injured no one and was quite harmless, for in forging the Colonel's signature Sasha had had no intention of causing anybody damage or loss.
'No, it doesn't mean that I am a criminal . . .' thought Sasha. 'And it's not in my character to bring myself to commit a crime. I am soft, emotional. . . . When I have the money I help the poor. . . .'
Sasha was musing after this fashion while they went on talking the other side of the door.
'But, my friends, this is endless,' the Colonel declared, getting excited. 'Suppose we were to forgive him and pay the money. You know he would not give up leading a dissipated life, squandering money, making debts, going to our tailors and ordering suits in our names! Can you guarantee that this will be his last prank? As far as I am concerned, I have no faith whatever in his reforming!'
The official of the Treasury muttered something in reply; after him Ivan Markovitch began talking blandly and suavely again. The Colonel moved his chair impatiently and drowned the other's words with his detestable metallic voice. At last the door opened and Ivan Markovitch came out of the study; there were patches of red on his lean shaven face.
'Come along,' he said, taking Sasha by the hand. 'Come and speak frankly from your heart. Without pride, my dear boy, humbly and from your heart.'
Sasha went into the study. The official of the Treasury was sitting down; the Colonel was standing before the table with one hand in his pocket and one knee on a chair. It was smoky and stifling in the study. Sasha did not look at the official or the Colonel; he felt suddenly ashamed and uncomfortable. He looked uneasily at Ivan Markovitch and muttered:
'I'll pay it . . . I'll give it back. . . .'
'What did you expect when you discounted the IOU?' he heard a metallic voice.
'I . . . Handrikov promised to lend me the money before now.'
Sasha could say no more. He went out of the study and sat down again on the chair near the door.
He would have been glad to go away altogether at once, but he was choking with hatred and he awfully wanted to remain, to tear the Colonel to pieces, to say something rude to him. He sat trying to think of something violent and effective to say to his hated uncle, and at that moment a woman's figure, shrouded in the twilight, appeared at the drawing-room door. It was the Colonel's wife. She beckoned Sasha to her, and, wringing her hands, said, weeping:
'
Sasha looked at her quivering shoulders, at the big tears that were rolling down her cheeks, heard behind his back the hollow, nervous voices of worried and exhausted people, and shrugged his shoulders. He had not in the least expected that his aristocratic relations would raise such a tempest over a paltry fifteen hundred roubles! He could not understand her tears nor the quiver of their voices.
An hour later he heard that the Colonel was getting the best of it; the uncles were finally inclining to let the case go for trial.
'The matter's settled,' said the Colonel, sighing. 'Enough.'
After this decision all the uncles, even the emphatic Colonel, became noticeably depressed. A silence followed.
'Merciful Heavens!' sighed Ivan Markovitch. 'My poor sister!'
And he began saying in a subdued voice that most likely his sister, Sasha's mother, was present unseen in the study at that moment. He felt in his soul how the unhappy, saintly woman was weeping, grieving, and begging for her boy. For the sake of her peace beyond the grave, they ought to spare Sasha.
The sound of a muffled sob was heard. Ivan Markovitch was weeping and muttering something which it was impossible to catch through the door. The Colonel got up and paced from corner to corner. The long conversation began over again.
But then the clock in the drawing-room struck two. The family council was over. To avoid seeing the person who had moved him to such wrath, the Colonel went from the study, not into the hall, but into the vestibule. . . . Ivan Markovitch came out into the hall. . . . He was agitated and rubbing his hands joyfully. His tear-stained eyes looked good-humoured and his mouth was twisted into a smile.
'Capital,' he said to Sasha. 'Thank God! You can go home, my dear, and sleep tranquilly. We have decided to pay the sum, but on condition that you repent and come with me tomorrow into the country and set to work.'
A minute later Ivan Markovitch and Sasha in their great-coats and caps were going down the stairs. The uncle was muttering something edifying. Sasha did not listen, but felt as though some uneasy weight were gradually slipping off his shoulders. They had forgiven him; he was free! A gust of joy sprang up within him and sent a sweet chill to his heart. He longed to breathe, to move swiftly, to live! Glancing at the street lamps and the black sky, he remembered that Von Burst was celebrating his name-day that evening at the 'Bear,' and again a rush of joy flooded his soul. . . .
'I am going!' he decided.
But then he remembered he had not a farthing, that the companions he was going to would despise him at once for his empty pockets. He must get hold of some money, come what may!
'Uncle, lend me a hundred roubles,' he said to Ivan Markovitch.
His uncle, surprised, looked into his face and backed against a lamp-post.
'Give it to me,' said Sasha, shifting impatiently from one foot to the other and beginning to pant. 'Uncle, I entreat you, give me a hundred roubles.'
His face worked; he trembled, and seemed on the point of attacking his uncle. . . .
'Won't you?' he kept asking, seeing that his uncle was still amazed and did not understand. 'Listen. If you don't, I'll give myself up tomorrow! I won't let you pay the IOU! I'll present another false note tomorrow!'
Petrified, muttering something incoherent in his horror, Ivan Markovitch took a hundred-rouble note out of his pocket-book and gave it to Sasha. The young man took it and walked rapidly away from him. . . .
Taking a sledge, Sasha grew calmer, and felt a rush of joy within him again. The 'rights of youth' of which kind-hearted Ivan Markovitch had spoken at the family council woke up and asserted themselves. Sasha pictured the drinking-party before him, and, among the bottles, the women, and his friends, the thought flashed through his mind:
'Now I see that I am a criminal; yes, I am a criminal.'
THE KISS
AT eight o'clock on the evening of the twentieth of May all the six batteries of the N—— Reserve Artillery Brigade halted for the night in the village of Myestetchki on their way to camp. When the general commotion was at its height, while some officers were busily occupied around the guns, while others, gathered together in the square near the church enclosure, were listening to the quartermasters, a man in civilian dress, riding a strange horse, came into sight round the church. The little dun-coloured horse with a good neck and a short tail came, moving not straight forward, but as it were sideways, with a sort of dance step, as though it were being lashed about the legs. When he reached the officers the man on the horse took off his hat and said:
'His Excellency Lieutenant-General von Rabbek invites the gentlemen to drink tea with him this minute. . . .'
The horse turned, danced, and retired sideways; the messenger raised his hat once more, and in an instant disappeared with his strange horse behind the church.
'What the devil does it mean?' grumbled some of the officers, dispersing to their quarters. 'One is sleepy, and here this Von Rabbek with his tea! We know what tea means.'
The officers of all the six batteries remembered vividly an incident of the previous year, when during manoeuvres they, together with the officers of a Cossack regiment, were in the same way invited to tea by a count who had an estate in the neighbourhood and was a retired army officer: the hospitable and genial count made much of them, fed them, and gave them drink, refused to let them go to their quarters in the village and made them stay the night. All that, of course, was very nice—nothing better could be desired, but the worst of it was, the old army officer was so carried away by the pleasure of the young men's company that till sunrise he was telling the officers
