CHAPTER IV.
THE "DEMONSTRATION."
At the hour of Pievakin's departure the Miroslav railway station wascrowded with gymnasium pupils of both sexes, but Pavel was not amongthem. He had not been informed that such a gathering was incontemplation at all.
Alexandre Alexandrovich, a satchel slung across his breast, wan andhaggard, but flushed with excitement, was bustling about in a listless,mechanical way. He was accompanied by his large family and the teacherof mathematics. A number of gendarmes, stalwart, bewhiskered,elaborately formidable, were pacing up and down the large waiting room.The gendarmerie is the political police of the Czar. It forms a specialmilitary organisation quite distinct from the police proper. A detail ofsuch gendarmes, proportionate to the importance of the place, is to befound in every railroad station of the country. On this occasion,however, the presence of the gendarmes seemed to have some specialbearing upon the nature of the scene. They were all big strappingfellows. Their jingling spurs, red epaulets and icy silence belonged tothe same category of things as the terrible political prisons ofKharkoff and St. Petersburg; as the clinking of convict-chains, as thefrozen wastes of Siberia.
All at once most of the bespurred men disappeared. After an absence oftwo or three minutes they came back, considerably re-enforced.
"All gymnasium pupils, ladies and gentlemen, will please leave thestation," they called out.
About one-half of the throng struck out for the doors as if the placewere on fire. Some fifteen or twenty pupils stood still, frowning uponthe guardians of the Czar's safety, in timid defiance. The rest, a crowdof about two hundred, made a lunge in the direction of the corner whereAlexandre Alexandrovich and his family were pottering about some lightbaggage, when three lusty gendarmes planted themselves in front of thelittle old man.
"Go home, ladies and gentlemen, go home!" Pievakin besought his friends,waving his hands and stamping his feet desperately.
"Have we no right to say good-bye to our own teacher?" one boy ventured.
"Not allowed!" a gendarme answered, sternly. "Get out, get out!"
The crowd surged back; but at this point a young feminine voice,sonorous with indignation and distress, rose above the din of thescramble:
"Good heavens! Can it be that we shall leave without saying good-bye toour dear teacher? All they say of him is a lie, a malicious lie. They'rea lot of knaves, and he is the best man in the world. Let them arrest usif they will, let them kill us. It would be a shame if we went away liketraitors to our dear teacher."
The rest was lost in a hubbub of shouts and shrieks. In their effort toget at the speaker, who was shielded by the other pupils, the gendarmeswere beating young women with their sheathed swords or pulling them bythe hair. With the exception of a few who had skulked out through backdoors, the young people now all stood their ground, ready to fight.
"Arrest us all!" they yelled. "We all say the same thing."
"Yes, Alexandre Alexandrovich is the best man in the world. There!"
"A better man than Novikoff!"
"Novikoff is a hypocrite and a rogue!"
In the commotion the gendarmes lost sight of the girl they were about toarrest. She could not have left the room, but then it was not easy totell her from any of the other girls. The gendarmes had seen her at adistance, and all they could say was that she was blonde. In theireagerness to pick her out, they were rudely scanning every young womanin the waiting-room. Had she been arrested it would have gone hard withher. As good luck would have it, however, Major Safonoff, the officer incommand of the railroad gendarmes, was the brother of one of the girlspresent. He was a plump, good-natured bachelor, and his devotion to hissister, who had been under his care since she was a year old, was asource of jests and anecdotes. When it occurred to him that theconflict, which was beginning to look like a serious affair, was likelyto cause trouble to his sister, he hastened to make light of it.
"Go home, ladies and gentlemen," he said, in a remonstrative amicablevoice, taking the matter in his own hands.
His friendly tone and his smiling fat face, added to the tacitunderstanding that the girl who had made the speech was not to bepersecuted, acted as a balm; but the flattering notion that thegendarmes had surrendered kindled new fighting blood.
"Your men have hit ladies. They've no right to hit anybody. They're alot of brutes. All we wanted was to say good-bye to AlexandreAlexandrovich."
"But that's impossible, so what's the use getting excited, gentlemen?Better go home."
The pupils obeyed, in a leisurely way, as though leaving of their ownaccord.
* * * * *
During the following few weeks this "victory" over the gendarmes was thegreat topic of discussion. The personality of the girl who "started thedemonstration" was emblazoned with the halo of heroism. The curious partof it was that only a minority of those who had participated in thescene had any idea who she was. When the crowd at the railroad stationhad dispersed, the handful that knew her whispered her name to some ofthose who did not, so that the number of pupils in the secret was by nowcomparatively large, but it was a "revolutionary" secret, so it wasguarded most zealously against unreliable pupils as well as against theauthorities.
One of the page-proofs of the _Miroslav Messenger_ that were sent to thecensor at midnight contained the following paragraph:
"Alexandre Alexandrovich Pievakin, for many years instructor of Historyand Geography at our male gymnasium, left for his new place of serviceyesterday afternoon. A large number of gymnasium pupils were at therailway station."
The entire paragraph was stricken out, so that the _Messenger_ nextmorning contained not the remotest reference to the departure of the oldteacher.
When Pasha heard what had happened at the railway station his heartsank.
"I must speak to you, mother," he gasped out, bursting into her room,after school time. When her companion, a dried-up little Frenchwomanwith a thriving streak of black moustache, had withdrawn, he said:"Mother, I am a miserable egoist and a scoundrel." He told her the storyof Pievakin's departure. His dear old teacher was in trouble, the victimof a cruel injustice, yet he, Pasha, had not even thought of going tosee him off. Everybody had been there except him. But what tantalisedhim more than anything else was the fact that a girl was the only personwho had taken a brave noble stand in the old man's behalf. This hurt hisknightly sense of honour cruelly. He should have been on the scene anddone exactly what that girl had done.
"I'm an egoist and a coward, _mamman_. I hate myself. Oh, I do hatemyself!"
Anna Nicolayevna's eyes grew red. She had an impulse to fold him in herarms and to offer to take him to Pievakin's new place so that he mightprotest his sympathy and affection for the old man, but her instincttold her that this would be improper. Oh, there were so many things thatmade a strong appeal to one's better feelings which were consideredimproper. So she emitted a sigh of resignation and said nothing.
Pavel was pacing the floor so vehemently that he came near running intoand knocking down the life-sized Diana. He walked with rapid heavy stepsuntil his brain grew dizzy and his despair was dulled as from the effectof drink. Suddenly the situation rushed back upon him.
"I tell you what, mother, he's too good for them," he said, stopping infront of her. "He is better than uncle, anyhow."
"Hush, you mustn't say that."
"The devil I mustn't. It's true."
"You are impossible, Pasha. Can't you calm down?"
"I'll tell you calmly, then: uncle is a bribe-taker and a heartlessegoist. There."
"Dear me," she said, in consternation.
"But you know he is, mother. And do you call that loyalty to the Czar?Pievakin is pure as an infant. If the Czar knew the real character ofboth, he would know that the poor man could give uncle points inloyalty."
A few days after this conversation the governor dined at "The Palace,"as Countess Varoff's residence was known among the common people ofMiroslav. Pavel refused to leave his ro
om. When Anna Nicolayevna pleadedhis uncle's affection for him, he said:
"His affection be hanged. Who wants the affection of a bribe-taker whowill let an honest man perish? Look here, mother, you have no businessto tell him I have a headache. I want him to know the truth. Tell himit's men like himself, bribe-takers, cowards, who spread sedition, notmen like Pievakin. 'Living poison,' indeed! Tell him he is a lump ofliving poison himself. Oh, I hate him, I do hate him."
His brain was working feverishly. The image of Pievakin with threegendarmes between him and a crowd of pupils haunted him. Why could henot be pardoned? Was there no mercy in this world? His sense of thecruelty of the thing and of his own helplessness seized him as with aviolent clutch again and again.
Once, as he was reviewing the situation for the thousandth time, a voicein him exclaimed: "Pardoned? What was Pievakin to be pardoned for? Whathad he done? Why should it be wrong to dwell on the vital features ofparliamentary government? Such governments existed, didn't they? And ifthey did, then why should one be forbidden to explain their essence?"For the first time did his attention fix itself on this point, andquestions came crowding upon him. Where was the sense of having suchterms as "limited monarchy" in the text-book at all, if the pupils werenot to be told what this meant? Above all, why should the government beafraid of such explanations? There seemed to be something cowardly,sneaking, about all this which jarred on Pavel's sense of the knightlymagnificence of the Czar and left him with a bad taste in the mouth, asthe phrase is.
Alexandre Alexandrovich, then, had done no wrong, and yet he had beenbanished as "living poison," treated by everybody as a criminal, untilhe came to believe himself one. Why, of course he was better thanNovikoff. Novikoff was a self-seeking, posing wretch, and all the otherteachers were cringing and crouching before him; and these insectsturned their backs upon Alexandre Alexandrovich! Corruption passed forloyalty, and a really good man was persecuted, hunted down like a wildbeast, trampled upon. "Trampled upon, trampled upon, trampled upon!"Pavel whispered audibly, stamping his foot and gnashing his teeth as hedid so.
The only gleam of light was the veiled figure of that gymnasium girl.She alone had had sympathy and courage enough to raise her voice for thepoor man. "Why, she is a perfect heroine," he said in his aching heart.
At the gymnasium he felt his loneliness more keenly than ever. Whereverhe saw a cluster of boys, he felt sure they were whispering about thegendarmes and the girl who had made the "speech" at the railroadstation. His pride was gone. He now saw himself an outcast, shut out ofthe most important things life contained.
The leader of the "serious-minded" boys in Pavel's class was an underfedJewish youth, with an anaemic chalky face and a cold intelligent look,named Elkin. To Pavel he had always been repugnant. Since Pievakin'sdeparture, however, the aristocratic boy had looked at his classmates ina new light, and Elkin now even inspired him with respect.
"Who is the girl that made that speech at the station?" he asked simply.The two had scarcely ever spoken before.
Elkin gave Boulatoff a stare of freezing irony, as who should say: "Whatdo you think of the assurance of this man?" and then, dropping his eyes,he asked:
"What girl?" When he spoke his lips assumed the form of two obtuseangles, exposing to view a glistening lozenge of white teeth.
"Look here, Elkin, I want to know who that girl is and all about thewhole affair, and if you think I ought not to know it because--well,because I am a Boulatoff and my uncle is the governor, I can assure youthat if I had been there I should have acted as she did. What's more, Ihate myself for not having been there."
"I don't know what you're talking about," replied Elkin. "As to yourhating yourself, that's your own affair."
"Well, however I may feel toward myself, I certainly have nothing butcontempt for a man like you," Pasha snapped back, paling. "But if youthink you can keep it from me, you're mistaken."
Elkin sized him up with a look full of venom, as he said:
"Pitiful wretch! How are you going to find it out? Through the politicalspies?"
Pavel turned red. It was with a great effort that he kept himself fromstriking Elkin. After a pause he said:
"Now, I can tell you from the bottom of my heart that you are a knave."
"Besides," said Elkin, as though finishing an interrupted remark, "mostof the gymnasium girls who saw Alexandre Alexandrovich off are daughtersof poor, humble people, so of what interest would it have been to a manin your position?"
Boulatoff stood still for a few moments, and then said under his breath:
"Well, you're a fool as well as a knave," and turned away.
The heroine of the demonstration was hateful to him now. She and Elkinseemed to stand at the head of the untitled classes all arrayed againsthim. He retired into himself deeper than ever. He abhorred her becauseshe had done the right thing, and each time his sympathy for Pievakinwelled up he hated himself for not having been at the station, and herfor having been there. He sought relief in charging Elkin withcowardice. "What did he do there?" he would say to himself. "To think ofa lot of fellows running away when they are told they can't say good-byeto their martyred teacher, and a girl being the only one who has courageenough to act properly. And now that she has done it this coward has theface to give himself airs, as if he were entitled to credit for hercourage. If I had been there I should not have run away as Elkin and hiscrew did."
This placed Elkin and his followers on one side of the line and Paveland the girl on the other. So what right had that coward of a Jew toplace himself between her and him?
* * * * *
Toward spring, some two months after the old teacher's departure, andwhen the incident was beginning to grow dim in the public mind, thesensation was suddenly revived and greatly intensified by anextraordinary piece of news that came from the town to which Pievakinhad been transferred: The Third Section of His Majesty's Own Office--thecentral political detective bureau of the empire--had taken up the case,with the result that the action of the Department of Public Instructionhad been repudiated as dangerously inadequate. The idea of a man likePievakin participating in the education of children! Accordingly, thepoor old man was now under arrest, condemned to be transported toViatka, a thinly populated province in the remote north, where he was tolive under police surveillance, as a political exile strictly debarredfrom teaching, even in private families.
Pavel was stunned. He received the news as something elemental. He couldfind fault with his uncle, but the government at St. Petersburg was asublime abstract force, bathed in the effulgence of the Czar'spersonality. It was no more open to condemnation than a thunderstorm ora turbulent sea. But the incident made an ineffaceable impression uponhim. It left him with the general feeling that there was somethinginherently cruel in the world. And the picture of a pretty girl boldlyraising her voice for poor Pievakin in the teeth of formidable-lookinggendarmes and in the midst of a crowd of panic-stricken men remainedimbedded in his fancy as the emblem of brave pity. An importunate senseof jealousy nagged him. He often caught himself dreaming of situationsin which he appeared in a role similar to the one she had played at therailroad station.
His perceptions and sensibilities took a novel trend.
One day, for example, as he walked through Theatre Square, he paused towatch an apple-faced ensign, evidently fresh from the military school,lecture a middle-aged sergeant. The youthful officer sat on a bench,swaggeringly leaning back, his new sword gleaming by his side, as hequestioned the soldier who stood at attention, the picture ofembarrassment and impotent rage. A young woman, probably the sergeant'swife, sweetheart, or daughter, stood aside, looking on wretchedly.Seated on a bench directly across the walk were two pretty gymnasiumgirls. It was clear that the whole scene had been gotten up for theirsake, that the ensign had stopped the poor fellow, who was old enough tobe his father, and was now putting him through this ordeal for the solepurpose of flaunting his authority before them. When the sergeant hadbeen allow
ed to go his way, but before he was out of hearing, Pavelwalked up to the ensign and said aloud:
"I wish to tell you, sir, that you tormented that poor man merely toshow off."
"Bravo!" said the two gymnasium girls, clapping their hands with alltheir might; "bravo!"
The ensign sprang to his feet, his apple-cheeks red as fire. "What doyou mean by interfering with an officer--in the performance of hisduty?" he faltered. He apparently knew that the young man before him wasa nephew of the governor.
"Nonsense! You were not performing any duties. You were parading. That'swhat you were doing."
The two girls burst into a ringing laugh, whereupon the ensign stalkedoff, mumbling something about having the gymnasium boy arrested.
"Mother," he said, when he came home. "The world is divided intotormentors and victims."
Anna Nicolayevna gave a laugh that made her rusty face interesting. "Andwhat are you--a tormentor or a victim?" she asked. "At any rate you hadbetter throw these thoughts out of your mind. They lead to no good,Pasha."