat one saw yesterday or a year ago. it was all mixed up together, elusive,constantly moving and changing.
the serial in “the moscow gazette” was not enough to last the evening,and i went on to read the journals which were put away under the bed in thebedroom. the young mistress asked suspiciously:
“what do you find to read there? it is all pictures.”
but under the bed, besides the “painting review,” lay also “flames,” andso we read “count tyatin–baltiski,” by saliass. the master took a great fancyto the eccentric hero of the story, and laughed mercilessly, till the tears randown his cheeks, at the mel — ancholy adventures of the hero, crying:
“really, that is most amusing!”
“piffle!” said the mistress to show her independence of mind.
the literature under the bed did me a great service. through it, i hadobtained the right to read the papers in the kitchen, and thus made itpossible to read at night.
to my joy, the old woman went to sleep in the nursery for the nurse hada drunken fit. victorushka did not interfere with me. as soon as thehousehold was asleep, he dressed himself quietly, and disappearedsomewhere till morning. i was not allowed to have a light, for they took thecandles into the bedrooms, and i had no money to buy them for myself; so ibegan to collect the tallow from the candlesticks on the quiet, and put it in asardine tin, into which i also poured lamp oil, and, making a wick with somethread, was able to make a smoky light. this i put on the stove for the night.
when i turned the pages of the great volumes, the bright red tongue offlame quivered agitatedly, the wick was drowned in the burning, evil-smelling fat, and the smoke made my eyes smart. but all this unpleasantnesswas swallowed up in the enjoyment with which i looked at the illustrationsand read the description of them. these illustrations opened up be — fore mea world which increased daily in breadth — a world adorned with towns, justlike the towns of story-land. they showed me lofty hills and lovely sea —shores. life developed wonderfully for me. the earth became morefascinating, rich in people, abounding in towns and all kinds of things. nowwhen i gazed into the distance beyond the volga, i knew that it was not spacewhich lay beyond, but before that, when i had looked, it used to make me feeloddly miserable. the meadows lay flat, bushes grew in clumps, and wherethe meadows ended, rose the indented black wall of the forest. above themeadows it was dull, cold blue. the earth seemed an empty, solitary place.
and my heart also was empty. a gentle sorrow nipped it; all desires haddeparted, and i thought of nothing. all i wanted was to shut my eyes. thismelancholy emptiness promised me nothing, and sucked out of my heart allthat there was in it.
the description of the illustrations told me in language which i couldunderstand about other countries, other peoples. it spoke of variousincidents of the past and present, but there was a lot which i did notunderstand, and that worried me. sometimes strange words stuck in mybrain, like “metaphysics,” “chiliasm,” “chartist.” they were a source of greatanx — iety to me, and seemed to grow into monsters obstruct — ing myvision. i thought that i should never under — stand anything. i did notsucceed in finding out the meaning of those words. in fact, they stood likesentries on the threshold of all secret knowledge. often whole phrases stuckin my memory for a long time, like a splinter in my finger, and hindered mefrom thinking of anything else.
i remembered reading these strange verses:
“all clad in steel, through the unpeopled land, silent and gloomy as thegrave, rides the czar of the huns, attilla. behind him comes a black mass ofwarriors, crying, ‘where, then, is rome ; where is rome the mighty ? ”
that rome was a city, i knew; but who on earth were the huns? i simplyhad to find that out.
choosing a propitious moment, i asked my master.
“the huns?” he cried in amazement. “the devil knows who they are.
some trash, i expect.”
and shaking his head disapprovingly, he said:
“that head of yours is full of nonsense. that is very bad, pyeshkov.”
bad or good, i wanted to know.
i had an idea that the regimental chaplain. soloviev, ought to know whothe huns were, and when i caught him in the yard, i asked him. the pale,sickly, always disagreeable man, with red eyes, no eyebrows, and a yellowbeard, pushing his black staff into the earth, said to me :
“and what is that to do with you, eh?”
lieutenant nesterov answered my question by a ferocious :
“what-a-t?”
then i concluded that the right person to ask about the huns was thedispenser at the chemist’s. he always looked at me kindly. he had a cleverface, and gold glasses on his large nose.
“the huns,” said the dispenser, “were a nomad race, like the people ofkhirgiz. there are no more of these people now. they are all dead.”
i felt sad and vexed, not because the huns were dead, but because themeaning of the word that had worried me for so long was quite simple, andwas also of no use to me.
but i was grateful to the huns after my collision with the word ceased toworry me so much, and thanks to attilla, i made the acquaintance of thedispenser goldberg.
this man knew the literal meaning of all words of wisdom. he had thekeys to all knowledge. setting his glasses straight with two fingers, he lookedfixedly into my eyes and said, as if he were driving small nails into myforehead:
“words, my dear boy, are like leaves on a tree. if we want to find out whythe leaves take one form instead of another, we must learn how the treegrows. we must study books, my dear boy. men are like a good garden inwhich everything grows, both pleasant and profitable.”
i often had to run to the chemist’s for soda-water and magnesia for theadults of the family, who were continually suffering from heartburn, and forcastor-oil and purgatives for the children.
the short instructions which the dispenser gave me instilled into mymind a still deeper regard for books.
they gradually became as necessary to me as vodka to the drunkard.
they showed me a new life, a life of noble sentiments and strong desireswhich incite people to deeds of heroism and crimes. i saw that the peopleabout me were fitted for neither heroism nor crime. they lived apart fromeverything that i read about in books, and it was hard to imagine what theyfound interesting in their lives. i had no desire to live such a life. i was quitedecided on that point. i would not.
from the letterpress which accompanied the drawings i had learned thatin prague, london, and paris there are no open drains in the middle of thecity, or dirty gulleys choked with refuse. there were straight, broad streets,and different kinds of houses and churches. there they did not have a sixmonths-long winter, which shuts people up in their houses, and no greatfast, when only fermenting cabbage, pickled mushrooms, oatmeal, andpotatoes cooked in disgusting vegetable oil can be eaten. during the greatfast books are forbidden, and they took away the “review of painting” fromme, and that empty, meager life again closed about me. now that i couldcompare it with the life pictured in books, it seemed more wretched and uglythan ever. when i could read i felt well and strong; i worked well andquickly, and had an object in life. the sooner i was finished, the more time ishould have for reading. deprived of books, i became lazy, and drowsy, andbecame a victim to forgetfulness, to which i had been a stranger before.
i remember that even during those dull days something mysterioushappened. one evening when we had all gone to bed the bell of the cathedralsuddenly rang out, arousing every one in the house at once. half-dressedpeople rushed to the windows, asking one another :
“is it a fire? is that the alarm-bell?”
in the other flats one could hear the same bustle going on. doorsslammed; some one ran across the yard with a horse ready saddled. the oldmistress shrieked that the cathedral had been robbed, but the masterstopped her.
“not so loud, mamasha! can’t you hear that that is not an alarm-bell?”
“then the archbishop is dead.”
victorushka climbed down from the loft, dressed himself, and muttered :
“i know what has happened. i know!”
the master sent me to the attic to see if the sky was red. i ran upstairsand climbed to the roof through the dormer-window. there was no red lightin the sky. the bell tolled slowly in the quiet frosty air. the town lay sleepilyon the earth. in the darkness invisible people ran about, scrunching the snowunder their feet. sledges squealed, and the bell wailed ominously. i returnedto the sitting-room.
“there is no red light in the sky.”
“foo, you! good gracious!” said the master, who had on his greatcoatand cap. he pulled up his collar and began to put his feet into his goloshesunde — cidedly.
the mistress begged him:
“don’t go out! don’t go out!”
“rubbish!”
victorushka, who was also dressed, teased them all.
“i know what has happened.”
when the brothers went out into the street the women, having sent meto get the samovar ready, rushed to the window. but the master rang thestreet door-bell almost directly, ran up the steps silently, shut the door, andsaid thickly:
“the czar has been murdered!”
“how murdered?” exclaimed the old lady.
“he has been murdered. an officer told me so. what will happen now?”
victorushka rang, and as he unwillingly took off his coat said angrily:
“and i thought it was war!”
then they all sat down to drink tea, and talked together calmly, but inlow voices and cautiously. the streets were quiet now, the bells had given uptolling. for two days they whispered together mysteriously, and went to andfro. people also came to see them, and related some event in detail. i triedhard to understand what had happened, but they hid the news — papersfrom me. when i asked sidorov why they had killed the czar he answered,softly:
“it is forbidden to speak of it.”
but all this soon wore away. the old empty life was resumed, and i soonhad a very unpleasant experience.
on one of those sundays when the household had gone to early mass iset the samovar ready and turned my attention to tidying the rooms. while iwas so occupied the eldest child rushed into the kitchen, removed the tapfrom the samovar, and set himself under the table to play with it. there wasa lot of charcoal in the pipe of the samovar, and when the water had alltrickled away from it, it came unsoldered. while i was doing the otherrooms, i heard an unusual noise. going into the kitchen, i saw with horrorthat the samovar was all blue. it was shaking, as if it wanted to jump fromthe floor. the broken handle of the tap was drooping miserably, the lid wasall on one side, the pewter was melted and running away drop by drop. infact the purplish blue samovar looked as if it had drunken shivers. i pouredwater over it. it hissed, and sank sadly in ruins on the floor.
the front door-bell rang. i went to open the door. in answer to the oldlady’s question as to whether the samovar was ready, i replied briefly :
“yes; it is ready.”
these words, spoken, of course, in my confusion and terror, were takenfor insolence. my punishment was doubled. they half killed me. the old ladybeat me with a bunch of fir-twigs, which did not hurt much, but left underthe skin of my back a great many splinters, driven in deeply. before night myback was swollen like a pillow, and by noon the next day the master wasobliged to take me to the hospital.
when the doctor, comically tall and thin, examined me, he said in acalm, dull voice :
“this is a case of cruelty which will have to be investigated.”
my master blushed, shuffled his feet, and said something in a low voiceto the doctor, who looked over his head and said shortly:
“i can’t. it is impossible.”
then he asked me :
“do you want to make a complaint?”
i was in great pain, but i said :
“no, make haste and cure me.”
they took me into another room, laid me on a table, and the doctorpulled out the splinters with pleasantly cold pincers. he said, jestingly:
“they have decorated your skin beautifully, my friend; now you will bewaterproof.”
when he had finished his work of pricking me unmercifully, he said:
“forty-two splinters have been taken out, my friend. remember that. itis something to boast of! come back at the same time tomorrow to have thedressing replaced. do they often beat you?”
i thought for a moment, then said :
“not so often as they used to.”
the doctor burst into a hoarse laugh.
“it is all for the best, my friend, all for the best.”
when he took me back to my master he said to him:
“i hand him over to you; he is repaired. bring him back tomorrowwithout fail. i congratulate you. he is a comical fellow you have there.”
when we were in the cab my master said to me :
“they used to beat me too, pyeshkov. what do you think of that? theydid beat me, my lad! and you have me to pity you; but i had no one, no one.
people are very hard everywhere ; but one gets no pity — no, not from anyone. ekh! wild fowl!”
he grumbled all the way home. i was very sorry for him, and grateful tohim for treating me like a man.
they welcomed me at the house as if it had been my name-day. thewomen insisted on hearing in detail how the doctor had treated me and whathe had said. they listened and sighed, then kissed me tenderly, wrinklingtheir brows. this intense interest in illness, pain, and all kinds ofunpleasantness always amazed me.
i saw that they were pleased with me for not complaining of them, and itook advantage of the mo — ment to ask if i might have some books from thetail — or’s wife. they did not have the heart to refuse me. only the old ladycried in surprise:
“what a demon he is!”
the next day i stood before the tailor’s wife, who said to me kindly:
“they told me that you were ill, and that you had been taken to hospital.
you see what stories get about.”
i was silent. i was ashamed to tell her the truth. why should she know ofsuch sad and coarse things? it was nice to think that she was different fromother people.
once more i read the thick books of dumas pere, ponson de terraille,montepaine, zakonier, gaboriau, and bourgobier. i devoured all these booksquickly, one after the other, and i was happy. i felt myself to be part of a lifewhich was out of the ordinary, which stirred me sweetly and aroused mycourage. once more i burned my improvised candle, and read all through thenight till the morning, so that my eyes began to hurt me a little. the oldmistress said to me kindly :
“take care, bookworm. you will spoil your sight and grow blind!”
however, i soon realized that all these interestingly complicated books,despite the different incidents, and the various countries and town? aboutwhich they were written, had one common theme: good people madeunhappy and oppressed by bad people, the latter were always moresuccessful and clever than the good, but in the end something unexpectedalways overthrowing the wicked, and the good winning. the “love,” of whichboth men and women spoke in the same terms, bored me. in fact, it was notonly uninteresting to me, but it aroused a vague contempt.
sometimes from the very first chapters i began to wonder who wouldwin or who would be vanquished, and as soon as the course of the storybecame clear, i would set myself to unravel the skein of events by the aid ofmy own fancy. when i was not reading i was thinking of the books i had onhand, as one would think about the problems in an arithmetic. i becamemore skilful every day in guessing which of the characters would enter intothe paradise of happiness and which would be utterly confounded.
but through all this i saw the glimmer of living and, to me, significanttruths, the outlines of another life, other standards. it was clear to me that inparis the cabmen, working men, soldiers, and all “black people” 4 were not atall as they were in nijni, kazan, or perm. they dared to speak to gentlefolk,and behaved toward them more simply and independently than our people.
here, for example, was a soldier quite unlike any i had known, unlikesidorov, unlike the viatskian on the boat, and still more unlike ermokhin.
he was more human than any of these. he had something of smouri abouthim, but he was not so savage and coarse. here was a shopkeeper, but he wasmuch better than any of the shopkeepers i had known. and the priests inbooks were not like the priests i knew. they had more feeling, and seemed toenter more into the lives of their flocks. and in general it seemed to me thatlife abroad, as it appeared in books, was more interesting, easier, better thanthe life i knew. abroad, people did not behave so brutally. they never jeeredat other human creatures as cruelly as the viatskian soldier had been jeeredat, nor prayed to god as importunately as the old mistress did. what inoticed particularly was that, when villains, misers, and low characters weredepicted in books, they did not show that incomprehensible cruelty, thatinclination to jeer at humanity, with which i was ac — quainted, and whichwas often brought to my notice. there was method in the cruelty of thesebookish villains. one could almost always understand why they were cruel ;but the cruelty which i witnessed was aimless, senseless, an amusementfrom which no one ex — pected to gain any advantage.
4 the common people.
with every book that i read this dissimilarity between russian life andthat of other countries stood out more clearly, causing a perplexed feeling ofirritation within me, strengthening my suspicion of the veracity of the old,well-read pages with their dirty “dogs’-ears.”
and then there fell into my hands goncourt’s novel, “the brotherszemganno.” i read it through in one night, and, surprised at the newexperience, read the simple, pathetic story over again. there was nothingcomplicated about it, nothing interesting at first sight. in fact, the first pagesseemed dry, like the lives of the saints. its language, so precise and strippedof all adornment, was at first an unpleasant surprise to me; but the paucity ofwords, the strongly constructed phrases, went straight to the heart. it soaptly described the drama of the acrobat brothers that my hands trembledwith the enjoyment of reading the book. i wept bitterly as i read how theunfortunate artist, with his legs broken, crept up to the loft where his brotherwas secretly engaged in his favorite art.
when i returned this glorious book to the tailor’s wife i begged her togive me another one like it.
“how do you mean like that?” she asked, laughing.
this laugh confused me, and i could not explain what i wanted. then shesaid :
“that is a dull book. just wait! i will give you another more interesting.”
in the course of a day or two she gave me greenwood’s “the truehistory of a little waif.” the title of the book at first turned me agairietit,but the first pages called up a smile of joy, and still smiling, i read it frombeginning to end, rereading some of the pages two or three times.
so in other countries, also, boys lived hard and harassing lives! after all,i was not so badly off; i need not complain.
greenwood gave me a lot of courage, and soon after that i was given a“real” book, “eugenie grandet.”
old grandet reminded me vividly of grandfather. i was annoyed that thebook was so small, and surprised at the amount of truth it contained. truthswhich were familiar and boring to me in life were shown to me in a differentlight in this book, without malice and quite calmly. all the books which i hadread before greenwood’s, condemned people as severely and noisily as myemployers did, often arousing my sympathy for the villain and a feeling ofirritation with the good people. i was always sorry to see that despiteenormous expenditure of intelligence and will-power, a man still failed toobtain his desires. the good characters stood awaiting events from first tolast page, as immovable as stone pillars, and although all kinds of evil plotswere formed against these stone pillars, stones do not arouse sympathy. nomatter how beautiful and strong a wall may be, one does not love it if onewants to get the apple on the tree on the other side of it. it always seemed tome that all that was most worth having, and vigorous was hidden behind the“good” people.
in goncourt, greenwood, and balzac there were no villains, but justsimple people, wonderfully alive. one could not doubt that, whatever theywere alleged to have said and done, they really did say and do, and theycould not have said and done anything else.
in this fashion i learned to understand what a great treat a “good andproper” book can be. but how to find it? the tailor’s wife could not help mein this.
“here is a good book,” she said, laying before me arsene huissier’s“hands full of roses, gold, and blood.” she also gave me the novels of beyle,paul de kock and paul feval, and i read them all with relish. she liked thenovels of mariette and vernier, which to me appeared dull. i did not care forspielhagen, but i was much taken with the stories of auer — bach. sue andhuga, also, i did not like, preferring walter scott. i wanted books whichexcited me, and made me feel happy, like wonderful balzac.
i did not care for the porcelain woman as much as i had done at first.
when i went to see her, i put on a clean shirt, brushed my hair, and tried toappear good-looking. in this i was hardly successful. i always hoped that,seeing my good looks, she would speak to me in a simple and friendlymanner, without that fish-like smile on her frivolous face. but all she did wasto smile and ask me in her sweet, tired voice :
“have you read it? did you like it?”
“no.”
slightly raising her eyebrows, she looked at me, and, drawing in herbreath, spoke through her nose.
“but why?”
“i have read about all that before.”
“above what?”
“about love.”
her eyes twinkled, as she burst out into her honeyed laugh.
““ach, but you see all books are written about love!”
sitting in a big arm-chair, she swung her small feet, incased in furslippers, to and fro, yawned, wrapped her blue dressing-gown around her,and drummed with her pink fingers on the cover of the book on her knee. iwanted to say to her:
“why don’t you leave this flat? the officers write letters to you, and laughat you.”
but i had not the audacity to say this, and went away, bearing with me athick book on “love,” a sad sense of disenchantment in my heart.
they talked about this woman in the yard more evilly, derisively, andspitefully than ever. it offended me to hear these foul and, no doubt, lyingstories. when i was away from her, i pitied the woman, and suffered for her ;but when i was with her, and saw her small, sharp eyes, the cat-likeflexibility of her small body, and that always frivolous face, pity and feardisappeared, vanished like smoke.
in the spring she suddenly went away, and in a few days her husbandmoved to new quarters.
while the rooms stood empty, awaiting a new tenant, i went to look atthe bare walls, with their square patches where pictures had hung, bent nails,and wounds made by nails. strewn about the stained floor were pieces ofdifferent-colored cloth, balls of paper, broken boxes from the chemist, emptyscent-bottles. a large brass pin gleamed in one spot.
all at once i felt sad and wished that i could see the tailor’s little wifeonce more to tell her how grateful i was to her.