第89章 KALININ(10)

"' Ah!' I inwardly reflected. 'Soon, good gentlefolk, you will see how your jest has miscarried.'

"Aloud I replied--replied with complete boldness:

"'Do not fear, sir. I have taken the powder myself.'

Upon this the General and his wife, who were still in ignorance that the jest had gone amiss, began to titter, but the others said nothing, though Valentina Ignatievna's eyes grew rounder and rounder, until in an undertone she murmured:

"'Did you KNOW that the stuff was harmless?'

"'I did not,' I replied. 'At least, not at the moment of my drinking it.'

"Whereafter falling headlong to the floor, I lost consciousness."

Kalinin's small face had become painfully contracted, and grown old and haggard-looking. Rolling over on to his breast before the languishing fire, he waved a hand to dissipate the smoke which was lazily drifting slant-wise.

"For seventeen days did I remain stretched on a sick-bed, and was attended by the doctor in person. One day, when sitting by my side, he inquired:

"'I presume your intention was to poison yourself, you foolish fellow?'

"Yes, merely THAT was what he called me--a 'foolish fellow.' Yet indeed, what was I to him? Only an entity which might become food for dogs, for all he cared. Nor did Valentina Ignatievna herself pay me a single visit, and my eyes never again beheld her. Before long she and Dr. Kliachka were duly married, and departed to Kharkov, where he was assigned a post in the Tchuguerski Camp.

Thus only the General remained. Rough and ready, he was, nevertheless, old and sensible, and for that reason, did not matter; wherefore I retained my situation as before. On my recovery, he sent for me, and said in a tone of reproof:

"'Look here. You are not wholly an idiot. What has happened is that those vile books of yours have corrupted your mind' (as a matter of fact, I had never read a book in my life, since for reading I have no love or inclination). 'Hence you must have seen for yourself that only in tales do clowns marry princesses. You know, life is like a game of chess. Every piece has its proper move on the board, or the game could not be played at all.'"

Kalinin rubbed his hands over the fire (slender, non-workmanlike hands they were), and winked and smiled.

"I took the General's words very seriously, and proceeded to ask myself: 'To what do those words amount? To this: that though I may not care actually to take part in the game, I need not waste my whole existence through a disinclination to learn the best use to which that existence can be put.'

With a triumphant uplift of tone, Kalinin continued:

"So, brother, I set myself to WATCH the game in question; with the result that soon I discovered that the majority of men live surrounded with a host of superfluous commodities which do but burden them, and have in themselves no real value. What I refer to is books, pictures, china, and rubbish of the same sort.

Thought I to myself: 'Why should I devote my life to tending and dusting such commodities while risking, all the time, their breakage? No more of it for me! Was it for the tending of such articles that my mother bore me amid the agonies of childbirth?

Is it an existence of THIS kind that must be passed until the tomb be reached? No, no--a thousand times no! Rather will I, with your good leave, reject altogether the game of life, and subsist as may be best for me, and as may happen to be my pleasure.'"

Now, as Kalinin spoke, his eyes emitted green sparks, and as he waved his hands over the fire, as though to lop off the red tongues of flame, his fingers twisted convulsively.

"Of course, not all at a stroke did I arrive at this conclusion;

I did so but gradually. The person who finally confirmed me in my opinion was a friar of Baku, a sage of pre-eminent wisdom, through his saying to me: 'With nothing at all ought a man to fetter his soul. Neither with bond-service, nor with property, nor with womankind, nor with any other concession to the temptations of this world ought he to constrain its action.

Rather ought he to live alone, and to love none but Christ. Only this is true. Only this will be for ever lasting.'

"And," added Kalinin with animation and inflated cheeks and flushed, suppressed enthusiasm, "many lands and many peoples have I seen, and always have I found (particularly in Russia) that many folk already have reached an understanding of themselves, and, consequently, refused any longer to render obeisance to absurdities. 'Shun evil, and you will evolve good.'

That is what the friar said to me as a parting word--though long before our encounter had I grasped the meaning of the axiom. And that axiom I myself have since passed on to other folk, as I hope to do yet many times in the future."

At this point the speaker's tone reverted to one of querulous anxiety.

"Look how low the sun has sunk!" he exclaimed.

True enough, that luminary, large and round, was declining into--rather, towards--the sea, while suspended between him and the water were low, dark, white-topped cumuli.

"Soon nightfall will be overtaking us," continued Kalinin as he fumbled in his kaftan. "And in these parts jackals howl when darkness is come."

In particular did I notice three clouds that looked like Turks in white turbans and robes of a dusky red colour. And as these cloud Turks bent their heads together in private converse, suddenly there swelled up on the back of one of the figures a hump, while on the turban of a second there sprouted forth a pale pink feather which, becoming detached from its base, went floating upwards towards the zenith and the now rayless, despondent, moonlike sun. Lastly the third Turk stooped forward over the sea to screen his companions, and as he did so, developed a huge red nose which comically seemed to dip towards, and sniff at, the waters.

"Sometimes," continued Kalinin's even voice through the crackling and hissing of the wood fire, "a man who is old and blind may cobble a shoe better than cleverer men than he, can order their whole lives."