Petrovitch, look out! If you don’t get down, I’ll fire!»
«Fire away!» came a husky voice from the roof. «Fire away! And meanwhile here’s a little present for you!»
A long plank flew up, and, turning over twice in the air, came violently to the earth, just at Sletkin’s feet. He positively jumped into the air, while Harlov chuckled.
«Merciful Jesus!» faltered some one behind me. I looked round: Souvenir. «Ah!» I thought, «he’s left off laughing now!»
Sletkin clutched a peasant, who was standing near, by the collar.
«Climb up now, climb up, climb up, all of you, you devils,» he wailed, shaking the man with all his force, «save my property!»
The peasant took a couple of steps forward, threw his head back, waved his arms, shouted—«Hi! here master!» shifted from one foot to the other uneasily, and then turned back.
«A ladder! bring a ladder!» Sletkin addressed the other peasants.
«Where are we to get it?» was heard in answer.
«And if we had a ladder,» one voice pronounced deliberately, «who’d care to climb up? Not such fools! He’d wring your neck for you—in a twinkling!»
«He’d kill one in no time,» said one young lad with flaxen hair and a half-idiotic face.
«To be sure he would,» the others confirmed. It struck me that, even if there had been no obvious danger, the peasants would yet have been loath to carry out their new owner’s orders. They almost approved of Harlov, though they were amazed at him.
«Ugh, you robbers!» moaned Sletkin; «you shall all catch it . . .»
But at this moment, with a heavy rumble, the last chimney came crashing down, and, in the midst of the cloud of yellow dust that flew up instantly, Harlov—uttering a piercing shriek and lifting his bleeding hands high in the air—turned facing us. Sletkin pointed the gun at him again.
Evlampia pulled him back by the elbow.
«Don’t interfere!» he snarled savagely at her.
«And you—don’t you dare!» she answered; and her blue eyes flashed menacingly under her scowling brows. «Father’s pulling his house down. It’s his own.»
«You lie: it’s ours!»
«You say ours; but I say it’s his.»
Sletkin hissed with fury; Evlampia’s eyes seemed stabbing him in the face.
«Ah, how d’ye do! my delightful daughter!» Harlov thundered from above. «How d’ye do! Evlampia Martinovna! How are you getting on with your sweetheart? Are your kisses sweet, and your fondling?»
«Father!» rang out Evlampia’s musical voice.
«Eh, daughter?» answered Harlov; and he came down to the very edge of the wall. His face, as far as I could make it out, wore a strange smile, a bright, mirthful—and for that very reason peculiarly strange and evil—smile. . . . Many years later I saw just the same smile on the face of a man condemned to death.
«Stop, father; come down. We are in fault; we give everything back to you. Come down.»
«What do you mean by disposing of what’s ours?» put in Sletkin. Evlampia merely scowled more angrily.
«I give you back my share. I give up everything. Give over, come down, father! Forgive us; forgive me.»
Harlov still went on smiling. «It’s too late, my darling,» he said, and each of his words rang out like brass. «Too late your stony heart is touched! The rock’s started rolling downhill—there’s no holding it back now! And don’t look to me now; I’m a doomed man! You’d do better to look to your Volodka; see what a pretty fellow you’ve picked out! And look to your hellish sister; there’s her foxy nose yonder thrust out of the window; she’s peering yonder after that husband of hers! No, my good friends; you would rob me of a roof over my head, so I will leave you not one beam upon another! With my own hands I built it, with my own hands I destroy it,—yes, with my hands alone! See, I’ve taken no axe to help me!»
He snorted at his two open hands, and clutched at the centre beam again.
«Enough, father,» Evlampia was saying meanwhile, and her voice had grown marvellously caressing, «let bygones be bygones. Come, trust me; you always trusted me. Come, get down; come to me to my little room, to my soft bed. I will dry you and warm you; I will bind up your wounds; see, you have torn your hands. You shall live with me as in Christ’s bosom; food shall be sweet to you—and sleep sweeter yet. Come, we have done wrong! yes, we were puffed up, we have sinned; come, forgive!»
Harlov shook his head. «Talk away! Me believe you! Never again! You’ve murdered all trust in my heart! You’ve murdered everything! I was an eagle, and became a worm for you . . . and you,—would you even crush the worm? Have done! I loved you, you know very well,—but now you are no daughter to me, and I’m no father to you . . . I’m a doomed man! Don’t meddle! As for you, fire away, coward, mighty man of valour!» Harlov bellowed suddenly at Sletkin. «Why is it you keep aiming and don’t shoot? Are you mindful of the law; if the recipient of a gift commits an attempt upon the life of the giver,» Harlov enunciated distinctly, «then the giver is empowered to claim everything back again? Ha, ha! don’t be afraid, law-abiding man! I’d make no claims. I’ll make an end of everything myself. . . . Here goes!»
«Father!» for the last time Evlampia besought him.
«Silence!»
«Martin Petrovitch! brother, be generous and forgive!» faltered Souvenir.
«Father! dear father!»
«Silence, bitch!» shouted Harlov. At Souvenir he did not even glance,—he merely spat in his direction. XXVII
AT that instant, Kvitsinsky, with all his retinue—in three carts—appeared at the gates. The tired horses panted, the men jumped out, one after another, into the mud.
«Aha!» Harlov shouted at the top of his voice. «An army . . . here it comes, an army! A whole army they’re sending against me! Capital! Only I give warning—if any one comes up here to me on the roof, I’ll send him flying down, head over heels! I’m an inhospitable master; I don’t like visitors at wrong times! No indeed!»
He was hanging with both hands on to the front rafters of the roof, the so-called standards of the gable, and beginning to shake them violently. Balancing on the edge of the garret flooring, he dragged them, as it were, after him, chanting rhythmically like a bargeman, «One more pull! one more! o-oh!»
Sletkin ran up to Kvitsinsky and was beginning to whimper and pour out complaints. . . . The latter begged him «not to interfere,» and proceeded to carry out the plan he had evolved. He took up his position in front of the house, and began, by way of diversion, to explain to Harlov that what he was about was unworthy of his rank. . . .
«One more pull! one more!» chanted Harlov. . . . «That Natalia Nikolaevna was greatly displeased at his proceedings, and had not expected it of him.» . . .
«One more pull! one more! o-oh!» Harlov chanted . . . while, meantime, Kvitsinsky had despatched the four sturdiest and boldest of the stable-boys to the other side of the house to clamber up the roof from behind. Harlov, however, detected the plan of attack; he suddenly left the standards and ran quickly to the back part of the roof. His appearance was so alarming that the two stable-boys who had already got up to the garret, dropped instantly back again to the ground by the water-pipe, to the great glee of the serf boys, who positively roared with laughter. Harlov shook his fist after them and, going back to the front part of the house, again clutched at the standards and began once more loosening them, singing again, like a bargeman.
Suddenly he stopped, stared. . . .
«Maximushka, my dear! my friend!» he cried; «is it you?»
I looked round. . . . There, actually, was Maximka, stepping out from the crowd of peasants. Grinning and showing his teeth, he walked forward. His master, the tailor, had probably let him come home for a holiday.
«Climb up to me, Maximushka, my faithful servant,» Harlov went on; «together let us rid ourselves of evil Tartar folk, of Lithuanian thieves!»
Maximka, still grinning, promptly began climbing up the roof. . . . But they seized him and pulled him back—goodness knows why; possibly as an example to the rest; he could hardly have been much aid to Martin Petrovitch.
«Oh, all right! Good!» Harlov pronounced, in a voice of menace, and again he took hold of the standards.
«Vikenty Osipovitch! with your permission, I’ll shoot,» Sletkin turned to Kvitsinsky; «more to frighten him, see, than anything; my gun’s only charged with snipe-shot.» But Kvitsinsky had not time to answer him, when the front couple of standards, viciously shaken in Harlov’s iron hands, heeled over with a loud crack and crashed into the yard; and with it, not able to stop himself, came Harlov too, and fell with a heavy thud on the earth. Every one shuddered and drew a deep breath. . . . Harlov lay without stirring on his breast, and on his back lay the top central beam of the roof, which had come down with the falling gable’s timbers. XXVIII
THEY ran up to Harlov, rolled the beam off him, turned him over on his back. His face was lifeless, there was blood about his mouth; he did not seem to breathe. «The breath is gone out of him,» muttered the peasants, standing about him. They ran to the well for water, brought a whole bucketful, and drenched Harlov’s head. The mud and dust ran off his face,
