One day after closing the shop Yevsey and his master went to the yard where they were met by an anxious ringing shout. It came from Anatol.
"I won't do it again, dear uncle, never!"
Yevsey started, and instinctively exclaimed in quiet triumph:
"Aha!"
It was pleasant to hear the shouts of fear and pain coming from the breast of the cheerful boy, who was everybody's favorite.
"May I stay here in the yard?" Yevsey asked the master.
"We must get our supper. But I'll stay here, too, and see how they punish a rascally good-for-nothing."
The people had gathered at the door of the brick shed behind the stairway. The sound of heavy blows and the wailing voice of Anatol issued from the shed.
"Little uncle, I didn't do it. Oh, God! I won't do it, I won't! Stop, for Christ's sake!"
"That's right! Give it to him!" said watchmaker Yakubov, lighting a cigarette.
The squint-eyed embroiderer Zina upheld the tall, yellow-faced watchmaker.
"Perhaps we shall have peace after this. You couldn't have a single quiet moment in the yard."
Raspopov turned to Yevsey, and said:
"They say he's a wonder at imitating people."
"Of course," rejoined the furrier's cook. "Such a little devil! He makes sport of everybody."
A dull scraping sound came from the shed, as if a sack filled with something soft were being dragged over the old boards of the floor. At the same time the people heard the panting, hoarse voice of Kuzin and Anatol's cries, which now grew feebler and less frequent.
"Forgive me! Oh! Help me – I won't do it again – Oh, God!"
His words became indistinct and flowed together into a thick choking groan. Yevsey trembled, remembering the pain of the beatings he used to receive. The talk of the onlookers stirred a confused feeling in him. It was fearful to stand among people who only the day before had willingly and gaily taken delight in the lively little fellow, and who now looked on with pleasure while he was being beaten. At this moment these half-sick people, surly and worn out with work, seemed more comprehensible to him. He believed that now none of them shammed, but were sincere in the curiosity with which they witnessed the torture of a human being. He felt a little sorry for Anatol, yet it was pleasant to hear his groans. The thought passed through his mind that now he would become quieter and more companionable.
Suddenly Nikolay the furrier appeared, a short black curly-headed man with long arms. As always daring and respecting nobody, he thrust the people aside, walked into the shed, and from there his coarse voice was heard crying out twice:
"Stop! Get away!"
Everybody suddenly moved back from the door. Kuzin bolted out of the shed, seated himself on the ground, clutched his head with both hands, and opening his eyes wide, bawled hoarsely:
"Police!"
"Let's get away from evil, Yevsey," said the master withdrawing to one side.
The boy retreated to a corner by the stairway, and stood there looking on.
Nikolay came out of the shed with the little trampled body of the glazier's boy hanging limply over his arm. The furrier laid him on the ground then he straightened himself and shouted:
"Water, women, you rotten carrion!"
Zina and the cook ran off for water.
Kuzin lolling his head back snorted dully.
"Murder! Police!"
Nikolay turned to him, and gave him a kick on the breast which laid him flat on his back.
"You dirty dogs!" he shouted, the whites of his black eyes flashing. "You dirty dogs! A child is being killed, and it's a show to you! I'll smash every one of your ugly mugs!"
Oaths from all sides answered him, but nobody dared to approach him.
"Let's go," said the master, taking Yevsey by the hand.
As they walked away they saw Kuzin run noiselessly in a stooping position to the gates.
"To call the police," the master explained to Yevsey.
When Yevsey was alone he felt that his jealousy of Anatol had left him. He strained his slow mind to explain to himself what he had seen. It merely seemed that the people liked Anatol, who amused them. In reality it was not so. All people enjoyed fighting, enjoyed looking on while others fought, enjoyed being cruel. Nikolay had interceded for Anatol because he liked to beat Kuzin, and actually did beat him on almost every holiday. Very bold and strong he could lick any man in the house. In his turn he was beaten by the police. So to sum up, whether you are quiet or daring, you'll be beaten and insulted all the same.
Several days passed. The tenants talking in the yard, said that the glazier boy, who had been taken to the hospital, had gone insane. Then Yevsey remembered how the boy's eyes had burned when he gave his performances, how vehement his gestures and motions had been, and how quickly the expression of his face had changed. He thought with dread that perhaps Anatol had always been insane. He soon forgot the glazier boy.
In the rainy nights of autumn short broken sounds came from the roof under Yevsey's window. They disquieted him and prevented him from sleeping. On one such night he heard the angry exclamations of his master:
"You vile woman!"
Rayisa Petrovna answered as always in a low singing voice:
"I cannot permit you, Matvey Matveyevich."
"You low creature! Look at the money I am paying you!"
The door to the master's room was open, and the voices came in clearly to Yevsey. The fine rain sang a tearful song outside the window. The wind crept over the roof, panting like a large homeless bird fatigued by the bad weather and softly flapping its wet wings against the panes. The boy sat up in bed, put his hands around his knees, and listened shivering.
"Give me back the twenty-five rubles, you thief!"
"I do not deny it. Dorimedont Lukin gave me the money."
"Aha! You see, you hussy!"
"No, permit me – when you asked me to spy on the man – "
"Hush! What are you screaming for?"
Now the door was closed, but even through the wall Yevsey could hear almost everything that was said.
"Remember, you vile woman, you, that you are in my hands," said the master, rapping his fingers on the table. "And if I notice that you've struck up relations with Dorimedont – "
The woman's voice was warm and flexible like the supple movements of a kitten, and it stole in softly, coiled around the old man's malicious words, wiping them from Yevsey's memory.
The woman must be right. Her composure and the master's entire relation to her convinced the boy that she was. Yevsey was now in his fifteenth year, and his inclination for this gentle and beautiful woman began to be marked by a pleasant sense of agitation. Since he met Rayisa very rarely and for only a minute at a time, he always looked into her face with a secret feeling of bashful joy. Her kindly way of speaking to him caused a grateful tumult in his breast, and drew him to her more and more powerfully.
While still in the village he had learned the hard truth of the relation between man and woman. The city bespattered this truth with mud, but it did not sully the boy himself. His being a timid nature, he did not dare to believe what was said about women, and such talk instead of exciting any feeling of temptation aroused painful aversion. Now, as he was sitting up in bed, Yevsey remembered Rayisa's amiable smile, her kind words; and carried away by the thought of them he had no time to lie down before the door to the master's room opened, and she stood before him, half dressed, with loose hair, her hand pressed to her breast. He grew frightened and faint. The woman wanted to open the door again to the old man's room and had already put out her hand, but suddenly smiling she withdrew it and shook a threatening finger at Yevsey. Then she walked into her room. Yevsey fell asleep with a smile.
In the morning as he was sweeping the kitchen floor he saw Rayisa at the door of her room. He straightened himself up before her with the broom in his hands.
"Good morning," she said. "Will you take coffee with me?"
Rejoiced and embarrassed, the boy replied:
"I haven't washed yet. One minute."
In a few minutes he was sitting at the table in her room, seeing nothing but the fair face with the dark brows, and the good, moist eyes with the smile in them.
"Do you like me?" she asked.
"Yes."
"Why?"
"You are good and beautiful."
He answered as in a dream. It was strange to hear her questions. Her eyes fixed upon him vanquished him. They must know everything that went on in his soul.
"And do you like Matvey Matveyevich?" Rayisa asked in a slow undertone.
"No," Yevsey answered simply.
"Is that so? He loves you. He told me so himself."
"No," rejoined the boy.
Rayisa raised her brows, moved a little nearer to him, and asked:
"Don't you believe me?"
"I believe you, but I don't believe my master, not a bit."
"Why? Why?" she asked in a quick whisper, moving still nearer to him. The warm gleam of her look penetrated the boy's heart, and stirred within him little thoughts never yet expressed to anybody. He quickly uttered them to this woman.
"I am afraid of him. I am afraid of everybody except you."
"Why are you afraid?"
"You know."
"What do I know?"
"You, too, are wronged, not by one master. I saw you cry. You were not crying then because you had been drinking. I understand. I understand much. Only I do not understand everything together. I see everything separately in its tiniest details, but side by side with them something different, not even resembling them. I understand this, too. But what is it all for? One thing is at variance with the other, and they do not go together. There is one kind of life and another besides."
"What are you talking about?" Rayisa asked in amazement.
"That's true."
For several moments they looked at each other in silence. The boy's heart beat quickly. His cheeks grew red with embarrassment.
"Well, now, go," said Rayisa quietly arising. "Go, or else he will ask you why you stayed away so long. Don't tell him you were with me. You won't, will you?"
Yevsey walked away filled with the tender sound of the singing voice, and warmed by the sympathetic look. The woman's words rang in his memory enveloping his heart in quiet joy.
That day was strangely long. Over the roofs of the houses and the Circle hung a grey cloud. The day, weary and dull, seemed to have become entangled in its grey mass, and, like the cloud, to have halted over the city. After dinner two customers entered the shop, one a stooping lean man with a pretty, grizzled mustache, the other a man with a red beard and spectacles. Both pottered about among the books long and minutely. The lean man kept whistling softly through his quivering mustache, while the red-bearded man spoke with the master.
Yevsey knew beforehand just what the master would say and how he would say it. The boy was bored. He was impatient for the evening to come, and he tried to relieve the tedium by listening to the words of the old man Raspopov, and verifying his conjectures while he arranged in a row the books the customers had selected.
"You are buying these books for a library?" the old man inquired affably.
"For the library of the Teachers' Association," replied the red-bearded man. "Why?"
"Now he'll praise them up," thought Yevsey, and he was not mistaken.
"You show extremely good judgment in your choice. It is pleasant to see a correct estimate of books."
"Pleasant?"
"Now he'll smile," thought Yevsey.
"Yes, indeed," said the old man, smiling graciously. "You get used to these books, so that you get to love them. You see they aren't dead wood, but products of the mind. So when a customer also respects books, it is pleasant. Our average customer is a comical fellow. He comes and asks, 'Have you any interesting books?' It's all the same to him. He seeks amusement, play, but no benefit. But occasionally someone will suddenly ask for a prohibited book."
"How's that? Prohibited?" asked the man screwing up his small eyes.
"Prohibited from libraries – published abroad, or secretly in Russia."
"Are such books for sale?"
"Now he will speak real low." Again Yevsey was not mistaken.
Fixing his glasses upon the face of the red-bearded man, the master lowered his voice almost to a whisper.
"Why not? Sometimes you buy a whole library, and you come across everything there, everything."
"Have you such books now?"
"Several."
"Let me see them, please."
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