The Man Who Was Afraid | Page 5

the soul is but burning to
work, everything will be erected anew. Isn't it so?"
"Yes," said Mayakin, smiling. "These are strong words you say. And
whoever speaks that way, even though he loses all, will nevertheless be
rich."
Regarding losses of thousands of roubles so philosophically, Ignat
knew the value of every kopeika; he gave to the poor very seldom, and
only to those that were altogether unable to work. When a more or less
healthy man asked him for alms, Ignat would say, sternly:
"Get away! You can work yet. Go to my dvornik and help him to
remove the dung. I'll pay you for it."
Whenever he had been carried away by his work he regarded people
morosely and piteously, nor did he give himself rest while hunting for
roubles. And suddenly--it usually happened in spring, when everything
on earth became so bewitchingly beautiful and something reproachfully
wild was breathed down into the soul from the clear sky--Ignat
Gordyeeff would feel that he was not the master of his business, but its
low slave. He would lose himself in thought and, inquisitively looking
about himself from under his thick, knitted eyebrows, walk about for
days, angry and morose, as though silently asking something, which he
feared to ask aloud. They awakened his other soul, the turbulent and
lustful soul of a hungry beast. Insolent and cynical, he drank, led a
depraved life, and made drunkards of other people. He went into
ecstasy, and something like a volcano of filth boiled within him. It
looked as though he was madly tearing the chains which he himself had
forged and carried, and was not strong enough to tear them. Excited
and very dirty, his face swollen from drunkenness and sleeplessness,
his eyes wandering madly, and roaring in a hoarse voice, he tramped
about the town from one tavern to another, threw away money without

counting it, cried and danced to the sad tunes of the folk songs, or
fought, but found no rest anywhere--in anything.
It happened one day that a degraded priest, a short, stout little
bald-headed man in a torn cassock, chanced on Ignat, and stuck to him,
just as a piece of mud will stick to a shoe. An impersonal, deformed
and nasty creature, he played the part of a buffoon: they smeared his
bald head with mustard, made him go upon all- fours, drink mixtures of
different brandies and dance comical dances; he did all this in silence,
an idiotic smile on his wrinkled face, and having done what he was told
to do, he invariably said, outstretching his hand with his palm upward:
"Give me a rouble."
They laughed at him and sometimes gave him twenty kopeiks,
sometimes gave him nothing, but it sometimes happened that they
threw him a ten-rouble bill and even more.
"You abominable fellow," cried Ignat to him one day. "Say, who are
you?"
The priest was frightened by the call, and bowing low to Ignat, was
silent.
"Who? Speak!" roared Ignat.
"I am a man--to be abused," answered the priest, and the company burst
out laughing at his words.
"Are you a rascal?" asked Ignat, sternly.
"A rascal? Because of need and the weakness of my soul?"
"Come here!" Ignat called him. "Come and sit down by my side."
Trembling with fear, the priest walked up to the intoxicated merchant
with timid steps and remained standing opposite him.
"Sit down beside me!" said Ignat, taking the frightened priest by the

hand and seating him next to himself. "You are a very near man to me.
I am also a rascal! You, because of need; I, because of wantonness. I
am a rascal because of grief! Understand?"
"I understand," said the priest, softly. All the company were giggling.
"Do you know now what I am?"
"I do."
"Well, say, 'You are a rascal, Ignat!'"
The priest could not do it. He looked with terror at the huge figure of
Ignat and shook his head negatively. The company's laughter was now
like the rattling of thunder. Ignat could not make the priest abuse him.
Then he asked him:
"Shall I give you money?"
"Yes," quickly answered the priest.
"And what do you need it for?"
He did not care to answer. Then Ignat seized him by the collar, and
shook out of his dirty lips the following speech, which he spoke almost
in a whisper, trembling with fear:
"I have a daughter sixteen years old in the seminary. I save for her,
because when she comes out there won't be anything with which to
cover her nakedness."
"Ah," said Ignat, and let go the priest's collar. Then he sat for a long
time gloomy and lost in thought, and now and again stared at the priest.
Suddenly his eyes began to laugh, and