The Matiushin Case Read Online Free PDF Page A

heroically chasing after him. Matiushin shied away from the men, alarming people walking towards him, and darted off into the courtyards and side streets, running until he got lost and then came to his senses in the middle of nowhere, in the twilight, on an empty lot overgrown with burdock.
    He was carried home from the outskirts by a bus that laboured away until it was dark, wandering around for a long time, already half-empty, a bright spot in the hazy little town, as if it was meandering over the vault of heaven. Matiushin’s soul was just as bright and as empty. He didn’t sit, but stood in the corner by the doors, as if he’d been punished. People in the bus kept looking at him, some angrily, some pityingly, seeing a worthless, drunk young man with his clothes soaked in vomit.
    The door was opened by his mother – in her nightshirt, with her hair dangling. She looked like a little kid like that, and her loose hair covered her head sparsely, as if it wasn’t growing but lying on her.
    â€˜Have you lost your mind, gadding about until midnight!’ she asked, her voice soaring to a wail. ‘Did you get there? Did you see them off? Did they get on the train?’ With her weak sight she hadn’t got a good look at him yet.
    Not knowing what to answer, he hovered outside the door.
    â€˜What d’you think you’re doing?’ She dragged him into the house and then gave a shriek, immediately frantic. ‘Son, son, what’s wrong with you? Oh, Vasenka … What … What … Ah, you villain … been drinking, haven’t you? You’ve been drinking! And your shirt, your trousers, what’s that, what have you gone and done?’
    Matiushin couldn’t utter a single word, but he didn’t want to stay silent any longer – he cringed as if he had been struck and started breathing hoarsely.
    â€˜Yashka, the villain, Yashka, it was him! He poured the drink, come on now, tell me!’
    â€˜Ya–a … sh-ka … ’ Matiushin forced out, groaning feebly.
    â€˜Did he hit you? Answer me, what did he do to you?’
    â€˜Nn-o-o … No …’
    â€˜And the blood, where’s the blood from?’
    â€˜It’s from the box … It got broke … Compote …’
    â€˜Did they get on the train? And you? Have you been lying around drunk?’
    But he didn’t answer any more questions, he just gazed at her stupidly. His mother fell silent too, she’d run out of steam. Already thinking of something else, she shepherded him out.
    â€˜Go and wash, take everything off there. Quick now, or your father will come. It’s just your luck, you villain, that your father’s not in. Have a sleep, and then I’ll give you a good talking-to, I’ll give you what for, knock this nonsense out of you. You’ll remember Yashka, oh you will.’ And in her anger she lashed the shirt across his bare back. ‘You’ll remember him all your life!’
    His father showed up: he clattered about in the hallway while he gave the mother instructions, then walked through into the kitchen, where she set the table. Matiushin was afraid to make a single sound as he lay there because his head was spinning as if he was being tortured on the wheel, and the bleary vodka haze was stifling him. But he endured this torture, managing to breathe and make himself fall asleep, he managed to do everything, even though he was poisoned with vodka. In the morning, when his mother interrogated him about Yashka, he lied to her, answering in fabrications, saying that he’d only asked Yashka for a sip in the bar, and kept mum about everything else. And so his mother cursed that train, and cursed his father for getting them tickets without places for a third-class sleeper, when he should have taken them to Gradov in the car and put them in a compartment carriage: there was another train that went to Moscow from there. And she kept