# All Sorts/Thirst

Tthat night Katya and Michel Goubine danced together and the dust flew under their feet. The habitués of the inn stood in a wide circle about them and clapped their hands. The sight of the two handsome young people so passionately self-absorbed heated their blood with a false intoxication. They reeled about the room, shouting and laughing and stamping. But their drunkenness had no heart to it. Beneath the noise and fever there was a brooding despair, a black, wordless anger.

### II
#### THIRST

I
When he came in the first thing he saw was the little red lamp and the dim face of the ikon looking at him over the flame. Whether it was night or day, the saint's expression never changed, because it was always night in Michel Goubine's hut, and the shadows were like the shadows in a painted picture—hard and definite and unmoving. Michel did not even know the saint's name. He had bought the ikon off a pedlar, who could only tell him that it was a very wonderful and holy picture, worth far more than the fifty kopecks which he asked for it. But, however tired or cold or drunk Michel Goubine might be on his return, he would invariably take off his fur cap and stand for a moment with bowed head as though in prayer. He did not really pray. He had nothing to pray for. It did not occur to him that things could be different. God had arranged life as it was, and Michel had perfect confidence in God and in God's servants—the Tsar, and even the police who carried out God's commandments. So that everything was quite simple.
Old Anna, Michel's mother lived with him. She seemed as unchanging as the ikon and the shadows. She was always in her place when he returned, huddled up close to the stove, and making smooth, rapid movements with her fingers. In other days she had been a lace-maker, but now she was quite blind and bent almost double in the effort to see what her agile fingers were doing. But she could light the stove and make cabbage soup as well as anyone, and when she moved about it was as though the walls and the two chairs and the table were warm living things whose nearness she could feel. When she went to throw refuse out into the courtyard she would linger for a moment, sniffing the air, or sunning herself like a lean old cat. But she never went beyond the threshold.
Michel Goubine loved his mother. He did not beat her even on Monday morning when the jolly glow of Sunday night's carouse had burnt itself out, and he woke up cold and stiff and wretched, to find her still asleep on her bed of rags. He would light the stove himself and wait patiently till the warmth thawed her out of her stupor. When there was not enough to eat for both of them he would make a great noise, fishing greedily from their common bowl, and smacking his lips over his empty spoon. And he would chuckle silently to himself to see how easily he deceived her.
"Oh, but that was good, little mother!" he would say in a thick, satisfied voice, "that was good!"
Sometimes, when he had had luck, he brought her presents, a holy candle that had been blessed in Jerusalem, or a hair from a saint's beard, or a lump of earth that a pilgrim had carried all the way from Calvary itself. And her joy over these treasures kept him warm and laughing through the bitterest days.
But more even than his mother Michel loved Fydora. Fydora lived in the next room, and there was nothing between them but a half-door over which she would put her head to watch him. In the morning, however dark it was, he could feel her warm, soft eyes follow him as he stamped about over the mud floor, and he would go up to her and kiss her on her velvety quivering nose.
"Good morning, little sister!"
Fydora was old—much older in her way than Michel's mother—and very ugly. In all Moscow there was not a more raw-boned, ungainly animal. But Michel loved her and between them there was the deepest understanding. Fydora knew what life was. She knew what it meant to stand outside the Assembly House of Nobles through half a glacial winter's night waiting to carry a riotous party homewards—or to some place of ill-fame in the Grabshewka Street, where, again, they would wait together, silent and motionless as statues under their pall of snow. She knew why Michel drank off four glasses of vodka on end at the public-house by the river side, and she would bring him home, singing and shouting on his box, with a sure comradely solicitude. She knew, too, that it was of no use to go lame or sick. It was of no use to hang one's head. People didn't care to drive behind a dreary, decrepit-looking horse. So when the snow lay thick on the uneven Moscow streets and some fine fur-coated gentleman would answer Michel's insinuating "Where to—where to?" with a curt order, Fydora would prick up her ears and dash off, clashing her bells, as swift and sprightly as any three-year-older. In their way Fydora and her blue-eyed, good-humoured master became celebrities, and people haggled less with Michel than with any of the other iswotshik. They knew that however pitiless and exacting they might be, Michel and Fydora would remain swift and willing and patient to the end.
Michel had one brother, Grigory, who was drornik to a big house in a quiet, respectable street near the Kremlin. He was much older than Michel, and had been wounded in the Russo-Japanese war, of which he would tell many strange and terrible tales after his second glass in the inn by the river. But usually he was silent, and seemed content to listen. Michel was very proud of him, and when Grigory talked Michel would look round at his companions with a happy smile as though to say, "See, what a brother I have!" But Grigory never came to Michel's hut. For one thing he was lame and the distance troubled him, and for another he was an official and much superior to a common droschki driver. People's reputation and even their liberty depended on Grigory's good-will. When strangers came to stay at the house to which he was doorkeeper it was he who took their passports to the police. It was through him that the police knew intimately the habits and friends of his master, and his prejudices flavoured many a secret dossier. So that people pressed money into Grigory's hand, and even when they bullied him they were afraid. And Grigory knew—
Life was a very simple business in Michel's eyes. Even the war did not trouble him. He had been discharged in his first year of service on account of a faulty heart which had never troubled him before, so all that the war meant for Michel was an increased bustle in the streets, more resplendent officers to be driven about, and a daily visit to the big station to see the wounded brought in. At the sight of the poor suffering faces Michel's heart overflowed with pity, and he would get down from his box, fur cap in hand, and make a collection for them among the onlookers. And he was so earnest, so quick-tongued, there was such whimsical pathos in his round blue eyes, that no one could resist him.
But he never knew what the war was about—or cared—not from the first day to the last.
He never connected war with the disaster which overtook him. He came tired and cold one night to the inn by the water's side and laid his money down on the dirty counter. He gave no order—the innkeeper knew what he wanted—and he did not look at any of his boon companions, because at a word or a crooked glance he would have fought them. And he knew that in a minute or two—almost at one gulp—he would be laughing and happy again, ready to fall on his enemy's neck and kiss him in the glorious resurrection of their brotherhood. So he waited. But the innkeeper did not touch his money.
"What do you want?" he asked. "There is no vodka. Don't you know even that, stupid?"
Michel looked up heavily.
"Eh?"
"No vodka. Not in all Russia. By order of the Tsar."
Michel continued to stare at him uncomprehendingly. The man's fat usually good-humoured face was white and sullen. It gave him no help. He looked round at the other occupants of the close, evil-smelling room, but they hung their heads or turned away from him like cattle from a bright light. It was evident that they had been there some time—waiting, expectant, incredulous; they stood about in motionless, uncomplaining groups, though every now and then there would rise from one or other of them a long deep-drawn sigh.
The innkeeper beat the counter with his fist.
"Do you think I have drunk it all myself? I tell you it is by order of the Tsar!"
"What does the Tsar want with all our vodka?"
It was Sergey Timofeitch who spoke. He was young and hot-headed, and people rumoured strange things about him; He stared round challengingly, but when he saw Grigory Goubine sitting alone at one of the tables, watching him with narrowed furtive eyes, he crossed himself instinctively from old habit, because it was known that he believed neither in God nor devil—and slunk out into the night.
They never saw Sergey Timofeitch again.
From that night onwards life began to change for Michel. It was not less simple, but it grew to be something immense and hideous and threatening. Once it had been a little space in which Michel had moved contentedly. It had contained his hut and his mother and Fydora, long hard hours of work and patches of gorgeous oblivion. At the end of it Michel had foreseen—in so far as he foresaw anything—a little grave and God. But now life seemed to have burst its dam and to have spilled over vast unchartered spaces in which he drifted helplessly.
And it was as though, too, very slowly, thick wrappings were being unwound from his body, leaving him naked to the cold. A film which had blurred outlines and colours alike began to thin so that he saw things in their stark greyness. He saw the wounded, but his heart did not overflow with pity. They aroused in him something obscure and cruel. The sight of them was like a hot wind blowing over a parched and gasping desert. In the midst of him there seemed to be a round ball of fire that grew and grew—devouring him. He did not think about all this. But it was so.
Fydora never heard him laugh or sing. She did not have to bring him home after the night's carouse, so she herself seemed to lose courage. Night or day he drove her soberly, brooding with an empty mind.
II
One night, many months later, Michel's sleigh carried a military doctor to the house where Grigory was door-keeper. The officer had arrived at Moscow by one of the Red Cross trains and his uniform was caked with dry mud as though he had come from a long, terrible, journey. He gave his orders curtly, but it was his face, as it flashed for a moment in the lamplight, which made Michel crack his whip over Fydora's ears and send her galloping along the white street. Not even among the wounded had Michel seen a face so grim with pain, and this doctor was not wounded, but vigorous and young.
"Yes, yes, your honour," Michel shouted over his shoulder; "in five minutes we shall be there—I promise you."
The doctor nodded as though he had heard without understanding, and sat back in the sleigh, huddled among his furs. But when they reached their destination he sprang out instantly and stood for a moment looking up at the unlit windows. He was frowning and his thickly-gloved hands clenched and unclenched themselves in nervous indecision.
"You must wait here for me," he said at last. "I may be a long time. You are to drive me back to the station——"
"Yes, yes, your honour," Michel answered cheerfully. "We will wait—never fear."
It was mid-winter and so cold that the air seemed frozen. It hurt to breathe it—as though one were sucking sharp little knives into one's breast. Every now and then a snow-flake drifted down through the darkness. It was the only moving thing in the sleeping street and the noise of angry voices and the bang of a door seemed to come from another world. Presently Grigory limped out from the courtyard. He was rubbing himself as though he had been hurt and cursing under his breath. In his filthy, tattered shuba he looked like some disreputable old cur.
"God help us——" He peered up into Michel's face. "Eh, so it's you, brother?"
"Yes," said Michel, nodding sleepily.
"That's a strange thing—a lucky chance. You have brought our dear master home——"
"I didn't know that," said Michel, waking up a little.
"Yes, indeed—Vassily Volkonsky. No one was expecting him—not even his wife, Tatiana Sergeyevna. The whole household was asleep. I too. He had to kick me, and he kicked hard; he was in a great hurry."
"Yes, in a great hurry," Michel agreed. "I was to have an extra rouble if I got here in five minutes."
"An extra rouble. You'll be getting quite rich, little brother! And how far had you to come?"
"From the station."
"Aha, that was good driving. And now why do you wait?"
"I am to drive him back."
Grigory's head drooped a little on one side and he scratched his beard with a dirty forefinger.
"Dear me. So soon. No wonder he is in a hurry, and so anxious. A short leave. It will make Tatiana Sergeyevna cry when she hears. But then when one is a soldier—well, well, it is a cold night."
"Yes, very cold," said Michel, drowsing again.
"God keep you, brother!"
"God keep you, brother!"
Grigory shuffled back to his den in the courtyard, and again it was quite still except for the mysterious tinkle of Fydora's bells as she stirred uneasily. In front of him Michel could see nothing but her thin flanks heaving in the light of the two lamps. The snow had begun to fall faster. It rose about them in a muffling tide so that not a sound reached them from the wide thoroughfares where the regular night life of Moscow had begun. They might have been alone in a white frozen place of the dead. But Michel did not think of death or of anything in particular. He brooded sullenly, motionless and staring, like a rough-hewn statue. The breath froze to icicles on his moustache. The cold crept closer and closer like an encircling enemy. But it was not a cruel enemy. It soothed him gently. Sullenly and unwillingly his pain let go its hold and watched with baleful eyes as he slipped away into the dim distance. The lights, covered with snow and ice, grey pale, and Fydora's bells were quite silent now But he could still see her flanks. Her ribs were the ribs of a mammoth skeleton, encircling the whole world. Their misery was Misery itself.
So Michel Goubine fell asleep.
He thought that he was dead. The face close to his, and full of tenderness and pity, was the face of the ikon. There were myriads of lights shining behind her and they made a silver aureole about her head. He wanted to throw himself on his knees before her, as it is right that one should do before a saint of God.
"Drink!" she said. "Drink!"
He drank what she put to his lips. That, too, was unfamiliar and wonderful. It was very sweet and very strong. He drank eagerly, closing his eyes. And when he looked up again he knew that he was not dead. He was not in Heaven. This was not the saint of the ikon. It was a woman who held him. His head was on her knee, his face half turned against her breast. For a moment he lay there breathless, quite still, like a frightened, fascinated child. Then the wine that he had drunk burnt its way through his frozen veins and he sat up with a scream of anguish.
"Hush, in Christ's name!"
Michel was silent instantly. The cry had been torn from him by the sheer suddenness of the assault. But he knew how to be patient and quiet as a dog. He stood up, swaying a little, and gazed stupidly about him. There was the doctor, Vassily Volkonsky, and his pretty young wife, Tatiana. Michel saw that she had been crying. The tears were still wet on her cheeks and she clung to her husband and looked at Michel as though he frightened her. The doctor's face also was full of sorrow and anxiety.
"We thought you were dead," he said. "We had to carry you in."
But still Michel said nothing. Everything about him confused and troubled him inexpressibly—the floor that shone like thick ice, the rich skins and warm-coloured rugs, the deep, soft divans and the slender-limbed chairs that one might snap between one's fingers, and the lights that were brighter than the lights in the Cathedral at Easter time. But most troubling of all was the man he saw in the long glass opposite him. It was as though he had never seen himself before—never understood.
He looked away at last. He looked at the great flagon of red wine on the table and at the girl who had held his head against her breast. And a kind of groan fought its way up from his contracted throat. It was like the groan of some hungry, thwarted animal, and Tatiana Sergeyevna hid her face against her husband's shoulder.
"I shouldn't have kept you waiting so long," the doctor went on with an impatient compassion. "I could not help myself. You shall have two extra roubles. But you must drive me back to the station at once. If I do not catch the train—but I must—you understand—at any cost——"
"Yes, yes, your honour, in five minutes."
She stood humbly apart. She was just their servant. She wore a smocked blouse such as a peasant girl wears on a feast day, and her hands were red and toil-worn. Her big, innocent eyes dropped under Michel's gaze.
The doctor struggled into his fur coat and stamped out into the hall.
"We must start at once," he shouted.
"What is your name, little sister?" Michel asked.
"Katya," she answered, "Katya."
"Katya!" he echoed under his breath. They looked at each other long and wistfully. And then Michel Goubine turned and lumbered heavily through the hall and out into the snow again.
But that night when he stood before the ikon he did not bow his head as he was wont to do. He looked at the pale, passionless face. He thought of the wine and how he had lain against her breast. And when he threw himself down on his filthy bed the bitter cold could not chill his blood.
III
In the morning the secret fire in him burned so that he could not lie still. He got up, and by the light of the tiny lamp before the ikon looked at his home. His mother was still asleep. She lay curled up on the stove, her head thrown back, her mouth gaping in a toothless smile. Presently she stirred under his gaze and sat up clawing the air.
"Is that you, Michel? Are you going already? The sun has not risen yet. Rest awhile till I have lit the fire."
But he did not answer. She became afraid of the silence. He watched her warily as she scrambled to the ground and came towards him with her fleshless arms outstretched. And then a sudden panic seized him and he flung himself out of the hut into the grey dawn.
And he loved his mother. But if she had touched him that moment he would have screamed with the horror of it.
All that day Michel Goubine tramped the streets. He ate nothing and there was nothing that he could drink that could quench the thirst in him. His mind was blank of thought or purpose. But towards dusk he came to the quiet street near the Kremlin and, standing in the shadow of the houses, he waited. It was as though he knew. And presently he saw her coming towards him. She carried a basket over her arm and moved lightly and quickly over the snow like a little haunted ghost.
He stood in front of her.
"Katya!" he said.
She stopped short and looked up at him. In the grey reflected light of the snow they could not see each other's face. But he could hear her breathing—quick and shallow it was, like the breathing of someone who has been running fast. And he himself trembled. "Katya," he said, "will you come with me to the inn by the river? There will be dancing there to-night. Will you dance with me?" And as she did not answer he put his hand in the pocket of his shuba and clinked the two roubles which Vassily Volkonsky had given him. "I have money—we will make a feast—we shall be happy, Katya."
She swayed towards him like a small tree in a gust of wind.
"I don't know," she whispered. "I don't know. Tatiana Sergeyevna may not let me—perhaps it is not right."
"Tell her——" he said with a strange choking in his throat—"tell her that Michel Goubine drove her husband to the station in five minutes—because he loved you. Otherwise he would have fallen asleep. Tell her Michel Goubine is an honest driver, and that he will drive her anywhere she will for less than any other iswotshik in Moscow."
"Perhaps it is not right," she repeated shakenly. "I am only a poor girl—I don't know——"
"You want to come, Katya?" he whispered
"Yes," she answered so that he could scarcely hear her.
He came closer to her so that he could feel the warmth of her breath on his face. He tried to say something—something that had hung all day just beyond his reach. He made a vague, clumsy gesture towards the solemn houses:
"They're happy," he stammered. "They can drink—it must be right for us too—sometimes. "
So that night Katya and Michel Goubine danced together and the dust flew under their feet. The habitués of the inn stood in a wide circle about them and clapped their hands. The sight of the two handsome young people so passionately self-absorbed heated their blood with a false intoxication. They reeled about the room, shouting and laughing and stamping. But their drunkenness had no heart to it. Beneath the noise and fever there was a brooding despair, a black, wordless anger.
When they were not dancing Katya and Michel sat together at one of the wooden tables. They spoke very little. A beautiful hazy exhaustion came over them and they would look at each other dreamily with smiling, half-closed eyes. They did not need to know each other better. The force that locked them together asked no questions.
And then when the haze began to lift and a chill reality laid its hand upon them they would dance again, more fiercely than they had ever danced before.
Michel brought Katya back to the house in the quiet street and in the shadow of the courtyard he caught her against his breast. They clung to one another silently, and silently at last she slipped away from him into the darkness. But Michel Goubine stayed where she left him. He swayed a little like a man who is standing on a giddy height, and his eyes were fixed ahead, sightless and fascinated.
Grigory came limping out of his den. He shuffled up to his tall brother and touched him slily on the arm.
"That is a pretty friend you have made, little Michel, "he said. "I congratulate you. Katya is a good girl. But you must be careful—I tell you, she is a good girl. I am older than you, little brother, and I am drornik to this house I have my duty—I have a right to ask—what will come of it?" Michel stirred drowsily but did not answer, and Grigory sidled closer to him. "After all, you can't marry, little brother. Marriage means money. And how could you take a wife to your home? There is no room for her whilst our mother lives. And often there is not enough food for two. No, you must get money first."
"Perhaps Vassily Volkonsky would help us," Michel muttered. "After all I did him a good turn. If I had not pulled myself together that night there would have been trouble. They would have arrested him."
"Ah, indeed," said Grigory Goubine softly.
"Yes. Katya told me," Michel went on with an increasing eagerness. "She overheard them talking. He came away from the front without leave. He wanted to warn his friends here that things are going badly. The men have no rifles, no food, no boots. They are being betrayed. Soon there will be a revolution."
Grigory rubbed his hands together.
"He said that, eh? Well, he may help you. Let us hope so, little brother. You will need help. Perhaps I could do something. I have influence. Find out everything you can from Katya. It may be useful. We must do what we can—for without money how should you and Katya live?"
It was late when Michel stumbled over the threshold of his hut. Old Anna who had been crouching by the dead fire rose up, facing the blast of bitter air and wailing shrilly.
"My son, where have you been? Have you brought food home? There is no food here. To get food one must have money, and there is no money, not a kopeck. Have you brought money home, Michel? All day I have been waiting. Oh, my little son, where have you been?"
But Michel's red inflamed eyes were fixed on the ikon. His fur cap was clenched between his hands as though it had been the throat of an enemy, and for the first time he prayed with rapid lips:—
"Give me Katya, give me Katya."
It was more a threat than a prayer.
Old Anna clung to his arm. She drove her bony fingers into his flesh.
"You wouldn't let your poor old mother starve, Michel?"
He stared into her face, then round at the gloomy, evil-smelling hovel. And suddenly, with a cry of despair, he lifted his clenched fist and struck her down.
IV
They came at dusk—silent, mysterious, portending evil—and at midnight they left again, carrying with them certain documents. There was not a drawer or cupboard that they had not ransacked and whose contents did not lie scattered over the shining floor like autumn leaves after a gale. And in the midst of the ruthless confusion Tatiana Sergeyevna lay and wept.
Katya knelt beside her and comforted her. There was such secret joy in her own heart that her peasant's tongue was loosened and she spoke with a beautiful tenderness and hope. She could not believe in sorrow or misfortune. For to-morrow night she would dance again with Michel at the inn by the river.
"You will see, madam, it is nothing—just some silly mistake. After all, who should wish your honours trouble, or what harm can you have done the Tsar—you who are so good to everyone?"
Tatiana Sergeyevna sat up at last. She spoke as though she were thinking aloud.
"It is no mistake," she said quietly. "Someone has betrayed us. Not one of our friends. They all love Russia. Besides, they are too deeply involved. It was someone who has nothing to lose and everything to gain—someone who knew what happened that night. There was myself—and you, Katya. Did you betray us?"
The two women looked at each other. Katya stood up and crossed her hands over her breast. Her face was so simple and honest that Tatiana Sergeyevna flushed with shame.
"I have been faithful to your honours," Katya said. "I swear it by all the Saints and by my dead mother!"
Then suddenly there came into her eyes the look of someone who has been shot straight through the heart.
But now Tatiana Sergeyevna saw only her own misery.
Before the sun rose Katya crept down the stairs and out into the courtyard. She crossed over the frozen snow to where the drornik Grigory lay asleep and roused him gently.
"When Michel comes to-night tell him that I cannot go with him," she said. "Tell him that everything between us is finished. Because I know that he betrayed us. And he has broken my heart!"
Grigory grinned secretly.
"Very well, little sister, I will tell him."
When she had gone he rolled himself up in his dirty sheepskin and went to sleep again.
But he did not forget. That night he watched Michel take up his stand where he could see the windows of the big house. When a light flashed in the topmost window of all Michel knew that Katya was coming. To-night no light showed anywhere. But that did not trouble him. He had the inflexible certainty of a man who must hope or perish.
He did not hear Grigory come up to him. Although he was lame and clumsy Grigory could move as softly as a cat. Like a cat too he rubbed himself against Michel's sleeve.
"It's no use, little brother," he said. "She will not come. She gave me a message for you. It is as I told you—she is a good girl, and sensible. She cares for you—I do not deny it—but she sees how impossible it all is. She talked it over with me. 'After all, what has Michel to offer?' she said. 'A miserable hovel with an old hag to keep us company and take the food out of our mouths. And I am accustomed to warm clothes and a comfortable bed and enough to eat. In a month's time we should hate one another and Michel would beat me.'" Grigory waited a moment and peered up into his brother's face. "That is what she said," he muttered.
"It is not true," Michel answered almost indifferently.
Grigory shrugged his shoulders.
"She will not come," he repeated.
"That is not true."
Michel's face was like the face of a dead man carved out of wood.
"I advised her not to come," Grigory went on with an air of resolute honesty. "I did not want her to encourage you. It is better for you to realise the truth in time. To marry a girl like Katya one must have money, little brother. It is as I said. If you had money it would be different Then she would come out and dance with you and be your wife."
"It is not true!" Michel cried out threateningly.
"Well, I have given my message. God preserve you!"
"It is not true!" Michel whispered.
He did not move. His shadow merged itself into other shadows and was lost. And all night long Katya sat weeping at her unlit window.
V
So Michel Goubine made money. In the early morning he set out with his sleigh and paced Fydora up and down the principal streets, hugging the curb and peering into people's faces. "Where to? Where to, your honours?" he shouted, and invited them with humorous, insinuating gestures. But his eyes had no laughter in them. They were the hard, pitiless eyes of a hawk. And beneath his obsequiousness there was a sort of menace.
"Where to? Where to, your honours?"
He never haggled. He took what came. And he drove Fydora mercilessly. For a rouble he waited through a bitter night outside the Assembly House, and when Fydora, half dead with cold, stumbled in her tracks, he beat her till the blood spurted from her terrible ribs. The next morning Michel saw the wound and kissed it, and kissed Fydora on her quivering velvet nose.
"You see, we must make money, little sister!" he explained humbly. "Make money for Katya!"
And Fydora looked at him with mournful understanding.
But Old Anna only understood that they were dying of starvation. All day long she cowered by the empty stove, knitting her invisible lace, and trying to see what was going on behind her darkness. And at night when Michel entered she scrambled up and ran to meet him, clawing him all over and whimpering:—
"What have you brought home, Michel? Have you had a good day? What have you brought to eat, little son?"
"Nothing," he said, "Nothing."
He did not beat her. He flung her off like an importunate beggar, but not before she had felt his fleshless arms. And she went back to her corner and brooded, mumbling her thoughts.
It was difficult to tell when Old Anna slept. Night and day were all the same to her, and sometimes, sitting upright, she would fall asleep with her eyes wide open. One night she slept with her back to the wall, staring at Michel. And when he was sure that she slept he took his linen bag from his breast and by the light of the ikon began to count.
The money was very beautiful. He counted it over and over again. He grew to love the jingle of the kopecks as they slipped through his fingers and the rustle of the paper. He could not put it away. But suddenly he knew that his mother was awake. She had not moved, and yet he knew that with her ears she was watching him, counting with him.
He hid the money and lay still. And presently she began to crawl towards him, on her hands and knees, noiseless as a cat. And as she came near he crept away from her, pressing himself against the wall, escaping her stealthy fingers by a hairsbreadth. And so she hunted him. Until at last terror and weariness overcame her and she collapsed among her rags and lay stretched out and panting like a beaten dog.
And Michel stared stupidly down at her. He had loved his mother. But she had become the enemy.
He was his own enemy. He cursed himself when weakness drove him to the eating-house. He cursed Fydora when she whinnied for her pitiful handful of corn. And the ball of fire within him grew so that it seemed to him that he could feel it with his hand, burning its way through his intestines.
At first the thought of Katya quenched the pain. When he stood before the ikon praying, he saw her kind, gentle face gazing at him, and it was as though a cup of wine had been held to his parched lips. But gradually the face grew dim and he could see nothing but the aureole behind—shining like a piece of gold.
One night Michel drove a party of drunken subalterns from Streylna to a house of ill-fame on the outskirts of the city. It was terrible driving. There had been a slight thaw followed by frost and the ground was a sheet of ice. The officers were impatient and shouted at Michel, promising more money, and Michel cracked his whip over Fydora's ears. Then suddenly Fydora stumbled. He flogged her. He flogged her with all his strength and with terror in his heart. But she dropped and fell over on her side like someone who has come to the end of a hard journey. And Michel forgot the money. His friend was lying there in the snow, and if he did not rouse her she would die. His cruelty was his great love.
"Come—stand up, little sister—oh, for the love of God—I will give you corn—as much corn as you can eat—only stand up——"
But Fydora did not move.
The officers grew angry. They scrambled out of the sleigh and pelted Michel with frozen snow and went off laughing.
The blood ran down Michel's face but he did not know it. He tried to cut Fydora free from her traces. He took her poor ugly head upon his knee and coaxed her with a frantic tenderness.
"My little sister—my little sister——"
But Fydora looked at him with sad, glazing eyes. And he pressed his cheek to hers, weeping bitterly.
VI
Michel Goubine prowled the streets like a wolf whom hunger has driven among men. Now that Fydora was dead he earned nothing. Every night he thrust fifty kopecks into his mother's hand until the night came when the linen bag about his neck hung empty. But now Old Anna asked for nothing. Her agile fingers were still. She had grown so small and quiet that she seemed no more than a little wizened face peering out of a heap of rags.
But as Michel skulked, lean and tattered, through the frozen city, he became aware that strange things were about to happen. He knew because he was their cause. The terrible trouble in himself had burst like a filthy abscess and infected the whole world. When he saw the groups of workmen loitering at the street corners he saw them only as reflections of his mind. At night in the stifling taverns, when a sudden ripple of inarticulate excitement stirred the crowd like the first breath of a cyclone, he felt their passion only as a reaction to his own feverish impulse. He knew of their thirst and hunger because thirst ravaged him and hunger ate at his vitals.
Once he heard firing in the streets and the sound thrilled through his nerves like the first stirrings of a secret lust.
He did not think. He had never known how to think. But instead of thoughts, pictures came to him. It was like living in a mad cinematograph show in which the same senseless, jumbled films were shown over and over again. As time went on they grew fewer but more distinct. It was as though some secret censor were selecting for him—choosing out what it considered vital—what it wished him to remember. At first it showed him Katya, gazing down at him as he lay with his head against her breast, then the fine room, the silver lights, the shining colours and the flagon of red wine. It showed him Vassily Volkonsky and his wife, clinging to one another and looking at him with their aloof pity. He saw himself in the long glass—hideous and filthy and uncouth, like a wretched performing bear dragged into all that polished splendour for their pleasure.
Gradually the last picture blotted out the rest. He saw nothing else and he saw it through a red pulsating vapour. It came to wield a strange power over him. It set his heart beating like a hammer. It made him grind his teeth and drive his nails into his hands. It grew to be something monstrous and superhuman—a hideous mammoth figure of cruelty and injustice.
It haunted him through his sleep.
Michel came with his last kopeck to the inn by the river. The landlord was an old friend and for a kopeck he might allow Michel to scour the rubbish heap. But when Michel entered he forgot why he had come. Instead he knew that something he had been waiting for was about to happen. The room was full of armed men, and Grigory Goubine, his brother, stood on a chair and waved his arms and shouted. He looked like a wraith in the thick evil-smelling atmosphere. His sly quietness was gone. His eyes rolled in his head and there was yellow foam on his beard. He beat his breast with his clenched fists.
"... They eat and drink," he shouted, "they swill themselves with wine, they stuff themselves with food, they dance to music, they sleep in warm beds. And you perish here with hunger and thirst and cold. Yes, and as if that were not enough they send you to the war—you don't know against whom or what for—and when you've gone they stab you in the back. Our soldiers fight with their naked hands. They are slaughtered in thousands. And your tyrants laugh. It's what they want. There are too many of you. They want to wipe you out—because you are waking up and because they are afraid. Well, comrades, make them more Afraid. You are men. You have as good a right as they to live and eat and drink and be happy."
"Yes, that is true," Michel thought, nodding to himself. "Grigory understands everything."
Grigory caught sight of Michel standing by the door and he stopped for a minute and pointed, inarticulate with passion. And the crowd turned and stared at Michel, and black rage came into their faces, and he knew that it was because of the growing rage in his own breast.
"Look!" Grigory spluttered. "Look—my own brother—the dogs on the street are not more famished. I can see his ribs through the tears in his shuba and his feet leave blood behind them. My own brother—as honest a fellow as ever trod—my own flesh and blood. And our blind old mother dying of hunger. What wrong have they done? Our mother grew blind in their service. My brother has toiled faithfully. What has life given him? Nothing—nothing—no wife—no home—no children—blows and kicks—and a kennel to die in. Yet he is a man like other men—he has rights like other men—passions—thirsts!"
"Yes—yes—that is so!" Michel shouted.
The crowd swayed backwards and forwards like trees in a storm.
"It is true, comrades!"
Grigory tore open his blouse. He pointed to the scars of his old wound. He screamed so that his voice broke.
"Am I not one of you? Have I not a right to speak?"
"Speak, comrade, go on!"
"Down with the tyrants!"
"Long live the people!"
"Hurrah! Hurrah!"
But it was to Michel they turned. They swarmed round him, they kissed him on the cheeks. They lifted him shoulder high. Someone thrust a rifle into his hands. And suddenly all the pictures rushed through his brain at once—the Volkonskys—the room—the wine—Katya—himself in the long glass. He clasped the rifle to his breast. He hugged it. For at last a thought had come to him—a wonderful thought. He began to laugh from sheer happiness. He laughed till the tears rolled down from his sunken blue eyes.
"Come on, brothers!" he shouted. "I can show you where there is wine—real wine. We can be jolly again. We shan't need to go thirsty any more!"
"Lead us, comrade!" they yelled back at him. "Hurrah! Hurrah!"
They poured out into the night, carrying him like a banner.
At first they were a mere handful, but men and women seemed to spring out of the earth to join them and before they reached the heart of the city they had become an army. Michel still led those immediately around him. He was drunkenly happy. Though he was still in great pain he knew that it would not be for long. Everything was going to be different. Everything was going to be all right for everyone. He was like a desert traveller who sees water glittering in the distance. He laughed and sang. He shouted good-humoured jokes. He called to Grigory to keep close to him.
But Grigory had disappeared.
It was strange that though an hour before they had had no plan or purpose their coming should have been prepared for. Machine guns had been posted at the corners of the Ilinka Street, and a frightful burst of fire mowed down the first lines of the advance. There were police ambushed in the windows. It was too dark to take aim, but also it was not possible to miss. They shot at their leisure. As yet no one quite understood what was happening. Those at the back of the crowd still laughed and sang and pushed forward, until they trod on the bodies of their comrades. Then suddenly and for a brief space they fell silent. The gun-fire went under as though swamped by a tidal wave. Someone who had caught the flash of a rifle from an upper window screamed a warning. Doors were splintered off their hinges. There ensued a brief hunt through dark rooms and passages before the snipers were flung out like food to a ravening monster. That was the beginning. Men had begun to kill. They fell upon one another, howling with rage and misery and terror——
Michel and his comrades had broken their way into the house from which the firing had been most deadly. The ground floor belonged to a fashionable jeweller. The shutters were hardly in their place and a crowd of assistants blocked the doorways in a futile, panic-stricken effort at resistance. They were flung down and trampled underfoot. The invaders rushed the staircase. In the general uproar their entry had passed unheard, and the police were at their places, shooting coolly. They squealed like rats——
But Michel had stayed behind. He had seen precious stones before in shop windows and on the necks of women. He had never seen them like this—close to and at his mercy. Their glitter and sparkle made him blink. He did not know what to do with them. He lurched about the shop picking up handfuls of rings and brooches and letting them run through his fingers in stupid bewilderment.
The shop-keeper who had saved himself by hiding in the shadow of a safe watched him with glazing eyes of terror. But the instinct of a lifetime was too strong for him. He made an angry grunt of protest and suddenly Michel saw him and struck him over the bald head with the butt end of his rifle.
He had not meant to kill. He had not meant anything in particular. It had happened so suddenly—so easily. He stared at the bloody thing which a moment before had been an angry human face, in astonishment and horror—then with a strange, delicious ruffling of the nerves. His throat contracted. Something obscure yet familiar stirred in the depths of him. He wanted to strike again and again.
He turned hurriedly and reluctantly. Then the stones regained their hold over him. He stuffed his pockets with them as a boy might stuff his pockets with sweets. One beautiful emerald necklace he held up to the light, laughing to himself. He did not know its value. He only thought how pretty it was.
"Katya!" he said aloud. "Katya!"
His comrades came pouring back down the staircase. He rejoined them stumbling over the jewellers limp, warm body as he went.
Grigory Goubine waited for them outside Vassily Volkonsky's house.
"It's all right," he shouted. "They've barricaded themselves in. They think if they keep quiet we shall believe there's no one there. But I know them. All the doors are bolted from the inside. There's a window at the back though they've forgotten. Old Grigory doesn't forget——" He beat himself with his arms and stamped his feet on the hard snow. It was as though he were performing a devil's dance. "I got cut off from the rest of you," he shouted. "It's difficult for a lame old fellow like me——"
But no one listened to him. Michel was thinking of his happiness. It had become so great that he could not bear it. It made him savage and impatient. It burnt him like a fever. He looked up at the dark, cowering house and shouted "Katya! Katya!" But his voice was lost in the uproar. His comrades were thinking of the wine he had promised them. They too were becoming angry. They did not want to get in through the window. They wanted to break in and destroy. They flung themselves against the door and the silent street reverberated with the blows of their rifles against the stout panelling. Grigory stood aside, smiling crookedly.
"Well, youth must have its way," he tittered.
But when the last barrier was gone he led the advance. He limped swiftly along the corridor and pressed the electric switches, leaving a path of light behind him. "Now, then, Vassily Volkonsky, come out and kick your servant now—come on—come on."
But there was no answer.
"Katya! Katya! It is Michel—don't be afraid."
He hunted distractedly, fumbling his way alone through the dark rooms, bruising himself against unseen obstacles, destroying where he could in growing terror and anger. His comrades, whose muffled baying sounded sinisterly beyond the darkness, had been his cunning weapons. But now he had become theirs. They outstripped him, and it was they who found Katya, §he cowered by an open window in the room where Michel had first seen her, her hands clasped as though she had been praying. Her round peasant face was white and pinched with fear. Her voice shook. But her eyes had a look of courage.
"I am in charge here," she said. "What do you want?"
They laughed with the last breath of their good humour. It was like a trapped white mouse defying them. But Grigory lurched at her and shook her by the arm.
"Where is your master?"
"Gone!"
"Gone? You were to have warned me——"
"I warned them, Grigory Goubine. They are safe, praise be to God. They are good people."
"You——!"
He shook his fist in her face. He would have struck her, but now Michel had fought his way through the crowd. He took Grigory by the scruff of the neck and tossed him aside as a terrier tosses aside a dead rat He stretched out his arms. He wanted to tell her in one word that everything was all right—that they were going to be happy—that he was rich now. But he was out of breath and dizzy with weakness and excitement He took a handful of jewels and held them towards her.
"Look at this, Katya—look—for you—everything."
Someone jostled him and the stones scattered over the floor. His comrades had not yet found what they had come for, but they were already drunken. They slid tipsily over the polished boards. They broke the fragile chairs like matchwood. They ripped the silken coverings as a tiger rips flesh. The murder in the streets had not incensed them as did the delicate loveliness of this room. It made them hideous.
Michel babbled between laughter and tears.
"Katya—it's all right—I planned it—we're going to dance again and be happy—we're all going to be happy."
For the first time she looked at him. His blue eyes shone out of his gaunt, blood-smeared face with the brilliancy of fever. She crept closer to the open window.
"If you touch me, Michel Goubine, I shall throw myself out. I swear it by Almighty God!"
He gaped stupidly.
"Katya—look here—I've got more—I'm rich!"
"Hurrah! Hurrah!"
They had found the cellars. Grigory Goubine stumbled into the room with bottles under his arms and sticking out of his pockets. They danced a savage saturnalia round him. And Michel went with them. He fought at first, but he was like a swimmer carried out by a roaring tide, who knows that he is lost yet struggles instinctively. He held the emerald necklace above the sea of heads in a last effort to make her understand. The tears rolled down his cheeks.
"Katya—my dear one—it was for you—everything——"
What they could not drink they spilled on the floor. Michel drank till his legs gave way under him and he rolled out of the house into the gutter. But it was not the old intoxication. The wine had not quenched his thirst. It fanned the fire in him and the flames lit up his brain. They lit up the pictures that came incessantly. But they were not die old pictures. They were not of Katya. They were of the little, bald-headed jeweller.
And every time he saw him it was as though an icy wind blew over his nerves, thrilling them with a torturing ecstasy.
VII
They made him a soldier of the Red Guard. Because he could shoot and had been in the Army, he was put in command of ten men, but he gave no orders. He did not know how to, and the ten would not have obeyed. But they went about together and hunted the enemies of the people. They had no mercy. They spared no one less miserable than themselves.
"To-night there will be fine work for you," Grigory Goubine had said, smiling and nibbing his hands.
To-night had come.
Michel and his ten comrades slouched into the Kremlin through the Spassky Gate. They did not lift their caps to the Holy Image as they passed beneath. They laughed and threw lumps of snow at it. The masonry round the ikon was snicked with bullets, but the ikon itself had remained unharmed.
"Christ was a bourgeois," one of Michel's companions said angrily. "All the bourgeois should be crucified."
Leaving the barracks on their left they came into the big square and lined up with their backs to the Arsenal. They knew why they had come. A few were silent, but the rest snarled and bickered like wild beasts before their food is thrown to them. A brilliant moonlight poured down between the high walls and there was no need for the torches that flared up at intervals, throwing restless shadows over the deathly tranquillity. It was bitter cold. The cold froze Michel's blood, but it could not cool the secret fire in him. The suffering that it inflicted seemed afar off. It was the suffering of someone else of whom he had heard. It did not touch him. But the pain within was a red-hot stone. Every now and then he rubbed snow against his fever-cracked lips. He drank, too, from the bottle that he carried in his shuba. But the spirit was like brackish water.
Presently the barrack gates were flung open and a black stream of shadows passed out. As they came out into the moonlight they herded close to one another, and their guards ran in among them, striking and snapping like wolves.
"Now then, comrades, load up!" Grigory Goubine shouted. "Load up and death to the enemies of the Revolution!" He limped excitedly up and down the line. "Bring them up closer. Some of these fine fellows can't shoot very well. They haven't had much practice yet Here, give me a rifle. I'll show you. In my day I never missed my mark. Set them further apart. So take aim. Every man his target. Pick out a good spot, comrades—the heart—the breast—the head. Not that it matters. We have ammunition to spare. Let them suffer a little, the dogs. Now then, are you ready?"
He stood at Michel's side. He held his rifle like the expert he was—like a hunter whose quarry is in sight. His little eye gleamed hungrily along the barrel. But an iron hand tightened about Michel's breast. He could hardly breathe. He felt like a man fighting his way up from his grave. A frightful nausea tore at the pit of his stomach.
They stood so close to one another that he could see the face of the man he was about to kill. They looked straight into each other's eyes. They might have been friends who had met unexpectedly. He was a little fellow in a shabby coat and baggy, ill-fitting trousers. Some shopkeeper probably. One could see him bowing and smiling over his counter. Under his drooping moustache his lips moved rapidly. He seemed to be counting—one, two, three—one, two, three. Perhaps the last minutes of his life. His eyes were wide open—not frightened, only surprised and anxious and a little plaintive. He looked at Michel as though he were asking: "What is it all about, my friend? Who are you? And when can I go back to my shop?" The girl next to him belonged to another class. In spite of her torn and filthy clothes an air of wealth still clung to her. But she was quite mad. Every now and then she laughed—quietly and horribly.
"Are you ready? When I have counted three—fire!"
The little shopkeeper made a movement of protest. Evidently this was a serious matter. And then suddenly he clasped the hand of the girl next him.
"One—two—three——"
A look of grief and astonishment and reproach came into his eyes. The girl broke off in the middle of her laughter. They turned slowly as though they were bowing to one another, then collapsed like marionettes whom the secret hand of the performer has let fall.
Michel had aimed well. But the rest had bungled. The shadows writhed and twisted on the snow.
"Club them! Club them!"
Michel ran out Gust after gust of that icy wind swept over his naked nerves. He screamed with the agony and joy of it. The suffocating band had broken. He was free. He could drink now—this wine would make him drunken. He could slake his thirst—he could quench that burning.
When it was all done the sweat of a breaking fever drenched his body. He reeled about, laughing and gasping. He flung his arms round the man next him and kissed him on the mouth. He tried to shout but his voice cracked in his throat.
"More—more," he whispered.
Grigory Goubine patted him on the shoulder.
"You must spare yourself, little brother. The prisons are very full."
The dawn had broken when Michel came to his home. Old Anna sat upright and awake among her rags, her arms clasped over her knees, staring at nothing. She turned her sorrowful, famished face towards him but there was no hope in it.
He laughed thickly.
"There Matuska. I've brought something this time. I've done good work. You shan't starve any more. Look here——"
His pockets were full of food that he had looted. He poured money into her lap. But she rose up suddenly so that it scattered over the floor. She came towards him, sniffing the air like a blind old hound. Her eyes were fixed on his hand as though they saw.
"You are drunk, Michel!"
"A little, mother—a little."
"There is something—on you—something that——"
"It is nothing, Matuska—eat, I tell you——"
He held bread to her lips, but a wailing cry broke from her. She sprang away from him with a ghastly agility and began to run wildly round the room, beating herself against the wall like a wild bird. He lurched after her and flung her down.
"Eat, Matuska—eat, I tell you!"
But she hid her face from him, whimpering.
"It smells—it smells."
He slept the sleep of an opium-eater. When he awoke it was evening again and a rank misery gripped him in its clammy hands. An awful weariness was on him and he was sick with the sickness of life itself. But the drug was at his hand. In an hour or two he would be drunk again and forget and be happy.
Old Anna lay quiet in her corner. He did not touch her or the food that was heaped beside her. He dragged himself out and limped to the Spassky Gate. He could hardly stand. The burning had begun again. But he could be patient and endure because of the relief that was coming.
"A busy night for you!" Grigory said, kissing him.
And his comrades looked up, licking their lips.
That night when he came back the little red lamp had burnt itself out. The face of the ikon was veiled in darkness. And still Old Anna had not moved.
The first volley was like a first gulp of vodka. Then life came back to him. His blood awoke and flowed warmly and evenly. The pain let go its hold. The world took on gorgeous colours. His head seemed to break through black clouds into a fiery morning. He became like a God.
Best of all was the face of the man opposite him. He savoured its anguish and terror as an epicure savours a rare wine. He held himself in check, tantalising his thirst with a sensual cunning. The moment before his finger pressed the trigger was one of intolerable ecstasy. And if his victim looked back at him with steady, indifferent eyes, he aimed badly—of set purpose.
Then, before sunrise, home again—to sleep.
But on the third day sleep forsook him early, and for an hour he waited in torture. And day by day sleep shortened its length of mercy. It was like the dying swing of a pendulum. Till the time came when Michel Goubine lay stretched in the filth of his hovel—from sunrise to sunset staring with burning eyes towards his quiet companion, waiting for deliverance.
VIII
It came at last He had been prowling round the Spassky Gate like a pariah dog within scent of food. Now as the clock struck he ran forward. But the sentry stopped him with a blow from his rifle.
"Not so fast. No one passes here to-night!"
"What's that? You don't know who I am. I'm one of the firing squad. You'd better not keep me waiting——"
"I have my orders. There are no executions to-night."
"Eh?"
"I tell you—no executions!"
Michel did not understand. He did not even listen.
"You let me pass. I'm in a hurry. I'm late. They mustn't begin without me."
The man laughed sullenly.
"They won't begin anyhow. The prisons are empty. I don't know why. If I had my way—but they say there's a General marching on Moscow with an army. There may be a counter-revolution. Some of the leaders have cleared out."
"They are traitors—every one is a traitor," said Michel wildly. "They ought to be shot too. If the prisons are empty I can fill them. I know where to go. Look here, I've done my thirty a night. What do you think of that? Thirty. You can see for yourself I can't do with less—I can't—I can't."
"You're not the only one."
Michel leant against the wall, panting with rage and weakness.
"It's nonsense. You've got to let me pass. We've got to stamp them out like—like vermin. There are hundreds and hundreds of them. I tell you I know where they are. If no one else will do it, I will. Single-handed. I must. I can't sleep any more."
"You're not the only one," the man repeated in a high hysterical voice.
"They take everything—everything," Michel stammered. "One doesn't know why one is alive." He pressed his hand to his side in anguish. "Where is my brother, Grigory Goubine? If Grigory were here he would send you to the right-about. He wouldn't keep me waiting."
"I don't know where your brother is. He's cleared out. They say he's gone over to the other side. He's a traitor."
"Traitor! Traitor yourself."
"Ah!"
They sprang, snarling at each other. But the sentry stumbled and went down with Michel's knees on his chest and Michel's thumbs on his windpipe. For a minute they remained quite motionless. Then Michel shook himself free and stood up.
There was no one to stop him now. He staggered through the gate and under the black walls of the Nickolai Palace to the barrack square. At every turn he knew that the red flare of the torches must greet him—but at every turn there was only darkness and silence. He shouted Grigory's name, but there was no answer. He beat against the closed doors of the barracks with his hands, but only muffled, sinister echoes came back to him. No one—nothing. And yet Michel knew that he was being watched. The square was full of people—shadows that stared and stared with blank, glazing eyes.
He made a last effort.
"I will wait," he muttered. "They will come soon."
But he knew now that they would never come. He knew that he could not wait, He ran out into the streets again. He shouted to the passers-by to follow him—that there was treachery on foot—a plot—the enemies of the people were escaping. He stumbled on, screaming, with foam about his mouth.
But no one followed him. The terror-cowed stragglers shrank from him as from a mad dog.
"Bourgeois—all bourgeois," he thought; "traitors—enemies of the people—must be wiped out—all—all—everything."
The burning in his side spread over his whole body.
Then a cunning thought came to him. If the others were faint-hearted he at least would be faithful. It was late now. Very dark. He would hide in doorways and shoot down whoever passed. But it was slow work. Like separate drops of water on the lips of a man dying of thirst. There were so few traitors about. He had to hunt through one empty street after another. A footfall was music in his ears. But he had no time to linger. A flash—the dropping of a shadow—and then on again—slinking from doorway to doorway—lightfooted, agile as a panther.
He became aware that a pursuit had been organised against him. He saw no one—heard no one—yet it was there, hot at his heels. He no longer waited in ambush. He ran on, twisting, turning, firing at whatever showed itself—at shadows which no longer fell but followed, joining in with his pursuers. Katya was among them—Katya and his mother—and the bald-headed jeweller, and the little shop-keeper with his surprised, reproachful eyes—and the girl with her mad laugh—even old Fydora. Strive as he might they gained on him. They clamoured to him. At first he could only hear the far-off murmur of their voices, but as they came closer he caught a word here and there. And it seemed that they were no angry with him at all. They were only begging him to let them help him—to save him—to put an end to all this pain. He did not quite understand what it was they wanted and he was growing very weak. But a kind of exaltation upheld him. He became aware of a great purpose—of a goal towards which he had been travelling from the very beginning—something unclear that was rising before him out of the black mists of suffering and illusion. With every minute it came nearer to him and with it release.
There was no one to stop his entry. The doorway gaped ruin at him. He stumbled along the dark corridor. He was quite close now. The shadows had fallen back and were watching him solemnly. His hand fumbled the wall for the electric switch——
Then he understood. He knew why they had led him there. It was there in front of him—that loathsome thing that he must destroy—that monstrous effigy of cruelty and wrong which had haunted him—that poor, wild-eyed misery.
Michel Goubine fired straight at its breast.
Kayta hiding in her garret, heard the solitary shot. But not till morning broke did she dare leave her refuge. Then in the room where she had first met Michel Goubine, she found him again lying at the foot of the shattered mirror with his broken heart.