The Man Who Was Afraid [35]
"It is understood. Not with all of us. Oh, Lord!"
"Why are you sighing?"
"Yes. Foma Ignatyich! We are going to a big city. Are there not plenty of women of her kind?"
"Well, keep quiet!" said Foma, sternly.
"I will keep quiet, but this isn't right!"
"What?"
"This very wantonness of ours. Our steamer is perfect, clean--and suddenly there is a woman there! And if it were at least the right sort of a woman! But as it is, she merely bears the name of woman."
Foma frowned insinuatingly and addressed the captain, imperiously emphasizing his words:
"Yefim, I want you to bear it in mind, and to tell it to everybody here, that if anyone will utter an obscene word about her, I'll strike him on the head with a log of wood!"
"How terrible!" said Yefim, incredulously, looking into the master's face with curiosity. But he immediately made a step backward. Ignat's son, like a wolf, showed his teeth, the apples of his eyes became wider, and he roared:
"Laugh! I'll show you how to laugh!"
Though Yefim lost courage, he nevertheless said with dignity:
"Although you, Foma Ignatyich, are the master, yet as I was told, 'Watch, Yefim,' and then I am the captain here."
"The captain?" cried Foma, shuddering in every limb and turning pale. "And who am I?"
"Well, don't bawl! On account of such a trifle as a woman."
Red spots came out on Foma's pale face, he shifted from one foot to the other, thrust his hands into the pockets of his jacket with a convulsive motion and said in a firm and even voice:
"You! Captain! See here, say another word against me--and you go to the devil! I'll put you ashore! I'll get along as well with the pilot! Understand? You cannot command me. Do you see?"
Yefim was dumfounded. He looked at his master and comically winked his eyes, finding no reply to his words.
"Do you understand, I say?"
"Yes. I understand! " drawled Yefim. "But what is all this noise about? On account of--"
"Silence!"
Foma's eyes, which flashed wildly, and his face distorted with wrath, suggested to the captain the happy thought to leave his master as soon as possible and, turning around quickly, he walked off.
"Pshaw! How terrible! As it seems the apple did not fall too far from the tree," he muttered sneeringly, walking on the deck. He was angry at Foma, and considered himself offended for nothing, but at the same time he began to feel over himself the real, firm hand of a master. For years accustomed to being subordinate, he rather liked this manifestation of power over him, and, entering the cabin of the old pilot, he related to him the scene between himself and his master, with a shade of satisfaction in his voice.
"See?" he concluded his story. "A pup coming from a good breed is an excellent dog at the very first chase. From his exterior he is so-so. A man of rather heavy mind as yet. Well, never mind, let him have his fun. It seems now as though nothing wrong will come out of this. With a character like his, no. How he bawled at me! A regular trumpet, I tell you! And he appointed himself master at once. As though he had sipped power and strictness out of a ladle."
Yefim spoke the truth: during these few days Foma underwent a striking transformation. The passion now kindled in him made him master of the soul and body of a woman; he eagerly absorbed the fiery sweetness of this power, and this burned out all that was awkward in him, all that gave him the appearance of a somewhat stupid, gloomy fellow, and, destroying it, filled his heart with youthful pride, with the consciousness of his human personality. Love for a woman is always fruitful to the man, be the love whatever it may; even though it were to cause but sufferings there is always much that is rich in it. Working as a powerful poison on those whose souls are afflicted, it is for the healthy man as fire for iron, which is to be transformed into steel.
Foma's passion for the thirty-year-old woman, who lamented in his embraces her dead youth, did not tear him away from his affairs; he was never lost in the caresses, or