第50章 CHAPTER VII(1)

ABOUT a week passed since Foma spoke to Medinskaya. And her image stood fixedly before Foma by night and by day, awakening in his heart a gnawing feeling of anxiety. He longed to go to her, and was so much afflicted over her that even his bones were aching from the desire of his heart to be near her again. But he was sternly silent; he frowned and did not care to yield to this desire, industriously occupying himself with his affairs and provoking in himself a feeling of anger against the woman. He felt that if he went up to her, he would no longer find her to be the same as he had left her; something must have changed within her after that conversation, and she would no longer receive him as cordially as before, would not smile at him the clear smile that used to awaken in him strange thoughts and hopes. Fearing that all this was lost and that something else must have taken its place, he restrained himself and suffered.

His work and his longing for the woman did not hinder him from thinking of life. He did not philosophize about this enigma, which was already stirring a feeling of alarm in his heart; he was not able to argue, but he began to listen attentively to everything that men said of life, and he tried to remember their words. They did not make anything clear to him; nay, they increased his perplexity and prompted him to regard them suspiciously. They were clever, cunning and sensible--he saw it; in dealings with them it was always necessary to be on one's guard; he knew already that in important matters none of them spoke as they thought. And watching them carefully, he felt that their sighs and their complaints of life awakened in him distrust. Silently he looked at everybody with suspicion, and a thin wrinkle masked his forehead.

One morning his godfather said to him on the Exchange:

"Anany has arrived. He would like to see you. Go up to him toward evening, and see that you hold your tongue. Anany will try to loosen it in order to make you talk on business matters. He is cunning, the old devil; he is a holy fox; he'll lift his eyes toward heaven, and meanwhile will put his paw into your pocket and grab your purse. Be on your guard.""Do we owe him anything?" asked Foma.

"Of course! We haven't paid yet for the barge, and then fifty five-fathom beams were taken from him not long ago. If he wants everything at once--don't give. A rouble is a sticky thing; the longer it turns about in your hand, the more copecks will stick to it. A rouble is like a good pigeon--it goes up in the air, you turn around and see--it has brought a whole flock with it into the pigeon-house.""But how can we help paying it now, if he demands it?""Let him cry and ask for it--and you roar--but don't give it to him."I'll go up there soon."

Anany Savvich Shchurov was a rich lumber-dealer, had a big saw-mill, built barges and ran rafts. He had had dealings with Ignat, and Foma had more than once seen this tall, heavily-bearded, long-armed, white-haired old man, who kept himself as erect as a pine-tree. His big, handsome figure, his open face and his clear eyes called forth in Foma a feeling of respect for Shchurov, although he heard it rumoured that this lumber-dealer had gained his wealth not by honest toil and that he was leading an evil life at home, in an obscure village of the forest district; and Ignat had told Foma that when Shchurov was young and was but a poor peasant, he sheltered a convict in the bath-house, in his garden, and that there the convict made counterfeit money for him. Since that time Anany began to grow rich. One day his bathhouse burned down, and in the ashes they discovered the corpse of a man with a fractured skull. There was a rumour in the village that Shchurov himself had killed his workman--killed and then burned him. Such things had happened more than once with the good-looking old man; but similar rumours were on foot with reference to many a rich man in town--they had all, it was said, hoarded up their millions by way of robberies, murders and, mainly, by passing counterfeit money. Foma had heard such stories in his childhood and he never before considered whether they were true or not.

He also knew that Shchurov had got rid of two wives--one of them died during the first night of the wedding, in Anany's embraces.

Then he took his son's wife away from him, and his son took to drink for grief and would have perished in drunkenness had he not come to himself in time and gone off to save himself in a hermitage, in Irgiz. And when his mistress-daughter-in-law had passed away, Shchurov took into his house a dumb beggar-girl, who was living with him to this day, and who had recently borne him a dead child. On his way to the hotel, where Anany stayed, Foma involuntarily recalled all this, and felt that Shchurov had become strangely interesting to him.

When Foma opened the door and stopped respectfully on the threshold of the small room, whose only window overlooked the rusty roof of the neighbouring house, he noticed that the old Shchurov had just risen from sleep, and sitting on his bed, leaning his hands against it, he stared at the ground; and he was so bent that his long, white beard fell over his knees. But even bent, he was large.

"Who entered?" asked Anany in a hoarse and angry voice, without lifting his head.

"I. How do you do, Anany Savvich?"

The old man raised his head slowly and, winking his large eyes, looked at Foma.

"Ignat's son, is that right?"

"The same."

"Well, come over here, sit down by the window. Let me see how you've grown up. Will you not have a glass of tea with me?""I wouldn't mind."

"Waiter!" cried the old man, expanding his chest, and, taking his beard in his hand, he began to examine Foma in silence. Foma also looked at him stealthily.