He was paid by the job, but he paid me and the other workmen by the day, from one and twopence to two shillings a day. When it was fine and dry we did all kinds of outside work, chiefly painting roofs. When I was new to the work it made my feet burn as though I were walking on hot bricks, and when I put on felt boots they were hotter than ever. But this was only at first; later on I got used to it, and everything went swimmingly. I was living now among people to whom labour was obligatory5, inevitable6, and who worked like cart-horses, often with no idea of the moral significance of labour, and, indeed, never using the word “labour” in conversation at all. Beside them I, too, felt like a cart-horse, growing more and more imbued7 with the feeling of the obligatory and inevitable character of what I was doing, and this made my life easier, setting me free from all doubt and uncertainty8.
At first everything interested me, everything was new, as though I had been born again. I could sleep on the ground and go about barefoot, and that was extremely pleasant; I could stand in a crowd of the common people and be no constraint9 to anyone, and when a cab horse fell down in the street I ran to help it up without being afraid of soiling my clothes. And the best of it all was, I was living on my own account and no burden to anyone!
Painting roofs, especially with our own oil and colours, was regarded as a particularly profitable job, and so this rough, dull work was not disdained10, even by such good workmen as Radish. In short breeches, and wasted, purple-looking legs, he used to go about the roofs, looking like a stork11, and I used to hear him, as he plied12 his brush, breathing heavily and saying: “Woe13, woe to us sinners!”
He walked about the roofs as freely as though he were upon the ground. In spite of his being ill and pale as a corpse14, his agility15 was extraordinary: he used to paint the domes16 and cupolas of the churches without scaffolding, like a young man, with only the help of a ladder and a rope, and it was rather horrible when standing17 on a height far from the earth; he would draw himself up erect18, and for some unknown reason pronounce:
“Lice consume grass, rust19 consumes iron, and lying the soul!”
Or, thinking about something, would answer his thoughts aloud:
“Anything may happen! Anything may happen!”
When I went home from my work, all the people who were sitting on benches by the gates, all the shopmen and boys and their employers, made sneering20 and spiteful remarks after me, and this upset me at first and seemed to be simply monstrous21.
“Better-than-nothing!” I heard on all sides. “House painter! Yellow ochre!”
And none behaved so ungraciously to me as those who had only lately been humble22 people themselves, and had earned their bread by hard manual labour. In the streets full of shops I was once passing an ironmonger’s when water was thrown over me as though by accident, and on one occasion someone darted23 out with a stick at me, while a fishmonger, a grey-headed old man, barred my way and said, looking at me angrily:
“I am not sorry for you, you fool! It’s your father I am sorry for.”
And my acquaintances were for some reason overcome with embarrassment24 when they met me. Some of them looked upon me as a queer fish and a comic fool; others were sorry for me; others did not know what attitude to take up to me, and it was difficult to make them out. One day I met Anyuta Blagovo in a side street near Great Dvoryansky Street. I was going to work, and was carrying two long brushes and a pail of paint. Recognizing me Anyuta flushed crimson25.
“Please do not bow to me in the street,” she said nervously26, harshly, and in a shaking voice, without offering me her hand, and tears suddenly gleamed in her eyes. “If to your mind all this is necessary, so be it . . . so be it, but I beg you not to meet me!”
I no longer lived in Great Dvoryansky Street, but in the suburb with my old nurse Karpovna, a good-natured but gloomy old woman, who always foreboded some harm, was afraid of all dreams, and even in the bees and wasps28 that flew into her room saw omens29 of evil, and the fact that I had become a workman, to her thinking, boded27 nothing good.
“Your life is ruined,” she would say, mournfully shaking her head, “ruined.”
Her adopted son Prokofy, a huge, uncouth30, red-headed fellow of thirty, with bristling31 moustaches, a butcher by trade, lived in the little house with her. When he met me in the passage he would make way for me in respectful silence, and if he was drunk he would salute32 me with all five fingers at once. He used to have supper in the evening, and through the partition wall of boards I could hear him clear his throat and sigh as he drank off glass after glass.
“Mamma,” he would call in an undertone.
“Well,” Karpovna, who was passionately33 devoted34 to her adopted son, would respond: “What is it, sonny?”
“I can show you a testimony35 of my affection, mamma. All this earthly life I will cherish you in your declining years in this vale of tears, and when you die I will bury you at my expense; I have said it, and you can believe it.”
I got up every morning before sunrise, and went to bed early. We house painters ate a great deal and slept soundly; the only thing amiss was that my heart used to beat violently at night. I did not quarrel with my mates. Violent abuse, desperate oaths, and wishes such as, “Blast your eyes,” or “Cholera take you,” never ceased all day, but, nevertheless, we lived on very friendly terms. The other fellows suspected me of being some sort of religious sectary, and made good-natured jokes at my expense, saying that even my own father had disowned me, and thereupon would add that they rarely went into the temple of God themselves, and that many of them had not been to confession36 for ten years. They justified37 this laxity on their part by saying that a painter among men was like a jackdaw among birds.
The men had a good opinion of me, and treated me with respect; it was evident that my not drinking, not smoking, but leading a quiet, steady life pleased them very much. It was only an unpleasant shock to them that I took no hand in stealing oil and did not go with them to ask for tips from people on whose property we were working. Stealing oil and paints from those who employed them was a house painter’s custom, and was not regarded as theft, and it was remarkable38 that even so upright a man as Radish would always carry away a little white lead and oil as he went home from work. And even the most respectable old fellows, who owned the houses in which they lived in the suburb, were not ashamed to ask for a tip, and it made me feel vexed39 and ashamed to see the men go in a body to congratulate some nonentity40 on the commencement or the completion of the job, and thank him with degrading servility when they had received a few coppers41.
With people on whose work they were engaged they behaved like wily courtiers, and almost every day I was reminded of Shakespeare’s Polonius.
“I fancy it is going to rain,” the man whose house was being painted would say, looking at the sky.
“It is, there is not a doubt it is,” the painters would agree.
“I don’t think it is a rain-cloud, though. Perhaps it won’t rain after all.”
“No, it won’t, your honour! I am sure it won’t.”
But their attitude to their patrons behind their backs was usually one of irony42, and when they saw, for instance, a gentleman sitting in the verandah reading a newspaper, they would observe:
“He reads the paper, but I daresay he has nothing to eat.”
I never went home to see my own people. When I came back from work I often found waiting for me little notes, brief and anxious, in which my sister wrote to me about my father; that he had been particularly preoccupied43 at dinner and had eaten nothing, or that he had been giddy and staggering, or that he had locked himself in his room and had not come out for a long time. Such items of news troubled me; I could not sleep, and at times even walked up and down Great Dvoryansky Street at night by our house, looking in at the dark windows and trying to guess whether everything was well at home. On Sundays my sister came to see me, but came in secret, as though it were not to see me but our nurse. And if she came in to see me she was very pale, with tear-stained eyes, and she began crying at once.
“Our father will never live through this,” she would say. “If anything should happen to him—God grant it may not—your conscience will torment44 you all your life. It’s awful, Misail; for our mother’s sake I beseech45 you: reform your ways.”
“My darling sister,” I would say, “how can I reform my ways if I am convinced that I am acting46 in accordance with my conscience? Do understand!”
“I know you are acting on your conscience, but perhaps it could be done differently, somehow, so as not to wound anybody.”
“Ah, holy Saints!” the old woman sighed through the door. “Your life is ruined! There will be trouble, my dears, there will be trouble!”
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1
agitated
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| adj.被鼓动的，不安的 | |
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glazing
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| n.玻璃装配业；玻璃窗；上釉；上光v.装玻璃( glaze的现在分词 )；上釉于，上光；（目光）变得呆滞无神 | |
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paltry
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| adj.无价值的，微不足道的 | |
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contractor
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| n.订约人，承包人，收缩肌 | |
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obligatory
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| adj.强制性的，义务的，必须的 | |
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inevitable
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| adj.不可避免的，必然发生的 | |
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7
imbued
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| v.使（某人/某事）充满或激起（感情等）( imbue的过去式和过去分词 )；使充满；灌输；激发（强烈感情或品质等） | |
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uncertainty
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| n.易变，靠不住，不确知，不确定的事物 | |
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9
constraint
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| n.(on)约束，限制；限制(或约束)性的事物 | |
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disdained
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| 鄙视( disdain的过去式和过去分词 )； 不屑于做，不愿意做 | |
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stork
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| n.鹳 | |
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12
plied
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| v.使用（工具）( ply的过去式和过去分词 )；经常供应（食物、饮料）；固定往来；经营生意 | |
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13
woe
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| n.悲哀，苦痛，不幸，困难；int.用来表达悲伤或惊慌 | |
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14
corpse
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| n.尸体，死尸 | |
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agility
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| n.敏捷，活泼 | |
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domes
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| n.圆屋顶( dome的名词复数 )；像圆屋顶一样的东西；圆顶体育场 | |
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17
standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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erect
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| n./v.树立，建立，使竖立；adj.直立的，垂直的 | |
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rust
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| n.锈；v.生锈；(脑子)衰退 | |
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sneering
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| 嘲笑的，轻蔑的 | |
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21
monstrous
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| adj.巨大的；恐怖的；可耻的，丢脸的 | |
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humble
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| adj.谦卑的，恭顺的；地位低下的；v.降低，贬低 | |
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23
darted
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| v.投掷，投射( dart的过去式和过去分词 )；向前冲，飞奔 | |
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24
embarrassment
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| n.尴尬；使人为难的人(事物)；障碍；窘迫 | |
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25
crimson
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| n./adj.深(绯)红色(的)；vi.脸变绯红色 | |
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26
nervously
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| adv.神情激动地，不安地 | |
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27
boded
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| v.预示，预告，预言( bode的过去式和过去分词 )；等待，停留( bide的过去分词 )；居住；（过去式用bided）等待 | |
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28
wasps
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| 黄蜂( wasp的名词复数 )； 胡蜂； 易动怒的人； 刻毒的人 | |
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29
omens
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| n.前兆，预兆( omen的名词复数 ) | |
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30
uncouth
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| adj.无教养的，粗鲁的 | |
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bristling
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| a.竖立的 | |
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32
salute
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| vi.行礼，致意，问候，放礼炮；vt.向…致意，迎接，赞扬；n.招呼，敬礼，礼炮 | |
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33
passionately
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| ad.热烈地，激烈地 | |
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devoted
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| adj.忠诚的，忠实的，热心的，献身于...的 | |
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35
testimony
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| n.证词；见证，证明 | |
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36
confession
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| n.自白，供认，承认 | |
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37
justified
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| a.正当的，有理的 | |
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remarkable
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| adj.显著的，异常的，非凡的，值得注意的 | |
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39
vexed
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| adj.争论不休的；（指问题等）棘手的；争论不休的问题；烦恼的v.使烦恼( vex的过去式和过去分词 )；使苦恼；使生气；详细讨论 | |
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40
nonentity
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| n.无足轻重的人 | |
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41
coppers
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| 铜( copper的名词复数 )； 铜币 | |
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42
irony
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| n.反语，冷嘲；具有讽刺意味的事，嘲弄 | |
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43
preoccupied
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| adj.全神贯注的，入神的；被抢先占有的；心事重重的v.占据（某人）思想，使对…全神贯注，使专心于( preoccupy的过去式) | |
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44
torment
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| n.折磨；令人痛苦的东西(人)；vt.折磨；纠缠 | |
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45
beseech
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| v.祈求，恳求 | |
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46
acting
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| n.演戏，行为，假装；adj.代理的，临时的，演出用的 | |
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