Creatures That Once Were Men

"We'll have a jolly good spree, my lad!" Chelkash cried ecstatically.

"Eh, we've enough to. Never fear, mate, I'll give you your share.

I'll give you forty, eh? Satisfied? If you like, I'll give it you now!"

"If – you don't mind. Well? I wouldn't say no!"

Gavrilo was trembling all over with suspense and some other acute feeling that dragged at his heart.

"Ha – ha – ha! Oh, you devil's doll! 'I'd not say no!'

Take it, mate, please! I beg you, indeed, take it!

I don't know what to do with such a lot of money!

You must help me out, take some, there!"

Chelkash held out some red notes to Gavrilo. He took them with a shaking hand, let go the oars, and began stuffing them away in his bosom, greedily screwing up his eyes and drawing in his breath noisily, as though he had drunk something hot. Chelkash watched him with an ironical smile. Gavrilo took up the oars again and rowed nervously, hurriedly, keeping his eyes down as though he were afraid of something. His shoulders and his ears were twitching.

"You're greedy. That's bad. But, of course, you're a peasant," Chelkash said musingly.

"But see what one can do with money!" cried Gavrilo, suddenly breaking into passionate excitement, and jerkily, hurriedly, as though chasing his thoughts and catching his words as they flew, he began to speak of life in the village with money and without money. Respect, plenty, independence gladness!

Chelkash heard him attentively, with a serious face and eyes filled with some dreamy thought. At times he smiled a smile of content. "Here we are!" Chelkash cried at last, interrupting Gavrilo.

A wave caught up the boat and neatly drove it onto the sand.

"Come, mate, now it's over. We must drag the boat up farther, so that it shouldn't get washed away. They'll come and fetch it.

Well, we must say good-bye! It's eight versts from here to the town.

What are you going to do? Coming back to the town, eh?"

Chelkash's face was radiant with a good-humoredly sly smile, and altogether he had the air of a man who had thought of something very pleasant for himself and a surprise to Gavrilo. Thrusting his hand into his pocket, he rustled the notes there.

"No – I – am not coming. I – " Gavrilo gasped, and seemed choking with something. Within him there was raging a whole storm of desires, of words, of feelings, that swallowed up one another and scorched him as with fire.

Chelkash looked at him in perplexity.

"What's the matter with you?" he asked.

"Why – " But Gavrilo's face flushed, then turned gray, and he moved irresolutely, as though he were half longing to throw himself on Chelkash, or half torn by some desire, the attainment of which was hard for him.

Chelkash felt ill at ease at the sight of such excitement in this lad.

He wondered what form it would take.

Gavrilo began laughing strangely, a laugh that was like a sob. His head was downcast, the expression of his face Chelkash could not see; Gavrilo's ears only were dimly visible, and they turned red and then pale.

"Well, damn you!" Chelkash waved his hand, "Have you fallen in love with me, or what? One might think you were a girl! Or is parting from me so upsetting? Hey, suckling! Tell me, what's wrong? or else I'm off!"

"You're going!" Gavrilo cried aloud.

The sandy waste of the shore seemed to start at his cry, and the yellow ridges of sand washed by the sea-waves seemed quivering. Chelkash started too. All at once Gavrilo tore himself from where he stood, flung himself at Chelkash's feet, threw his arms round them, and drew them toward him. Chelkash staggered; he sat heavily down on the sand, and grinding his teeth, brandished his long arm and clenched fist in the air. But before he had time to strike he was pulled up by Gavrilo's shame-faced and supplicating whisper:

"Friend! Give me – that money! Give it me, for Christ's sake! What is it to you? Why in one night – in only one night – while it would take me a year – Give it me – I will pray for you! Continually – in three churches – for the salvation of your soul! Why you'd cast it to the winds – while I'd put it into the land. O, give it me! Why, what does it mean to you? Did it cost you much? One night – and you're rich! Do a deed of mercy! You're a lost man, you see – you couldn't make your way – while I – oh, give it to me!"

Chelkash, dismayed, amazed, and wrathful, sat on the sand, thrown backward with his hands supporting him; he sat there in silence, rolling his eyes frightfully at the young peasant, who, ducking his head down at his knees, whispered his prayer to him in gasps. He shoved him away at last, jumped up to his feet, and thrusting his hands into his pockets, flung the rainbow notes at Gavrilo.

"There, cur! Swallow them!" he roared, shaking with excitement, with intense pity and hatred of this greedy slave. And as he flung him the money, he felt himself a hero. There was a reckless gleam in his eyes, an heroic air about his whole person.

"I'd meant to give you more, of myself. I felt sorry for you yesterday. I thought of the village. I thought: come, I'll help the lad. I was waiting to see what you'd do, whether you'd beg or not. While you! – Ah, you rag! you beggar! To be able to torment oneself so – for money! You fool. Greedy devils! They're beside themselves – sell themselves for five kopecks! eh?"

"Dear friend! Christ have mercy on you! Why, what have I now! thousands!! I'm a rich man!" Gavrilo shrilled in ecstasy, all trembling, as he stowed away the notes in his bosom. "Ah, you good man! Never will I forget you! Never! And my wife and my children – I'll bid them pray for you!"

Chelkash listened to his shrieks and wails of ecstasy, looked at his radiant face that was contorted by greedy joy, and felt that he, thief and rake as he was, cast out from everything in life, would never be so covetous, so base, would never so forget himself. Never would he be like that! And this thought and feeling, filling him with a sense of his own independence and reckless daring, kept him beside Gavrilo on the desolate sea shore.

"You've made me happy!" shrieked Gavrilo, and snatching Chelkash's hand, he pressed it to his face.

Chelkash did not speak; he grinned like a wolf.

Gavrilo still went on pouring out his heart:

"Do you know what I was thinking about? As we rowed here – I saw – the money – thinks I – I'll give it him – you – with the oar – one blow! the money's mine, and into the sea with him – you, that is – eh! Who'll miss him? said I. And if they do find him, they won't be inquisitive how – and who it was killed him. He's not a man, thinks I, that there'd be much fuss about! He's of no use in the world! Who'd stand up for him? No, indeed – eh?"

"Give the money here!" growled Chelkash, clutching Gavrilo by the throat.

Gavrilo struggled away once, twice. Chelkash's other arm twisted like a snake about him – there was the sound of a shirt tearing – and Gavrilo lay on the sand, with his eyes staring wildly, his fingers clutching at the air and his legs waving. Chelkash, erect, frigid, rapacious – looking, grinned maliciously, laughed a broken, biting laugh, and his mustaches twitched nervously in his sharp, angular face.

Never in all his life had he been so cruelly wounded, and never had he felt so vindictive.

"Well, are you happy now?" he asked Gavrilo through his laughter, and turning his back on him he walked away in the direction of the town. But he had hardly taken two steps when Gavrilo, crouched like a cat on one knee, and with a wide sweep of his arm, flung a round stone at him, viciously, shouting:

"O – one!"

Chelkash uttered a cry, clapped his hands to the nape of his neck, staggered forward, turned round to Gavrilo, and fell on his face on the sand. Gavrilo's heart failed him as he watched him. He saw him stir one leg, try to lift his head, and then stretch out, quivering like a bowstring. Then Gavrilo rushed fleeing away into the distance, where a shaggy black cloud hung over the foggy steppe, and it was dark. The waves whispered, racing up the sand, melting into it and racing back. The foam hissed and the spray floated in the air.

It began to rain, at first slightly, but soon a steady, heavy downpour was falling in streams from the sky, weaving a regular network of fine threads of water that at once hid the steppe and the sea. Gavrilo vanished behind it. For a long while nothing was to be seen but the rain and the long figure of the man stretched on the sand by the sea. But suddenly Gavrilo ran back out of the rain. Like a bird he flew up to Chelkash, dropped down beside him, and began to turn him over on the ground. His hand dipped into a warm, red stickiness. He shuddered and staggered back with a face pale and distraught.

"Brother, get up!" he whispered through the patter of the lain into Chelkash's ear.

Revived by the water on his face, Chelkash came to himself, and pushed Gavrilo away, saying hoarsely:

"Get – away!"

"Brother! Forgive me – it was the devil tempted me," Gavrilo whispered, faltering, as he kissed Chelkash's band.

"Go along. Get away!" he croaked.