«Yes, our Sasha is a good man,» said Boris.
«Incomparable! You are all of you gold, both you and Grisha, and Sasha and Sonia. I torture, pester, disgrace, and spunge on you, yet in my whole life I have never heard a word of reproach, or seen a single sidelong look. If you had a decent father it would be different, but … You have never had anything from me but evil. I am a wicked, dissolute man…. Now, thank God, I have quieted down, and have no character left in me, but formerly, when you were little children, I had a character and no mistake. Whatever I said or did seemed to me gospel! I remember! I used to come back late from the club, drunk and irritated, and begin to abuse your poor mother about the household expenses. I would keep on at her all night, and imagine that she was in the wrong; in the morning you would get up and go to school, but all the time I would keep on showing her that I had a character. Heaven rest her soul, how I tortured the poor martyr! And when you came back from school and found me asleep you weren’t allowed your dinner until I got up. And after dinner the same music! Primps you remember. May God forbid that anyone else should be cursed with such a father! He sent you to me as a blessing. A blessing! Continue in this way, children, to the end. Honour thy father that thy days may be long in the land! For your goodness Heaven will reward you with long life! Cabman, stop!»
Musatov alighted and ran into a beerhouse. After a delay of half an hour he returned, grunted tipsily, and took his seat.
«And where is Sonia now?» he asked. «Still at the boarding-school?»
«No, she finished last May. She lives now with Sasha’s aunt.»
«What?» exclaimed the old man. «Left school? And a glorious girl, God bless her—went with her brothers. Akh, Borenka, no mother, no one to console her! Tell me, Borenka, does she know … does she know that I am alive? Eh?»
Boris did not answer. Five minutes passed in deep silence. The old man sobbed, wiped his face with a rag, and said:
«I love her, Borenka! She was the only daughter, and in old age there is no consolation like a daughter. If I could only see her for a moment. Tell me, Borenka, may I?»
«Of course, whenever you like.»
«And she won’t object?»
«Of course not; she herself went to look for you.»
«I swear to God! There is a nest of angels! Cabman, eh? Arrange it, Borenka, angel! Of course she is a young lady now, délicatesse … consommé, and all that sort of thing in the noble style. So I can’t see her in this get-up. But all this, Borenka, we can arrange. For three days I won’t taste a drop—that’ll bring my accursed drunken snout into shape. Then I will go to your place and put on a suit of your clothes, and get a shave and have my hair cut. Then you will drive over and take me with you? Is it agreed?»
«All right.»
«Cabman, stop!»
The old man jumped out of the carriage and ran into another beershop. Before they reached his lodgings he visited two more; and every time his son waited silently and patiently. When, having dismissed the cabman, they crossed the broad, muddy yard to the rooms of the «old woman,» Musatov looked contused and guilty, grunted timidly, and smacked his lips.
«Borenka,» he began, in an imploring voice, «if the old woman says anything of that kind to you—you understand—don’t pay any attention to her. And be polite to her. She is very ignorant and impertinent, but not a bad sort at bottom. She has a good, warm heart.»
They crossed the yard and entered a dark hall. The door squeaked, the kitchen smelt, the samovar smoked, and shrill voices were heard…. While they passed through the kitchen Boris noticed only the black smoke, a rope with washing spread out, and the chimney of a samovar, through the chinks of which burst golden sparks.
«This is my cell,» said Musatov, bowing his head, and showing his son into a little, low-ceilinged room, filled with atmosphere unbearable from proximity to the kitchen. At a table sat three women, helping one another to food. Seeing the guest, they looked at one another and stopped eating.
«Well, did you get it?» asked one, apparently «the old woman,» roughly.
«Got it, got it,» stammered the old man. «Now, Boris, do us the honour! Sit down! With us, brother—young man—everything is simple…. We live in a simple way.»
Musatov fussed about without any visible reason. He was ashamed before his son, and at the same time apparently wished to bear himself before the women as a man of importance and a forsaken, unhappy father.
«Yes, brother mine—young man—we live simply, without show-off,» he stammered. «We are plain folk, young man…. We are not like you … we do, not trouble to throw dust in other people’s eyes. No!… A drop of vodka, eh?»
One of the women, ashamed of drinking before a stranger, sighed and said:
«I must have another glass after these mushrooms. After mushrooms, whether you like it or not, you have to drink…. Ivan Gerasiuitch, ask him … perhaps he’ll have a drink.»
«Drink, young man!» said Musatov, without looking at his son. «Wines and liqueurs we don’t keep, brother, we live plainly.»
«I’m afraid our arrangements don’t suit him,» sighed the old woman.
«Leave him alone, leave him alone, he’ll drink all right.»
To avoid giving offence to his father, Boris took a glass, and drained it in silence. When the samovar was brought in he, silently and with a melancholy air—again to please his father—drank two cups of atrocious tea. And without a word he listened while the «old woman» lamented the fact that in this world you will sometimes find cruel and godless children who forsake their parents in their old age.
«I know what you are thinking,» said the drunken old man, falling into his customary state of excitement. «You are thinking that I have fallen in the world, that I have dirtied myself, that I am an object of pity! But in my mind this simple life is far more natural than yours, young man. I do not need for anything … and I have no intention of humiliating myself … I can stand a lot … but tolerance is at an end when a brat of a boy looks at me with pity.»
When he had drunk his tea, he cleaned a herring, and squeezed onion on it with such vigour that tears of emotion sprang into his eyes. He spoke again of the totalisator, of his winnings, and of a hat of Panama straw for which he had paid sixteen roubles the day before. He lied with the same appetite with which he had drunk and devoured the herring. His son sat silently for more than an hour, and then rose to take leave.
«I wouldn’t think of detaining you,» said Musatov stiffly. «I ask your pardon, young man, for not living in the way to which you are accustomed.»
He bristled up, sniffed with dignity, and winked to the women.
«Good-bye, young man!» he said, escorting his son into the hall. «Atande!»
But in the hall, where it was quite dark, he suddenly pressed his face to his son’s arm, and sobbed. «If I could only see Sóniushka!» he whispered. «Arrange it, Borenka, angel mine! I will have a shave, and put on one of your suits … and make a severe face. I won’t open my mouth while she’s present I won’t say a word. I swear to God!»
He glanced timidly at the door, from behind which came the shrill voices of the women, smothered his sobs, and said in a loud voice:
«Well, good-bye, young man! Atande!»
