The Spy

Two people darted from around the corner, laughing quietly. One of them jostled Yevsey, but immediately pulled off his hat, and exclaimed:

"Oh, I beg your pardon."

"Don't mention it," answered Klimkov affably.

Before Yevsey stood Grokhotov, cleanly shaven, looking as if he had been smeared with ointment. He beamed all over, and his small soft eyes frolicked, running from side to side.

"Well, Yevsey, I nearly got myself into a mess. If it hadn't been for my talent – are you acquainted? This is Panteleyev, one of our men." Grokhotov lost his breath, and spoke in a quick whisper, hurriedly wiping the sweat from his face. "You know I was walking along the Boulevard, when I saw a crowd, with an orator in the center. Well, I went up, and listened. He spoke so – you know – without any restraint at all. So I thought I'd ask who that wise fellow was. I inquired of the man standing next to me. 'His face is familiar to me,' says I. 'Do you know his name?' 'His name is Zimin.' The words were scarcely out of his mouth when two fellows grabbed hold of me under my arm. 'People, he's a spy!' I couldn't get in a word before I found myself in the middle of the crowd, and such a press around me – and everybody's eyes like awls. 'I'm done for,' thinks I."

"Zimin?" asked Yevsey, disturbed, looking back of him and beginning to walk more rapidly.

Grokhotov raised his head to the sky, crossed himself, and continued still more hurriedly.

"Well, the Lord inspired me with an idea. I recovered my presence of mind at once, and shouted out, 'People, it's a mistake, absolutely. I'm no spy, but a well-known mimic of celebrated personages and of animal sounds. Wouldn't you please give me a trial?' The men who had seized me shouted, 'No, he lies; we know him!' But I had already made a face like the Chief of Police, and called out in his voice, 'Who gave you per-r-r-mission to hold this meeting?' And Lord! I hear them laughing already. Well, then I began, I tell you, to imitate everything I know – the governor, the Archpresbyter Izverzhensky, a saw, a little pig, a fly. They roared with laughter. They roared so that the earth trembled under my feet, so help me God. Even the men holding me had to laugh – a curse on them! – and let me go. They began to clap and applaud. Upon my word, here is Pantaleyev, he can testify, he saw everything."

"True," said Pantaleyev in a hoarse voice. He was a dumpy person with eye-glasses, and wore a sleeveless jacket.

"Yes, brother, they applauded," exclaimed Grokhotov in ecstasy. "Now, of course, I know myself; an artist, that's me. No doubt of it now. I may say I owe my life to my art. What else? It's very simple. A crowd can't be taken in by a mere joke."

"The people have begun to be trusting," remarked Pantaleyev pensively and strangely. "Their hearts have greatly softened."

"That's true. See what they're doing, eh?" Grokhotov exclaimed quietly. Then he added in a whisper. "Everything is above-board now. Everywhere the persons under surveillance, our old acquaintances, are in the very first rank. What does it mean, eh?"

"Is the joiner's name Zimin?" Yevsey asked again.

"Matvey Zimin, case of propaganda work in the furniture factory of Knop," replied Pantaleyev with stern emphasis.

"He ought to be in prison," said Yevsey, dissatisfied.

Grokhotov whistled merrily.

"In prison? Don't you know they let everybody out of prison?"

"Who?"

"The people."

Yevsey walked a few steps in silence.

"Did they permit them?"

"Why, yes."

"Why did they do it?"

"That's what I say, too. They oughtn't to have permitted them," said Pantaleyev. His glasses moved on his broad nose. "What a situation! The authorities do not think about the people at all."

"Did they release everybody?" asked Klimkov.

"Everybody." Pantaleyev's hoarse voice was stern, his nostrils dilated. "And there have already been a number of unpleasant encounters. Chasin, for instance, had to threaten to shoot off his revolver, because he was hit in the eye. He was quietly standing off on one side, when suddenly a lady comes up, and cries out, 'Here's a spy!' Inasmuch as Chasin cannot imitate animals, he had to defend himself with a weapon; which isn't possible for everybody either. Not everybody carries a revolver about with him."

"It's been decided to give all of us revolvers."

"Even so no good will come of it. I know positively that a revolver begs of itself to be used. It sets your hand itching."

"Good-by," said Yevsey. "I'm going home."

He walked through small by-streets. When he saw people coming his way, he crossed to the other side, and tried to hide in the shade. The premonition rose and stubbornly grew that he would meet Yakov, Olga, or somebody else of that company.

"The city is large, there are many people," he comforted himself. Nevertheless each time he heard steps in front, his heart sank painfully, and his legs trembled, losing their strength.

"They let them go," he thought in dismal annoyance. "They didn't say anything, and let them go. And how about me? It isn't a matter of indifference to me where they are. Of course not!"

It was already dark. A solitary lamp was burning in front of the gates of the police station. Just as Yevsey approached it, he heard someone say in a muffled voice:

"Here, this way, then to the back courtyard."

Yevsey stopped, and peered in alarm into the darkness. The gates were closed, but a dark man stood at the wicket set in one of the heavy swinging doors, apparently awaiting him.

"Hurry!" The man commanded in a dissatisfied tone.

Klimkov stopped, crept through the wicket, and went along the dark vaulted corridor under the building to a light feebly flickering, in the depths of the court, where he heard the scraping of feet on the stone, subdued voices, and the familiar repulsive snuffling. Klimkov stopped, listened, turned quietly, and walked back to the gate, raising his shoulders, so as to conceal his face in the collar of his overcoat. He had already reached the wicket, and was about to push it, when it opened of itself, and a man darted through, stumbling and clutching at Yevsey.

"The devil! Who's that?"

"I."

"Who?"

"Yevsey Klimkov."

"Aha! Well, show me the way. Why are you standing there? Don't you recognize me?"

Yevsey looked at the hooked nose, the curls behind the ears, the protruding narrow forehead.

"I do. Viakhirev," he said with a sigh.

"Yes. Come on."

Klimkov returned in silence to the courtyard, where his eyes now distinguished many obscure figures looming in the darkness in uneven hillocks, slowly shifting from place to place, like large black fish in dark, cold water. The satiated voice of Solovyov resounded sweetishly:

"That doesn't suit me. But catch a girl for me, a little girl, a dainty little girl. I'll knout her for you."

"Always joking, the old devil," mumbled Viakhirev. "A fitting time for it."

"I can't give beatings, but I like to give lashings. I remember how I used to flog my nephew, gee!"

From a corner flowed the voice of Sasha, falling incessantly like water dripping from roofs on a rainy day, monotonous as the sound of chants recited in church.

"Every time you meet those fellows with red flags beat them. First beat the men carrying the flags, the rest will take to flight."

"And if they don't?"

"You will have revolvers. So that if you see people known to you by their participation in secret societies – those people upon whom you spied in your time – who were released from the prisons to-day by the insubordination of the unbridled mob – kill them outright!"

"That's reasonable," said somebody, whose voice resembled Pantaleyev's. "Either we, or they."

"Of course. How else?"

"The people have gotten their liberty, but what are we to do?" replied Viakhirev sharply.

Yevsey walked into a corner, where he leaned against a pile of wood, and looked and listened in perplexity.

"A body, a little body, a tiny, wee little calf, meat!" the senseless words of Solovyov spread out like a thick, oily spot.

Dark, heavy walls of unequal height surrounded the court sternly. Overhead slowly floated the clouds. On the walls gleamed the square windows, scattered and dim. Klimkov saw a low porch in one corner of the court, upon which Sasha was standing, his overcoat buttoned to the top, his collar raised, and a low cap thrust on the back of his head. Above him swung a small lamp, whose feeble flame trembled and smoked, as if endeavoring to consume itself as quickly as possible. Behind Sasha's back was the black stain of the door. A few dark people sat on the steps of the porch at his feet. One, a tall grey person, stood in the doorway.

"You must understand that you are given the liberty to make war upon the revolutionists," said Sasha, putting his hands behind his back.

The air hummed with the scraping of soles on the flagging, with dry metallic raps, and, at times, with subdued voices uttering exclamations and officious advice.

"Look out! Be more careful!"

"We're not allowed to load the revolvers."

The vaguely outlined figures in the dark strangely resembled one another – quiet black people scattered over the yard. They stood in compact groups, and listened to the viscid voice of Sasha, rocking and swinging on their feet, as if swayed by powerful puffs of wind. Sasha's talk drowned all sounds, filling Klimkov's breast with a dreary cold and acute hatred of the spy.

"You are given the right to proceed against the rebels in an open fight. Upon you lies the duty to defend the deceived Czar with all possible means. And know that generous rewards await you. Who has not yet received a revolver? Come up here."

Several muffled voices called out:

"I – me – I."

Some persons moved to the porch. Sasha stepped aside, and the grey man squatted down on his heels.

"Mayn't I have two?" asked a lugubrious voice.

"What for?"

"For a comrade."

"Go 'long!"

The voices of the spies whom Yevsey knew sounded louder, braver, and jollier than before.

"I'm not going to do any beating."

"We've heard that," the hoarse voice of Pantaleyev sounded rudely.

"Silence!"

Someone smacking his lips greedily, complained:

"I haven't enough cartridge. We ought to get a whole boxful."

"I set things going in two station-houses to-day," said Sasha. "I'm tired."

"It'll be interesting to-morrow."

"Well, yes."

The words and the sounds flashed up before Yevsey's mind like large sparks illuminating the morrow. They slowly dried up and consumed the hope of a placid life soon to come. He felt with his whole being that out of the darkness surrounding him, from these people about him, advanced a power inimical to his dreams and aims. This power would seize him again, would put him on the old road, would bring him back to the old terror. Hatred of Sasha seethed in his heart, the live, tenacious, yet pliant hatred of the weak, the implacable, sharp, revengeful feeling of a slave who has once been tortured by hope for liberty. He stood there thinking of nothing, in the quick realization that his hopes must inevitably die. He looked at Sasha half closing his eyes, and strained his ears to catch the spy's every word.

The men hurriedly departed from the yard in twos and threes, disappearing under the broad archway that yawned in the wall. The light over the head of the spy trembled, turned blue, and went out. Sasha seemed to jump from the porch into a pit, from which he snuffled angrily:

"To-day seven men of my division of the Safety Department did not show up. Why? Many seem to think it's a holiday. I won't tolerate stupidity. Nor laziness either. I want you to know it. I am now going to introduce strict regulations. I am not Filip Filippovich. Who said that Melnikov is going about with a red flag? Who?"

"I saw him."

"With a flag?"

"Yes. Marching and bawling 'Liberty!'"

"Is it you talking, Viakhirev?"

"Yes, I."

Now that the tall body of Sasha had disappeared and mingled with the dark mass of people at the platform, it seemed to Yevsey that he grew in size and spread over the court like a stifling cloud, which imperceptibly floated toward him in the darkness. Yevsey came out of his leaning posture, and walked toward the exit, stepping as on ice, as if fearing he would sink through a hole. But the adhesive voice of Sasha overtook him, pouring a painful cold on the back of his neck.

"Well, that fool will be the first to slash. I know him." Sasha laughed a thin howling laugh. "I have a slogan for him, 'Strike in behalf of the people.' And who said that Maklakov dropped the service?"

"He knows everything, the vile skunk," Yevsey said to himself with a calm that surprised him.

"I said it. I heard it from Viekov, and he got it from Klimkov."

"Viekov, Klimkov, Grokhotov – all trash. I'll step on the tails of all of them. Parasites, hybrids, lazy good-for-nothings. Is anyone of them here?"

"Klimkov must be here," answered Viakhirev.

Sasha shouted:

"Klimkov!"

Yevsey extended his arm before him, and walked faster. His legs bent under him. He heard Krasavin say:

"Gone, apparently. You ought not to shout family names."

"I beg you not to teach me. I'll soon destroy all family names and similar stupidities."

"It's you that I'm going to destroy," Yevsey made the mental threat, gnashing his teeth until they pained him.

But when he had left the gate behind him, he was seized by the debilitating consciousness of his impotence and nothingness. It was a long time since he had experienced these feelings with such crushing distinctness. He was frightened by their load, and succumbed to their pressure.

"Maybe it will still be warded off," he tried to embolden himself. "Maybe he won't succeed."

But Yevsey did not believe his own thoughts. Without a will of his own he regarded everybody else as equally devoid of will, and he knew that Sasha could easily compel all whom he wanted to compel to submit to his domination.