Creatures That Once Were Men

"You are a fool!" decided Aristid Kuvalda. "what are you knocking about here for? You are of absolutely no use to us.. Do you drink vodki?.. No?.. Well, then, can you steal?" Again, "No." "Go away, learn, and come back again when you know something, and are a man.."

The youngster smiled. "No. I shall live with you."

"Why?"

"Just because.."

"Oh, you.. Meteor!" said the Captain.

"I will break his teeth for him," said Martyanoff.

"And why?" asked the youngster.

"Just because.."

"And I will take a stone and hit you on the head," the young man answered respectfully.

Martyanoff would have broken his bones, had not Kuvalda interrupted with:

"Leave him alone..Is this a home to you or even to us?

You have no sufficient reason to break his teeth for him.

You have no better reason than he for living with us."

"Well, then, Devil take him!.. We all live in the world without sufficient reason.. We live, and why? Because! He also because.. let him alone.."

"But it is better for you, young man, to go away from us," the teacher advised him, looking him up and down with his sad eyes. He made no answer, but remained. And they soon became accustomed to his presence, and ceased to take any notice of him. But he lived among them, and observed everything.

The above were the chief members of the Captain's company, and he called them with kind-hearted sarcasm "Creatures that once were Men." For though there were men who had experienced as much of the bitter irony of fate as these men; yet they were not fallen so low.

Not infrequently, respectable men belonging to the cultured classes are inferior to those belonging to the peasantry, and it is always a fact that the depraved man from the city is immeasurably worse than the depraved man from the village. This fact was strikingly illustrated by the contrast between the formerly well-educated men and the mujiks who were living in Kuvalda's shelter.

The representative of the latter class was an old mujik called Tyapa. Tall and angular, he kept his head in such a position that his chin touched his breast. He was the Captain's first lodger, and it was said of him that he had a great deal of money hidden somewhere, and for its sake had nearly had his throat cut some two years ago: ever since then he carried his head thus. Over his eyes hung grayish eyebrows, and, looked at in profile, only his crooked nose was to be seen. His shadow reminded one of a poker. He denied that he had money, and said that they "only tried to cut his throat out of malice," and from that day he took to collecting rags, and that is why his head was always bent as if incessantly looking on the ground. When he went about shaking his head, and minus a walking-stick in his hand, and a bag on his back – the signs of his profession – he seemed to be thinking almost to madness, and, at such times, Kuvalda spoke thus, pointing to him with his finger:

"Look, there is the conscience of Merchant Judas Petunikoff.

See how disorderly, dirty, and low is the escaped conscience."

Tyapa, as a rule, spoke in a hoarse and hardly audible voice, and that is why he spoke very little, and loved to be alone. But whenever a stranger, compelled to leave the village, appeared in the dosshouse, Tyapa seemed sadder and angrier, and followed the unfortunate about with biting jeers and a wicked chuckling in his throat. He either put some beggar against him, or himself threatened to rob and beat him, till the frightened mujik would disappear from the dosshouse and never more be seen. Then Tyapa was quiet again, and would sit in some corner mending his rags, or else reading his Bible, which was as dirty, worn, and old as himself. Only when the teacher brought a newspaper and began reading did he come from his corner once more. As a rule, Tyapa listened to what was read silently and sighed often, without asking anything of anyone. But once when the teacher, having read the paper, wanted to put it away, Tyapa stretched out his bony hand, and said, "Give it to me.."

"What do you want it for?"

"Give it to me.. Perhaps there is something in it about us.."

"About whom?"

"About the village."

They laughed at him, and threw him the paper. He took it, and read in it how in the village the hail had destroyed the cornfields, how in another village fire destroyed thirty houses, and that in a third a woman had poisoned her family – in fact, everything that it is customary to write of – everything, that is to say, which is bad, and which depicts only the worst side of the unfortunate village.

Tyapa read all this silently and roared, perhaps from sympathy, perhaps from delight at the sad news.

He passed the whole Sunday in reading his Bible, and never went out collecting rags on that day. While reading, he groaned and sighed continually. He kept the book close to his breast, and was angry with any one who interrupted him or who touched his Bible.

"Oh, you drunken blackguard," said Kuvalda to him, "what do you understand of it?"

"Nothing, wizard! I don't understand anything, and I do not read any books.. But I read.."

"Therefore you are a fool." said the Captain, decidedly. "When there are insects in your head, you know it is uncomfortable, but if some thoughts enter there too, how will you live then, you old toad?"

"I have not long to live," said Tyapa, quietly.

Once the teacher asked how he had learned to read.

"In prison," answered Tyapa shortly.

"Have you been there?"

"I was there."

"For what?"

"Just so.. It was a mistake.. But I brought the Bible out with me from there. A lady gave it to me.. It is good in prison, brother."

"Is that so? And why?"

"It teaches one.. I learned to read there.. I also got this book.. And all these you see, free.."

When the teacher appeared in the dosshouse, Tyapa had already lived there for some time. He looked long into the teacher's face, as if to discover what kind of a man he was.

Tyapa often listened to his conversation, and once, sitting down beside him, said:

"I see you are very learned.. Have you read the Bible?"

"I have read it.."

"I see; I see.. Can you remember it?"

"Yes.. I remember it.."

Then the old man leaned to one side and gazed at the other with a serious, suspicious glance.

"There were the Amalekites, do you remember?"

"Well?"

"Where are they now?"