in the world

Chapter 4

In a short space of time I have come a long way in the irrepressible mirth and mischievous desire that Bellengree aroused in me to utter harsh sarcasms to all.I also remember all his poems by heart, and when I stayed in the kitchen of the orderlies, I read them to them with satisfaction.

But I had to stop shortly thereafter because: 17-year-old girl who fits every hat.These two lines set off a disgusting conversation about the girls, and the insult drove me so mad that I hit Yermokhin on the head with a frying pan.Sidorov and the other orderlies snatched me from his stupid grasp, but since this time I have never dared to go into the officers' kitchen again.

They don't allow me to walk around the streets, but I don't have time to walk around, and the work is getting more and more.Now, in addition to the daily work of being a maid, a manservant and "running the streets", you have to nail the muslin to the wide wooden board, paste the design drawing on it, copy the master's construction calculation book, and review the contractor. account, because the master works like a machine all day long.

At that time, the public buildings in the market were privately owned by merchants.All the shops are busy remodeling.My master accepted many contractors for repairing old shops and building new ones; he also made many design drawings of "renovating Yuanchengchen, opening skylights on the roof" and so on.I took the plans and the envelope with the twenty-five ruble notes to the old architect.The architect received the money and wrote, "The design is correct according to the original drawing, and I will undertake the engineering supervision. So-and-so." But it goes without saying that he has not seen the original drawing, and the engineering supervision will not undertake it, because he is harming Ill, never go out.

Besides, I paid bribes to the market-keeper, and such-and-such others as I thought necessary, to obtain from them what my master called "a license to do all the crimes."From all this I have acquired the right to wait for my hosts on the porch in the evening when they are away as guests.It didn't happen often either, but sometimes they didn't come back until after midnight.So I sat for hours on the doorstep or on the opposite log pile, looking out the windows of my lady's house, and listening greedily to the lively conversation and music.

The windows were open, and what could be seen through the curtains and slits of shaded flowers were the handsome figures of the officers walking up and down the room, the shambling appearance of the dumpy major, the well-dressed Surprisingly simple yet beautiful lady moves lightly.

I silently call her Queen Margo in my heart.

I looked at the window and thought to myself: "The happy life described in French novels is probably like this." But when I saw the group of men surrounding Queen Margot, although I was still a child, I couldn't help feeling envy.I felt a little sad because those men surrounded her like wasps around a flower.

The least present of her guests was a tall, sullen officer with a knife-cut scar on his forehead and sunken eyes.He always comes with a violin and plays it very well.Because it was so well drawn, passers-by stopped under the window, and the log pile was also full of people from the street. When my masters were at home, they always opened the windows, listening and admiring looking at the musician.They are not approved of by anyone but the dean of the church.I know they prefer fish fritters to music after all.

Sometimes the officer sang and recited poems in a slightly hoarse voice.At that time, he would always put his palm on his forehead and pant strangely.One day, I was playing with the girls under the window. Queen Margot asked him to sing, but he refused for a long time, and then he said clearly: Only songs need beauty, but beauty doesn’t want songs. I love this sentence very much. Poetry, and for some reason, I sympathized with the officer.

Sometimes, my wife played the piano alone in the house, and I was very happy to see her.I was so intoxicated by the music that I ignored everything outside the window.Pingting's figure in the window, her proud profile, her white hands fluttering like birds on the keyboard, are shrouded in the dim light of the foreign lamp.

I looked at her, listened to the sad music, and was intoxicated in colorful dreams.

I want to go to a place to find treasures and give them all to her to make her a rich man.If I were Skobelev, I would wage another war with Turkey, collect reparations, build her a house in Ortkos, the best place in the city, and tell her to leave this street, leave this house, Everyone here speaks ill of her and makes dirty rumors.

Neighbors, the servants in our yard, especially my masters, are making vicious rumors about this Queen Margaux just like about the tailor's wife, but when talking about her, be more careful. Lower your voice, just look around first.

People were afraid of her, perhaps because she was the widow of a famous person, and the awards hanging in her room were all given to her husband's ancestors by the former Russian emperors such as Godunov, Alexei, and Peter the Great. That literate soldier Tyufyaev who always read a Gospel told me.Perhaps people were afraid that she would beat people with a whip with a lavender jewel embedded in the handle. It is said that a high-ranking official was beaten severely by this whip.

But whispering is no better than talking loudly.My wife lives in an atmosphere of hostility all around, but I don't understand the reason for this hostility, and I feel distressed.Victor said: One night when I came home in the middle of the night, I looked at the window of Queen Margot's bedroom and saw her sitting on the couch in her underwear, and the major knelt beside her, cutting her toenails and wiping them with a sponge.

The old woman cursed and spat in a mouthful of pooh.The young housewife blushed and screamed: "Ah, Victor, thanks to your cheekiness, you can tell. But those people's behavior is really disgusting."

The master didn't make a sound, just smiled.I was grateful for his silence, but still waited with apprehension that he would join in sympathetically in the yelling.The women screamed and kept asking Victor how the lady was sitting and the major was kneeling.As for Victor, he added a lot of new details.

"He was blushing, and his tongue was drawn out..."

I can't see anything to reproach the major for cutting the lady's nails; but it's unbelievable that he's dragging his tongue.I thought it must be a deliberate rumor, so I said to Victor: "If it's not good, why are you looking in the window? You're not a child..." Needless to say, I was scolded , but I don't mind the swearing at all.I just want to do one thing—I want to run downstairs at once, kneel before the lady like the major, and beg her: "Get out of this house as soon as possible."

Now that I knew of another life, and other people, and other feelings and thoughts, the house and all its inhabitants revolted me more and more.There is a dirty web of gossip in this house, and there is not a soul in it who has not been talked about with malice.For example, the pastor in the regiment headquarters was sick and pitiful, but people said he was a drunkard and a sex addict.And according to my masters, those officers and their wives have committed adultery.Those soldiers always talk about women in such a way, which is annoying.The most intolerable of these were my masters, whose favorite personal attacks I saw for what they were.The downside of finding someone else is the only entertainment that doesn't cost money. My masters only dragged the people around them to the scaffold of gossip because they were looking for this kind of entertainment.They only think that they are living a pious, hardworking, and lonely life, so they want to take revenge on everyone.

When they spoke foul language about Queen Margot, I felt a kind of emotional excitement that was not like a child, and my chest was full of hatred for such people who spoke behind the scenes. insult them.Sometimes there is a feeling of pity for oneself and pity for all others. This kind of silent pity is more painful than hatred.

I know more about the queen than they do, and I fear they will know what I know.

On holidays, when the masters went to church, I went to her early in the morning.She called me to her bedroom, and I sat on a small armchair wrapped in golden satin, with the girl lying on my lap, and I talked to the girl's mother about the books I had read.She lay on a large bed, her face resting on her small closed palms; her body was covered with the same golden quilt as everything else in the dormitory, and her black hair was braided over the brunette. His shoulders hung across her chest; sometimes, he dragged himself from the bed to the floor.

She listened to my words, looked at my face with gentle eyes, and said with a half-smile: "Ah, is it?"

Even her pleasing smile was to me only the broad smile of a queen.She spoke in a soft, low voice, and it seemed to me that she always meant this: "I know myself that I am more beautiful and pure than all men, and therefore I don't need any of them. "

Sometimes when I ran, she was sitting in front of the mirror in a low armchair, combing her hair, the tips of which fell over her knees and the back of the chair, where the back of the chair almost touched the floor.

Her hair is as long and thick as her grandmother's.I saw her dark, firm breasts in the mirror.She changed her underwear and socks in front of me, but her pure nudity did not cause me to feel ashamed, I was just proud and happy for her.Her body always exudes a fragrance, which is a kind of defense against other people's evil thoughts.

I am healthy, strong, and I am well aware of secrets between men and women, but because they are always told with a cruel, schadenfreude look, and in a nasty way, I cannot Imagine that this woman can be held in the arms of a man, it is hard to imagine that someone can become the possessor of her body, dare to touch her body boldly and shamelessly.I believe that Queen Margot will not understand the kind of love in the kitchen and utility room.She must have known a different kind of noble joy, a different kind of love.

But one day when it was getting dark, I ran into her parlor, and heard behind the curtains of the bedroom the loud laughter of my beloved queen and the voice of a man begging for something: "Wait a minute... . . . God. I don't believe..." I should have quit, I know that, but I can't... "Who?" she asked. "Is that you? Come in..." The scent of flowers in the bedroom makes people breathless, the light is very dim, and the curtains on the window have been lowered... Queen Margo is lying on the bed, with the quilt covering her head up to her chin .Beside her, sitting by the wall with only her underwear on and her chest bare, was the officer playing the violin.There was also a scar on his chest, a red line extending from the right shoulder to the nipple, so obvious that it could be seen very clearly in the dim light.The officer's hair was ridiculously disheveled.For the first time, I saw a slight smile on his sad, scarred face. It was a strange smile. His round, feminine eyes were staring at the queen, as if seeing her beauty for the first time.

"This is my friend," said Queen Margot, but it was not known whether she was speaking to me or to him.

"What surprised you so much?" Her voice came into my ears as if from afar: "Come, come here..." I walked up to her, and she stretched out her naked warmth. He put his hand around my neck and said, "If you grow up, you will be happy too...Okay, let's go."

I put one book on the shelf, took another and walked away, almost as if in a dream.

Something in my heart shattered.Needless to say, it never occurred to me for a minute that my queen was in love with other women, and this officer would not allow me to think so.I remember his smiling face very clearly—he smiled happily as if a baby had been startled suddenly, and his sad face was beautifully alive.He must love her, is it possible not to love her?She must have given him her love unsparingly, because he could play the violin so well and recite poems so sincerely. ... But I must console myself with these, for I know that in my attitude to what I have seen and to Queen Margot herself, not all is good and not all is right.I felt as if I had lost something and passed a few days in deep sorrow.

… One day I was very irritable and lost my temper blindly.Later, when I went to borrow books from my wife, she said sternly: "I heard that you are desperate to make trouble, I never thought you would be like this..." I couldn't bear it anymore, so I told her in detail how my life was. Boredom, and how it hurts to hear people speak ill of her.She stood in front of me, with one hand on my shoulder, and listened carefully to what I said at first, then laughed after a while, and pushed me lightly: "Enough is enough, I know all these words. You Do you understand? I know."

Then, he took my hands and said softly to me:

"The less you pay attention to such foul language, the better it will be for you... You see, your hands don't wash well..." I don't think she needs to say that, if she wants to wipe it like I do. The brass, the floors, and the baby's diapers, so her hands aren't much cleaner than mine.

"If a person knows how to live, others will hate him and envy him; if he can't live, people will look down on him," she said thoughtfully, pulling me to her side, hugging me, looking into my eyes with a smile and saying: "do you like me?"

"like."

"like very much?"

"Yes."

"How do you like it?"

"I do not know."

"Thank you, you are such a good boy. My lover likes me..." She smiled sweetly, as if she wanted to say something, but sighed, hugged me tightly, and remained silent for a long, long time.

"Come and have fun, as long as you can come, come..." I took advantage of the opportunity to go to her house and got a lot of good things from her.After lunch, my masters took a nap, and I ran down.If she is at home, stay with her for an hour or more.

"You should read some Russian books, and you should know your own life in Russia," she instructed me, moving her rose-coloured fingers deftly, and inserting hair pins into her fragrant hair.

So she listed the names of some Russian writers and asked me: "Do you remember?"

Often she would say, pensively and somewhat mournfully:

"You should study, study, but, I keep forgetting this, it's terrible..." After staying with her for a while, when I took a new book and walked upstairs, I felt as if I had taken a big bath with my whole body and mind .

I have read Aksakov's "Family Chronicle", the excellent collection of Russian poetry called "In the Woods", and the very famous "Hunter's Notebook", and also several volumes of Glebyonka, Sorogub's works and collections of poems by Venevidinov, Odoyevsky, Tyutchev.These books have washed my body and mind, and stripped me of the impression of poverty and hardship like a skin.I know what a good book is, and I feel my need for a good book.Because these books have made me grow a firm confidence in my heart: I am not alone on this earth, so I will never be cornered.

When my grandmother came, I was very happy to tell her about Queen Margot, and my grandmother sniffed the snuff with relish and said confidently: "Ah, ah, this is very good. There are good people everywhere, just look for them. will find it."

She once suggested:
"Maybe I'll meet her and thank her for you?"

"No, don't go..."

"Then don't go. . . . My God, how well it's all going. I'd like to live forever and ever."

Queen Margot was not able to help me in my studies—on the day of the Trinity, a very nasty thing happened that nearly ruined me.

A few days before the festival, my eyelids suddenly became terribly swollen, covering my eyes.The masters were very frightened, fearing that I might go blind, and I was frightened myself.They took me to Heinrich Rodzevic, the midwife, who slit the inside of my eyelid and bandaged it with gauze.My heart was full of painful and uncomfortable loneliness, and I lay down for several days.The gauze was removed on the night before Holy Trinity, and I got up from the bed, as if I had been buried alive in the tomb for several days and crawled out again.There is nothing more dreadful than blindness, an unspeakable sorrow which robs a man of nine-tenths of his world.

On the happy Holy Trinity Day, because of my illness, I was exempted from all obligations from noon, and went to the kitchens of various houses to look at the orderlies.All were drunk, except the serious Qiufieev.Towards evening, Yermokhin hit Sidorov on the head with a stick, and Sidorov passed out in the outer room.Yermokhin was terrified and fled into the basin.

Alarmed rumors immediately spread throughout the courtyard that Sidorov had been beaten to death.There was a crowd of people at the door, looking at the fallen soldier, who lay motionless with his head resting on the threshold from the kitchen to the outhouse.Someone whispered to call the police, but no one called, and no one dared to go to help the soldier.

At this moment the washerwoman Natalia Kozlovskaya came.In a new lilac dress, with a white kerchief thrown over her shoulders, she angrily pushed the people away, went into the outer room, crouched down, and cried out, "You're all fools. You're alive." Hurry up and get water..." People persuaded her: "Don't mind your own business." "I said, get water." She shouted as if she was on the burning ground, and then pulled her new clothes up to her knees On the bed, tugged at the inner skirt, and put the soldier's bloody head on his lap.

The people scattered timidly and disapprovingly.In this dark outbuilding, I saw the washerwoman's round, white face, with tears in her eyes showing anger.I brought a bucket of water, and she told me to splash it on Sidorov's head and chest, and said in advance: "Don't splash it on me. I'm going out to visit..." The soldier regained consciousness. , opened his dull eyes and moaned.

"Pick him up," said Natalia, putting her hands under his armpits, and stretching her arms far away so as not to stain his clothes.We carried the soldier into the kitchen and put him on the bed.She wiped his face with a wet cloth, and turned away; and then she said, "You've soaked your towel in water, and put it on his head, and I'll go to my bastard. These devils drink like this, sooner or later arrested and sent to hard labor."

She took off the soiled petticoat on the floor and threw it in a corner, carefully brushing the rustling and crumpled clothes.

Sidorov stretched himself out, choking and humming.Thick black blood dripped from his head drop by drop, and dripped onto my bare instep, which made me feel a little uncomfortable, but I was afraid and dared not pull my foot back from under the dripping blood.

This is really uncomfortable.There was a lively festival outside, the front porches and the gates of the yard were adorned with young boughs of poplars, and all the posts were fastened with boughs of freshly cut maples and hazels, and the whole street was full of joy. Everything looks young and fresh.From this morning I have felt that the spring festival has finally come and it will stay for a long time.From this day on, life will also become purer, brighter and happier.

The soldiers vomited, and the stench of hot vodka and shallots filled the kitchen.From time to time, large, blurred faces with flattened noses appeared on the glass windows, and the palms resting on the cheeks looked like two large ears, making the faces ugly.

Thinking back, the soldier murmured:
"What's the matter? Did I fall? How's Yermokhin? He's a good--good friend..." Then, coughing and weeping drunkenly, he wailed: "My sister ...Good sister..." He stood up, staggered, his wet body gave off a stench, he swayed and fell back on the bed, opened his eyes strangely and said: "It's completely killed..." I poof He laughed out loud.

"Which ghost is laughing?" He asked, looking at me blankly.

"Why are you still laughing? I was beaten to death forever..." He began to push me with both hands, still muttering: "The first day was the prophet Ilya, the second was Yegor on horseback, The third one is not allowed to come to me, go away, jackal..." I said, "Stop messing around."

He lost his temper for no reason, roared, and wiped his feet on the ground: "I was beaten to death by others, and you still want to..." As he said this, he put his powerless dirty hand to my eyes. Punched hard.I screamed, my eyes couldn't see anything, and I barely ran to the yard.It happened that Natalia came back, and she took Yermokhin's hand and shouted: "Go, stupid cow." She grabbed me with one hand and asked, "What's the matter with you?"

"He hit someone..."

"Beat? . . . " She drew out her voice in astonishment; then she held Yermokhin back and said to him: "Oh, devil. Thank God."

I washed my eyes with water, and looking at the door from the outer room, I saw the two soldiers hugging each other and crying, and they reconciled.Then the two went to hug Natalia again, and she slapped their hands and cried, "Pull your paws back, you sons of a bitch. I'm not your slut. While your master is away, Go to sleep, go to bed. Otherwise, you will suffer."

Like coaxing children, she made them lie down, one on the bed and one on the floor, and when they started snoring, she went into the outer room.

"I'm so dirty and dressed as a visitor. Which soldier beat you? . . . What a fool. Anyway, it's all bad wine. You don't drink, boy, you never will Drink..." After that, I sat with her on the bench by the gate.I asked her why she wasn't afraid of alcoholics.

"I'm not afraid even if I'm not drunk. If he dares to come over, I'll treat him to this." She raised her clenched red fist. "My dead husband was also a guy who liked to drink and make trouble. Every time he came back drunk, I tied his hands and feet. Seeing that he was about to wake up, I took off his pants and whipped him with a tree stick. I told him: Don't drink anymore, don't drink too much. Since you are married to a wife, your wife is your only joy; your joy is not wine. I beat him until my hands hurt. From now on, he will not dare to be stubborn like wax..." "You are amazing," I remembered Eve, who even deceived God.

Natalia took a breath and said:

"Women should be stronger than men; they should be twice as strong. God has wronged them. Men are the most half-hearted."

She stood up straight, folded her hands on her protruding chest, leaned her back against the wall, looked sadly at the messy embankment full of broken bricks and tiles, and spoke calmly and gently.

I was fascinated by her clever talk, and I completely forgot the time. Suddenly, at the end of the embankment, I saw the master and the housewife, arm in arm, walking slowly and grandly like a male and a hen, with mouths Talking about something, looking at us with eyes open.

I hurried to open the main door.The door opened, and the housewife said to me viciously as she went upstairs: "Flirting with the washerwoman? Did you learn it from the lady downstairs?"

This remark was so unreasonable that it didn't even irritate me; but what the master said made me very sad. He sneered and said, "It's no wonder, I'm getting old..." The next morning, I went to the next thing When I went to get firewood, I saw an empty wallet next to the cat hole under the door of the utility room.I have seen this purse many times in Sidorov's hands, and I immediately picked it up and gave it to him.

"Where's the money?" he asked, fumbling in his wallet with his fingers. "A ruble and thirty kopecks, take it out."

He wrapped his head with a towel, his face was yellow and thin, and he blinked his red and swollen eyes angrily. He couldn't believe that it was already empty when I picked it up.

At this time, Yermokhin came running, nodded to me, and told him to believe: "He stole it, take him to the master. A soldier does not steal from his brother." .”

These few words reminded me that he must be the one who stole the money.He stole the money and deliberately left the empty wallet in my utility room.Immediately I yelled at him in his face, "You lied, you stole the money."

I finally believed that my guess was correct—his stupid face showed panic and anger, he turned his body, and said in a low voice: "Where is the evidence?"

What can I use to prove it?Yermokhin yelled and pushed me into the yard.Sidorov followed behind, shouting something.Heads of various colors protrude from the many windows; Queen Margot's mother looks on leisurely, smoking a cigarette, and I think that this is bad luck in front of the lady, and I am crazy.

I remember that a few soldiers held my arm, and the master's family stood opposite. Everyone echoed each other sympathetically and listened to what the soldiers said.The housewife said confidently: "Needless to say, this must be what this child did. He sat by the door yesterday and flirted with the washerwoman. He must have money. That woman would never have money without money." Get started..." "That's right, that's right." Yeermokhin cried.

The ground cracked under my feet.I was so angry that I yelled at the housewife.So I was beaten hard.

It is not very painful to be knocked down. What is more painful than this is that I think what Queen Margo will think of me?How can I justify myself in front of her?During these abominable hours, my heart was very uncomfortable.

Fortunately, the soldiers spread the news all over the yard and even the whole street.I was lying in the attic at night when I heard Natalya Kozlovskaya calling from below.

"Why should I keep my mouth shut. No, baby, come out. I said, come on. Otherwise, I will go to your master, and he will force you..." I immediately felt that the noise had something to do with me of.She was standing by the door of our house, shouting louder and louder.

"How much money did you show me yesterday? Where did the money come from?... Tell me, tell me."

I was breathless with joy.Suddenly I heard Sidorov say in a dejected voice: "You, you, Yermokhin..." "It's a pity that you have to blame children and beat people with your bare tongue."

I really want to run out into the yard at once, and dance merrily; and kiss the washerwoman in thanks.Unexpectedly, at this time the housewife-probably yelled from the window: "You hit that little guy because he cursed; but no one said he stole money except you, a bitch."

"Madam, you're the lowly bitch yourself; I tell you, you're a cow."

I listened to this scolding, it was as good as music.My heart ached with tears of chagrin and gratitude for Natalia.I struggled to hold back the tears and held my breath.

After a while, my master came slowly up the stairs to the attic.He sat on the joint of the beam beside me, ran his hands through his hair, and said: "Hey, brother Pishkov, are you out of luck?"

I silently turned my face away.

"It's just that you scolded too much."

he went on.At this time, I whispered to him:

"When the injury recovers, I will leave you..."

He sat silently, smoking a cigarette.With his eyes fixed on the cigarette butt, he said in a low voice: "It's up to you. You are not a child anymore; think about it for yourself, what should I do to you..." He left.As usual, I felt sorry for him again.

By the fourth day, I left the owner's house.I should like to say good-bye to Queen Margot, but I have not the courage to go to her, and I must admit that I am waiting for her to call me herself.

When I parted from the little girl, I asked her:
"You tell your mother that my brother is very grateful to her, can you tell her for me?"

"I said I said." She smiled softly and lovingly, and agreed to my request. "See you tomorrow, will you?"

After about 20 years I met her again and she was married to a gendarmerie officer

(End of this chapter)