Creatures That Once Were Men | Page 9

as fifteen roubles. These he gave to the Captain and said:
"It is enough. I am going back into the bosom of culture. Another week's hard work and I shall dress respectably, and then Addio, mio caro!"
"Very exemplary! As I heartily sympathize with your decision, Philip, I shall not give you another glass all this week," the Captain warned him sternly.
"I shall be thankful! . . . You will not give me one drop?"
The Captain beard in his voice a beseeching note to which he turned a deaf ear.
"Even though you roar, I shall not give it you!"
"As you like, then," sighed the teacher, and went away to continue his reporting.
But after a day or two he would return tired and thirsty, and would look at the Captain with a beseeching glance out of the corners of his eyes, hoping that his friend's heart would soften.
The Captain in such cases put on a serious face and began speaking with killing irony on the theme of weakness of character, of the animal delight of intoxication, and on such subjects as suited the occasion. One must do him justice: he was captivated by his role of mentor and moralist, but the lodgers dogged him, and, listening sceptically to his exhortations to repentance, would whisper aside to each other:
"Cunning, skilful, shifty rogue! I told you so, but you would not listen. It's your own fault!"
"His honor is really a good soldier. He goes first and examines the road behind him!"
The teacher then hunted here and there till he found his friend again in some corner, and grasping his dirty coat, trembling and licking his dry lips, looked into his face with a deep, tragic glance, without articulate words.
"Can't you?" asked the Captain sullenly.
The teacher answered by bowing his head and letting it fall on his breast, his tall, thin body trembling the while.
"Wait another day . . . perhaps you will be all right then," proposed Kuvalda. The teacher sighed, and shook his head hopelessly.
The Captain saw that his friend's thin body trembled with the thirst for the poison, and took some money from his pocket.
"In the majority of cases it is impossible to fight against fate," said he, as if trying to justify himself before someone.
But if the teacher controlled himself for a whole week, then there was a touching farewell scene between the two friends, which ended as a rule in the eating-house of Vaviloff. The teacher did not spend all his money, but spent at least half on the children of the main street. The poor are always rich in children, and in the dirt and ditches of this street there were groups of them from morning to night, hungry, naked and dirty. Children are the living flowers of the earth, but these had the appearance of flowers that have faded prematurely, because they grew in ground where there was no healthy nourishment. Often the teacher would gather them round him, would buy them bread, eggs, apples and nuts, and take them into the fields by the river side. There they would sit and greedily eat everything he offered them, after which they would begin to play, filling the fields for a mile around with careless noise and laughter. The tall, thin figure of the drunkard towered above these small people, who treated him familiarly, as if he were one of their own age. They called him "Philip," and did not trouble to prefix "Uncle" to his name. Playing around him, like little wild animals, they pushed him, jumped upon his back, beat him upon his bald head, and caught hold of his nose. All this must have pleased him, as he did not protest against such liberties. He spoke very little to them, and when he did so he did it cautiously as if afraid that his words would hurt or contaminate them. He passed many hours thus as their companion and plaything, watching their lively faces with his gloomy eyes.
Then he would thoughtfully and slowly direct his steps to the eating-house of Vaviloff, where he would drink silently and quickly till all his senses left him.
* * * * * * * * * *
Almost every day after his reporting he would bring a newspaper, and then gather round him all these creatures that once were men. On seeing him, they would come forward from all corners of the court-yard, drunk, or suffering from drunken headache, dishevelled, tattered, miserable, and pitiable. Then would come the barrel-like, stout Aleksei Maksimoviteh Simtsoff, formerly Inspector of Woods and Forests, under the Department of Appendages, but now trading in matches, ink, blacking, and lemons. He was an old man of sixty, in a canvas overcoat and a wide-brimmed hat, the greasy borders of which hid his stout, fat, red face. He had a