The Man Who Was Afraid Part 16

"The river, if you like, is more beautiful than the Volga," uttered Foma, with an effort.

"I was on the Volga."

"Where?"

"In the city of Simbirsk."

"Simbirsk?" repeated Foma like an echo, feeling that he was again unable to say a word.

But she evidently understood with whom she had to deal, and she suddenly asked him in a bold whisper:

"Why don't you treat me to something?"

"Here!" Foma gave a start. "Indeed, how queer I am? Well, then, come up to the table."

He bustled about in the dark, pushed the table, took up one bottle, then another, and again returned them to their place, laughing guiltily and confusedly as he did so. She came up close to him and stood by his side, and, smiling, looked at his face and at his trembling hands.

"Are you bashful?" she suddenly whispered.

He felt her breath on his cheek and replied just as softly:

"Yes."

Then she placed her hands on his shoulders and quietly drew him to her breast, saying in a soothing whisper:

"Never mind, don't be bashful, my young, handsome darling. How I pity you!"

And he felt like crying because of her whisper, his heart was melting in sweet fatigue; pressing his head close to her breast, he clasped her with his hands, mumbling to her some inarticulate words, which were unknown to himself.

"Be gone!" said Foma in a heavy voice, staring at the wall with his eyes wide open.

Having kissed him on the cheek she walked out of the cabin, saying to him:

"Well, good-bye."

Foma felt intolerably ashamed in her presence; but no sooner did she disappear behind the door than he jumped up and seated himself on the lounge. Then he arose, staggering, and at once he was seized with the feeling of having lost something very valuable, something whose presence he did not seem to have noticed in himself until the moment it was lost.

But immediately a new, manly feeling of self-pride took possession of him. It drowned his shame, and, instead of the shame, pity for the woman sprang up within him--for the half-clad woman, who went out alone into the dark of the chilly May night. He hastily came out on the deck--it was a starlit, but moonless night; the coolness and the darkness embraced him. On the sh.o.r.e the golden-red pile of coals was still glimmering. Foma listened--an oppressive stillness filled the air, only the water was murmuring, breaking against the anchor chains. There was not a sound of footsteps to be heard. Foma now longed to call the woman, but he did not know her name. Eagerly inhaling the fresh air into his broad chest, he stood on deck for a few minutes. Suddenly, from beyond the roundhouse--from the prow--a moan reached his ears--a deep, loud moan, resembling a wail. He shuddered and went thither carefully, understanding that she was there.

She sat on the deck close to the side of the steamer, and, leaning her head against a heap of ropes, she wept. Foma saw that her bare white shoulders were trembling, he heard her pitiful moans, and began to feel depressed. Bending over her, he asked her timidly:

"What is it?"

She nodded her head and said nothing in reply.

"Have I offended you?"

"Go away," she said.

"But, how?" said Foma, alarmed and confused, touching her head with his hand. "Don't be angry. You came of your own free will."

"I am not angry!" she replied in a loud whisper. "Why should I be angry at you? You are not a seducer. You are a pure soul! Eh, my darling! Be seated here by my side."

And taking Foma by the hand, she made him sit down, like a child, in her lap, pressed his head close to her breast, and, bending over him, pressed her lips to his for a long time.

"What are you crying about?" asked Foma, caressing her cheek with one hand, while the other clasped the woman's neck.

"I am crying about myself. Why have you sent me away?" she asked plaintively.

"I began to feel ashamed of myself," said Foma, lowering his head.

"My darling! Tell me the truth--haven't you been pleased with me?" she asked with a smile, but her big, hot tears were still trickling down on Foma's breast.

"Why should you speak like this?" exclaimed the youth, almost frightened, and hotly began to mumble to her some words about her beauty, about her kindness, telling her how sorry he was for her and how bashful in her presence. And she listened and kept on kissing his cheeks, his neck, his head and his uncovered breast.

He became silent--then she began to speak--softly and mournfully as though speaking of the dead:

"And I thought it was something else. When you said, 'Be gone!' I got up and went away. And your words made me feel sad, very sad. There was a time, I remembered, when they caressed me and fondled me unceasingly, without growing tired; for a single kind smile they used to do for me anything I pleased. I recalled all this and began to cry! I felt sorry for my youth, for I am now thirty years old, the last days for a woman!

Eh, Foma Ignatyevich!" she exclaimed, lifting her voice louder, and reiterating the rhythm of her harmonious speech, whose accents rose and fell in unison with the melodious murmuring of the water.

"Listen to me--preserve your youth! There is nothing in the world better than that. There is nothing more precious than youth. With youth, as with gold, you can accomplish anything you please. Live so that you shall have in old age something to remind you of your youth. Here I recalled myself, and though I cried, yet my heart blazed up at the very recollection of my past life. And again I was young, as though I drank of the water of life! My sweet child I'll have a good time with you, if I please you, we'll enjoy ourselves as much as we can. Eh! I'll burn to ashes, now that I have blazed up!"

And pressing the youth close to herself, she greedily began to kiss him on the lips.

"Lo-o-ok o-u-u-u-t!" the watch on the barge wailed mournfully, and, cutting short the last syllable, began to strike his mallet against the cast-iron board.

The shrill, trembling sounds harshly broke the solemn quiet of the night.

A few days later, when the barges had discharged their cargo and the steamer was ready to leave for Perm, Yefim noticed, to his great sorrow, that a cart came up to the sh.o.r.e and that the dark-eyed Pelageya, with a trunk and with some bundles, was in it.

"Send a sailor to bring her things," ordered Foma, nodding his head toward the sh.o.r.e.

With a reproachful shake of his head, Yefim carried out the order angrily, and then asked in a lowered voice:

"So she, too, is coming with us?"

"She is going with me," Foma announced shortly.

"It is understood. Not with all of us. Oh, Lord!"

"Why are you sighing?"

"Yes. Foma Ignatyich! We are going to a big city. Are there not plenty of women of her kind?"

"Well, keep quiet!" said Foma, sternly.

"I will keep quiet, but this isn't right!"

"What?"