“What were we talking of last night?” asked Anna, a mulish look coming over her face. She added, “And then the red nine on the black ten.”
“Mamma, it isn’t fair. … I’m a man now. … Mamma, remember I am in my nineteenth year. … You don’t realize. … Look at the way I arranged things with the Chinese when papa was away … did I behave like a child then? And now, when it is simply a matter of a little business journey …”
“It is useless to go on talking like this, Seryozha. You and your father must have lost your wits, to have such an idea. Walking all alone to Seoul. What an idea! Why, you can’t even walk from here to Erh-tao-kou without getting into a fight with Chinese coolies. … And it isn’t age that makes any difference. Your father’s as big a fool as you are, and God knows he’s old enough to know better.”
“But, mamma, I have admitted that that was a folly—it was papa’s idea, and I protected him as far as I could. You said yourself at the time. … And look at those men we buried that day—soldiers—officers—and one of them looked younger than I am. Their mothers …” For a moment he thought enviously of the countless orphans of the revolution. Probably those dead soldiers had no mothers. “At any rate, that fight was, I admit, a stupid business—a whim of papa’s. This Seoul idea is a real business matter.”
“A pretty business matter,” said Anna, sweeping her cards violently together, making a sort of splash of cards. “A very pretty business matter—taking a three weeks’ holiday from your good regular work in order to wander off to ask an old rogue for some money your father lent him ten years ago. A likely thing, isn’t it? … And even if you got the money, how long do you think you would keep such a sum?—thieves along every road and in every inn, and rogues and harlots always on the lookout for young fools like you. What about that five yen I gave you last Christmas to buy a boiler, and you spent it all on a present for that little brothel-grub, Sonia?”
“I was young then,” said Seryozha, confused. “And in any case I give all the money I earn to you, so surely I have a right to spend five yen once in my life. However, I confess that I was mistaken in Sonia’s character. It was a long time ago …”
Where were all the telling phrases that had filed so orderly through his mind in the dark clearness of the night?
“Mamma, another thing is …” He stopped distractedly. He had forgotten the other thing—all the other things.
“Well?”
Seryozha stamped his foot with an oath. He thought of the rather dashing, mocking, grown-up attitude he habitually maintained toward his father and mother, in his own eyes—and even, to some extent, in theirs. He remembered, in a rather glorified form, his conversation with his father about the two hundred yen. “My good papa, to leave two hundred yen in the hands of a probably dishonest and certainly incompetent peasant! Was that businesslike?” … “Dear old man, do you mean rubles, dollars, or yen? I want to understand this matter thoroughly so that I can help you …” That was the proper tone—the usual tone. And now—“Oh, mamma—oh, please, mamma, let me go! … Really, mamma, do believe that I’m not a child any more. …” Poor Seryozha, he felt robbed of something that he violently resented losing—a king robbed of his crown and suddenly made a beggar. He began to despair. Never had the journey to Seoul seemed more necessary to his happiness than at that moment. Then suddenly, with a sort of artificial revulsion of feeling, he let it go. The only thing left, then, was not to want to go—to want not to go. Not only to cease pleading, but to be actually glad that he was not going on a hot, dusty journey among silly, whining, flapping Koreans. By ceasing to want to go he could get even with his mother, he could save his self-esteem. Even if his mother were to implore him to go now, he would refuse. “Too much trouble, mamma,” he rehearsed inwardly in a languid, superior, secret voice. “And nothing to show for it in the end. You and papa would waste the money on muddles and follies, even if I were to get it for you.”
He looked round with a cold, critical look, collecting evidence of his parents’ inferiority, in order to comfort himself. Anna had upset a saucepan full of greasy water in the corner near the stove, and, since the mud floor was slightly concave, a long dark snake of water stretched slowly toward the middle of the kitchen. There was no neatness anywhere. The edge of the window—now hanging open on limp homemade hinges—was tattered with the strips of paper that in winter had been pasted round the edges of the panes to keep out the cold. The wall was all mottled with damp patches; a great marbled shape of damp had been there for years, and, in Seryozha’s unconsciously ingenious eyes, represented a woman in a flying cloak reaching for a great flying rose. She had three arms, to be sure, but you can’t expect nature’s artistic byproducts to be so accurate as all that. …
Poor Seryozha bit his lips and sucked them in as he turned away to stare moodily down at his dog. The dog would have enjoyed the walk to Seoul; they would have been like two parts of the same Seryozha—one part walking proudly, the other part leaping, blowing in the wind, barking at larks, scratching at rat-holes, drinking puddles. … However, Seryozha thought, I wouldn’t go now if I were asked.
