Knock, Knock, Knock and Other Stories Read online

  When her father was on friendly terms with mine, we used to see her

  continually. She would sit with us for hours at a time, either sewing,

  or spinning with her delicate, rapid, clever fingers. She was a

  well-made, rather thin girl, with intelligent brown eyes and a long,

  white, oval face. She talked little but sensibly in a soft, musical

  voice, barely opening her mouth and not showing her teeth. When she

  laughed--which happened rarely and never lasted long--they were all

  suddenly displayed, big and white as almonds. I remember her gait, too,

  light, elastic, with a little skip at each step. It always seemed to me

  that she was going down a flight of steps, even when she was walking on

  level ground. She held herself erect with her arms folded tightly over

  her bosom. And whatever she was doing, whatever she undertook, if she

  were only threading a needle or ironing a petticoat--the effect was

  always beautiful and somehow--you may not believe it--touching. Her

  Christian name was Raissa, but we used to call her Black-lip: she had

  on her upper lip a birthmark; a little dark-bluish spot, as though she

  had been eating blackberries; but that did not spoil her: on the

  contrary. She was just a year older than David. I cherished for her a

  feeling akin to respect, but we were not great friends. But between

  her and David a friendship had sprung up, a strange, unchildlike but

  good friendship. They somehow suited each other.

  Sometimes they did not exchange a word for hours together, but both

  felt that they were happy and happy because they were together. I had

  never met a girl like her, really. There was something attentive and

  resolute about her, something honest and mournful and charming. I

  never heard her say anything very intelligent, but I never heard her

  say anything commonplace, and I have never seen more intelligent eyes.

  After the rupture between her family and mine I saw her less

  frequently: my father sternly forbade my visiting the Latkins, and she

  did not appear in our house again. But I met her in the street, in

  church and Black-lip always aroused in me the same feeling--respect

  and even some wonder, rather than pity. She bore her misfortunes very

  well indeed. "The girl is flint," even coarse-witted, Trankvillitatin

  said about her once, but really she ought to have been pitied: her

  face acquired a careworn, exhausted expression, her eyes were hollow

  and sunken, a burden beyond her strength lay on her young shoulders.

  David saw her much oftener than I did; he used to go to their house.

  My father gave him up in despair: he knew that David would not obey

  him, anyway. And from time to time Raissa would appear at the hurdle

  fence of our garden which looked into a lane and there have an

  interview with David; she did not come for the sake of conversation,

  but told him of some new difficulty or trouble and asked his advice.

  The paralysis that had attacked Latkin was of a rather peculiar kind.

  His arms and legs had grown feeble, but he had not lost the use of

  them, and his brain indeed worked perfectly; but his speech was

  muddled and instead of one word he would pronounce another: one had to

  guess what it was he wanted to say.... "Tchoo--tchoo--tchoo," he

  would stammer with an effort--he began every sentence with

  "Tchoo--tchoo--tchoo, some scissors, some scissors," ... and the word

  scissors meant bread.... My father, he hated with all the strength left

  him--he attributed all his misfortunes to my father's curse and called

  him alternately the butcher and the diamond-merchant. "Tchoo, tchoo,

  don't you dare to go to the butcher's, Vassilyevna." This was what he

  called his daughter though his own name was Martinyan. Every day he

  became more exacting; his needs increased.... And how were those needs

  to be satisfied? Where could the money be found? Sorrow soon makes one

  old: but it was horrible to hear some words on the lips of a girl of

  seventeen.

  XIII

  I remember I happened to be present at a

  conversation with David over the fence, on the

  very day of her mother's death.

  "Mother died this morning at daybreak," she

  said, first looking round with her dark expressive eyes and then

  fixing them on the ground.

  "Cook undertook to get a coffin cheap but she's not to be trusted; she

  may spend the money on drink, even. You might come and look after her,

  Davidushka, she's afraid of you."

  "I will come," answered David. "I will see to it. And how's your

  father?"

  "He cries; he says: 'you must spoil me, too.' Spoil must mean bury.

  Now he has gone to sleep." Raissa suddenly gave a deep sigh. "Oh,

  Davidushka, Davidushka!" She passed her half-clenched fist over her

  forehead and her eyebrows, and the action was so bitter ... and as

  sincere and beautiful as all her actions.

  "You must take care of yourself, though," David observed; "you haven't

  slept at all, I expect.... And what's the use of crying? It doesn't

  help trouble."

  "I have no time for crying," answered Raissa.

  "That's a luxury for the rich, crying," observed David.

  Raissa was going, but she turned back.

  "The yellow shawl's being sold, you know; part of mother's dowry. They

  are giving us twelve roubles; I think that is not much."

  "It certainly is not much."

  "We shouldn't sell it," Raissa said after a brief pause, "but you see

  we must have money for the funeral."

  "Of course you must. Only you mustn't spend money at random. Those

  priests are awful! But I say, wait a minute. I'll come. Are you going?

  I'll be with you soon. Goodbye, darling."

  "Good-bye, Davidushka, darling."

  "Mind now, don't cry!"

  "As though I should cry! It's either cooking the dinner or crying. One

  or the other."

  "What! does she cook the dinner?" I said to David, as soon as Raissa

  was out of hearing, "does she do the cooking herself?"

  "Why, you heard that the cook has gone to buy a coffin."

  "She cooks the dinner," I thought, "and her hands are always so clean

  and her clothes so neat.... I should like to see her there at work in

  the kitchen.... She is an extraordinary girl!"

  I remember another conversation at the fence. That time Raissa brought

  with her her little deaf and dumb sister. She was a pretty child with

  immense, astonished-looking eyes and a perfect mass of dull, black

  hair on her little, head (Raissa's hair, too, was black and hers, too,

  was without lustre). Latkin had by then been struck down by paralysis.

  "I really don't know what to do," Raissa began. "The doctor has

  written a prescription. We must go to the chemist's; and our peasant

  (Latkin had still one serf) has brought us wood from the village and a

  goose. And the porter has taken it away, 'you are in debt to me,' he

  said."

  "Taken the goose?" asked David.

  "No, not the goose. He says it is an old one; it is no good for

  anything; he says that is why our peasant brought it us, but he is

  taking the wood."

  "But he has no right to," exclaimed David.
/>   "He has no right to, but he has taken it. I went up to the garret,

  there we have got a very, very old trunk. I began rummaging in it and

  what do you think I found? Look!"

  She took from under her kerchief a rather large field glass in a

  copper setting, covered with morocco, yellow with age. David, as a

  connoisseur of all sorts of instruments, seized upon it at once.

  "It's English," he pronounced, putting it first to one eye and then to

  the other. "A marine glass."

  "And the glasses are perfect," Raissa went on. "I showed it to father;

  he said, 'Take it and pawn it to the diamond-merchant'! What do you

  think, would they give us anything for it? What do we want a telescope

  for? To look at ourselves in the looking-glass and see what beauties

  we are? But we haven't a looking-glass, unluckily."

  And Raissa suddenly laughed aloud. Her sister, of course, could not

  hear her. But most likely she felt the shaking of her body: she clung

  to Raissa's hand and her little face worked with a look of terror as

  she raised her big eyes to her sister and burst into tears.

  "That's how she always is," said Raissa, "she

  doesn't like one to laugh.

  "Come, I won't, Lyubotchka, I won't," she added, nimbly squatting

  on her heels beside the child and passing her fingers through her hair.

  The laughter vanished from Raissa's face and her lips, the corners of

  which twisted upwards in a particularly charming way, became motionless

  again. The child was pacified. Raissa got up.

  "So you will do what you can, about the glass I mean, Davidushka.

  But I do regret the wood, and the goose, too, however old it may be."

  "They would certainly give you ten roubles," said David, turning the

  telescope in all directions. "I will buy it of you, what could be

  better? And here, meanwhile, are fifteen kopecks for the chemist's....

  Is that enough?"

  "I'll borrow that from you," whispered Raissa, taking the fifteen

  kopecks from him.

  "What next? Perhaps you would like to pay interest? But you see I

  have a pledge here, a very fine thing.... First-rate people, the English."

  "They say we are going to war with them."

  "No," answered David, "we are fighting the French now."

  "Well, you know best. Take care of it, then. Good-bye, friends."

  XIV

  Here is another conversation that took place beside the same fence.

  Raissa seemed more worried than usual.

  "Five kopecks for a cabbage, and a tiny little one, too," she said,

  propping her chin on her hand. "Isn't it dear? And I haven't had the

  money for my sewing yet."

  "Who owes it you?" asked David.

  "Why, the merchant's wife who lives beyond the rampart."

  "The fat woman who goes about in a green blouse?"

  "Yes, yes."

  "I say, she is fat! She can hardly breathe for fat. She positively

  steams in church, and doesn't pay her debts!"

  "She will pay, only when? And do you know, Davidushka, I have fresh

  troubles. Father has taken it into his head to tell me his dreams--you

  know he cannot say what he means: if he wants to say one word, it

  comes out another. About food or any everyday thing we have got used

  to it and understand; but it is not easy to understand the dreams even

  of healthy people, and with him, it's awful! 'I am very happy,' he

  says; 'I was walking about all among white birds to-day; and the Lord

  God gave me a nosegay and in the nosegay was Andryusha with a little

  knife,' he calls our Lyubotchka, Andryusha; 'now we shall both be

  quite well,' he says. 'We need only one stroke with the little knife,

  like this!' and he points to his throat. I don't understand him, but I

  say, 'All right, dear, all right,' but he gets angry and tries to

  explain what he means. He even bursts into tears."

  "But you should have said something to him," I put in; "you should

  have made up some lie."

  "I can't tell lies," answered Raissa, and even flung up her hands.

  And indeed she could not tell lies.

  "There is no need to tell lies," observed David, "but there is no need

  to kill yourself, either. No one will say thank you for it, you know."

  Raissa looked at him intently.

  "I wanted to ask you something, Davidushka; how ought I to spell

  'while'?"

  "What sort of 'while'?"

  "Why, for instance: I hope you will live a long while."

  "Spell: w-i-l-e."

  "No," I put in, "w-h-i-l-e."

  "Well, it does not matter. Spell it with an h, then! What does matter

  is, that you should live a long while."

  "I should like to write correctly," observed Raissa, and she flushed a

  little.

  When she flushed she was amazingly pretty at once.

  "It may be of use.... How father wrote in his day ... wonderfully! He

  taught me. Well, now he can hardly make out the letters."

  "You only live, that's all I want," David repeated, dropping his voice

  and not taking his eyes off her. Raissa glanced quickly at him and

  flushed still more.

  "You live and as for spelling, spell as you like.... Oh, the devil,

  the witch is coming!" (David called my aunt the witch.) "What ill-luck

  has brought her this way? You must go, darling."

  Raissa glanced at David once more and ran away.

  David talked to me of Raissa and her family very rarely and

  unwillingly, especially from the time when he began to expect his

  father's return. He thought of nothing but him and how we should live

  together afterwards. He had a vivid memory of him and used to describe

  him to me with particular pleasure.

  "He is big and strong; he can lift three hundred-weight with one

  hand.... When he shouted: 'Where's the lad?' he could be heard all

  over the house. He's so jolly and kind ... and a brave man! Nobody can

  intimidate him. We lived so happily together before we were ruined.

  They say he has gone quite grey, and in old days his hair was as red

  as mine. He was a strong man."

  David would never admit that we might remain in Ryazan.

  "You will go away," I observed, "but I shall stay."

  "Nonsense, we shall take you with us."

  "And how about my father?"

  "You will cast off your father. You will be ruined if you don't."

  "How so?"

  David made me no answer but merely knitted his white brows.

  "So when we go away with father," he began again, "he will get a good

  situation and I shall marry."

  "Well, that won't be just directly," I said.

  "No, why not? I shall marry soon."

  "You?"

  "Yes, I; why not?"

  "You haven't fixed on your wife, I suppose."

  "Of course, I have."

  "Who is she?"

  David laughed.

  "What a senseless fellow you are, really? Raissa, of course."

  "Raissa!" I repeated in amazement; "you are joking!"

  "I am not given to joking, and don't like it."

  "Why, she is a year older than you are."

  "What of it? but let's drop the subject."

  "Let me ask one question," I said. "Does she know that you mean to

  marry her?"

  "Most likely."

  "But haven't you declared your fee
lings?"

  "What is there to declare? When the time comes I shall tell her. Come,

  that's enough."

  David got up and went out of the room. When I was alone, I pondered ...

  and pondered ... and came to the conclusion that David would act

  like a sensible and practical man; and indeed I felt flattered at the

  thought of being the friend of such a practical man!

  And Raissa in her everlasting black woollen dress suddenly seemed to