Orlóff and His Wife: Tales of the Barefoot Brigade. Maksim Gorky
then made way for active audacity. Tchízhik kept flying back and forth between the court and the crowd, his bare feet twinkling, and reporting the course of events in the accordeon-player's room.
The public, collected together in a dense knot, filled the dusty, malodorous air of the street with the dull hum of their talk, and from time to time a violent oath, launched at someone, broke forth from their midst—an oath as malicious as it was lacking in sense.
"Look … that's Orlóff!"
Orlóff drove up to the gate on the box of a wagon with a white canvas cover which was driven by a surly man all clad in white, also. This man roared, in a dull bass voice:
"Get out of the way!"
And he drove straight at the people, who sprang aside in all directions at his shout.
The aspect of this wagon, and the shout of its driver, rather subdued the high-strung mood of the spectators—all seemed to grow dark at once, and many went swiftly away.
In the track of the wagon, the student who had visited the Orlóffs made his appearance from somewhere or other. His cap had fallen back on the nape of his neck, the perspiration streamed down his forehead in large drops, he wore a long mantle, of dazzling whiteness, and the lower part of its front was decorated with a large round hole, with reddish edges, evidently just burned in some way.
"Well, Orlóff, where's the sick man?"—he asked loudly, casting a sidelong glance at the public, which had assembled in a little niche by the gate, and had greeted his appearance with great ill-will, although they watched him not without curiosity.
Someone said, in a loud tone:
"Look at yourself … you're just like a cook!".
Another voice, which was quieter and had a tinge of malice in it, made promises:
"Just wait … he'll give you a treat!"
There was a joker in the crowd, as there always is.
"He'll give you such soup that your belly will burst on the spot!"
A laugh rang out, though it was not merry, but obscured by a timorous suspicion, it was not lively, though faces cleared somewhat.
"See, they ain't afraid of catching it themselves … what's the meaning of that?"—very significantly inquired a man with a strained face and a glance filled with concentrated wrath.
And under the influence of this question, the countenances of the public darkened again, and their murmurs became still duller. …
"They're bringing him!"
"That Orlóff! Akh, the dog!"
"Isn't he afraid?"
"What's it to him? He's a drunkard..
"Carefully, carefully, Orlóff! Lift his feet higher … so! Ready! Drive off, Piótr!" ordered the student. "Tell the doctor I shall be there soon. Well, sir, Mr. Orlóff, I request that you will help me to exterminate the infection here. … By the way, you will learn how to do it, in case of need. … Do you agree? Can you come?"
"I can," said Orlóff, casting a glance around him, and feeling a flood of pride rising within him.
"And so can I," announced Tchízhik.
He had escorted the mournful wagon through the gate, and returned just in the nick of time to offer his services. The student stared at him through his glasses.
"Who are you, hey?"
"Apprentice … to the house-painters. … " explained Tchízhik.
"And are you afraid of the cholera?"
"I?" asked Sénka in surprise.—"The idea! I'm … not afraid of anything!"
"Re-eally? That's clever! Now, see here, my friends."—The student seated himself on a cask which was lying on the ground, and rolling himself to and fro on it, he began to say that it was indispensably necessary that Orlóff and Tchízhik should give themselves a good washing.
They formed a group, which was soon joined by Matréna, smiling timidly. After her came the cook, wiping her wet eyes on her dirty apron. In a short time, several persons from among the spectators approached this group, as cautiously as cats approach sparrows. A small, dense ring of men, about ten in number, formed around the student, and this inspired him. Standing in the centre of these people, and briskly gesticulating, he began something in the nature of a lecture, which now awoke smiles on their faces, now aroused their concentrated attention, now keen distrust and sceptical grins.
"The principal point in all diseases is—cleanliness of the body, and of the air which you breathe, gentlemen,"—he assured his hearers.
"Oh Lord!" sighed the painted cook loudly.—"One must pray to Saint Varvára the martyr to be delivered from sudden death. … "
"Gentlemen live in the body and in the air, but still, they die too,"—remarked one of the audience.
Orlóff stood beside his wife, and gazed at the face of the student, pondering something deeply the while. Someone gave his shirt a tug, from one side.
"Uncle Grigóry!"—whispered Sénka Tchízhik, raising himself on tiptoe, his eyes sparkling, blazing like coals—"now that Mítry Pávlovitch is going to die, and he hasn't any relatives … who'll get his accordeon?"
"Let me alone, you imp!" Orlóff warded him off.
Sénka stepped aside, and stared through the window of the accordeon-player's little room, searching for something in it with an eager glance.
"Lime, tar,"—the student enumerated loudly.
On the evening of that restless day, when the Orlóffs sat down to drink tea, Matréna asked her husband, with curiosity:
"Where did you go with the student a little while ago?"
Grigóry looked into her face with eyes obscured by something, and different from usual, and, without replying, began to pour his tea from his glass into his saucer.
About mid-day, after he had finished scrubbing the accordeon-player's rooms, Grigóry had gone off somewhere with the sanitary officer, had returned at three o'clock thoughtful and taciturn, had thrown himself down on the bed, and there he had lain, face upward, until tea-time, never uttering a single word all that time, although his wife had made many efforts to draw him into conversation. He even failed to swear at her for nagging him, and this, in itself, was strange, she was not used to it, and it provoked her.
With the instinct of a woman whose whole life is bound up in her husband, she began to suspect that her husband had become interested in something new, she was afraid of something, and therefore, was the more passionately desirous of knowing what that thing was.
"Perhaps you don't feel well, Grísha?"
Grigóry poured the last gulp of tea from his saucer into his mouth, wiped his mustache with his hand, pushed his empty glass over to his wife without haste, and knitting his brows, he said:
"I went with the student to the barracks … yes. … "
"To the cholera barracks?" exclaimed Matréna, and tremblingly, with lowered voice, she asked: "are there many of them there?"
"Fifty-three persons, counting in our man. … ".."
"Well?"
"They're recovering by the score. … They can walk. … Yellow, thin. … "
"Are they cholera-patients too? They're not, I suppose? … They've put some others in there, to justify themselves: as much as to say—"look, we can cure!'"
"You're a fool!" said Grigóry with decision, and his eyes flashed angrily.—"You're all stupid folks! Lack of education and stupidity—that's all! You're enough to kill a man with your ignorance. … You can't understand anything,"—he sharply moved toward him his glass freshly filled with tea, and fell silent.
"Where did you get so much