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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Through Russia, by Maxim Gorky
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Through Russia
+
+Author: Maxim Gorky
+
+Posting Date: March 21, 2009 [EBook #2288]
+Release Date: August, 2000
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THROUGH RUSSIA ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Martin Adamson.  HTML version by Al Haines.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Through Russia
+
+
+by
+
+Maxim Gorky
+
+
+
+
+Translated by C. J. Hogarth
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+  THE BIRTH OF A MAN
+  THE ICEBREAKER
+  GUBIN
+  NILUSHKA
+  THE CEMETERY
+  ON A RIVER STEAMER
+  A WOMAN
+  IN A MOUNTAIN DEFILE
+  KALININ
+  THE DEAD MAN
+
+
+
+
+THE BIRTH OF A MAN
+
+The year was the year '92--the year of leanness--the scene a spot
+between Sukhum and Otchenchiri, on the river Kodor, a spot so near to
+the sea that amid the joyous babble of a sparkling rivulet the ocean's
+deep-voiced thunder was plainly distinguishable.
+
+Also, the season being autumn, leaves of wild laurel were glistening
+and gyrating on the white foam of the Kodor like a quantity of
+mercurial salmon fry. And as I sat on some rocks overlooking the river
+there occurred to me the thought that, as likely as not, the cause of
+the gulls' and cormorants' fretful cries where the surf lay moaning
+behind a belt of trees to the right was that, like myself, they kept
+mistaking the leaves for fish, and as often finding themselves
+disappointed.
+
+Over my head hung chestnut trees decked with gold; at my feet lay a
+mass of chestnut leaves which resembled the amputated palms of human
+hands; on the opposite bank, where there waved, tanglewise, the
+stripped branches of a hornbeam, an orange-tinted woodpecker was
+darting to and fro, as though caught in the mesh of foliage, and, in
+company with a troupe of nimble titmice and blue tree-creepers
+(visitors from the far-distant North), tapping the bark of the stem
+with a black beak, and hunting for insects.
+
+To the left, the tops of the mountains hung fringed with dense, fleecy
+clouds of the kind which presages rain; and these clouds were sending
+their shadows gliding over slopes green and overgrown with boxwood and
+that peculiar species of hollow beech-stump which once came near to
+effecting the downfall of Pompey's host, through depriving his
+iron-built legions of the use of their legs as they revelled in the
+intoxicating sweetness of the "mead" or honey which wild bees make from
+the blossoms of the laurel and the azalea, and travellers still gather
+from those hollow stems to knead into lavashi or thin cakes of millet
+flour.
+
+On the present occasion I too (after suffering sundry stings from
+infuriated bees) was thus engaged as I sat on the rocks beneath the
+chestnuts. Dipping morsels of bread into a potful of honey, I was
+munching them for breakfast, and enjoying, at the same time, the
+indolent beams of the moribund autumn sun.
+
+In the fall of the year the Caucasus resembles a gorgeous cathedral
+built by great craftsmen (always great craftsmen are great sinners) to
+conceal their past from the prying eyes of conscience. Which cathedral
+is a sort of intangible edifice of gold and turquoise and emerald, and
+has thrown over its hills rare carpets silk-embroidered by Turcoman
+weavers of Shemi and Samarkand, and contains, heaped everywhere,
+plunder brought from all the quarters of the world for the delectation
+of the sun. Yes, it is as though men sought to say to the Sun God: "All
+things here are thine. They have been brought hither for thee by thy
+people."
+
+Yes, mentally I see long-bearded, grey-headed supermen, beings
+possessed of the rounded eyes of happy children, descending from the
+hills, and decking the earth, and sowing it with sheerly kaleidoscopic
+treasures, and coating the tops of the mountains with massive layers of
+silver, and the lower edges with a living web of trees. Yes, I see
+those beings decorating and fashioning the scene until, thanks to their
+labours, this gracious morsel of the earth has become fair beyond all
+conception.
+
+And what a privilege it is to be human! How much that is wonderful
+leaps to the eye-how the presence of beauty causes. the heart to throb
+with a voluptuous rapture that is almost pain!
+
+And though there are occasions when life seems hard, and the breast
+feels filled with fiery rancour, and melancholy dries and renders
+athirst the heart's blood, this is not a mood sent us in perpetuity.
+For at times even the sun may feel sad as he contemplates men, and sees
+that, despite all that he has done for them, they have done so little
+in return....
+
+No, it is not that good folk are lacking. It is that they need to be
+rounded off--better still, to be made anew.
+
+      *      *      *      *      *
+
+Suddenly there came into view over the bushes to my left a file of dark
+heads, while through the surging of the waves and the babble of the
+stream I caught the sound of human voices, a sound emanating from a
+party of "famine people" or folk who were journeying from Sukhum to
+Otchenchiri to obtain work on a local road then in process of
+construction.
+
+The owners of the voices I knew to be immigrants from the province of
+Orlov. I knew them to be so for the reason that I myself had lately
+been working in company with the male members of the party, and had
+taken leave of them only yesterday in order that I might set out
+earlier than they, and, after walking through the night, greet the sun
+when he should arise above the sea.
+
+The members of the party comprised four men and a woman--the latter a
+young female with high cheek-bones, a figure swollen with manifest
+pregnancy, and a pair of greyish-blue eyes that had fixed in them a
+stare of apprehension. At the present moment her head and yellow scarf
+were just showing over the tops of the bushes; and while I noted that
+now it was swaying from side to side like a sunflower shaken by the
+wind, I recalled the fact that she was a woman whose husband had been
+carried off at Sukhum by a surfeit of fruit--this fact being known to
+me through the circumstance that in the workmen's barraque where we had
+shared quarters these folk had observed the good old Russian custom of
+confiding to a stranger the whole of their troubles, and had done so in
+tones of such amplitude and penetration that the querulous words must
+have been audible for five versts around.
+
+And as I had talked to these forlorn people, these human beings who lay
+crushed beneath the misfortune which had uprooted them from their
+barren and exhausted lands, and blown them, like autumn leaves, towards
+the Caucasus where nature's luxuriant, but unfamiliar, aspect had
+blinded and bewildered them, and with its onerous conditions of labour
+quenched their last spark of courage; as I had talked to these poor
+people I had seen them glancing about with dull, troubled, despondent
+eyes, and heard them say to one another softly, and with pitiful smiles:
+
+"What a country!"
+
+"Aye,--that it is!--a country to make one sweat!"
+
+"As hard as a stone it is!"
+
+"Aye, an evil country!"
+
+After which they had gone on to speak of their native haunts, where
+every handful of soil had represented to them the dust of their
+ancestors, and every grain of that soil had been watered with the sweat
+of their brows, and become charged with dear and intimate recollections.
+
+Previously there had joined the party a woman who, tall and straight,
+had had breasts as flat as a board, and jawbones like the jawbones of a
+horse, and a glance in her dull, sidelong black eyes like a gleaming,
+smouldering fire.
+
+And every evening this woman had been wont to step outside the barraque
+with the woman in the yellow scarf and to seat herself on a rubbish
+heap, and, resting her cheeks on the palms of her hands, and inclining
+her head sideways, to sing in a high and shrewish voice:
+
+  Behind the graveyard wall,
+  Where fair green bushes stand.
+  I'll spread me on the sand
+  A shroud as white as snow.
+  And not long will it be
+  Before my heart's adored,
+  My master and my lord,
+  Shall answer my curtsey low.
+
+Usually her companion, the woman in the yellow scarf, had, with head
+bent forward and eyes fixed upon her stomach, remained silent; but on
+rare, unexpected occasions she had, in the hoarse, sluggish voice of a
+peasant, sung a song with the sobbing refrain:
+
+  Ah, my beloved, sweetheart of mine,
+  Never again will these eyes seek thine!
+
+Nor amid the stifling blackness of the southern night had these voices
+ever failed to bring back to my memory the snowy wastes of the North,
+and the icy, wailing storm-wind, and the distant howling of unseen
+wolves.
+
+In time, the squint-eyed woman had been taken ill of a fever, and
+removed to the town in a tilted ambulance; and as she had lain
+quivering and moaning on the stretcher she had seemed still to be
+singing her little ditty about the graveyard and the sand.
+
+The head with the yellow scarf rose, dipped, and disappeared.
+
+After I had finished my breakfast I thatched the honey-pot with some
+leaves, fastened down the lid, and indolently resumed my way in the
+wake of the party, my blackthorn staff tiptapping against the hard
+tread of the track as I proceeded.
+
+The track loomed--a grey, narrow strip--before me, while on my right
+the restless, dark blue sea had the air of being ceaselessly planed by
+thousands of invisible carpenters; so regularly did the stress of a
+wind as moist and sweet and warm as the breath of a healthy woman cause
+ever-rustling curls of foam to drift towards the beach. Also, careening
+on to its port quarter under a full set of bellying sails, a Turkish
+felucca was gliding towards Sukhum; and, as it held on its course, it
+put me in mind of a certain pompous engineer of the town who had been
+wont to inflate his fat cheeks and say: "Be quiet, you, or I will have
+you locked up!" This man had, for some reason or another, an
+extraordinary weakness for causing arrests to be made; and, exceedingly
+do I rejoice to think that by now the worms of the graveyard must have
+consumed him down to the very marrow of his bones. Would that certain
+other acquaintances of mine were similarly receiving beneficent
+attention!
+
+Walking proved an easy enough task, for I seemed to be borne on air,
+while a chorus of pleasant thoughts, of many-coloured recollections,
+kept singing gently in my breast--a chorus resembling, indeed, the
+white-maned billows in the regularity with which now it rose, and now
+it fell, to reveal in, as it were, soft, peaceful depths the bright,
+supple hopes of youth, like so many silver fish cradled in the bosom of
+the ocean.
+
+Suddenly, as it trended seawards, the road executed a half-turn, and
+skirted a strip of the sandy margin to which the waves kept rolling in
+such haste. And in that spot even the bushes seemed to have a mind to
+look the waves in the eyes--so strenuously did they lean across the
+riband-like path, and nod in the direction of the blue, watery waste,
+while from the hills a wind was blowing that presaged rain.
+
+      *      *      *      *      *
+
+But hark! From some point among the bushes a low moan arose--the sound
+which never fails to thrill the soul and move it to responsive quivers!
+
+Thrusting aside the foliage, I beheld before me the woman in the yellow
+scarf. Seated with her back resting against the stem of a hazel-bush,
+she had her head sunken deeply between her shoulders, her mouth
+hideously agape, her eyes staring vaguely before her, her hands pressed
+to her swollen stomach, her breath issuing with unnatural vehemence,
+and her abdomen convulsively, spasmodically rising and falling.
+Meanwhile from her throat were issuing moans which at times caused her
+yellow teeth to show bare like those of a wolf.
+
+"What is the matter?" I said as I bent over her. "Has anyone assaulted
+you?"
+
+The only result was that, shuffling bare feet in the sand like a fly,
+she shook her nerveless hand, and gasped:
+
+"Away, villain! Away with you!"
+
+Then I understood what was the matter, for I had seen a similar case
+before. Yet for the moment a certain feeling of shyness made me edge
+away from her a little; and as I did so, she uttered a prolonged moan,
+and her almost bursting eyeballs vented hot, murky tears which trickled
+down her tense and livid features.
+
+Thereupon I turned to her again, and, throwing down cooking-pot,
+teapot, and wallet, laid her on her back, and strove to bend her knees
+upwards in the direction of her body. Meanwhile she sought to repel me
+with blows on face and breast, and at length rolled on to her stomach.
+Then, raising herself on all fours, she, sobbing, gasping, and cursing
+in a breath, crawled away like a bear into a remoter portion of the
+thicket.
+
+"Beast!" she panted. "Oh, you devil!"
+
+Yet, even as the words escaped her lips, her arms gave way beneath her,
+and she collapsed upon her face, with legs stretched out, and her lips
+emitting a fresh series of convulsive moans.
+
+Excited now to fever pitch, I hurriedly recalled my small store of
+knowledge of such cases and finally decided to turn her on her back,
+and, as before, to strive to bend her knees upwards in the direction of
+her body. Already signs of imminent parturition were not wanting.
+
+"Lie still," I said, "and if you do that it will not be long before you
+are delivered of the child."
+
+Whereafter, running down to the sea, I pulled up my sleeves, and, on
+returning, embarked upon my role, of accoucheur.
+
+Scoring the earth with her fingers, uprooting tufts of withered grass,
+and struggling to thrust them into her mouth, scattering soil over her
+terrible, inhuman face and bloodshot eyes, the woman writhed like a
+strip of birch bark in a wood fire. Indeed, by this time a little head
+was coming into view, and it needed all my efforts to quell the
+twitchings of her legs, to help the child to issue, and to prevent its
+mother from thrusting grass down her distorted, moaning throat.
+Meanwhile we cursed one another--she through her teeth, and I in an
+undertone; she, I should surmise, out of pain and shame, and I, I feel
+certain, out of nervousness, mingled with a perfect agony of compassion.
+
+"O Lord!" she gasped with blue lips flecked with foam as her eyes
+(suddenly bereft of their colour in the sunlight) shed tears born of
+the intolerable anguish of the maternal function, and her body writhed
+and twisted as though her frame had been severed in the middle.
+
+"Away, you brute!" was her oft-repeated cry as with her weak hands,
+hands seemingly dislocated at the wrists, she strove to thrust me to a
+distance. Yet all the time I kept saying persuasively: "You fool! Bring
+forth as quickly as you can!" and, as a matter of fact, was feeling so
+sorry for her that tears continued to spurt from my eyes as much as
+from hers, and my very heart contracted with pity. Also, never did I
+cease to feel that I ought to keep saying something; wherefore, I
+repeated, and again repeated: "Now then! Bring forth as quickly as ever
+you can!"
+
+And at last my hands did indeed hold a human creature in all its
+pristine beauty. Nor could even the mist of tears prevent me from
+seeing that that human creature was red in the face, and that to judge
+from the manner in which it kept kicking and resisting and uttering
+hoarse wails (while still bound to its mother by the ligament), it was
+feeling dissatisfied in advance with the world. Yes, blue-eyed, and
+with a nose absurdly sunken between a pair of scarlet, rumpled cheeks
+and lips which ceaselessly quivered and contracted, it kept bawling:
+"A-aah! A-a-ah!"
+
+Moreover, so slippery was it that, as I knelt and looked at it and
+laughed with relief at the fact that it had arrived safely, I came near
+to letting it fall upon the ground: wherefore I entirely forgot what
+next I ought to have done.
+
+"Cut it!" at length whispered the mother with eyes closed, and features
+suddenly swollen and resembling those of a corpse.
+
+"A knife!" again she whispered with her livid lips. "Cut it!"
+
+My pocket-knife I had had stolen from me in the workmen's barraque; but
+with my teeth I severed the caul, and then the child gave renewed
+tongue in true Orlovian fashion, while the mother smiled.  Also, in
+some curious fashion, the mother's unfathomable eyes regained their
+colour, and became filled as with blue fire as, plunging a hand into
+her bodice and feeling for the pocket, she contrived to articulate with
+raw and blood-flecked lips:
+
+"I have not a single piece of string or riband to bind the caul with."
+
+Upon that I set to, and managed to produce a piece of riband, and to
+fasten it in the required position.
+
+Thereafter she smiled more brightly than ever. So radiantly did she
+smile that my eyes came near to being blinded with the spectacle.
+
+"And now rearrange yourself," I said, "and in the meanwhile I will go
+and wash the baby."
+
+"Yes, yes," she murmured uneasily. "But be very careful with him--be
+very gentle."
+
+Yet it was little enough care that the rosy little homunculus seemed to
+require, so strenuously did he clench his fists, and bawl as though he
+were minded to challenge the whole world to combat.
+
+"Come, now!" at length I said. "You must have done, or your very head
+will drop off."
+
+Yet no sooner did he feel the touch of the ocean spray, and begin to be
+sprinkled With its joyous caresses, than he lamented more loudly and
+vigorously than ever, and so continued throughout the process of being
+slapped on the back and breast as, frowning and struggling, he vented
+squall after squall while the waves laved his tiny limbs.
+
+"Shout, young Orlovian!" said I encouragingly. "Let fly with all the
+power of your lungs!"
+
+And with that, I took him back to his mother. I found her with eyes
+closed and lips drawn between her teeth as she writhed in the torment
+of expelling the after-birth. But presently I detected through the
+sighs and groans a whispered:
+
+"Give him to me! Give him to me!"
+
+"You had better wait a little," I urged.
+
+"Oh no! Give him to me now!"
+
+And with tremulous, unsteady hands she unhooked the bosom of her
+bodice, and, freeing (with my assistance) the breast which nature had
+prepared for at least a dozen children, applied the mutinous young
+Orlovian to the nipple. As for him, he at once understood the matter,
+and ceased to send forth further lamentation.
+
+"O pure and holy Mother of God!" she gasped in a long-drawn, quivering
+sigh as she bent a dishevelled head over the little one, and, between
+intervals of silence, fell to uttering soft, abrupt exclamations. Then,
+opening her ineffably beautiful blue eyes, the hallowed eyes of a
+mother, she raised them towards the azure heavens, while in their
+depths there was coming and going a flame of joy and gratitude. Lastly,
+lifting a languid hand, she with a slow movement made the sign of the
+cross over both herself and her babe.
+
+"Thanks to thee O purest Mother of God!" she murmured. "Thanks indeed
+to thee!"
+
+Then her eyes grew dim and vague again, and after a pause (during which
+she seemed to be scarcely breathing) she said in a hard and
+matter-of-fact tone:
+
+"Young fellow, unfasten my satchel."
+
+And whilst I was so engaged she continued to regard me with a steady
+gaze; but, when the task was completed she smiled shamefacedly, and on
+her sunken cheeks and sweat-flecked temples there dawned the ghost of a
+blush.
+
+"Now," said she, "do you, for the present, go away."
+
+"And if I do so, see that in the meanwhile you do not move about too
+much."
+
+"No, I will not. But please go away."
+
+So I withdrew a little. In my breast a sort of weariness was lurking,
+but also in my breast there was echoing a soft and glorious chorus of
+birds, a chorus so exquisitely in accord with the never-ceasing splash
+of the sea that for ever could I have listened to it, and to the
+neighbouring brook as it purled on its way like a maiden engaged in
+relating confidences about her lover.
+
+Presently, the woman's yellow-scarfed head (the scarf now tidily
+rearranged) reappeared over the bushes.
+
+"Come, come, good woman!" was my exclamation. "I tell you that you must
+not move about so soon."
+
+And certainly her attitude now was one of utter languor, and she had
+perforce to grasp the stem of a bush with one hand to support herself.
+Yet while the blood was gone from her face, there had formed in the
+hollows where her eyes had been two lakes of blue.
+
+"See how he is sleeping!" she murmured.
+
+And, true enough, the child was sound asleep, though to my eyes he
+looked much as any other baby might have done, save that the couch of
+autumn leaves on which he was ensconced consisted of leaves of a kind
+which could not have been discovered in the faraway forests of Orlov.
+
+"Now, do you yourself lie down awhile," was my advice.
+
+"Oh, no," she replied with a shake of her head on its sinuous neck;
+"for I must be collecting my things before I move on towards--"
+
+"Towards Otchenchiri"
+
+"Yes. By now my folk will have gone many a verst in that direction."
+
+"And can you walk so far?"
+
+"The Holy Mother will help me."
+
+Yes, she was to journey in the company of the Mother of God. So no more
+on the point required to be said.
+
+Glancing again at the tiny, inchoate face under the bushes, her eyes
+diffused rays of warm and kindly light as, licking her lips, she, with
+a slow movement, smoothed the breast of the little one.
+
+Then I arranged sticks for a fire, and also adjusted stones to support
+the kettle.
+
+"Soon I will have tea ready for you," I remarked.
+
+"And thankful indeed I shall be," she responded, "for my breasts are
+dried up."
+
+"Why have your companions deserted you?" I said next.
+
+"They have not deserted me. It was I that left them of my own accord.
+How could I have exposed myself in their presence?"
+
+And with a glance at me she raised a hand to her face as, spitting a
+gout of blood, she smiled a sort of bashful smile.
+
+"This is your first child, I take it?"
+
+"It is.... And who are you?"
+
+"A man."
+
+"Yes, a man, of course; but, are you a MARRIED man?"
+
+"No, I have never been able to marry."
+
+"That cannot be true."
+
+"Why not?"
+
+With lowered eyes she sat awhile in thought.
+
+"Because, if so, how do you come to know so much about women's affairs?"
+
+This time I DID lie, for I replied:
+
+"Because they have been my study. In fact, I am a medical student."
+
+"Ah! Our priest's son also was a student, but a student for the Church."
+
+"Very well. Then you know what I am. Now I will go and fetch some
+water."
+
+Upon this she inclined her head towards her little son and listened for
+a moment to his breathing. Then she said with a glance towards the sea:
+
+"I too should like to have a wash, but I do not know what the water is
+like. What is it? Brackish or salt?"
+
+"No; quite good water--fit for you to wash in."
+
+"Is it really?"
+
+"Yes, really. Moreover, it is warmer than the water of the streams
+hereabouts, which is as cold as ice."
+
+"Ah! Well, you know best."
+
+Here a shaggy-eared pony, all skin and bone, was seen approaching us at
+a foot's pace. Trembling, and drooping its head, it scanned us, as it
+drew level, with a round black eye, and snorted. Upon that, its rider
+pushed back a ragged fur cap, glanced warily in our direction, and
+again sank his head.
+
+"The folk of these parts are ugly to look at," softly commented the
+woman from Orlov.
+
+Then I departed in quest of water. After I had washed my face and hands
+I filled the kettle from a stream bright and lively as quicksilver (a
+stream presenting, as the autumn leaves tossed in the eddies which went
+leaping and singing over the stones, a truly enchanting spectacle),
+and, returning, and peeping through the bushes, perceived the woman to
+be crawling on hands and knees over the stones, and anxiously peering
+about, as though in search of something.
+
+"What is it?" I inquired, and thereupon, turning grey in the face with
+confusion she hastened to conceal some article under her person,
+although I had already guessed the nature of the article.
+
+"Give it to me," was my only remark. "I will go and bury it."
+
+"How so? For, as a matter of fact, it ought to be buried under the
+floor in front of some stove."
+
+"Are we to build a stove HERE?  Build it in five minutes?" I retorted.
+
+"Ah, I was jesting. But really, I would rather not have it buried here,
+lest some wild beast should come and devour it... Yet it ought to be
+committed only to the earth."
+
+That said, she, with averted eyes, handed me a moist and heavy bundle;
+and as she did so she said under her breath, with an air of confusion:
+
+"I beg of you for Christ's sake to bury it as well, as deeply, as you
+can. Out of pity for my son do as I bid you."
+
+I did as she had requested; and, just as the task had been completed, I
+perceived her returning from the margin of the sea with unsteady gait,
+and an arm stretched out before her, and a petticoat soaked to the
+middle with the sea water. Yet all her face was alight with inward
+fire, and as I helped her to regain the spot where I had prepared some
+sticks I could not help reflecting with some astonishment:
+
+"How strong indeed she is!"
+
+Next, as we drank a mixture of tea and honey, she inquired:
+
+"Have you now ceased to be a student?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"And why so? Through too much drink?"
+
+"Even so, good mother."
+
+"Dear me! Well, your face is familiar to me. Yes, I remember that I
+noticed you in Sukhum when once you were arguing with the barraque
+superintendent over the question of rations. As I did so the thought
+occurred to me: 'Surely that bold young fellow must have gone and spent
+his means on drink? Yes, that is how it must be.'"
+
+Then, as from her swollen lips she licked a drop of honey, she again
+bent her blue eyes in the direction of the bush under which the
+slumbering, newly-arrived Orlovian was couched.
+
+"How will he live?" thoughtfully she said with a sigh--then added:
+
+"You have helped me, and I thank you. Yes, my thanks are yours, though
+I cannot tell whether or not your assistance will have helped HIM."
+
+And, drinking the rest of her tea, she ate a morsel of bread, then made
+the sign of the cross. And subsequently, as I was putting up my things,
+she continued to rock herself to and fro, to give little starts and
+cries, and to gaze thoughtfully at the ground with eyes which had now
+regained their original colour. At last she rose to her feet.
+
+"You are not going yet?" I queried protestingly.
+
+"Yes, I must."
+
+"But--"
+
+"The Blessed Virgin will go with me. So please hand me over the child."
+
+"No, I will carry him."
+
+And, after a contest for the honour, she yielded, and we walked away
+side by side.
+
+"I only wish I were a little steadier on my feet," she remarked with an
+apologetic smile as she laid a hand upon my shoulder.
+
+Meanwhile, the new citizen of Russia, the little human being of an
+unknown future, was snoring soundly in my arms as the sea plashed and
+murmured, and threw off its white shavings, and the bushes whispered
+together, and the sun (now arrived at the meridian) shone brightly upon
+us all.
+
+In calm content it was that we walked; save that now and then the
+mother would halt, draw a deep breath, raise her head, scan the sea and
+the forest and the hills, and peer into her son's face. And as she did
+so, even the mist begotten of tears of suffering could not dim the
+wonderful brilliancy and clearness of her eyes. For with the sombre
+fire of inexhaustible love were those eyes aflame.
+
+Once, as she halted, she exclaimed:
+
+"O God, O Mother of God, how good it all is! Would that for ever I
+could walk thus, yes, walk and walk unto the very end of the world! All
+that I should need would be that thou, my son, my darling son,
+shouldst, borne upon thy mother's breast, grow and wax strong!"
+
+And the sea murmured and murmured.
+
+
+
+
+THE ICEBREAKER
+
+On a frozen river near a certain Russian town, a gang of seven
+carpenters were hastily repairing an icebreaker which the townsfolk had
+stripped for firewood.
+
+That year spring happened to be late in arriving, and youthful March
+looked more like October, and only at noon, and that not on every day,
+did the pale, wintry sun show himself in the overcast heavens, or,
+glimmering in blue spaces between clouds, contemplate the earth with a
+squinting, malevolent eye.
+
+The day in question was the Friday in Holy Week, and, as night drew on,
+drippings were becoming congealed into icicles half an arshin long, and
+in the snow-stripped ice of the river only the dun hue of the wintry
+clouds was reflected.
+
+As the carpenters worked there kept mournfully, insistently echoing
+from the town the coppery note of bells; and at intervals heads would
+raise themselves, and blue eyes would gleam thoughtfully through the
+same grey fog in which the town lay enveloped, and an axe uplifted
+would hover a moment in the air as though fearing with its descent to
+cleave the luscious flood of sound.
+
+Scattered over the spacious river-track were dark pine branches,
+projecting obliquely from the ice, to mark paths, open spaces, and
+cracks on the surface; and where they reared themselves aloft, these
+branches looked like the cramped, distorted arms of drowning men.
+
+From the river came a whiff of gloom and depression. Covered over with
+sodden slush, it stretched with irksome rigidity towards the misty
+quarter whence blew a languid, sluggish, damp, cold wind.
+
+Suddenly the foreman, one Ossip, a cleanly built, upright little
+peasant with a neatly curling, silvery beard, ruddy cheeks, and a
+flexible neck, a man everywhere and always in evidence, shouted:
+
+"Look alive there, my hearties!"
+
+Presently he turned his attention to myself, and smiled insinuatingly.
+
+"Inspector," he said, "what are you trying to poke out of the sky with
+that squat nose of yours? And why are you here at all? You come from
+the contractor, you say?--from Vasili Sergeitch? Well, well! Then your
+job is to hurry us up, to keep barking out, 'Mind what you are doing,
+such-and-such gang!' Yet there you stand-blinking over your task like
+an object dried stiff! It's not to blink that you're here, but to play
+the watchdog upon us, and to keep an eye open, and your tongue on the
+wag. So issue your commands, young cockerel."
+
+Then he shouted to the workmen:
+
+"Now, then! No shirking!  Is the job going to be finished tonight, or
+is it not?"
+
+As a matter of fact, he himself was the worst shirker in the artel
+[Workman's union].  True, he was also a first-rate hand at his trade,
+and a man who could work quickly and well and with skill and
+concentration; but, unfortunately, he hated putting himself out, and
+preferred to spend his time spinning arresting yarns. For instance, on
+the present occasion he chose the moment when work was proceeding with
+a swing, when everyone was busily and silently and wholeheartedly
+labouring with the object of running the job through to the end, to
+begin in his musical voice:
+
+"Look here, lads. Once upon a time--"
+
+And though for the first two or three minutes the men appeared not to
+hear him, and continued their planing and chopping as before, the
+moment came when the soft tenor accents caught and held the men's
+attention, as they trickled and burbled forth. Then, screwing up his
+bright eyes with a humorous air, and twisting his curly beard between
+his fingers, Ossip gave a complacent click of his tongue, and continued
+measuredly, and with deliberation:
+
+"So he seized hold of the tench, and thrust it back into the cave. And
+as he turned to proceed through the forest he thought to himself: 'Now
+I must keep my eyes about me.' And suddenly, from somewhere (no one
+could have said where), a woman's voice shrieked: 'Elesi-a-ah!
+Elesia-ah!'"
+
+Here a tall, lanky Morduine named Leuka, with, as surname, Narodetz, a
+young fellow whose small eyes wore always an expression of
+astonishment, laid aside his axe, and stood gaping.
+
+"And from the cave a deep bass voice replied: 'Elesi-a-ah!' while at
+the same moment the tench sprang from the cave, and, champing its jaws,
+wriggled and wriggled back to the slough."
+
+Here an old soldier named Saniavin, a morose man, a tippler, and a
+sufferer from asthma and an inexplicable grudge against life in
+general, croaked out:
+
+"How could your tench have wriggled across dry land if it was a fish?"
+
+"Can, for that matter, a fish speak?" was Ossip's good-humoured retort.
+
+All of which inspired Mokei Budirin, a grey-headed muzhik of a cast of
+countenance canine in the prominence of his jaws and the recession of
+his forehead, and taciturn withal, though not otherwise remarkable, to
+give slow, nasal utterance to his favourite formula.
+
+"That is true enough," he said.
+
+For never could anything be spoken of that was grim or marvellous or
+lewd or malicious, but Budirin at once re-echoed softly, but in a tone
+of unshakable conviction: "That is true enough."
+
+Thereafter he would tap me on the breast with his hard and ponderous
+fist.
+
+Presently work again underwent an interruption through the fact that
+Yakov Boev, a man who possessed both a stammer and a squint, became
+similarly filled with a desire to tell us something about a fish. Yet
+from the moment that he began his narrative everyone declined to
+believe it, and laughed at his broken verbiage as, frequently invoking
+the Deity, and cursing, and brandishing his awl, and viciously
+swallowing spittle, he shouted amid general ridicule:
+
+"Once-once upon a time there lived a man. Yes, other folk before YOU
+have believed my tale. Indeed, it is no more than the truth that I'm
+going to tell you. Very well! Cackle away, and be damned!"
+
+Here everyone without exception dropped his work to shout with
+merriment and clap his hands: with the result that, doffing his cap,
+and thereby disclosing a silvered, symmetrically shaped head with one
+bald spot amid its one dark portion, Ossip was forced to shout severely:
+
+"Hi, you Budirin! You've had your say, and given us some fun, and there
+must be no more of it."
+
+"But I had only just begun what I want to say," the old soldier
+grumbled, spitting upon the palms of his hands.
+
+Next, Ossip turned to myself.
+
+"Inspector," he began...
+
+It is my opinion that in thus hindering the men from work through his
+tale-telling, Ossip had some definite end in view. I could not say
+precisely what that end was, but it must have been the object either of
+cloaking his own laziness or of giving the men a rest. On the other
+hand, whenever the contractor was present he, Ossip, bore himself with
+humble obsequiousness, and continued to assume a guise of simplicity
+which none the less did not prevent him, on the advent of each
+Saturday, from inducing his employer to bestow a pourboire upon the
+artel.
+
+And though this same Ossip was an artelui, and a director of the artel,
+his senior co-members bore him no affection, but, rather, looked upon
+him as a wag or trifler, and treated him as of no importance. And,
+similarly, the younger members of the artel liked well enough to listen
+to his tales, but declined to take him seriously, and, in some cases,
+regarded him with ill-concealed, or openly expressed, distrust.
+
+Once the Morduine, a man of education with whom, on occasions, I held
+discussions on intimate subjects, replied to a question of mine on the
+subject of Ossip:
+
+"I scarcely know. Goodness alone knows! No, I do not know anything
+about him."
+
+To which, after a pause, he added:
+
+"Once a fellow named Mikhailo, a clever fellow who is now dead,
+insulted Ossip by saying to him: 'Do you call yourself a man? Why,
+regarded as a workman, you're as lifeless as a doornail, while, seeing
+that you weren't born to be a master, you'll all your life continue
+chattering in corners, like a plummet swinging at the end of a string!'
+Yes, and that was true enough."
+
+Lastly, after another pause the Morduine concluded:
+
+"No matter. He is not such a bad sort."
+
+My own position among these men was a position of some awkwardness,
+for, a young fellow of only fifteen, I had been appointed by the
+contractor, a distant relative of mine, to the task of superintending
+the expenditure of material. That is to say, I had to see to it that
+the carpenters did not make away with nails, or dispose of planks in
+return for drink. Yet all the time my presence was practically useless,
+seeing that the men stole nails as though I were not even in existence
+and strove to show me that among them I was a person too many, a sheer
+incubus, and seized every opportunity of giving me covert jogs with a
+beam, and similarly affronting me.
+
+This, of course, made my relations with them highly difficult,
+embarrassing, and irksome; and though moments occurred when I longed to
+say something that might ingratiate me, and endeavoured to effect an
+advance in that direction, the words always failed me at the necessary
+juncture, and I found myself lying crushed as before under a burdensome
+sense of the superfluity of my existence.
+
+Again, if ever I tried to make an entry as to some material which had
+been used, Ossip would approach me, and, for instance, say:
+
+"Is it jotted down, eh? Then let me look at it."
+
+And, eyeing the notebook with a frown, he would add vaguely:
+
+"What a nice hand you write!" (He himself could write only in printing
+fashion, in the large scriptory characters of the Ecclesiastical
+Rubric, not in those of the ordinary kind.)
+
+"For example, that scoop there--what does IT say?"
+
+"It is the word 'Good.'"
+
+"'Good'? But what a slip-knot of a thing! And what are those words
+THERE, on THAT line?"
+
+"They say, 'Planks, 1 vershok by 9 arshini, 5.'"
+
+"No, six was the number used."
+
+"No, five."
+
+"Five? Why, the soldier broke one, didn't he?"
+
+"Yes, but never mind--at least it wasn't a plank that was wanted."
+
+"Oh! Well, I may tell you that he took the two pieces to the tavern to
+get drink with."
+
+Then, glancing into my face with his cornflower-blue eyes and quiet,
+quizzical smile, he would say without the least confusion as he twisted
+the ringlets of his beard:
+
+"Put down '6.' And see here, young cockerel. The weather has turned wet
+and cold, and the work is hard, and sometimes folk need to have their
+spirits cheered and raised with a drop of liquor. So don't you be too
+hard upon us, for God won't think the more of you for being strict."
+
+And as he thus talked to me in his slow and kindly, but semi-affected,
+fashion--bespattering me, as it were, with wordy sawdust--I would
+suddenly grow blind of an eye and silently show him the corrected
+figure.
+
+"That's it--that's right. And how fine the figure looks now, as it
+squats there like a merchant's buxom, comely dame!"
+
+Then he would be seen triumphantly telling his mates of his success;
+then, I would find myself feeling acutely conscious of the fact that
+everyone was despising me for my complacence Yes, grown sick beyond
+endurance with a yearning for some thing which it could not descry, my
+fifteen-year-old heart would dissolve in a flood of mortified tears,
+and there would pass through my brain the despondent, aching thought:
+
+"Oh, what a sad, uncomfortable world is this! How should Ossip have
+known so well that I should not re-correct the 6 into a 5, or that I
+should not tell the contractor that the men have bartered a plank for
+liquor?"
+
+Again, there befell an occasion when the men stole two pounds' weight
+of five vershok mandrels and bolts.
+
+"Look here," I said to Ossip warningly. "I am going to report this."
+
+"All right," he agreed with a twitch of his grey eyebrows. "Though what
+such a trifle can matter I fail to see. Yes, go and report every
+mother's son of them."
+
+And to the men themselves he shouted:
+
+"Hi, boobies! Each of you now stands docked for some mandrels and
+bolts."
+
+"Why?" was the old soldier's grim inquiry.
+
+"Because you DO so stand," carelessly retorted the other.
+
+With snarls thereafter, the men eyed me covertly, until I began to feel
+that very likely I should not do as I had threatened, and even that so
+to do might not be expedient.
+
+"But look here," said I to Ossip. "I am going to give the contractor
+notice, and let all of you go to the devil. For if I were to remain
+with you much longer I too should become a thief."
+
+Ossip stroked his beard awhile, and pondered. Then he seated himself
+beside me, and said in an undertone:
+
+"That is true."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"But things are always so. The truth is that it's time you departed.
+What sort of a watchman, of a checker, are you? In jobs of this kind
+what a man needs to know is the meaning of property. He needs to have
+in him the spirit of a dog, so that he shall look after his master's
+stuff as he would look after the skin which his mother has put on to
+his own body. But you, you young puppy, haven't the slightest notion of
+what property means. In fact, were anyone to go and tell Vasili
+Sergeitch about the way in which you keep letting us off, he'd give it
+you in the neck. Yes, you're no good to him at all, but just an
+expense: whereas when a man serves a master he ought, do you
+understand, to be PROFITABLE to that master."
+
+He rolled and handed me a cigarette.
+
+"Smoke this," said he, "and perhaps it'll make your brain work easier.
+If only you had been of a less awkward, uncomfortable nature, I should
+have said to you, 'Go and join the priests; but, as things are, you
+aren't the right sort for that--you're too stiff and unbending, and
+would never make headway even with an abbot. No, you're not the sort to
+play cards with. A monk is like a jackdaw--he chatters without knowing
+what he is chattering about, and pays no heed to the root of things, so
+busy is he with stuffing himself full with the grain. I say this to you
+with absolute earnestness, for I perceive you to be strange to our
+ways--a cuckoo that has blundered into the wrong nest."
+
+And, doffing his cap, a gesture which he never failed to execute when
+he had something particularly important to say, he added humbly and
+sonorously as he glanced at the grey firmament:
+
+"In the sight of the Lord our ways are the ways of thieves, and such as
+will never gain of Him salvation."
+
+"And that is true enough," responded Mokei Budirin after the fashion of
+a clarionet.
+
+From that time forth, Ossip of the curly, silvered head, bright eyes,
+and shadowy soul became an object of agreeable interest for me. Indeed,
+there grew up between us a species of friendship, even though I could
+see that a civil bearing towards me in public was a thing that it hurt
+him to maintain. At all events, in the presence of others he avoided my
+glance, and his eyes, clear, unsullied, and fight blue in tint, wavered
+unsteadily, and his lips twitched and assumed an artificially
+unpleasant expression, while he uttered some such speech as:
+
+"Hi, you Makarei, see that you keep your eyes open, and cam your pay,
+or that pig of a soldier will be making away with more nails!"
+
+But at other times, when we were alone together, he would speak to me
+kindly and instructively, while his eyes would dance and gleam with a
+faint, grave, knowing smile, and dart blue rays direct into mine, while
+for my part, as I listened to his words, I took every one of them to be
+absolutely true and balanced, despite their strange delivery.
+
+"A man's duty consists in being good," I remarked on one occasion.
+
+"Yes, of course," assented Ossip, though the next moment he veiled his
+eyes with a smile, and added in an undertone: "But what do you
+understand by the term 'good'? In my opinion, unless virtue be to their
+advantage, folk spit upon that 'goodness,' that 'honourableness,' of
+yours. Hence, the better plan is to pay folk court, and be civil to
+them, and flatter and cajole every mother's son of them. Yes, do that,
+and your 'goodness' will have a chance of bringing you in some return.
+Not that I do not say that to be 'good,' to be able to look your own
+ugly jowl in the face in a mirror, is pleasant enough; but, as I see
+the matter, it is all one to other people whether you be a cardsharper
+or a priest so long as you're polite, and let down your neighbours
+lightly. That's what they want."
+
+For my part I never, at that period, grew weary of watching my fellows,
+for it was my constant idea that some day one of them would be able to
+raise me to a higher level, and to bring me to an understanding of this
+unintelligible and complicated existence of ours. Hence I kept asking
+myself the restless, the importunate question:
+
+"What precisely is the human soul?"
+
+Certain souls, I thought, existed which seemed like balls of copper,
+for, solid and immovable, they reflected things from their own point of
+view alone, in a dull and irregular and distorted fashion. And souls, I
+thought, existed which seemed as flat as mirrors, and, for all intents
+and purposes, had no existence at all.
+
+And in every case the human soul seemed formless, like a cloud, and as
+murkily mutable as an imitation opal, a thing which altered according
+to the colour of what adjoined it.
+
+Only as regarded the soul of the intelligent Ossip was I absolutely at
+a loss, absolutely unable to reach a conclusion.
+
+Pondering these and similar matters in my mind, I, on the day of which
+I speak, stood gazing at the river, and at the town under the hill, as
+I listened to the bells. Rearing themselves aloft like the organ pipes
+in my favourite Polish-Roman Catholic church, the steeples of the town
+had their crosses dimly sparkling as though the latter had been stars
+imprisoned in a murky sky. Yet it was as though those stars hoped
+eventually to ascend into the purer firmament above the wind-torn
+clouds that they sparkled; and as I stood watching the clouds glide
+onward, and momentarily efface with their shadows, the town's
+multifarious hues, I marked the fact that although, whenever dark-blue
+cavities in their substance permitted the beams of the sun to
+illuminate the buildings below, those buildings' roofs assumed tints of
+increased cheerfulness. The clouds seemed to glide the faster to veil
+the beams, while the humid shadows grew more opaque--and the scene
+darkened as though only for a moment had it assumed a semblance of joy.
+
+The buildings of the town (looking like heaps of muddy snow), the
+black, naked earth around those buildings, the trees in the gardens,
+the hummocks of piled-up soil, the dull grey glimmer of the window
+panes of the houses--all these things reminded me of winter, even
+though the misty breath of the northern spring was beginning to steal
+over the whole.
+
+Presently a young fellow with flaxen hair, a pendent underlip, and a
+tall, ungainly figure, by name Mishuk Diatlov, essayed to troll the
+stanza:
+
+  "That morn to him the maiden came,
+  To find his soul had fled."
+
+Whereupon the old soldier shouted:
+
+"Hi, you! Have you forgotten the day?"
+
+And even Boev saw fit to take umbrage at the singing, and, threatening
+Diatlov with his fist, to rap out:
+
+"Ah, sobatchnia dusha!" ["Soul of a dog."]
+
+"What a rude, rough, primitive lot we Russians are!" commented Ossip,
+seating himself atop of the icebreaker, and screwing up his eyes to
+measure its fall. "To speak plainly, we Russians are sheer barbarians.
+Once upon a time, I may tell you, an anchorite happened to be on his
+travels; and as the people came pressing around him, and kneeling to
+him, and tearfully beseeching him with the words, 'Oh holy father,
+intercede for us with the wolves which are devouring our substance!' he
+replied: 'Ha! Are you, or are you not, Orthodox Christians? See that I
+assign you not to condign perdition!' Yes, angry, in very truth he was.
+Nay, he even spat in the people's faces. Yet in reality he was a kindly
+old man, for his eyes kept shedding tears equally with theirs."
+
+Twenty sazheni below the icebreaker was a gang of barefooted sailors,
+engaged in hacking out the floes from under their barges; and as they
+shattered the brittle, greyish-blue crust on the river, the mattocks
+rang out, and the sharp blades of the icecutters gleamed as they thrust
+the broken fragments under the surface. Meanwhile, there could be heard
+a bubbling of water, and the sound of rivulets trickling down to the
+sandy margin of the river. And similarly among our own gang was there
+audible a scraping of planes, and a screeching of saws, and a
+clattering of iron braces as they were driven into the smooth yellow
+wood, while through all the web of these sounds there ran the ceaseless
+song of the bells, a song so softened by distance as to thrill the
+soul, much as though dingy, burdensome labour were holding revel in
+honour of spring, and calling upon the latter to spread itself over the
+starved, naked surface of the gradually thawing ground.
+
+At this point someone shouted hoarsely:
+
+"Go and fetch the German. We have not got hands enough."
+
+And from the bank someone bawled in reply:
+
+"Where IS he?"
+
+"In the tavern. That is where you must go and look for him."
+
+And as they made themselves heard, the voices floated up turgidly into
+the sodden air, spread themselves over the river's mournful void, and
+died away.
+
+Meanwhile our men worked with industry and speed, but not without a
+fault or two, for their thoughts were fixed upon the town and its
+washhouses and churches. And particularly restless was Sashok Diatlov,
+a man whose hair, as flaxen as that of his brother, seemed to have been
+boiled in lye. At intervals, glancing up-river, this well-built, sturdy
+young fellow would say softly to his brother:
+
+"It's cracking now, eh?"
+
+And, certainly, the ice had "moved" two nights ago, so that since
+yesterday morning the river watchmen had refused to permit horsed
+vehicles to cross, and only a few beadlike pedestrians now were making
+their way along the marked-out ice paths, while, as they proceeded, one
+could hear the water slapping against the planks as the latter bent
+under the travellers' weight.
+
+"Yes, it IS cracking," at length Mishuk replied with a hoist of his
+ginger eyebrows.
+
+Ossip too scanned the river from under his hand. Then he said to Mishuk:
+
+"Pah! It is the dry squeak of the planes in your own hand that you keep
+hearing, so go on with your work, you son of a beldame. And as for you,
+Inspector, do you help me to speed up the men instead of burying your
+nose in your notebook."
+
+By this time there remained only two more hours for work, and the arch
+of the icebreaker had been wholly sheathed in butter-tinted scantlings,
+and nothing required to be added to it save the great iron braces.
+Unfortunately, Boev and Saniavin, the men who had been engaged upon the
+task of cutting out the sockets for the braces, had worked so amiss,
+and run their lines so straight, that, when it came to the point, the
+arms of the braces refused to sink properly into the wood.
+
+"Oh, you cock-eyed fool of a Morduine!" shouted Ossip, smiting his fist
+against the side of his cap. "Do you call THAT sort of thing work?"
+
+At this juncture there came from somewhere on the bank a seemingly
+exultant shout of:
+
+"Ah! NOW it's giving way!"
+
+And almost at the same moment, there stole over the river a sort of
+rustle, a sort of quiet crunching which made the projecting pine
+branches quiver as though they were trying to catch at something,
+while, shouldering their mattocks, the barefooted sailors noisily
+hastened aboard their barges with the aid of rope ladders.
+
+And then curious indeed was it to see how many people suddenly came
+into view on the river--to see how they appeared to issue from below
+the very ice itself, and, hurrying to and fro like jackdaws startled by
+the shot of a gun, to dart hither and thither, and to seize up planks
+and boathooks, and to throw them down again, and once more to seize
+them up.
+
+"Put the tools together," Ossip shouted. "And look alive there, and
+make for the bank."
+
+"Aye, and a fine Easter Day it will be for us on THAT bank!" growled
+Sashok.
+
+Meanwhile, it was the river rather than the town that seemed to be
+motionless--the latter had begun, as it were, to quiver and reel, and,
+with the hill above it, to appear to be gliding slowly up stream, even
+as the grey, sandy bank some ten sazheni from us was beginning to grow
+tremulous, and to recede.
+
+"Run, all of you!" shouted Ossip, giving me a violent push as he did
+so. Then to myself in particular he added: "Why stand gaping there?"
+
+This caused a keen sense of danger to strike home in my heart, and to
+make my feet feel as though already the ice was escaping their tread.
+So, automatically picking themselves up, those feet started to bear my
+body in the direction of a spot on the sandy bank where the
+winter-stripped branches of a willow tree were writhing, and whither
+there were betaking themselves also Boev, the old soldier, Budirin, and
+the brothers Diatlov. Meanwhile the Morduine ran by my side, cursing
+vigorously as he did so, and Ossip followed us, walking backwards.
+
+"No, no, Narodetz," he said.
+
+"But, my good Ossip--"
+
+"Never mind. What has to be, has to be."
+
+"But, as likely as not, we may remain stuck here for two days!"
+
+"Never mind even if we DO remain stuck here."
+
+"But what of the festival?"
+
+"It will have, for this year at least, to be kept without you."
+
+Seating himself on the sand, the old soldier lit his pipe and growled:
+
+"What cowards you all are! The bank was only fifteen sazheni from us,
+yet you ran as though possessed!"
+
+"With you yourself as leader," put in Mokei.
+
+The old soldier took no notice, but added:
+
+"What were you all afraid of? Once upon a time Christ Himself, Our
+Little Father, died."
+
+"And rose again," muttered the Morduine with a tinge of resentment.
+Which led Boev to exclaim:
+
+"Puppy, hold your tongue! What right have you to air your opinions?"
+
+"Besides, this is Good Friday, not Easter Day," the old soldier
+concluded with severe, didactical mien.
+
+In a gap of blue between the clouds there was shining the March sun,
+and everywhere the ice was sparkling as though in derision of
+ourselves. Shading his eyes, Ossip gazed at the dissolving river, and
+said:
+
+"Yes, it IS rising--but that will not last for long."
+
+"No, but long enough to make us miss the festival," grumbled Sashok.
+
+Upon this the smooth, beardless face of the youthful Morduine, a face
+dark and angular like the skin of an unpeeled potato, assumed a
+resentful frown, and, blinking his eyes, he muttered:
+
+"Yes, here we may have to sit--here where there's neither food nor
+money! Other folk will be enjoying themselves, but we shall have to
+remain hugging our hungry stomachs like a pack of dogs!"
+
+Meanwhile Ossip's eyes had remained fixed upon the river, for evidently
+his thoughts were far away, and it was in absentminded fashion that he
+replied:
+
+"Hunger cannot be considered where necessity impels. By the way, what
+use are our damned icebreakers? For the protection of barges and such?
+Why, the ice hasn't the sense to care. It just goes sliding over a
+barge, and farewell is the word to THAT bit of property!"
+
+"Damn it, but none of us have a barge for property, have we?
+
+"You had better go and talk to a fool."
+
+"The truth is that the icebreaker ought to have been taken in hand
+sooner."
+
+Finally, the old soldier made a queer grimace, and ejaculated:
+
+"Blockhead!"
+
+From a barge a knot of sailors shouted something, and at the same
+moment the river sent forth a sort of whiff of cruel chilliness and
+brooding calm. The disposition of the pine boughs now had changed. Nay,
+everything in sight was beginning to assume a different air, as though
+everything were charged with tense expectancy.
+
+One of the younger men asked diffidently, beneath his breath:
+
+"Mate Ossip, what are we going to do?"
+
+"What do you say?" Ossip queried absent-mindedly.
+
+"I say, what are we going to do? Just to sit here?"
+
+To this Boev responded, with loud, nasal derision in his tone:
+
+"Yes, my lad, for the Lord has seen fit to prevent you from
+participating in His most holy festival."
+
+And the old soldier, in support of his mate, extended his pipe towards
+the river, and muttered with a grin:
+
+"You want to cross to the town, do you? Well, be off with you, and
+though the ice may give way beneath your feet and drown you, at least
+you'll be taken to the police station, and so get to your festival. For
+that's what you want, I suppose?"
+
+"True enough," Mokei re-echoed.
+
+Then the sun went in, and the river grew darker, while the town stood
+out more clearly. Ceaselessly, the younger men gazed towards the town
+with wistful, gloomy eyes, though silently they remained where they
+were.
+
+Similarly, I myself was beginning to find things irksome and
+uncomfortable, as always happens when a number of companions are
+thinking different thoughts, and contain in themselves none of that
+unity of will which alone can join men into a direct, uniform force.
+Rather, I felt as though I could gladly leave my companions and start
+out upon the ice alone.
+
+Suddenly Ossip recovered his faculties. Rising, then doffing his cap
+and making the sign of the cross in the direction of the town, he said
+with a quiet, simple, yet somehow authoritative, air:
+
+"Very well, my mates. Go in peace, and may the Lord go with you!"
+
+"But whither?" asked Sashok, leaping to his feet. "To the town?"
+
+"Whither else?"
+
+The old soldier was the only one not to rise, and with conviction he
+remarked:
+
+"It will result but in our getting drowned."
+
+"Then stay where you are."
+
+Ossip glanced around the party. Then he continued:
+
+"Bestir yourselves! Look alive!"
+
+Upon which all crowded together, and Boev, thrusting the tools into a
+hole in the bank, groaned:
+
+"The order 'go' has been given, so go we MUST, well though a man in
+receipt of such an order might ask himself, 'How is it going to be
+done?'"
+
+Ossip seemed, in some way, to have grown younger and more active, while
+the habitually shy, though good-humoured, expression of his countenance
+was gone from his ruddy features, and his darkened eyes had assumed an
+air of stern activity. Nay, even his indolent, rolling gait had
+disappeared, and in his step there was more firmness, more assurance,
+than had ever before been the case.
+
+"Let every man take a plank," he said, "and hold it in front of him.
+Then, should anyone fall in (which God forbid!), the plank-ends will
+catch upon the ice to either side of him, and hold him up. Also, every
+man must avoid cracks in the ice. Yes, and is there a rope handy? Here,
+Narodetz! Reach me that spirit-level. Is everyone ready? I will walk
+first, and next there must come--well, which is the heaviest?--you,
+soldier, and then Mokei, and then the Morduine, and then Boev, and then
+Mishuk, and then Sashok, and then Makarei, the lightest of all. And do
+you all take off your caps before starting, and say a prayer to the
+Mother of God. Ha! Here is Old Father Sun coming out to greet us."
+
+Readily did the men bare their tousled grey or flaxen heads as
+momentarily the sun glanced through a bank of thin white vapour before
+again concealing himself, as though averse to arousing any false hopes.
+
+"Now!" sharply commanded Ossip in his new-found voice. "And may God go
+with us! Watch my feet, and don't crowd too much upon one another, but
+keep each at a sazhen's distance or more--in fact, the more the better.
+Yes, come, mates!"
+
+With which, stuffing his cap into his bosom, and grasping the
+spirit-level in his hands, Ossip set foot upon the ice with a sliding,
+cautious, shuffling gait. At the same moment, there came from the bank
+behind us a startled cry of:
+
+"Where are you off to, you fools?"
+
+"Never mind," said Ossip to ourselves. "Come along with you, and don't
+stand staring."
+
+"You blockheads!" the voice repeated. "You had far better return."
+
+"No, no! come on!" was Ossip's counter-command. "And as you move think
+of God, or you'll never find yourselves among the invited guests at His
+holy festival of Eastertide."
+
+Next Ossip sounded a police whistle, which act led the old soldier to
+exclaim:
+
+"Oh, that's the way, mate! Good! Yes, you know what to do.  Now notice
+will have been given to the police on the further bank, and, if we're
+not drowned, we shall find ourselves clapped in gaol when we get there.
+However, I'm not responsible."
+
+In spite of this remonstrance, Ossip's sturdy voice drew his companions
+after him as though they had been tied to a rope.
+
+"Watch your feet carefully," once more he cried.
+
+Our line of march was directed obliquely, and in the opposite direction
+to the current. Also, I, as the rearmost of the party, found it
+pleasant to note how the wary little Ossip of the silvery head went
+looping over the ice with the deftness of a hare, and practically no
+raising of the feet, while behind him there trailed, in wild-goose
+fashion, and as though tied to a single invisible string, six dark and
+undulating figures the shadows of which kept making themselves visible
+on the ice, from those figures' feet to points indefinitely remote. And
+as we proceeded, all of us kept our heads lowered as though we had been
+descending from a mountain in momentary fear of a false step.
+
+Also, though the shouting in our rear kept growing in volume, and we
+could tell that by this time a crowd had gathered, not a word could we
+distinguish, but only a sort of ugly din.
+
+In time our cautious march became for me a mere, mechanical, wearisome
+task, for on ordinary occasions it was my custom to maintain a pace of
+greater rapidity. Thus, eventually I sank into the semiconscious
+condition amid which the soul turns to vacuity, and one no longer
+thinks of oneself, but, on the contrary issues from one's personality,
+and begins to see objects with unwonted clarity, and to hear sounds
+with unwonted precision. Under my feet the seams in the blue-grey,
+leaden ice lay full of water, while as for the ice itself, it was
+blinding in its expansive glitter, even though in places it had come to
+be either cracked or bulbous, or had ground itself into powder with its
+own movement, or had become heaped into slushy hummocks of pumice-like
+sponginess and the consistency of broken glass. And everywhere around
+me I could discern the chilly, gaping smile of blue crevices which
+caught at my feet, and rendered the tread of my boot-soles unstable.
+And ever, as we marched, could the voices of Boev and the old soldier
+be heard speaking in antiphony, like two pipes being fluted by one and
+the same pair of lips.
+
+"I won't be responsible," said the one voice.
+
+"Nor I," responded the other.
+
+"The only reason why I have come is that I was told to do so. That's
+all about it."
+
+"Yes, and the same with me."
+
+"One man gives an order, and another man, perhaps a man a thousand
+times more sensible than he, is forced to obey it."
+
+"Is any man, in these days, sensible, seeing what a racket we have to
+live among?"
+
+By this time Ossip had tucked the skirts of his greatcoat into his
+belt, while beneath those skirts his legs (clad in grey cloth gaiters
+of a military pattern) were shuffling along as lightly and easily as
+springs, and in a manner that suggested that there was turning and
+twisting in front of him some person whom, though desirous of barring
+to him the direct course, the shortest route, Ossip successfully
+opposed and evaded by dint of dodges and deviations to right and left,
+and occasional turns about, and the execution of dance steps and loops
+and semicircles. Meanwhile in the tones of Ossip's voice there was a
+soft, musical ring that struck agreeably upon the ear, and harmonised
+to admiration with the song of the bells just when we were approaching
+the middle of the river's breadth of four hundred sazheni. There
+resounded over the surface of the ice a vicious rustle while a piece of
+ice slid from under my feet. Stumbling, and powerless to retain my
+footing, I blundered down upon my knees in helpless astonishment; and
+then, as I glanced upstream, fear gripped at my throat, deprived me of
+speech, and darkened all my vision. For the whole substance of the grey
+ice-core had come to life and begun to heave itself upwards! Yes, the
+hitherto level surface was thrusting forth sharp angular ridges, and
+the air seemed full of a strange sound like the trampling of some heavy
+being over broken glass.
+
+With a quiet trickle there came a swirl of water around me, while an
+adjacent pine bough cracked and squeaked as though it too had come to
+life. My companions shouted, and collected into a knot; whereupon, at
+once dominating and quelling the tense, painful hubbub of sounds, there
+rang forth the voice of Ossip.
+
+"Mother of God!" he shouted. "Scatter, lads! Get away from one another,
+and keep each to himself! Now! Courage!"
+
+With that, springing towards us as though wasps had been after him, and
+grasping the spirit-level as though it had been a weapon, he jabbed it
+to every side, as though fighting invisible foes, while, just as the
+quivering town began, seemingly, to glide past us, and the ice at my
+feet gave a screech and crumbled to fragments beneath me, so that water
+bubbled to my knees. I leapt up from where I was, and rushed blindly in
+Ossip's direction.
+
+"Where are you coming to, fool?" was his shout as he brandished the
+spirit-level. "Stand still where you are!"
+
+Indeed, Ossip seemed no longer to be Ossip at all, but a person
+curiously younger, a person in whom all that had been familiar in Ossip
+had become effaced. Yes, the once blue eyes had turned to grey, and the
+figure added half an arshin to its stature as, standing as erect as a
+newly made nail, and pressing both feet together, the foreman stretched
+himself to his full height, and shouted with his mouth open to its
+widest extent:
+
+"Don't shuffle about, nor crowd upon one another, or I'll break your
+heads!"
+
+Whereafter, of myself in particular, he inquired as he raised the
+spirit-level:
+
+"What is the matter with YOU, pray?"
+
+"I am feeling frightened," I muttered in response.
+
+"Feeling frightened of WHAT, indeed?"
+
+"Of being drowned."
+
+"Pooh! Just you hold your tongue."
+
+Yet the next moment he glanced at me, and added in a gentler, quieter
+tone:
+
+"None but a fool gets drowned. Pick yourself up and come along."
+
+Then once more he shouted full-throated words of encouragement to his
+men; and as he did so, his chest swelled and his head rocked with the
+effort.
+
+Yet, crackling and cracking, the ice was breaking up; and soon it began
+slowly to bear us past the town. 'Twas as though some unknown force
+ashore had awakened, and was striving to tear the banks of the river in
+two, so much did the portion of the landscape downstream seem to be
+standing still while the portion level with us seemed to be receding in
+the opposite direction, and thus causing a break to take place in the
+middle of the picture.
+
+And soon this movement, a movement agonisingly slow, deprived me of my
+sense of being connected with the rest of the world, until, as the
+whole receded, despair again gripped my heart and unnerved my limbs.
+Roseate clouds were gliding across the sky and causing stray fragments
+of the ice, which, seemingly, yearned to engulf me, to assume reflected
+tints of a similar hue. Yes, it was as though the birth of spring had
+reawakened the universe, and was causing it to stretch itself, and to
+emit deep, hurried, broken pants that cracked its bones as the river,
+embedded in the earth's stout framework, revivified the whole with
+thick, turbulent, ebullient blood.
+
+And this sense of littleness, of impotence amid the calm, assured
+movement of the earth's vast bulk, weighed upon my soul, and evoked,
+and momentarily fanned to flame in me, the shameless human question:
+"What if I should stretch forth my hand and lay it upon the hill and
+the banks of the river, and say, 'Halt until I come to you!'?"
+
+Meanwhile the bells continued the mournful moaning of their resonant,
+coppery notes; and that moaning led me to reflect that within two days
+(on the night of the morrow) they would be pealing a joyous welcome to
+the Resurrection Feast.
+
+"Oh that all of us may live to hear that sound!" was my unspoken
+thought.
+
+Before my vision there kept quavering seven dark figures--figures
+shuffling over the ice, and brandishing planks like oars. And,
+wriggling like a lamprey in front of them was a little old fellow, an
+old fellow resembling Saint Nicholas the Wonder-Worker, an old fellow
+who kept crying softly, but authoritatively:
+
+"Do not stare about you!"
+
+And ever the river was growing rougher and ruder; ever its backbone was
+beginning to puiver and flounder like a whale underfoot, with its
+liquescent body of cold, grey, murky water bursting with increasing
+frequency from its shell of ice, and lapping hungrily at our feet.
+
+Yes, we were human beings traversing, as it were, a slender pole over a
+bottomless abyss; and as we walked, the water's soft, cantabile splash
+set me in mind of the depths below, of the infinite time during which a
+body would continue sinking through dense, chilly bulk until sight
+faded and the heart stopped beating. Yes, before my mind's eye there
+arose men drowned and devoured by crayfish, men with crumbling skulls
+and swollen features, and glassy, bulging eyes and puffy hands and
+outstretched fingers and palms of which the skin had rotted off with
+the damp.
+
+The first to fall in was Mokei Budirin. He had been walking next ahead
+of the Morduine, and, as a man habitually silent and absorbed,
+proceeding on his way more quietly than the rest. Suddenly something
+had seemed to catch at his legs, and he had disappeared until only his
+head and his hands, as the latter clutched at his plank, had been left
+above-level.
+
+"Run and help him, somebody!" was Ossip's instant cry. "Yes, but not
+all of you--just one or two. Help him I say!"
+
+The spluttering Mokei, however, said to the Morduine and myself:
+
+"No; do you move away, mates, for I shall best help myself. Never you
+mind."
+
+And, sure enough, he did succeed in drawing himself out on to the ice
+without assistance. Whereafter he remarked as he shook himself:
+
+"A nice pickle, this, to be in! I might as well have been drowned!"
+
+And, in fact, at the moment he looked, with his chattering teeth and
+great tongue licking a dripping moustache, precisely like a large,
+good-natured dog.
+
+Then I remembered how, a month earlier, he had accidentally driven the
+blade of his axe through the joint of his left thumb, and, merely
+picking up the white fragment of flesh with the nail turning blue, and
+scanning it with his unfathomable eyes, had remarked, as though it was
+he himself that had been at fault:
+
+"How often before I have injured that thumb, I could not say. And when
+once I dislocated it, I went on working with it longer than was right....
+Now I will go and bury it."
+
+With which, carefully wrapping up the fragment in some shavings, he had
+thrust the whole into his pocket, and bandaged the wounded hand.
+
+Similarly, after that, did Boev, the man next in order behind Mokei,
+contrive to wrest himself from the grasp of the ice, though, on
+immersion, he started bawling, "Mates, I shall drown! I am dead
+already! Help me, help me!" and became so cramped with terror as to be
+extricated only with great difficulty, while amid the general confusion
+the Morduine too nearly slipped into the water.
+
+"A narrow shave of saying Vespers tonight with the devils in Hell!" he
+remarked as he clambered back, and stood grinning with an even more
+angular and attenuated appearance than usual.
+
+The next moment Boev achieved a second plunge, and screamed, as before,
+for help.
+
+"Don't shout, you goat of a Yashka!" Ossip exclaimed as he threatened
+him with the spirit-level. "Why scare people? I'll give it you! Look
+here, lads. Let every man take off his belt and turn out his pockets.
+Then he'll walk lighter."
+
+Toothed jaws gaped and crunched at us at every step, and vomited thick
+spittle; at every tenth step their keen blue fangs reached for our
+lives. Meanwhile, the soaked condition of our boots and clothes had
+rendered us as slimy as though smeared with paste. Also, it so weighed
+us down as to hinder any active movement, and to cause each step to be
+taken cautiously, slowly, silently, and with ponderous diffidence.
+
+Yet, soaked though we were, Ossip might verily have known the number of
+cracks in advance, so smooth and harelike was his progress from floe to
+floe as at intervals he faced about, watched us, and cried sonorously:
+
+"That's the way to do it, eh?"
+
+Yes, he absolutely played with the river, and though it kept catching
+at his diminutive form, he always evaded it, circumvented its
+movements, and avoided its snares. Nay, capable even of directing its
+trend did he seem, and of thrusting under our feet only the largest and
+firmest floes.
+
+"Lads, there is no need to be downhearted," he would cry at intervals.
+
+"Ah, that brave Ossip!" the Morduine once ejaculated. "In very truth is
+he a man, and no mistake! Just look at him!"
+
+The closer we approached the further shore, the thinner and the more
+brittle did the ice become, and the more liable we to break through it.
+By this time the town had nearly passed us, and we were bidding fair to
+be carried out into the Volga, where the ice would still be sound, and,
+as likely as not, draw us under itself.
+
+"By your leave, we are going to be drowned," the Morduine murmured as
+he glanced at the blue shadow of eventide on our left.
+
+And simultaneously, as though compassionating our lot, a large floe
+grounded upon the bank, glided upwards with a cracking and a crashing,
+and there held fast!
+
+"Run, all of you!" came a furious shout from Ossip. "Hurry up, now! Put
+your very best legs foremost!"
+
+For myself, as I sprang upon the floe I lost my footing, and, falling
+headlong and remaining seated on the hither end of the floe amid a
+shower of spray, saw five of my seven comrades rush past, pushing and
+jostling, as they made for the shore. But presently the Morduine turned
+and halted beside me, with the intention of rendering Ossip assistance.
+
+"Run, you young fools!" the latter exclaimed. "Come! Be off with you!"
+
+Somehow in his face there was now a livid, uncertain air, while his
+eyes had lost their fire, and his mouth was curiously agape.
+
+"No, mate. Do YOU get up," was my counter-adjuration.
+
+"Unfortunately, I have hurt my leg," he replied with his head bent
+down. "In fact, I am not sure that I can get up."
+
+However, we contrived to raise him and carry him ashore with an arm of
+his resting on each of our necks. Meanwhile he growled with chattering
+teeth:
+
+"Aha, you river devils! Drown me if you can! But I've not given you a
+chance, the Lord be thanked! Hi, look out! The ice won't bear the three
+of us. Mind how you step, and choose places where the ice is bare of
+snow. There it's firmer. No, a better plan still would be to leave me
+where I am."
+
+Next, with a frowning scrutiny of my face, he inquired:
+
+"That notebook of our misdeeds--hasn't it had a wetting and got done
+for?"
+
+That very moment, as we stepped from the stranded floe (in grounding,
+it had crushed and shattered a small boat), such part of it as lay in
+the water gave a loud crack, and, swaying to and fro, and emitting a
+gurgling sound, floated clear of the rest.
+
+"Ah!" was the Morduine's quizzical comment. "YOU knew well enough what
+needed to be done."
+
+Wet, and chilled to the bone, though relieved in spirit, we stepped
+ashore to find a crowd of townspeople in conversation with Boev and the
+old soldier. And as we deposited our charge under the lea of a pile of
+logs he shouted cheerfully:
+
+"Mates, Makarei's notebook is done for, soaked through!"  And since the
+notebook in question was weighing upon my breast like a brick, I pulled
+it out unseen, and hurled it far into the river with a plop like that
+of a frog.
+
+As for the Diatlovs, they lost no time in setting out in search of
+vodka in the tavern on the hill, and slapped one another on the back as
+they ran, and could be heard shouting, "Hurrah, hurrah!"
+
+Upon this, a tall old man with the beard of an apostle and the eyes of
+a brigand muttered:
+
+"Infidels, why disturb peaceful folk like this? You ought to be
+thrashed!"
+
+Whereupon Boev, who was changing his clothes, retorted:
+
+"What do you mean by 'disturb'?"
+
+"Besides," put in the old soldier, "even though we are Christians like
+yourself, we might as well have been drowned for all that you did to
+help us."
+
+"What could we have done?"
+
+Meanwhile Ossip had remained lying on the ground with one leg stretched
+out at full length, and tremulous hands fumbling at his greatcoat as
+under his breath he muttered:
+
+"Holy Mother, how wet I am! My clothes, though I have only worn them a
+year, are ruined for ever!"
+
+Moreover, he seemed now to have shrunken again in stature--to have
+become crumpled up like a man run over. Indeed, as he lay he seemed
+actually to be melting, so continuously was his bulk decreasing in size.
+
+But suddenly he raised himself to a sitting posture, groaned, and
+exclaimed in high-pitched, wrathful accents:
+
+"May the devil take you all! Be off with you to your washhouses and
+churches! Yes, be off, for it seems that, as God couldn't keep His holy
+festival without you, I've had to stand within an ace of death and to
+spoil my clothes-yes, all that you fellows should be got out of your
+fix!"
+
+Nevertheless, the men merely continued taking off their boots, and
+wringing out their clothes, and conversing with sundry gasps and grunts
+with the bystanders. So presently Ossip resumed:
+
+"What are you thinking of, you fools? The washhouse is the best place
+for you, for if the police get you, they'll soon find you a lodging,
+and no mistake!"
+
+One of the townspeople put in officiously:
+
+"Aye, aye. The police have been sent for."
+
+And this led Boev to exclaim to Ossip:
+
+"Why pretend like that?"
+
+"Pretend? I?"
+
+"Yes--you."
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"I mean that it was you who egged us on to cross the river."
+
+"You say that it was I?"
+
+"I do."
+
+"Indeed?"
+
+"Aye," put in Budirin quietly, but incisively. And him the Morduine
+supported by saying in a sullen undertone:
+
+"It was you, mate. By God it was. It would seem that you have
+forgotten."
+
+"Yes, you started all this business," the old soldier corroborated, in
+dour, ponderous accents.
+
+"Forgotten, indeed? HE?" was Boev's heated exclamation.
+
+"How can you say such a thing? Well, let him not try to shift the
+responsibility on to others--that's all! WE'LL see, right enough, that
+he goes through with it!"
+
+To this Ossip made no reply, but gazed frowningly at his dripping,
+half-clad men.
+
+All at once, with a curious outburst of mingled smiles and tears (it
+would be hard to say which), he shrugged his shoulders, threw up his
+hands, and muttered:
+
+"Yes, it IS true. If it please you, it was I that contrived the idea."
+
+"Of COURSE it was!" the old soldier cried triumphantly.
+
+Ossip turned his eyes again to where the river was seething like a bowl
+of porridge, and, letting his eyes fall with a frown, continued:
+
+"In a moment of forgetfulness I did it. Yet how is it that we were not
+all drowned? Well, you wouldn't understand even if I were to tell you.
+No, by God, you wouldn't!... Don't be angry with me, mates. Pardon
+me for the festival's sake, for I am feeling uneasy of mind. Yes, I it
+was that egged you on to cross the river, the old fool that I was!"
+
+"Aha!" exclaimed Boev. "But, had I been drowned, what should you have
+said THEN?"
+
+In fact, by this time Ossip seemed conscious to the full of the
+futility and the senselessness of what he had done: and in his state of
+sliminess, as he sat nodding his head, picking at the sand, looking at
+no one, and emitting a torrent of remorseful words, he reminded me
+strongly of a new-born calf.
+
+And as I watched him I thought to myself:
+
+"Where now is the leader of men who could draw his fellows in his train
+with so much care and skill and authority?"
+
+And into my soul there trickled an uneasy sense of something lacking.
+Seating myself beside Ossip (for I desired still to retain a measure of
+my late impression of him), I said to him in an undertone:
+
+"Soon you will be all right again."
+
+With a sideways glance he muttered in reply, as he combed his beard:
+
+"Well, you saw what happened just now. Always do things so happen."
+
+While for the benefit of the men he added:
+
+"That was a good jest of mine, eh?"
+
+The summit of the hill which lay crouching, like a great beast, on the
+brink of the river was standing out clearly against the fast darkening
+sky; while a clump of trees thereon had grown black, and everywhere
+blue shadows of the spring eventide were coming into view, and looming
+between the housetops where the houses lay pressed like scabs against
+the hill's opaque surface, and peering from the moist, red jaws of the
+ravine which, gaping towards the river, seemed as though it were
+stretching forth for a draught of water.
+
+Also, by now the rustling and crunching of the ice on the similarly
+darkening river was beginning to assume a deeper note, and at times a
+floe would thrust one of its extremities into the bank as a pig thrusts
+its snout into the earth, and there remain motionless before once more
+beginning to sway, tearing itself free, and floating away down the
+river as another such floe glided into its place.
+
+And ever more and more swiftly was the water rising, and washing away
+soil from the bank, and spreading a thick sediment over the dark blue
+surface of the river. And as it did so, there resounded in the air a
+strange noise as of chewing and champing, a noise as though some huge
+wild animal were masticating, and licking itself with its great long
+tongue.
+
+And still there continued to come from the town the melancholy,
+distance-softened, sweet-toned song of the bells.
+
+Presently, the brothers Diatlov appeared descending from the hill with
+bottles in their hands, and sporting like a couple of joyous puppies,
+while to intercept them there could be seen advancing along the bank of
+the river a grey-coated police sergeant and two black-coated constables.
+
+"Oh Lord!" groaned Ossip as he rubbed his knee.
+
+As for the townsfolk, they had no love for the police, so hastened to
+withdraw to a little distance, where they silently awaited the
+officers' approach. Before long the sergeant, a little, withered sort
+of a fellow with diminutive features and a sandy, stubby moustache,
+called out in gruff, stern, hoarse, laboured accents:
+
+"So here you are, you rascals!"
+
+Ossip prised himself up from the ground with his elbow, and said
+hurriedly:
+
+"It was I that contrived the idea of the thing, your Excellency; but,
+pray let me off in honour of the festival."
+
+"What do you say, you--?" the sergeant began, but his bluster was lost
+amid the swift flow of Ossip's further conciliatory words.
+
+"We are folk of this town," Ossip continued, "who tonight found
+ourselves stranded on the further bank, with nothing to buy bread with,
+even though the day after tomorrow will be Christ's day, the day when
+Christians like ourselves wish to clean themselves up a little, and to
+go to church. So I said to my mates, 'Be off with you, my good fellows,
+and may God send that no mishap befall you!' And for this
+presumptuousness of mine I have been punished already, for, as you can
+see, have as good as broken my leg."
+
+"Yes," ejaculated the sergeant grimly. "But if you had been drowned,
+what then?"
+
+Ossip sighed wearily.
+
+"What then, do you say, your Excellency? Why, then, nothing, with your
+permission."
+
+This led the officer to start railing at the culprit, while the crowd
+listened as silently and attentively as though he had been saying
+something worthy to be heard and heeded, rather than foully and
+cynically miscalling their mothers.
+
+Lastly, our names having been noted, the police withdrew, while each of
+us drank a dram of vodka (and thereby gained a measure of warmth and
+comfort), and then began to make for our several homes. Ossip followed
+the police with derisive eyes; whereafter, he leapt to his feet with a
+nimble, adroit movement, and crossed himself with punctilious piety.
+
+"That's all about it, thank God!" he exclaimed.
+
+"What?" sniggered Boev, now both disillusioned and astonished. "Do you
+really mean to say that that leg of yours is better already? Or do you
+mean that it never was injured at all?"
+
+"Ah! So you wish that it HAD been injured, eh?"
+
+"The rascal of a Petrushka!" the other exclaimed.
+
+"Now," commanded Ossip, "do all of you be off, mates." And with that he
+pulled his wet cap on to his head.
+
+I accompanied him--walking a little behind the rest. As he limped
+along, he said in an undertone-said kindly--and as though he were
+communicating a secret known only to himself:
+
+"Whatsoever one may do, and whithersoever one may turn, one will find
+that life cannot be lived without a measure of fraud and deceit. For
+that is what life IS, Makarei, the devil fly away with it!... I
+suppose you're making for the hill? Well, I'll keep you company."
+
+Darkness had fallen, but at a certain spot some red and yellow lamps,
+lamps the beams of which seemed to be saying, "Come up hither!" were
+shining through the obscurity.
+
+Meanwhile, as we proceeded in the direction of the bells that were
+ringing on the hill, rivulets of water flowed with a murmur under our
+feet, and Ossip's kindly voice kept mingling with their sound.
+
+"See," he continued, "how easily I befooled that sergeant! That is how
+things have to be done, Makarei--one has to keep folk from knowing
+one's business, yet to make them think that they are the chief persons
+concerned, and the persons whose wit has put the cap on the whole."
+
+Yet as I listened to his speech, while supporting his steps, I could
+make little of it.
+
+Nor did I care to make very much of it, for I was of a simple and
+easygoing nature. And though at the moment I could not have told
+whether I really liked Ossip, I would still have followed his lead in
+any direction--yes, even across the river again, though the ice had
+been giving way beneath me.
+
+And as we proceeded, and the bells echoed and re-echoed, I thought to
+myself with a spasm of joy:
+
+"Ah, many times may I thus walk to greet the spring!"
+
+While Ossip said with a sigh:
+
+"The human soul is a winged thing. Even in sleep it flies."
+
+      *      *      *      *      *
+
+A winged thing? Yes, and a thing of wonder.
+
+
+
+
+GUBIN
+
+The place where I first saw him was a tavern wherein, ensconced in the
+chimney-corner, and facing a table, he was exclaiming stutteringly,
+"Oh, I know the truth about you all! Yes, I know the truth about you!"
+while standing in a semicircle in front of him, and unconsciously
+rendering him more and more excited with their sarcastic
+interpolations, were some tradesmen of the superior sort--five in
+number. One of them remarked indifferently:
+
+"How should you NOT know the truth about us, seeing that you do nothing
+but slander us?"
+
+Shabby, in fact in rags, Gubin at that moment reminded me of a homeless
+dog which, having strayed into a strange street, has found itself held
+up by a band of dogs of superior strength, and, seized with
+nervousness, is sitting back on its haunches and sweeping the dust with
+its tail; and, with growls, and occasional barings of its fangs, and
+sundry barkings, attempting now to intimidate its adversaries, and now
+to conciliate them. Meanwhile, having perceived the stranger's
+helplessness and insignificance, the native pack is beginning to
+moderate its attitude, in the conviction that, though continued
+maintenance of dignity is imperative, it is not worthwhile to pick a
+quarrel so long as an occasional yelp be vented in the stranger's face.
+
+"To whom are you of any use?" one of the tradesmen at length inquired.
+
+"Not a man of us but may be of use."
+
+"To whom, then?"...
+
+I had long since grown familiar with tavern disputes concerning
+verities, and not infrequently seen those disputes develop into open
+brawls; but never had I permitted myself to be drawn into their toils,
+or to be set wandering amid their tangles like a blind man negotiating
+a number of hillocks. Moreover, just before this encounter with Gubin,
+I had arrived at a dim surmise that when such differences were carried
+to the point of madness and bloodshed. Really, they constituted an
+expression of the unmeaning, hopeless, melancholy life that is lived in
+the wilder and more remote districts of Russia--of the life that is
+lived on swampy banks of dingy rivers, and in our smaller and more
+God-forgotten towns. For it would seem that in such places men have
+nothing to look for, nor any knowledge of how to look for anything;
+wherefore, they brawl and shout in vain attempts to dissipate
+despondency....
+
+I myself was sitting near Gubin, but on the other side of the table.
+Yet, this was not because his outbursts and the tradesmen's retorts
+thereto were a pleasure to listen to, since to me both the one and the
+other seemed about as futile as beating the air.
+
+"To whom are YOU of use?"
+
+"To himself every man can be useful."
+
+"But what good can one do oneself?"...
+
+The windows of the tavern were open, while in the pendent, undulating
+cloud of blue smoke that the flames of the lamps emitted, those lamps
+looked like so many yellow pitchers floating amid the waters of a
+stagnant pond. Out of doors there was brooding the quiet of an August
+night, and not a rustle, not a whisper was there to be heard. Hence, as
+numbed with melancholy, I gazed at the inky heavens and limpid stars I
+thought to myself:
+
+"Surely, never were the sky and the stars meant to look down upon a
+life like this, a life like this?"
+
+Suddenly someone said with the subdued assurance of a person reading
+aloud from a written document:
+
+"Unless the peasants of Kubarovo keep a watch upon their timber lands,
+the sun will fire them tomorrow, and then the Birkins' forest also will
+catch alight."
+
+For a moment the dispute died down. Then, as it were cleaving the
+silence, a voice said stutteringly:
+
+"Who cares about the significance of the word 'truth'?"
+
+And the words--heavy, jumbled, and clumsy--filled me with despondent
+reflections. Then again the voices rose--this time in louder and more
+venomous accents, and with their din recalled to me, by some accident,
+the foolish lines:
+
+  The gods did give men water
+  To wash in, and to drink;
+  Yet man has made it but a pool
+  In which his woes to sink.
+
+Presently I moved outside and, seating myself on the steps of the
+veranda, fell to contemplating the dull, blurred windows of the
+Archpriest's house on the other side of the square, and to watching how
+black shadows kept flitting to and fro behind their panes as the faint,
+lugubrious notes of a guitar made themselves heard. And a high-pitched,
+irritable voice kept repeating at intervals: "Allow me. Pray, permit me
+to speak," and being answered by a voice which intermittently shot into
+the silence, as into a bottomless sack, the words: "No, do you wait a
+moment, do you wait a moment."
+
+Surrounded by the darkness, the houses looked stunted like gravestones,
+with a line of black trees above their roofs that loomed shadowy and
+cloud-like. Only in the furthest corner of the expanse was the light of
+a solitary street lamp bearing a resemblance to the disk of a
+stationary, resplendent dandelion.
+
+Over everything was melancholy. Far from inviting was the general
+outlook. So much was this the case that, had, at that moment, anyone
+stolen upon me from behind the bushes and dealt me a sudden blow on the
+head, I should merely have sunk to earth without attempting to see who
+my assailant had been.
+
+Often, in those days, was I in this mood, for it clave to me as
+faithfully as a dog--never did it wholly leave me.
+
+"It was for men like THOSE that this fair earth of ours was bestowed
+upon us!" I thought to myself.
+
+Suddenly, with a clatter, someone ran out of the door of the tavern,
+slid down the steps, fell headlong at their foot, quickly regained his
+equilibrium, and disappeared in the darkness after exclaiming in a
+threatening voice:
+
+"Oh, I'LL pay you out! I'LL skin you, you damned...!"
+
+Whereafter two figures that also appeared in the doorway said as they
+stood talking to one another:
+
+"You heard him threaten to fire the place, did you not?"
+
+"Yes, I did. But why should he want to fire it?"
+
+"Because he is a dangerous rascal."
+
+Presently, slinging my wallet upon my back, I pursued my onward way
+along a street that was fenced on either side with a tall palisade. As
+I proceeded, long grasses kept catching at my feet and rustling drily.
+And so warm was the night as to render the payment of a lodging fee
+superfluous; and the more so since in the neighbourhood of the
+cemetery, where an advanced guard of young pines had pushed forward to
+the cemetery wall and littered the sandy ground, with a carpet of red,
+dry cones, there were sleeping-places prepared in advance.
+
+Suddenly from the darkness there emerged, to recoil again, a man's tall
+figure.
+
+"Who is that? Who is it?" asked the hoarse, nervous voice of Gubin in
+dissipation of the deathlike stillness.
+
+Which said, he and I fell into step with one another. As we proceeded
+he inquired whence I had come, and why I was still abroad. Whereafter
+he extended to me, as to an old acquaintance, the invitation:
+
+"Will you come and sleep at my place? My house is near here, and as for
+work, I will find you a job tomorrow. In fact, as it happens, I am
+needing a man to help me clean out a well at the Birkins' place. Will
+the job suit you? Very well, then. Always I like to settle things
+overnight, as it is at night that I can best see through people."
+
+The "house" turned out to be nothing more than an old one-eyed,
+hunchbacked washhouse or shanty which, bulging of wall, stood wedged
+against the clayey slope of a ravine as though it would fain bury
+itself amid the boughs of the neighbouring arbutus trees and elders.
+
+Without striking a light, Gubin flung himself upon some mouldy hay that
+littered a threshold as narrow as the threshold of a dog-kennel, and
+said to me with an air of authority as he did so:
+
+"I will sleep with my head towards the door, for the atmosphere here is
+a trifle confined."
+
+And, true enough, the place reeked of elderberries, soap, burnt stuff,
+and decayed leaves. I could not conceive why I had come to such a spot.
+
+The twisted branches of the neighbouring trees hung motionless athwart
+the sky, and concealed from view the golden dust of the Milky Way,
+while across the Oka an owl kept screeching, and the strange, arresting
+remarks of my companion pelted me like showers of peas.
+
+"Do not be surprised that I should live in a remote ravine," he said.
+"I, whose hand is against every man, can at least feel lord of what I
+survey here."
+
+Too dark was it for me to see my host's face, but my memory recalled
+his bald cranium, and the yellow light of the lamps falling upon a nose
+as long as a woodpecker's beak, a pair of grey and stubbly cheeks, a
+pair of thin lips covered by a bristling moustache, a mouth sharp-cut
+as with a knife, and full of black, evil-looking stumps, a pair of
+pointed, sensitive, mouse-like ears, and a clean-shaven chin. The last
+feature in no way consorted with his visage, or with his whole
+appearance; but at least it rendered him worthy of remark, and enabled
+one to realise that one had to deal with neither a peasant nor a
+soldier nor a tradesman, but with a man peculiar to himself. Also, his
+frame was lanky, with long arms and legs, and pointed knees and elbows.
+In fact, so like a piece of string was his body that to twist it round
+and round, or even to tie it into a knot, would, seemingly, have been
+easy enough.
+
+For awhile I found his speech difficult to follow; wherefore, silently
+I gazed at the sky, where the stars appeared to be playing at
+follow-my-leader.
+
+"Are you asleep?" at length he inquired.
+
+"No, I am not. Why do you shave your beard?"
+
+"Why do you ask?"
+
+"Because, if you will pardon me, I think your face would look better
+bearded."
+
+With a short laugh he exclaimed:
+
+"Bearded? Ah, sloven! Bearded, indeed!"
+
+To which he added more gravely:
+
+"Both Peter the Great and Nicholas I were wiser than you, for they
+ordained that whosoever should be bearded should have his nose slit,
+and be fined a hundred roubles. Did you ever hear of that?"
+
+"No."
+
+"And from the same source, from the beard, arose also the Great Schism."
+
+His manner of speaking was too rapid to be articulate, and, in leaving
+his mouth, his words caused his lips to bare stumps and gums amid which
+they lost their way, became disintegrated, and issued, as it were, in
+an incomplete state.
+
+"Everyone," he continued, "knows that life is lived more easily with a
+beard than without one, since with a beard lies are more easily
+told--they can be told, and then hidden in the masses of hair. Hence we
+ought to go through life with our faces naked, since such faces render
+untruthfulness more difficult, and prevent their owners from
+prevaricating without the fact becoming plain to all."
+
+"But what about women?"
+
+"What about women? Well, women can always lie to their husbands
+successfully, but not to all the town, to all the world, to folk in
+general. Moreover, since a woman's real business in life is the same as
+that of the hen, to rear young, what can it matter if she DOES cackle a
+few falsehoods, provided that she be neither a priest nor a mayor nor a
+tchinovnik, and does not possess any authority, and cannot establish
+laws? For the really important point is that the law itself should not
+lie, but ever uphold truth pure and simple. Long has the prevalent
+illegality disgusted me."
+
+The door of the shanty was standing open, and amid the outer darkness,
+as in a church, the trees looked like pillars, and the white stems of
+the birches like silver candelabra tipped with a thousand lights, or
+dimly-seen choristers with faces showing pale above sacramental
+vestments of black. All my soul was full of a sort of painful
+restlessness. It was a feeling as though I should live to rise and go
+forth into the darkness, and offer battle to the terrors of the night;
+yet ever, as my companion's torrential speech caught and held my
+attention, it detained me where I was.
+
+"My father was a man of no little originality and character," he went
+on. "Wherefore, none of the townsfolk liked him. By the age of twenty
+he had risen to be an alderman, yet never to the end could get the
+better of folk's stubbornness and stupidity, even though he made it his
+custom to treat all and sundry to food and drink, and to reason with
+them. No, not even at the last did he attain his due. People feared him
+because he revolutionised everything, revolutionised it down to the
+very roots; the truth being that he had grasped the one essential fact
+that law and order must be driven, like nails, into the people's very
+vitals."
+
+Mice squeaked under the floor, and on the further side of the Oka an
+owl screeched, while amid the pitch-black heavens I could see a number
+of blotches intermittently lightening to an elusive red and blurring
+the faint glitter of the stars.
+
+"It was one o'clock in the morning when my father died," Gubin
+continued. "And upon myself, who was seventeen and had just finished my
+course at the municipal school of Riazan, there devolved, naturally
+enough, all the enmity that my father had incurred during his lifetime.
+'He is just like his sire,' folk said. Also, I was alone, absolutely
+alone, in the world, since my mother had lost her reason two years
+before my father's death, and passed away in a frenzy. However, I had
+an uncle, a retired unter-officier who was both a sluggard, a tippler,
+and a hero (a hero because he had had his eyes shot out at Plevna, and
+his left arm injured in a manner which had induced paralysis, and his
+breast adorned with the military cross and a set of medals). And
+sometimes, this uncle of mine would rally me on my learning. For
+instance, 'Scholar,' he would say, 'what does "tiversia" mean?' 'No
+such word exists,' would be my reply, and thereupon he would seize me
+by the hair, for he was rather an awkward person to deal with. Another
+factor as concerned making me ashamed of my scholarship was the
+ignorance of the townspeople in general, and in the end I became the
+common butt, a sort of 'holy idiot.'"
+
+So greatly did these recollections move Gubin that he rose and
+transferred his position to the door of the hut, where, a dark blur
+against the square of blue, he lit a gurgling pipe, and puffed thereat
+until his long, conical nose glowed. Presently the surging stream of
+words began again:
+
+"At twenty I married an orphan, and when she fell ill and died
+childless I found myself alone once more, and without an adviser or a
+friend. However, still I continued both to live and to look about me.
+And in time, I perceived that life is not lived wholly as it should be."
+
+"What in life is 'not lived wholly as it should be'?"
+
+"Everything in life. For life is mere folly, mere fatuous nonsense. The
+truth is that our dogs do not bark always at the right moment. For
+instance, when I said to folk, 'How would it be if we were to open a
+technical school for girls?' They merely laughed and replied, 'Trade
+workers are hopeless drunkards. Already have we enough of them.
+Besides, hitherto women have contrived to get on WITHOUT education.'
+And when next I conceived a scheme for instituting a match factory, it
+befell that the factory was burnt down during its first year of
+existence, and I found myself once more at a loose end. Next a certain
+woman got hold of me, and I flitted about her like a martin around a
+belfry, and so lost my head as to live life as though I were not on
+earth at all--for three years I did not know even what I was doing, and
+only when I recovered my senses did I perceive myself to be a pauper,
+and my all, every single thing that I had possessed, to have passed
+into HER white hands. Yes, at twenty-eight I found myself a beggar. Yet
+I have never wholly regretted the fact, for certainly for a time I
+lived life as few men ever live it. 'Take my all--take it!' I used to
+say to her. And, truly enough, I should never have done much good with
+my father's fortune, whereas she--well, so it befell. Somehow I think
+that in those days my opinions must have been different from now--now
+that I have lost everything.... Yet the woman used to say, 'You have
+NOT lost everything,' and she had wit enough to fit out a whole townful
+of people."
+
+"This woman--who was she?"
+
+"The wife of a merchant. Whenever she unrobed and said, 'Come! What is
+this body of mine worth?' I used to make reply, 'A price that is beyond
+compute.'... So within three years everything that I possessed
+vanished like smoke. Sometimes, of course, folk laughed at and jibed at
+me; nor did I ever refute them. But now that I have come to have a
+better understanding of life's affairs, I see that life is not wholly
+lived as it should be. For that matter, too, I do not hold my tongue on
+the subject, for that is not my way--still left to me I have a tongue
+and my soul. The same reason accounts for the fact that no one likes
+me, and that by everyone I am looked upon as a fool."
+
+"How, in your opinion, ought life to be lived?"
+
+Without answering me at once, Gubin sucked at his pipe until his nose
+made a glowing red blur in the darkness. Then he muttered slowly:
+
+"How life ought to be lived no one could say exactly. And this though I
+have given much thought to the subject, and still am doing so."
+
+I found it no difficult matter to form a mental picture of the desolate
+existence which this man must be leading--this man whom all his fellows
+both derided and shunned. For at that time I too was bidding fair to
+fail in life, and had my heart in the grip of ceaseless despondency.
+
+The truth is that of futile people Russia is over-full. Many such I
+myself have known, and always they have attracted me as strongly and
+mysteriously as a magnet. Always they have struck me more favourably
+than the provincial-minded majority who live for food and work alone,
+and put away from them all that could conceivably render their
+bread-winning difficult, or prevent them from snatching bread out of
+the hands of their weaker neighbours. For most such folk are gloomy and
+self-contained, with hearts that have turned to wood, and an outlook
+that ever reverts to the past; unless, indeed, they be folk of spurious
+good nature, an addition to talkativeness, and an apparent bonhomie
+which veils a frigid, grey interior, and conveys an impression of
+cruelty and greed of all that life contains.
+
+Always, in the end, I have detected in such folk something wintry,
+something that makes them seem, as it were, to be spending spring and
+summer in expectation solely of the winter season, with its long
+nights, and its cold of an austerity which forces one for ever to be
+consuming food.
+
+Yet seldom among this distasteful and wearisome crowd of wintry folk is
+there to be encountered a man who has altogether proved a failure. But
+if he has done so, he will be found to be a man whose nature is of a
+more thoughtful, a more truly existent, a more clear-sighted cast than
+that of his fellows--a man who at least can look beyond the boundaries
+of the trite and commonplace, and whose mentality has a greater
+capacity for attaining spiritual fulfilment, and is more desirous of
+doing so, than the mentality of his compeers. That is to say, in such a
+man one can always detect a striving for space, as a man who, loving
+light, carries light in himself.
+
+Unfortunately, all too often is that light only the fugitive
+phosphorescence of putrefaction; wherefore as one contemplates him one
+soon begins to realise with bitterness and vexation and disappointment
+that he is but a sluggard, but a braggart, but one who is petty and
+weak and blinded with conceit and distorted with envy, but one between
+whose word and whose deed there gapes a disparity even wider and deeper
+than the disparity which divides the word from the deed of the man of
+winter, of the man who, though he be as tardy as a snail, at least is
+making some way in the world, in contradistinction from the failure who
+revolves ever in a single spot, like some barren old maid before the
+reflection in her looking-glass.
+
+Hence, as I listened to Gubin, there recurred to me more than one
+instance of his type.
+
+"Yes, I have succeeded in observing life throughout," he muttered
+drowsily as his head sank slowly upon his breast.
+
+And sleep overtook myself with similar suddenness. Apparently that
+slumber was of a few minutes' duration only, yet what aroused me was
+Gubin pulling at my leg.
+
+"Get up now," he said. "It is time that we were off."
+
+And as his bluish-grey eyes peered into my face, somehow I derived from
+their mournful expression a sense of intellectuality. Beneath the hair
+on his hollow cheeks were reddish veins, while similar veins, bluish in
+tint, covered with a network his temples, and his bare arms had the
+appearance of being made of tanned leather.
+
+Dawn had not yet broken when we rose and proceeded through the
+slumbering streets beneath a sky that was of a dull yellow, and amid an
+atmosphere that was full of the smell of burning.
+
+"Five days now has the forest been on fire," observed Gubin. "Yet the
+fools cannot succeed in putting it out."
+
+Presently the establishment of the merchants Birkin lay before us, an
+establishment of curious aspect, since it constituted, rather, a
+conglomeration of appendages to a main building of ground floor and
+attics, with four windows facing on to the street, and a series of
+underpropping annexes. That series extended to the wing, and was solid
+and permanent, and bade fair to overflow into the courtyard, and
+through the entrance-gates, and across the street, and to the very
+kitchen-garden and flower-garden themselves. Also, it seemed to have
+been stolen piecemeal from somewhere, and at different periods, and
+from different localities, and tacked at haphazard on to the walls of
+the parent erection. Moreover, all the windows of the latter were
+small, and in their green panes, as they confronted the world, there
+was a timid and suspicious air, while, in particular, the three windows
+which faced upon the courtyard had iron bars to them. Lastly, there
+were posted, sentinel-like on the entrance-steps, two water-butts as a
+precaution against fire.
+
+"What think you of the place?" Gubin muttered as he peered into the
+well. "Isn't it a barbarous hole? The right thing would be to pull it
+down wholesale, and then rebuild it on larger and less restricted
+lines. Yet these fools merely go tacking new additions on to the old."
+
+For awhile his lips moved as in an incantation. Then he frowned,
+glanced shrewdly at the structures in question, and continued softly:
+
+"I may say in passing that the place is MINE."
+
+"YOURS?"
+
+"Yes, mine. At all events, so it used to be."
+
+And he pulled a grimace as though he had got the toothache before
+adding with an air of command:
+
+"Come! I will pump out the water, and YOU shall carry it to the
+entrance-steps and fill the water-butts. Here is a pail, and here a
+ladder."
+
+Whereafter, with a considerable display of strength, he set about his
+portion of the task, whilst I myself took pail in hand and advanced
+towards the steps to find that the water-butts were so rotten that,
+instead of retaining the water, they let it leak out into the
+courtyard. Gubin said with an oath:
+
+"Fine masters these--masters who grudge one a groat, and squander a
+rouble! What if a fire WERE to break out? Oh, the blockheads!"
+
+Presently, the proprietors in person issued into the courtyard--the
+stout, bald Peter Birkin, a man whose face was flushed even to the
+whites of his shifty eyes, and, close behind him, eke his shadow, Jonah
+Birkin--a person of sandy, sullen mien, and overhanging brows, and
+dull, heavy eyes.
+
+"Good day, dear sir," said Peter Birkin thinly, as with a puffy hand he
+raised from his head a cloth cap, while Jonah nodded. And then, with a
+sidelong glance at myself, asked in a deep bass voice:
+
+"Who is this young man?"
+
+Large and important like peacocks, the pair then shuffled across the
+wet yard, and in so doing, went to much trouble to avoid soiling their
+polished shoes. Next Peter said to his brother:
+
+"Have you noticed that the water-butts are rotted? Oh, that fine
+Yakinika! He ought long ago to have been dismissed."
+
+"Who is that young man over there?" Jonah repeated with an air of
+asperity.
+
+"The son of his father and mother," Gubin replied quietly, and without
+so much as a glance at the brothers.
+
+"Well, come along," snuffled Peter with a drawling of his vowels. "It
+is high time that we were moving. It doesn't matter who the young man
+may be."
+
+And with that they slip-slopped across to the entrance gates, while
+Gubin gazed after them with knitted brows, and as the brothers were
+disappearing through the wicket said carelessly:
+
+"The old sheep! They live solely by the wits of their stepmother, and
+if it were not for her, they would long ago have come to grief. Yes,
+she is a woman beyond words clever. Once upon a time there were three
+brothers--Peter, Alexis, and Jonah; but, unfortunately, Alexis got
+killed in a brawl. A fine, tall fellow HE was, whereas these two are a
+pair of gluttons, like everyone else in this town. Not for nothing do
+three loaves figure on the municipal arms! Now, to work again! Or shall
+we take a rest?"
+
+Here there stepped on to the veranda a tall, well-grown young woman in
+an open pink bodice and a blue skirt who, shading blue eyes with her
+hand, scanned the courtyard and the steps, and said with some
+diffidence:
+
+"Good day, Yakov Vasilitch."
+
+With a good-humoured glance in response, and his mouth open, Gubin
+waved a hand in greeting:
+
+"Good day to YOU, Nadezhda Ivanovna," he replied. "How are you this
+morning?"
+
+Somehow this made her blush, and cross her arms upon her ample bosom,
+while her kindly, rounded, eminently Russian face evinced the ghost of
+a shy smile. At the same time, it was a face wherein not a single
+feature was of a kind to remain fixed in the memory, a face as vacant
+as though nature had forgotten to stamp thereon a single wish. Hence,
+even when the woman smiled there seemed to remain a doubt whether the
+smile had really materialised.
+
+"How is Natalia Vasilievna?" continued Gubin.
+
+"Much as usual," the woman answered softly.
+
+Whereafter hesitantly, and with downcast eyes, she essayed to cross the
+courtyard. As she passed me I caught a whiff of raspberries and
+currants.
+
+Disappearing into the grey mist through a small door with iron staples,
+she soon reissued thence with a hencoop, and, seating herself on the
+steps of the doorway, and setting the coop on her knees, took between
+her two large palms some fluttering, chirping, downy, golden chicks,
+and raised them to her ruddy lips and cheeks with a murmur of:
+
+"Oh my little darlings! Oh my little darlings!"
+
+And in her voice, somehow, there was a note as of intoxication, of
+abandonment. Meanwhile dull, reddish sunbeams were beginning to peer
+through the fence, and to warm the long, pointed staples with which it
+was fastened together. While in a stream of water that was dripping
+from the eaves, and trickling over the floor of the court, and around
+the woman's feet, a single beam was bathing and quivering as though it
+would fain effect an advance to the woman's lap and the hencoop, and,
+with the soft, downy chicks, enjoy the caresses of the woman's bare
+white arms.
+
+"Ah, little things!" again she murmured. "Ah, little children of mine!"
+
+Upon that Gubin suddenly desisted from his task of hauling up the
+bucket, and, as he steadied the rope with his arms raised above his
+head, said quickly:
+
+"Nadezhda Ivanovna, you ought indeed to have had some children--six at
+the least!"
+
+Yet no reply came, nor did the woman even look at him.
+
+The rays of the sun were now spreading, smokelike and greyish-yellow,
+over the silver river. Above the river's calm bed a muslin texture of
+mist was coiling. Against the nebulous heavens the blue of the forest
+was rearing itself amid the fragrant, pungent fumes from the burning
+timber.
+
+Yet still asleep amid its sheltering half-circle of forest was the
+quiet little town of Miamlin, while behind it, and encompassing it as
+with a pair of dark wings, the forest in question looked as though it
+were ruffling its feathers in preparation for further flight beyond the
+point where, the peaceful Oka reached, the trees stood darkening,
+overshadowing the water's clear depths, and looking at themselves
+therein.
+
+Yet, though the hour was so early, everything seemed to have about it
+an air of sadness, a mien as though the day lacked promise, as though
+its face were veiled and mournful, as though, not yet come to birth, it
+nevertheless were feeling weary in advance.
+
+Seating myself by Gubin on some trampled straw in the hut ordinarily
+used by the watchman of the Birkins' extensive orchard, I found that,
+owing to the orchard being set on a hillside, I could see over the tops
+of the apple and pear and fig trees, where their tops hung bespangled
+with dew as with quicksilver, and view the whole town and its
+multicoloured churches, yellow, newly-painted prison, and
+yellow-painted bank.
+
+And while in the town's lurid, four-square buildings I could trace a
+certain resemblance to the aces of clubs stamped upon convicts' backs,
+in the grey strips of the streets I could trace a certain resemblance
+to a number of rents in an old, ragged, faded, dusty coat. Indeed, that
+morning all comparisons seemed to take on a tinge of melancholy; the
+reason being that throughout the previous evening there had been
+moaning in my soul a mournful dirge on the future life.
+
+With nothing, however, were the churches of the town of which I am
+speaking exactly comparable, for many of them had attained a degree of
+beauty the contemplation of which caused the town to assume
+throughout--a different, a more pleasing and seductive, aspect. Thought
+I to myself: "Would that men had fashioned all other buildings in the
+town as the churches have been fashioned!"
+
+One of the latter, an old, squat edifice the blank windows of which
+were deeply sunken in the stuccoed walls, was known as the "Prince's
+Church," for the reason that it enshrined the remains of a local Prince
+and his wife, persons of whom it stood recorded that "they did pass all
+their lives in kindly, unchanging love."...
+
+The following night Gubin and I chanced to see Peter Birkin's tall,
+pale, timid young wife traverse the garden on her way to a tryst in the
+washhouse with her lover, the precentor of the Prince's Church. And as
+clad in a simple gown, and barefooted, and having her ample shoulders
+swathed in an old, gold jacket or shawl of some sort, she crossed the
+orchard by a path running between two lines of apple trees; she walked
+with the unhasting gait of a cat which is crossing a yard after a
+shower of rain, and from time to time, whenever a puddle is
+encountered, lifts and shakes fastidiously one of its soft paws.
+Probably, in the woman's case, this came of the fact that things kept
+pricking and tickling her soles as she proceeded. Also, her knees, I
+could see, were trembling, and her step had in it a certain hesitancy,
+a certain lack of assurance.
+
+Meanwhile, bending over the garden from the warm night sky, the moon's
+kindly visage, though on the wane, was shining brightly; and when the
+woman emerged from the shadow of the trees I could discern the dark
+patches of her eyes, her rounded, half-parted lips, and the thick plait
+of hair which lay across her bosom. Also, in the moonlight her bodice
+had assumed a bluish tinge, so that she looked almost phantasmal; and
+when soundlessly, moving as though on air, she stepped back into the
+shadow of the trees, that shadow seemed to lighten.
+
+All this happened at midnight, or thereabouts, but neither of us was
+yet asleep, owing to the fact that Gubin had been telling me some
+interesting stories concerning the town and its families and
+inhabitants. However, as soon as he descried the woman looming like a
+ghost, he leapt to his feet in comical terror, then subsided on to the
+straw again, contracted his body as though he were in convulsions, and
+hurriedly made the sign of the cross.
+
+"Oh Jesus our Lord!" he gasped. "Tell me what that is, tell me what
+that is!"
+
+"Keep quiet, you," I urged.
+
+Instead, lurching in my direction, he nudged me with his arm,
+
+"Is it Nadezhda, think you?" he whispered.
+
+"It is."
+
+"Phew! The scene seems like a dream. Just in the same way, and in the
+very same place, did her mother-in-law, Petrushka's stepmother, use to
+come and walk. Yes, it was just like this."
+
+Then, rolling over, face downwards, he broke into subdued, malicious
+chuckles; whereafter, seizing my hand and sawing it up and down, he
+whispered amid his exultant pants:
+
+"I expect Petrushka is asleep, for probably he has taken too much
+liquor at the Bassanov's smotrini. [A festival at which a fiance pays
+his first visit to the house of the parents of his betrothed.]  Aye, he
+will be asleep. And as for Jonah, HE will have gone to Vaska Klochi. So
+tonight, until morning, Nadezhda will be able to kick up her heels to
+her heart's content."
+
+I too had begun to surmise that the woman was come thither for purposes
+of her own. Yet the scene was almost dreamlike in its beauty. It
+thrilled me to the soul to watch how the woman's blue eyes gazed about
+her--gazed as though she were ardently, caressingly whispering to all
+living creatures, asleep or awake:
+
+"Oh my darlings! Oh my darlings!"
+
+Beside me the uncouth, broken-down Gubin went on in hoarse accents:
+
+"You must know that she is Petrushka's THIRD wife, a woman whom he took
+to himself from the family of a merchant of Murom. Yet the town has it
+that not only Petrushka, but also Jonah, makes use of her--that she
+acts as wife to both brothers, and therefore lacks children. Also has
+it been said of her that one Trinity Sunday she was seen by a party of
+women to misconduct herself in this garden with a police sergeant, and
+then to sit on his lap and weep. Yet this last I do not wholly believe,
+for the sergeant in question is a veteran scarcely able to put one foot
+before the other. Also, Jonah, though a brute, lives in abject fear of
+his stepmother."
+
+Here a worm-eaten apple fell to the ground, and the woman paused;
+whereafter, with head a little raised, she resumed her way with greater
+speed.
+
+As for Gubin, he continued, unchecked, though with a trifle less
+animosity, rather as though he were reading aloud a manuscript which he
+found wearisome:
+
+"See how a man like Peter Birkin may pride himself upon his wealth, and
+receive honour during his lifetime, yet all the while have the devil
+grinning over his shoulder!"
+
+Then he, Gubin, kept silent awhile, and merely breathed heavily, and
+twisted his body about. But suddenly, he resumed in a strange whisper:
+
+"Fifteen years ago--no, surely it was longer ago than that?--Madame
+Nadkin, Nadezhda's mother-in-law, made it her practice to come to this
+spot to meet her lover. And a fine gallant HE was!"
+
+Somehow, as I watched the woman creeping along, and looking as though
+she were intending to commit a theft, or as though she fancied that at
+any moment she might see the plump brothers Birkin issue from the
+courtyard into the garden and come shuffling ponderously over the
+darkened ground, with ropes and cudgels grasped in coarse, red hands
+which knew no pity; somehow, as I watched her, I felt saddened, and
+paid little heed to Gubin's whispered remarks, so intently were my eyes
+fixed upon the granary wall as, after gliding along it awhile, the
+woman bent her head and disappeared through the dark blue of the
+washhouse door. As for Gubin, he went to sleep with a last drowsy
+remark of:
+
+"Life is all falsity. Husbands, wives, fathers, children--all of them
+practise deceit."
+
+In the east, portions of the sky were turning to light purple, and
+other portions to a darker hue, while from time to time I could see,
+looming black against those portions, coils of smoke the density of
+which kept being stabbed with fiery spikes of flame, so that the vague,
+towering forest looked like a hill on the top of which a fiery dragon
+was crawling about, and writhing, and intermittently raising tremulous,
+scarlet wings, and as often relapsing into, becoming submerged in, the
+bank of vapour. And, in contemplating the spectacle, I seemed actually
+to be able to hear the cruel, hissing din of combat between red and
+black, and to see pale, frightened rabbits scudding from underneath the
+roots of trees amid showers of sparks, and panting, half-suffocated
+birds fluttering wildly amid the branches as further and further
+afield, and more and more triumphantly, the scarlet dragon unfurled its
+wings, and consumed the darkness, and devoured the rain-soaked timber.
+
+Presently from the dark, blurred doorway in the wall of the washhouse
+there emerged a dark figure which went flitting away among the trees,
+while after it someone called in a sharp, incisive whisper:
+
+"Do not forget. You MUST come."
+
+"Oh, I shall be only too glad!"
+
+"Very well. In the morning the lame woman shall call upon you. Do you
+hear?"
+
+And as the woman disappeared from view the other person sauntered
+across the garden, and scaled the fence with a clatter.
+
+That night I could not sleep, but, until dawn, lay watching the burning
+forest as gradually the weary moon declined, and the lamp of Venus,
+cold and green as an emerald, came into view over the crosses on the
+Prince's Church. Indeed was the latter a fitting place for Venus to
+illumine if really it had been the case that the Prince and Princess
+had "passed their lives in kindly, unchanging love"!
+
+Gradually, the dew cleared the trees of the night darkness, and caused
+the damp, grey foliage to smile once more with aniseed and red
+raspberry, and to sparkle with the gold of their mildew. Also, there
+came hovering about us goldfinches with their little red-hooded crests,
+and fussy tomtits in their cravats of yellow, while a nimble, dark,
+blue woodpecker scaled the stem of an apple tree. And everywhere,
+yellow leaves fluttered to earth, and, in doing so, so closely
+resembled birds as to make it not always easy to distinguish whether a
+leaf or a tomtit had glimmered for a moment in the air.
+
+Gubin awoke, sighed, and with his gnarled knuckles gave his puffy eyes
+a rub. Then he raised himself upon all-fours, and, crawling, much
+dishevelled with sleep, out of the watchman's hut, snuffed the air (a
+process in which his movements approximated comically to those of a
+keen-nosed watch-dog). Finally he rose to his feet, and, in the act,
+shook one of the trees so violently as to cause a bough to shed its
+burden of ripe fruit, and disperse the apples hither and thither over
+the dry surface of the ground, or cause them to bury themselves among
+the long grass. Three of the juiciest apples he duly recovered, and,
+after examination of their exterior, probed with his teeth, while
+kicking away from him as many of the remainder as he could descry.
+
+"Why spoil those apples?" I queried
+
+"Oh, so you are NOT asleep?" he countered with a nod of his
+melon-shaped cranium. "As a matter of fact, a few apples won't be
+missed, for there are too many of them about. My own father it was that
+planted the trees which have grown them."
+
+Then, turning upon me a keen, good-humoured eye, and chuckling, he
+added:
+
+"What about that Nadezhda? Ah, she is a clever woman indeed! Yet I have
+a surprise in store for her and her lover."
+
+"Why should you have?"
+
+"Because I desire to benefit mankind at large" (this was said
+didactically, and with a frown). "For, no matter where I detect evil or
+underhandedness, it is my duty--I feel it to be my duty--to expose that
+evil, and to lay it bare. There exist people who need to be taught a
+lesson, and to whom I long to cry: 'Sinners that you are, do you lead
+more righteous lives!'"
+
+From behind some clouds the sun was rising with a disk as murky and
+mournful as the face of an ailing child. It was as though he were
+feeling conscious that he had done amiss in so long delaying to shed
+light upon the world, in so long dallying on his bed of soft clouds
+amid the smoke of the forest fire. But gradually the cheering beams
+suffused the garden throughout, and evoked from the ripening fruit an
+intoxicating wave of scent in which there could be distinguished also
+the bracing breath of autumn.
+
+Simultaneously there rose into the sky, in the wake of the sun, a dense
+stratum of cloud which, blue and snow-white in colour, lay with its
+soft hummocks reflected in the calm Oka, and so wrought therein a
+secondary firmament as profound and impalpable as its original.
+
+"Now then, Makar!" was Gubin's command, and once more I posted myself
+at the bottom of the well. About three sazheni in depth, and lined with
+cold, damp mud to above the level of my middle, the orifice was charged
+with a stifling odour both of rotten wood and of something more
+intolerable still. Also, whenever I had filled the pail with mud, and
+then emptied it into the bucket and shouted "Right away!" the bucket
+would start swinging against my person and bumping it, as unwillingly
+it went aloft, and thereafter discharge upon my head and shoulders
+clots of filth and drippings of water--meanwhile screening, with its
+circular bottom, the glowing sun and now scarce visible stars. In
+passing, the spectacle of those stars' waning both pained and cheered
+me, for it meant that for a companion in the firmament they now had the
+sun. Hence it was until my neck felt almost fractured, and my spine and
+the nape of my neck were aching as though clamped in a cast of plaster
+of paris, that I kept my eyes turned aloft. Yes, anything to gain a
+sight of the stars! From them I could not remove my vision, for they
+seemed to exhibit the heavens in a new guise, and to convey to me the
+joyful tidings that in the sky there was present also the sun.
+
+Yet though, meanwhile, I tried to ponder on something great, I never
+failed to find myself cherishing the absurd, obstinate apprehension
+that soon the Birkins would leave their beds, enter the courtyard, and
+have Nadezhda betrayed to them by Gubin.
+
+And throughout there kept descending to me from above the latter's
+inarticulate, as it were damp-sodden, observations.
+
+"Another rat!" I heard him exclaim. "To think that those two fellows,
+men of money, should neglect for two whole years to clean out their
+well! Why, what can the brutes have been drinking meanwhile? Look out
+below, you!"
+
+And once more, with a creaking of the pulley, the bucket would
+descend--bumping and thudding against the lining of the well as it did
+so, and bespattering afresh my head and shoulders with its filth.
+Rightly speaking, the Birkins ought to have cleared out the well
+themselves!
+
+"Let us exchange places," I cried at length.
+
+"What is wrong?" inquired Gubin in response
+
+"Down here it is cold--I can't stand it any longer."
+
+"Gee up!" exclaimed Gubin to the old horse which supplied the leverage
+power for the bucket; whereupon I seated myself upon the edge of the
+receptacle and went aloft, where everything was looking so bright and
+warm as to bear a new and unwontedly pleasing appearance.
+
+So now it was Gubin's turn to stand at the bottom of the well. And
+soon, in addition to the odour of decay, and a subdued sound of
+splashing, and the rumblings and bumpings of the iron bucket against
+its chain, there began to come up from the damp, black cavity a perfect
+stream of curses.
+
+"The infernal skinflints!" I heard my companion exclaim.
+
+"Hullo, here is something! A dog or a baby, eh? The damned old
+barbarians!"
+
+And the bucket ascended with, among its contents, a sodden and most
+ancient hat. With the passage of time Gubin's temper grew worse and
+worse.
+
+"If I SHOULD find a baby here," next he exclaimed, "I shall report the
+matter to the police, and get those blessed old brothers into trouble."
+
+Each movement of the leathern-hided, wall-eyed steed which did our
+bidding was accompanied by a swishing of a sandy tail which had for its
+object the brushing away of autumn's harbingers, the bluebottles.
+Almost with the tranquil gait of a religious did the animal accomplish
+its periodical journeys from the wall to the entrance gates and back
+again; after which it always heaved a profound sigh, and stood with its
+bony crest lowered.
+
+Presently, from a corner of the yard that lay screened behind some
+rank, pale, withered, trampled herbage a door screeched. Into the yard
+there issued Nadezhda Birkin, carrying a bunch of keys, and followed by
+a lady who, elderly and rotund of figure, had a few dark hairs growing
+on her full and rather haughty upper lip. As the two walked towards the
+cellar (Nadezhda being clad only in an under-petticoat, with a chemise
+half-covering her shoulders, and slippers thrust on to bare feet), I
+perceived from the languor of the younger woman's gait that she was
+feeling weary indeed.
+
+"Why do you look at us like that?" her senior inquired of me as she
+drew level. And as she did so the eyes that peered at me from above the
+full and, somehow, displaced-looking cheeks bid in them a dim, misty,
+half-blind expression.
+
+"That must be Peter Birkin's mother-in-law," was my unspoken reflection.
+
+At the door of the cellar Nadezhda handed the keys to her companion,
+and with a slow step which set her ample bosom swaying, and increased
+the disarray of the bodice on her round, but broad, shoulders,
+approached myself, and said quietly:
+
+"Please open the gutter-sluice and let out the water into the street,
+or the yard will soon be flooded. Oh, the smell of it! What is that
+thing there? A rat? Oh batinshka, what a horrible mess!"
+
+Her face had about it a drawn look, and under her eyes there were a
+pair of dark patches, and in their depths the dry glitter of a person
+who has spent a night of waking. True, it was a face still fresh of
+hue; yet beads of sweat were standing on the forehead, and her
+shoulders looked grey and heavy--as grey and heavy as unleavened bread
+which the fire has coated with a thin crust, yet failed to bake
+throughout.
+
+"Please, also, open the wicket," she continued. "And, in case a lame
+old beggar-woman should call, come and tell me. I am the Nadezhda
+Ivanovna for whom she will inquire. Do you understand?"
+
+From the well, at this point, there issued the words:
+
+"Who is that speaking?"
+
+"It is the mistress," I replied.
+
+"What? Nadezhda? With her I have a bone to pick."
+
+"What did he say?" the woman asked tensely as she raised her dark,
+thinly pencilled brows, and made as though to go and lean over the
+well. Independently of my own volition I forestalled what Gubin might
+next have been going to say by remarking:
+
+"I must tell you that last night he saw you walking in the garden here."
+
+"Indeed?" she ejaculated, and drew herself to her full height. Yet in
+doing so she blushed to her shoulders, and, clapping plump hands to her
+bosom, and opening dark eyes to their fullest, said in a hasty and
+confused whisper as, again paling and shrinking in stature, she
+subsided like a piece of pastry that is turning heavy:
+
+"Good Lord! WHAT did he see?... If the lame woman should call, you
+must not admit her. No, tell her that she will not be wanted, that I
+cannot, that I must not--But see here. Here is a rouble for you. Oh,
+good Lord!"
+
+By this time even louder and more angry exclamations had begun to
+ascend from Gubin. Yet the only sound to reach my ears was the woman's
+muttered whispering, and as I glanced into her face I perceived that
+its hitherto high-coloured and rounded contours had fallen in, and
+turned grey, and that her flushed lips were trembling to such an extent
+as almost to prevent the articulation of her words. Lastly, her eyes
+were frozen into an expression of pitiful, doglike terror.
+
+Suddenly she shrugged her shoulders, straightened her form, put away
+from her the expression of terror, and said quietly, but incisively:
+
+"You will not need to say anything about this. Allow me."
+
+And with a swaying step she departed--a step so short as almost to
+convey the impression that her legs were bound together. Yet while the
+gait was the gait of a person full of suppressed fury, it was also the
+gait of a person who can scarcely see an inch in advance.
+
+"Haul away, you!" shouted Gubin.
+
+I hauled him up in a state of cold and wet; whereafter he fell to
+stamping around the coping of the well, cursing, and waving his arms.
+
+"What have you been thinking of all this time?" he vociferated. "Why,
+for ever so long I shouted and shouted to you!"
+
+"I have been telling Nadezhda that last night you saw her walking in
+the garden."
+
+He sprang towards me with a vicious scowl.
+
+"Who gave you leave to do so?" he exclaimed.
+
+"Wait a moment. I said that it was only in a dream, that you saw her
+crossing the garden to the washhouse."
+
+"Indeed? And why did you do that?"
+
+Somehow, as, barelegged and dripping with mud, he stood blinking his
+eyes at me with a most disagreeable expression, he looked extremely
+comical.
+
+"See here," I remarked, "you have only to go and tell her husband about
+her for me to go and tell him the same story about your having seen the
+whole thing in a dream."
+
+"Why?" cried Gubin, now almost beside himself. Presently, however, he
+recovered sufficient self-possession to grin and ask in an undertone:
+
+"HOW MUCH DID SHE GIVE YOU?"
+
+I explained to him that my sole reason for what I had done had been
+that I pitied the woman, and feared lest the brothers Birkin should do
+an injury to one who at least ought not to be betrayed. Gubin began by
+declining to believe me, but eventually, after the matter had been
+thought out, said:
+
+"Acceptance of money for doing what is right is certainly irregular;
+but at least is it better than acceptance of money for conniving at
+sin. Well, you have spoilt my scheme, young fellow. Hired only to clean
+out the well, I would nevertheless have cleaned out the establishment
+as a whole, and taken pleasure in doing so."
+
+Then once more he relapsed into fury, and muttered as he scurried round
+and round the well:
+
+"How DARED you poke your nose into other people's affairs? Who are YOU
+in this establishment?"
+
+The air was hot and arid, yet still the sky was as dull as though
+coated throughout with the dust of summer, and, as yet, one could gaze
+at the sun's purple, rayless orb without blinking, and as easily as one
+could have gazed at the glowing embers of a wood fire.
+
+Seated on the fence, a number of rooks were directing intelligent black
+eyes upon the heaps of mud which lay around the coping of the well. And
+from time to time they fluttered their wings impatiently, and cawed.
+
+"I got you some work," Gubin continued in a grumbling tone, "and put
+heart into you with the prospect of employment. And now you have gone
+and treated me like--"
+
+At this point I caught the sound of a horse trotting towards the
+entrance-gates, and heard someone shout, as the animal drew level with
+the house:
+
+"YOUR timber too has caught alight!"
+
+Instantly, frightened by the shout, the rooks took to their wings and
+flew away. Also, a window sash squeaked, and the courtyard resounded
+with sudden bustle--the culinary regions vomiting the elderly lady and
+the tousled, half-clad Jonah; and an open window the upper half of the
+red-headed Peter.
+
+"Men, harness up as quickly as possible!" the latter cried, his voice
+charged with a plaintive note.
+
+And, indeed, he had hardly spoken before Gubin led out a fat roan pony,
+and Jonah pulled from a shelter a light buggy or britchka. Meanwhile
+Nadezhda called from the veranda to Jonah:
+
+"Do you first go in and dress yourself!"
+
+The elderly lady then unfastened the gates; whereupon a stunted, oldish
+muzhik in a red shirt limped into the yard with a foam-flecked steed,
+and exclaimed:
+
+"It is caught in two places--at the Savelkin clearing and near the
+cemetery!"
+
+Immediately the company pressed around him with groans and
+ejaculations, and Gubin alone continued to harness the pony with swift
+and dexterous hands--saying to me through his teeth as he did so, and
+without looking at anyone:
+
+"That is how those wretched folk ALWAYS defer things until too late."
+
+The next person to present herself at the entrance gates was a
+beggar-woman. Screwing up her eyes in a furtive manner, she droned:
+
+"For the sake of Lord Je-e-esus!"
+
+"God will give you alms! God will give you alms!" was Nadezhda's reply
+as, turning pale, she flung out her arms in the old woman's direction.
+"You see, a terrible thing has happened--our timber lands have caught
+fire. You must come again later."
+
+Upon that Peter's bulky form (which had entirely filled the window from
+which it had been leaning), disappeared with a jerk, and in its stead
+there came into view the figure of a woman. Said she contemptuously:
+
+"See the visitation with which God has tried us, you men of faint
+hearts and indolent hands!"
+
+The woman's hair was grey at the temples, and had resting upon it a
+silken cap which so kept changing colour in the sunlight as to convey
+to one the impression that her head was bonneted with steel, while in
+her face, picturesque but dark (seemingly blackened with smoke), there
+gleamed two pupil-less blue eyes of a kind which I had never before
+beheld.
+
+"Fools," she continued, "how often have I not pointed out to you the
+necessity of cutting a wider space between the timber and the cemetery?"
+
+From a furrow above the woman's small but prominent nose, a pair of
+heavy brows extended to temples that were silvered over. As she spoke
+there fell a strange silence amid which save for the pony's pawing of
+the mire no sound mingled with the sarcastic reproaches of the deep,
+almost masculine voice.
+
+"That again is the mother-in-law," was my inward reflection.
+
+Gubin finished the harnessing--then said to Jonah in the tone of a
+superior addressing a servant:
+
+"Go in and dress yourself, you object!"
+
+Nevertheless, the Birkins drove out of the yard precisely as they were,
+while the peasant mounted his belathered steed and followed them at a
+trot; and the elderly lady disappeared from the window, leaving its
+panes even darker and blacker than they had previously been. Gubin,
+slip-slopping through the puddles with bare feet, said to me with a
+sharp glance as he moved to shut the entrance gates:
+
+"I presume that I can now take in hand the little affair of which you
+know."
+
+"Yakov!" at this juncture someone shouted from the house.
+
+Gubin straightened himself a la militaire.
+
+"Yes, I am coming," he replied.
+
+Whereafter, padding on bare soles, he ascended the steps. Nadezhda,
+standing at their top, turned away with a frown of repulsion at his
+approach, and nodded and beckoned to myself.
+
+"What has Yakov said to you?" she inquired
+
+"He has been reproaching me."
+
+"Reproaching you for what?"
+
+"For having spoken to you."
+
+She heaved a sigh.
+
+"Ah, the mischief-maker!" she exclaimed. "And what is it that he wants?"
+
+As she pouted her displeasure her round and vacant face looked almost
+childlike.
+
+"Good Lord!" she added. "What DO such men as he want?"
+
+Meanwhile the heavens were becoming overspread with dark grey clouds,
+and presaging a flood of autumn rain, while from the window near the
+steps the voice of Peter's mother-in-law was issuing in a steady
+stream. At first, however, nothing was distinguishable save a sound
+like the humming of a spindle.
+
+"It is my mother that is speaking," Nadezhda explained softly. "She'll
+give it him! Yes, SHE will protect me!"
+
+Yet I scarcely heard Nadezhda's words, so greatly was I feeling struck
+with the quiet forcefulness, the absolute assurance, of what was being
+said within the window.
+
+"Enough, enough!" said the voice. "Only through lack of occupation have
+you joined the company of the righteous."
+
+Upon this I made a move to approach closer to the window; whereupon
+Nadezhda whispered:
+
+"Whither are you going? You must not listen."
+
+While she was yet speaking I heard come from the window:
+
+"Similarly your revolt against mankind has come of idleness, of lack of
+an interest in life. To you the world has been wearisome, so, while
+devising this revolt as a resource, you have excused it on the ground
+of service of God and love of equity, while in reality constituting
+yourself the devil's workman."
+
+Here Nadezhda plucked at my sleeve, and tried to pull me away, but I
+remarked:
+
+"I MUST learn what Gubin has got to say in answer."
+
+This made Nadezhda smile, and then whisper with a confiding glance at
+my face:
+
+"You see, I have made a full confession to her. I went and said to her:
+'Mamenka, I have had a misfortune.' And her only reply as she stroked
+my hair was, 'Ah, little fool!' Thus you see that she pities me. And
+what makes her care the less that I should stray in that direction is
+that she yearns for me to bear her a child, a grandchild, as an heir to
+her property."
+
+Next, Gubin was heard saying within the room:
+
+"Whensoever an offence is done against the law I..."
+
+At once a stream of impressive words from the other drowned his
+utterance:
+
+"An offence is not always an offence of moment, since sometimes a
+person outgrows the law, and finds it too restrictive. No one person
+ought to be rated against another. For whom alone ought we to fear?
+Only the God in whose sight all of us have erred!"
+
+And though in the elderly lady's voice there was weariness and
+distaste, the words were spoken slowly and incisively. Upon this Gubin
+tried to murmur something or another, but again his utterance failed to
+edge its way into his interlocutor's measured periods:
+
+"No great achievement is it," she said, "to condemn a fellow creature.
+For always it is easy to sit in judgment upon our fellows. And even if
+a fellow creature be allowed to pursue an evil course unchecked, his
+offence may yet prove productive of good. Remember how in every case
+the Saints reached God. Yet how truly sanctified, by the time that they
+did so reach Him, were they? Let this ever be borne in mind, for we are
+over-apt to condemn and punish!"
+
+"In former days, Natalia Vassilievna, you took away from me my
+substance, you took my all. Also, let me recount to you how we fell
+into disagreement."
+
+"No; there is no need for that."
+
+"Thereafter, I ceased to be able to bear the contemplation of myself; I
+ceased to consider myself as of any value."
+
+"Let the past remain the past. That which must be is not to be avoided."
+
+"Through you, I say, I lost my peace of mind."
+
+Nadezhda nudged me, and whispered with gay malice:
+
+"That is probably true, for they say that once he was one of her
+lovers."
+
+Then she recollected herself and, clapping her hands to her face, cried
+through her fingers:
+
+"Oh good Lord! What have I said? No, no, you must not believe these
+tales. They are only slanders, for she is the best of women."
+
+"When evil has been done," continued the quiet voice within the window,
+"it can never be set right by recounting it to others. He upon whom a
+burden has been laid should try to bear it. And, should he fail to bear
+it, the fact will mean that the burden has been beyond his strength."
+
+"It was through you that I lost everything. It was you that stripped me
+bare."
+
+"But to that which you lost I added movement. Nothing in life is ever
+lost; it merely passes from one hand to another--from the unskilled
+hand to the experienced--so that even the bone picked of a dog may
+ultimately become of value."
+
+"Yes, a bone--that is what I am."
+
+"Why should you say that? You are still a man."
+
+"Yes, a man, but a man useful for what?"
+
+"Useful, even though the use may not yet be fully apparent."
+
+To this, after a pause, the speaker added:
+
+"Now, depart in peace, and make no further attempt against this woman.
+Nay, do not even speak ill of her if you can help it, but consider
+everything that you saw to have been seen in a dream."
+
+"Ah!" was Gubin's contrite cry. "It shall be as you say. Yet, though I
+should hate, I could not bear, to grieve you, I must confess that the
+height whereon you stand is--"
+
+"Is what, Oh friend of mine?"
+
+"Nothing; save that of all souls in this world you are, without
+exception, the best."
+
+"Yakov Petrovitch, in this world you and I might have ended our lives
+together in honourable partnership. And even now, if God be willing, we
+might do so."
+
+"No. Rather must farewell be said."
+
+All became quiet within the window, except that after a prolonged
+silence there came from the woman a deep sigh, and then a whisper of,
+"Oh Lord!"
+
+Treading softly, like a cat, Nadezhda darted away towards the steps;
+whereas I, less fortunate, was caught by the departing Gubin in the
+very act of leaving the neighbourhood of the window. Upon that he
+inflated his cheeks, ruffled up his sandy hair, turned red in the face
+like a man who has been through a fight, and cried in strange,
+querulous, high-pitched accents:
+
+"Hi! What were you doing just now? Long-legged devil that you are, I
+have no further use for you--I do not intend to work with you any more.
+So you can go."
+
+At the same moment the dim face, with its great blue eyes, showed
+itself at the window, and the stem voice inquired:
+
+"What does the noise mean?"
+
+"What does it mean? It means that I do not intend--"
+
+"You must not, if you wish to create a disturbance, do it anywhere but
+in the street. It must not be created here."
+
+"What is all this?" Nadezhda put in with a stamp of her foot. "What--"
+
+At this point, the cook rushed out with a toasting-fork and militantly
+ranged herself by Nadezhda's side, exclaiming:
+
+"See what comes of not having a single muzhik in the house!"
+
+I now prepared to withdraw, but, in doing so, glanced once more at the
+features of the elderly lady, and saw that the blue pupils were dilated
+so as almost to fill the eyes in their entirety, and to leave only a
+bluish margin. And strange and painful were those eyes--eyes fixed
+blindly, eyes which seemed to have strayed from their orbits through
+yielding to emotion and a consequent overstrain--while the apple of the
+throat had swelled like the crop of a bird, and the sheen of the silken
+head-dress become as the sheen of metal. Involuntarily, I thought to
+myself:
+
+"It is a head that must be made of iron."
+
+By this time Gubin had penitently subsided, and was exchanging harmless
+remarks with the cook, while carefully avoiding my glance.
+
+"Good day to you, madame," at length I said as I passed the window.
+
+Not at once did she reply, but when she did so she said kindly:
+
+"And good day to YOU, my friend. Yes, I wish you good day."
+
+To which she added an inclination of the head which resembled nothing
+so much as a hammer which much percussion upon an anvil has wrought to
+a fine polish.
+
+
+
+
+NILUSHKA
+
+The timber-built town of Buev, a town which has several times been
+burnt to the ground, lies huddled upon a hillock above the river
+Obericha. Its houses, with their many-coloured shutters, stand so
+crowded together as to form around the churches and gloomy law courts a
+perfect maze--the streets which intersect the dark masses of houses
+meandering aimlessly hither and thither, and throwing off alleyways as
+narrow as sleeves, and feeling their way along plot-fences and
+warehouse walls, until, viewed from the hillock above, the town looks
+as though someone has stirred it up with a stick and dispersed and
+confused everything that it contains. Only from the point where Great
+Zhitnaia Street takes its rise from the river do the stone mansions of
+the local merchants (for the most part German colonists) cut a grim,
+direct line through the packed clusters of buildings constructed of
+wood, and skirt the green islands of gardens, and thrust aside the
+churches; whereafter, continuing its way through Council Square (still
+running inexorably straight), the thoroughfare stretches to, and
+traverses, a barren plain of scrub, and so reaches the pine plantation
+belonging to the Monastery of St. Michael the Archangel where the
+latter is lurking behind a screen of old red spruces of which the
+denseness seems to prop the very heavens, and which on clear, sunny
+days can be seen rising to mark the spot whence the monastery's
+crosses, like the gilded birds of the forest of eternal silence,
+scintillate a constant welcome.
+
+At a distance of some ten houses before Zhitnaia Street debouches upon
+the plain which I have mentioned there begin to diverge from the street
+and to trend towards a ravine, and eventually to lose themselves in the
+latter's recesses, the small, squat shanties with one or two windows
+apiece which constitute the suburb of Tolmachikha. This suburb, it may
+be said, had as its original founders the menials of a landowner named
+Tolmachev--a landowner who, after emancipating his serfs some thirteen
+years before all serfs were legally emancipated, [In the year 1861]
+was, for his action, visited with such bitter revilement that, in dire
+offence at the same, he ended by becoming an inmate of the monastery,
+and there spending ten years under the vow of silence, until death
+overtook him amid a peaceful obscurity born of the fact that the
+authorities had forbidden his exhibition to pilgrims or strangers.
+
+It is in the very cots originally apportioned to Tolmachev's menials,
+at the time, fifty years ago, when those menials were converted into
+citizens, that the present inhabitants of the suburb dwell. And never
+have they been burnt out of those homes, although the same period has
+seen all Buev save Zhitnaia Street consumed, and everywhere that one
+may delve within the township one will be sure to come across
+undestroyed hearthstones.
+
+The suburb, as I have said, stands at the hither end and on the sloping
+side of one of the arms of a deep, wooded ravine, with its windows
+facing towards the ravine's yawning mouth, and affording a view direct
+to the Mokrie (certain marshes beyond the Obericha) and the swampy
+forest of firs into which the dim red sun declines. Further on, the
+ravine trends across the plain, then bends round towards the western
+side of the town, cats away the clayey soil with an appetite which each
+spring increases, and which, carrying the soil down to the river, is
+gradually clogging the river's flow, diverting the muddy water towards
+the marshes, and converting those marshes into a lagoon outright. The
+fissure in question is named "The Great Ravine," and has its steep
+flanks so overgrown with chestnuts and laburnums that even in
+summertime its recesses are cool and moist, and so serve as a
+convenient trysting place for the poorer lovers of the suburb and the
+town, and witness their tea drinkings and frequently fatal quarrels, as
+well as being used by the more well-to-do for a dumping ground for
+rubbish of the nature of deceased dogs, cats, and horses.
+
+Pleasantly singing, there scours the bottom of the ravine the brook
+known as the Zhandarmski Spring, a brook celebrated throughout Buev for
+its crystal-cold water, which is so icy of temperature that even on a
+burning day it will make the teeth ache. This water the denizens of
+Tolmachikha account to be their peculiar property; wherefore they are
+proud of it, and drink it to the exclusion of any other, and so live to
+a green old age which in some cases cannot even reckon its years. And
+by way of a livelihood, the men of the suburb indulge in hunting,
+fishing, fowling, and thieving (not a single artisan proper does the
+suburb contain, save the cobbler Gorkov--a thin, consumptive skeleton
+of surname Tchulan); while, as regards the women, they, in winter, sew
+and make sacks for Zimmel's mill, and pull tow, and in summer they
+scour the plantation of the monastery for truffles and other produce,
+and the forest on the other side of the river for huckleberries. Also,
+two of the suburb's women practise as fortune tellers, while two others
+conduct an easy and highly lucrative trade in prostitution.
+
+The result is that the town, as distinguished from the suburb, believes
+the men of the latter to be one and all thieves, and the women and
+girls of the suburb to be one and all disreputable characters. Hence
+the town strives always to restrict and extirpate the suburb, while the
+suburbans retaliate upon the townsfolk with robbery and arson and
+murder, while despising those townsfolk for their parsimony, decorum,
+and avarice, and detesting the settled, comfortable mode of life which
+they lead.
+
+So poor, for that matter, is the suburb that never do even beggars
+resort thither, save when drunk. No, the only creatures which resort
+thither are dogs which subsist no one knows how as predatorily they
+roam from court to court with tails tucked between their flanks, and
+bloodless tongues hanging down, and legs ever prepared, on sighting a
+human being, to bolt into the ravine, or to let down their owners upon
+subservient bellies in expectation of a probable kick or curse.
+
+In short, every cranny of every cot in the place, with the grimy panes
+of their windows, and their lathed roofs overgrown with velvety moss,
+breathes forth the universal, deadly hopelessness induced by Russia's
+crushing poverty.
+
+In the Tolmachikhans' backyards grow only alders, elders, and weeds.
+Everywhere docks thrust up heads through cracks in the fences to catch
+at the legs or the skirts of passers-by, while masses of nettles
+squeeze their way under fences to sting little children. Apropos, the
+latter are all thin and hungry, in the highest degree quarrelsome, and
+addicted to prolonged lamentation. Also, each spring sees a certain
+proportion of their number carried off by diphtheria, while scarlatina
+and measles are as epidemic among them as is typhoid among their elders.
+
+Thus the sounds of life most to be heard throughout the suburb are the
+sounds either of weeping or of mad cursing. In general, however, life
+in Tolmachikha is lived quietly and lethargically. So much is this the
+case that in spring even the cats forbear to squall save in crushed and
+subdued accents. The only local person to sing is Felitzata; and even
+she does so only when she is drunk. It may be said that Felitzata is a
+saucy, cunning procuress, and does her singing in a peculiarly thick
+and rasping voice which, with many croaks and hiatuses, necessitates
+much closing of the eyes, and a great protruding of the apple of the
+throat. Indeed, it is only the women of the place who, turbulently
+quarrelsome and hysterically noisy, spend most of the day in scouring
+the streets with skirts tucked up, and never cease begging for pinches
+of salt or flour or spoonfuls of oil as they rail and screech at and
+beat their children, and thrust withered breasts into their babies'
+mouths, and rush and fling themselves about, and bawl in a constant
+endeavour to right their woebegone condition. Yes, all are dishevelled
+and dirty, and have wizened, bony faces, and the restless eyes of
+thieves. Never, indeed, is a woman plump of figure, save at the period
+when she is ill, and her eyes are dim, and her gait is laboured. Yet
+until they are forty, the majority of the women become pregnant with
+every winter, and on the arrival of spring may be seen walking abroad
+with large stomachs and blue hollows under the eyes. And even this does
+not prevent them from working with the same desperate energy as when
+they are not with child. In short, the inhabitants of the place
+resemble needles and threads with which some rough, clumsy, and
+impatient hand is for ever trying to darn a ragged cloth which as
+constantly parts and rends.
+
+      *      *      *      *      *
+
+The chief person of repute in the suburb is my landlord, one Antipa
+Vologonov--a little old man who keeps a shop of "odd wares," and also
+lends money on pledge.
+
+Unfortunately, Antipa is a sufferer from a long-standing tendency to
+rheumatism, which has left him bow-legged, and has twisted and swollen
+his fingers to the extent that they will not bend. Hence, he always
+keeps his hands tucked into his sleeves, though seemingly he has the
+less use for them in that, even when he withdraws them from their
+shelter, he does so as cautiously as though he were afraid of their
+becoming dislocated.
+
+On the other hand, he never loses his temper, and he never grows
+excited.
+
+"Neither of those things suits me," he will say, "for my heart is
+dilated, and might at any moment fail."
+
+As for his face, it has high cheekbones which in places blossom into
+dark red blotches; an expression as calm as that of the face of a
+Khirghiz; a chin whence dangle wisps of mingled grey, red, and flaxen
+hair of a perpetually moist appearance; oblique and ever-changing eyes
+which are permanently contracted; a pair of thick, parti-coloured
+eyebrows which cast deep shadows over the eyes; and temples whereon a
+number of blue veins struggle with an irregular, sparse coating of
+bristles. Finally, about his whole personality there is something ever
+variable and intangible.
+
+Also, his gait is irritatingly slow; and the more so owing to his coat,
+which, of a cut devised by himself, consists, as it were, of cassock,
+sarafan [jacket], and waistcoat in one. As often as not he finds the
+skirts of the garment cumbering his legs; whereupon he has to stop and
+give them a kick. And thus it comes about that permanently the skirts
+are ragged and torn.
+
+"No need for hurry," is his customary remark. "Always, in time, does
+one win to one's pitch in the marketplace."
+
+His speech is cast in rounded periods, and displays a great love for
+ecclesiastical terms. On the occurrence of one such term, he pauses
+thereafter as though mentally he were adding to the term a very thick,
+a very black, full stop. Yet always he will converse with anyone, and
+at great length--his probable motive being a desire to leave behind him
+the reputation of a wise old man.
+
+In his shanty are three windows facing on to the street, and a
+partition-wall which divides it into two rooms of unequal size. In the
+larger room, which contains a Russian stove, he himself lives; in the
+smaller room I have my abode. By a passage the two are separated from a
+storeroom where, closeted behind a door to which there are a heavy,
+old-fashioned bolt and many iron and brass screws, Antipa preserves
+pledges left by his neighbours, such as samovars, ikons, winter
+clothing and the like. Of this storeroom he always carries the great
+indentated key at the back of the strap which upholds his cloth
+breeches; and, whenever the police call to ascertain whether he is
+harbouring any stolen goods, a long time ensues whilst he is shifting
+the key round to his stomach, and again a long time whilst he is
+unfastening it from the belt. Meanwhile, he says pompously to the
+Superintendent or the Deputy Superintendent:
+
+"Never do I take in goods of that kind. Of the truth of what I say,
+your honour, you have more than once assured yourself in person."
+
+Also, whenever Antipa sits down the key rattles against the back or the
+seat of his chair; whereupon he bends his arm with difficulty, and
+feels to see whether or not the key has come unslung. This I know for
+the reason that the partition-wall is not so thick but that I can hear
+his every breath drawn, and divine his every movement.
+
+Of an evening, when the misty sun is slanting across the river towards
+the auburn belt of pines, and distilling pink vapours from the sombre
+vista to be seen through the shaggy mouth of the ravine, Antipa
+Vologonov sets out a squat samovar that is dinted of side, and plated
+with green oxide on handle, turncock, and spout. Then he seats himself
+at his table by the window.
+
+At intervals I hear the evening stillness broken by questions put in a
+tone which implies always an expectation of a precise answer.
+
+"Where is Darika?"
+
+"He has gone to the spring for water." The answer is given whiningly,
+and in a thin voice.
+
+"And how is your sister?
+
+"Still in pain."
+
+"Yes? Well, you can go now."
+
+Giving a slight cough to clear his throat, the old man begins to sing
+in a quavering falsetto:
+
+  Once a bullet smote my breast,
+  And scarce the pang I felt.
+  But ne'er the pang could be express'd
+  Which love's flame since hath dealt!
+
+As the samovar hisses and bubbles, heavy footsteps resound in the
+street, and an indistinct voice says:
+
+"He thinks that because he is a Town Councillor he is also clever."
+
+"Yes; such folk are apt to grow very proud."
+
+"Why, all his brains put together wouldn't grease one of my boots!"
+
+And as the voices die away the old man's falsetto trickles forth anew,
+humming:
+
+"The poor man's anger... Minika! Hi, you! Come in here, and I will give
+you a bit of sugar. How is your father getting on? Is he drunk at
+present?"
+
+"No, sober, for he is taking nothing but kvas and cabbage soup."
+
+"And what is he doing for a living?"
+
+"Sitting at the table, and thinking."
+
+"And has your mother been beating him again?"
+
+"No--not again."
+
+"And she--how is she?"
+
+"Obliged to keep indoors."
+
+"Well, run along with you."
+
+Softly there next presents herself before the window Felitzata, a woman
+of about forty with a hawk-like gleam in her coldly civil eyes, and a
+pair of handsome lips compressed into a covert smile. She is well known
+throughout the suburb, and once had a son, Nilushka, who was the local
+"God's fool." Also she has the reputation of knowing what is correct
+procedure on all and sundry occasions, as well as of being skilled in
+lamentations, funeral rites, and festivities in connection with the
+musterings of recruits. Lastly she has had a hip broken, so that she
+walks with an inclination towards the left.
+
+Her fellow women say of her that her veins contain "a drop of gentle
+blood";  but probably the statement is inspired by no more than the
+fact that she treats everyone with the same cold civility.
+Nevertheless, there is something peculiar about her, for her hands are
+slender and have long fingers, and her head is haughtily poised, and
+her voice has a metallic ring, even though the metal has, as it were,
+grown dull and rusty. Also, she speaks of everyone, herself included,
+in the most rough and downright terms, yet terms which are so simple
+that, though her talk may be disconcerting to listen to, it could never
+be called obscene.
+
+For instance, once I overheard Vologonov reproach her for not leading a
+more becoming life:
+
+"You ought to have more self-restraint," said he, "seeing that you are
+a lady, and also your own mistress."
+
+"That is played out, my friend," she replied. "You see, I have had very
+much to bear, for there was a time when such hunger used to gnaw at my
+belly as you would never believe. It was then that my eyes became
+dazzled with the tokens of shame. So I took my fill of love, as does
+every woman. And once a woman has become a light-o'-love she may as
+well doff her shift altogether, and use the body which God has given
+her. And, after all, an independent life is the best life; so I hawk
+myself about like a pot of beer, and say, 'Drink of this, anyone who
+likes, while it still contains liquor.'"
+
+"It makes one feel ashamed to hear such talk," said Vologonov with a
+sigh. In response she burst out laughing.
+
+"What a virtuous man!" was her comment upon his remark.
+
+Until now Antipa had spoken cautiously, and in an undertone, whereas
+the woman had replied in loud accents of challenge.
+
+"Will you come in and have some tea?" he said next as he leant out of
+the window.
+
+"No, I thank you. In passing, what a thing I have heard about you!"
+
+"Do not shout so loud. Of what are you speaking?"
+
+"Oh, of SUCH a thing!"
+
+"Of NOTHING, I imagine."
+
+"Yes, of EVERYTHING."
+
+"God, who created all things, alone knows everything."
+
+Whereafter the pair whispered together awhile. Then Felitzata
+disappeared as suddenly as she had come, leaving the old man sitting
+motionless. At length he heaved a profound sigh, and muttered to
+himself.
+
+"Into that Eve's ears be there poured the poison of the asp!... Yet
+pardon me, Oh God! Yea, pardon me!"
+
+The words contained not a particle of genuine contrition. Rather, I
+believe, he uttered them because he had a weakness not for words which
+signified anything, but for words which, being out of the way, were not
+used by the common folk of the suburb.
+
+      *      *      *      *      *
+
+Sometimes Vologonov knocks at the partition-wall with a superannuated
+arshin measure which has only fifteen vershoki of its length remaining.
+He knocks, and shouts:
+
+"Lodger, would you care to join me in a pot of tea?"
+
+During the early days of our acquaintanceship he regarded me with
+marked and constant suspicion. Clearly he deemed me to be a police
+detective. But subsequently he took to scanning my face with critical
+curiosity, until at length he said with an air of imparting instruction:
+
+"Have you ever read Paradise Lost and Destroyed?"
+
+"No," I replied. "Only Paradise Regained."
+
+This led him to wag his parti-coloured beard in token that 'he
+disagreed with my choice', and to observe:
+
+"The reason why Adam lost Paradise is that he allowed Eve to corrupt
+him. And never did the Lord permit him to regain it. For who is worthy
+to return to the gates of Paradise? Not a single human being."
+
+And, indeed, I found it a waste of time to dispute the matter, for he
+merely listened to what I had to say, and then, without an attempt at
+refutation, repeated in the same tone as before, and exactly in the
+same words, his statement that "Adam lost Paradise for the reason that
+he allowed Eve to corrupt him."
+
+Similarly did women constitute our most usual subject of conversation.
+
+"You are young," once he said, "and therefore a human being bound to
+find forbidden fruit blocking your way at every step. This because the
+human race is a slave to its love of sin, or, in other words, to love
+of the Serpent. Yes, woman constitutes the prime impediment to
+everything in life, as history has many times affirmed. And first and
+foremost is she the source of restlessness. 'Charged with poison, the
+Serpent shall plunge in thee her fangs.' Which Serpent is, of course,
+our desire of the flesh, the Serpent at whose instigation the Greeks
+razed towns to the ground, and ravaged Troy and Carthagena and Egypt,
+and the Serpent which caused an amorous passion for the sister of
+Alexander Pavlovitch [The Emperor Alexander I] to bring about
+Napoleon's invasion of Russia. On the other hand, both the Mohammedan
+nations and the Jews have from earliest times grasped the matter
+aright, and kept their women shut up in their back premises; whereas WE
+permit the foulest of profligacy to exist, and walk hand in hand with
+our women, and allow them to graduate as female doctors and to pull
+teeth, and all the rest of it. The truth is that they ought not to be
+allowed to advance beyond midwife, since it is woman's business either
+to serve as a breeding animal or opprobriously to be called
+neiskusobrachnaia neviesta [Maid who hast never tasted of marriage.]
+Yes, woman's business should end there."
+
+Near the stove there ticks and clicks on the grimy wall that is papered
+with "rules and regulations" and sheets of yellow manuscript the
+pendulum of a small clock, with, hanging to one of its weights, a
+hammer and a horseshoe, and, to the other, a copper pestle. Also, in a
+corner of the room a number of ikons make a glittering show with their
+silver applique and the gilded halos which surmount their figures'
+black visages, while a stove with a ponderous grate glowers out of the
+window at the greenery in Zhitnaia Street and beyond the ravine (beyond
+the ravine everything looks bright and beautiful), and the dusty, dimly
+lighted storeroom across the passage emits a perennial odour of dried
+mushroom, tobacco leaves, and hemp oil.
+
+Vologonov stirs his strong, stewed tea with a battered old teaspoon,
+and says with a sigh as he sips a little:
+
+"All my life I have been engaged in gaining experience so that now I
+know most things, and ought to be listened to with attention. Usually
+folk do so listen to me, but though here and there one may find a
+living soul, of the rest it may be said: 'In the House of David shall
+terrible things come to pass, and fire shall consume the spirit of
+lechery.'"
+
+The words resemble bricks in that they seem, if possible, to increase
+the height of the walls of strange and extraneous events, and even
+stranger dramas, which loom for ever around, me.
+
+"For example," continues the old man, "why is Mitri Ermolaev Polukonov,
+our ex-mayor, lying dead before his time? Because he conceived a number
+of arrogant projects. For example, he sent his eldest son to study at
+Kazan--with the result that during the son's second year at the
+University he, the son, brought home with him a curly-headed Jewess,
+and said to his father: 'Without this woman I cannot live--in her are
+bound up my whole soul and strength.' Yes, a pass indeed! And from that
+day forth nothing but misfortune befell in that Yashka took to drink,
+the Jewess gave way to repining, and Mitri had to go perambulating the
+town with piteous invitations to 'come and see, my brethren, to what
+depths I have sunk!' And though, eventually, the Jewess died of a
+bloody flux, of a miscarriage, the past was beyond mending, and, while
+the son went to the bad, and took to drink for good and all, the father
+'fell a victim by night to untimely death.' Yes, the lives of two folk
+were thus undone by 'the thorn-bearing company of Judaea.' Like
+ourselves, the Hebrew has a destiny of his own. And destiny cannot be
+driven out with a stick. Of each of us the destiny is unhasting. It
+moves slowly and quietly, and can never be avoided. 'Wait,' it says.
+'Seek not to press onward.'"
+
+As he discourses, Vologonov's eyes ceaselessly change colour--now
+turning to a dull grey, and wearing a tired expression, and now
+becoming blue, and assuming a mournful air, and now (and most
+frequently of all) beginning to emit green flashes of an impartial
+malevolence.
+
+"Similarly, the Kapustins, once a powerful family, came at length to
+dust-became as nothing. It was a family the members of which were ever
+in favour of change, and devoted to anything that was new. In fact,
+they went and set up a piano! Well, of them only Valentine is still on
+his legs, and he (he is a doctor of less than forty years of age) is a
+hopeless drunkard, and saturated with dropsy, and fallen a prey to
+asthma, so that his cancerous eyes protrude horribly. Yes, the
+Kapustins, like the Polukonovs, may be 'written down as dead.'"
+
+Throughout, Vologonov speaks in a tone of unassailable conviction, in a
+tone implying that never could things happen, never could things have
+happened, otherwise than as he has stated. In fact, in his hands even
+the most inexplicable, the most grievous, phenomena of life become such
+as a law has inevitably decreed.
+
+"And the same thing will befall the Osmukhins," he next remarks. "Let
+them be a warning to you never to make friends with Germans, and never
+to engage in business with them. In Russia any housewife may brew beer;
+yet our people will not drink it--they are more used to spirits. Also,
+Russian folk like to attain their object in drinking AT ONCE; and a
+shkalik of vodka will do more to sap wit than five kruzhki of beer.
+Once our people liked uniform simplicity; but now they are become like
+a man who was born blind, and has suddenly acquired sight. A change
+indeed! For thirty-three years did Ilya of Murom [Ilya Murometz, the
+legendary figure most frequently met with In Russian bilini (folk
+songs), and probably identical with Elijah the Prophet, though credited
+with many of the attributes proper, rather, to the pagan god Perun the
+Thunderer.] sit waiting for his end before it came; and all who cannot
+bide patiently in a state of humility..."
+
+Meanwhile clouds shaped like snow-white swans are traversing the
+roseate heavens and disappearing into space, while below them, on
+earth, the ravine can be seen spread out like the pelt of a bear which
+the broad shoulders of some fabulous giant have sloughed before taking
+refuge in the marshes and forest. In fact the landscape reminds me of
+sundry ancient tales of marvels, as also does Antipa Vologonov, the man
+who is so strangely conversant with the shortcomings of human life, and
+so passionately addicted to discussing them.
+
+For a moment or two he remains silent as sibilantly he purses his lips
+and drinks some saffron-coloured tea from the saucer which the splayed
+fingers of his right hand are balancing on their tips. Whereafter, when
+his wet moustache has been dried, his level voice resumes its speech in
+tones as measured as those of one reading aloud from the Psalter.
+
+"Have you noticed a shop in Zhitnaia Street kept by an old man named
+Asiev? Once that man had ten sons. Six of them, however, died in
+infancy. Of the remainder the eldest, a fine singer, was at once
+extravagant and a bookworm; wherefore, whilst an officer's servant at
+Tashkend, he cut the throats of his master and mistress, and for doing
+so was executed by shooting. As a matter of fact, the tale has it that
+he had been making love to his mistress, and then been thrown over in
+favour of his master once more. And another son, Grigori, after being
+given a high school education at St. Petersburg, became a lunatic. And
+another, Alexei, entered the army as a cavalryman, but is now acting as
+a circus rider, and probably has also become a drunkard. And the
+youngest son of all, Nikolai, ran away as a boy, and, eventually
+arriving in Norway with a precious scheme for catching fish in the
+Arctic Ocean, met with failure through the fact that he had overlooked
+the circumstance that we Russians have fish of our own and to spare,
+and had to have his interest assigned by his father to a local
+monastery. So much for fish of the Arctic Seas! Yet if Nikolai had only
+waited, if he had only been more patient, he--"
+
+Here Vologonov lowers his voice, and continues with something of the
+growl of an angry dog:
+
+"I too have had sons, one of whom was killed at Kushka (a document has
+certified to that effect), another was drowned whilst drunk, three more
+died in infancy, and only two are still alive. Of these last, I know
+that one is acting as a waiter in a hotel at Smolensk, while the other,
+Melenti, was educated for the Church, sent to study in a seminary,
+induced to abscond and get into trouble, and eventually dispatched to
+Siberia. There now! Yes, the Russian is what might be called a
+'lightweighted' individual, an individual who, unless he holds himself
+down by the head, is soon carried off by the wind like a chicken's
+feather--for we are too self-confident and restless. Before now, I
+myself have been a gull, a man lacking balance: for never does youth
+realise its own insignificance, or know how to wait."
+
+Dissertations of the kind drop from the old man like water from a leaky
+pipe on a cold, blustery day in autumn. Wagging his grey beard, he
+talks and talks, until I begin to think that he must be an evil wizard,
+and master of this remote, barren, swampy, ravine-pitted region--that
+he it is who originally planted the town in this uncomfortable, clayey
+hollow, and has thrown the houses into heaps, and entangled the
+streets, and wantonly created the town's unaccountably rude and rough
+and deadly existence, and addled men's brains with disconnected
+nonsense, and consumed their hearts with a fear of life. Yes, it comes
+to me that it must be he who, during the long six months of winter,
+causes cruel snowstorms from the plain to invade the town, and with
+frost compresses the buildings of the town until their rafters crack,
+and stinging cold brings birds to the ground. Lastly, I become seized
+with the idea that it must be he who, almost every summer, envelops the
+town in those terrible visitations of heat by night which seem almost
+to cause the houses to melt.
+
+However, as a rule he maintains complete silence, and merely makes
+chewing motions with his strong-toothed jaws as he sits wagging his
+beard from side to side. At such times there is in his eyes a bluish
+fire like the gleam of charcoal, while his crooked fingers writhe like
+worms, and his outward appearance becomes sheerly that of a magician of
+iniquity.
+
+Once I asked him:
+
+"What in particular ought men to wait for?"
+
+For a while he sat clasping his beard, and, with contracted eyes,
+gazing as at something behind me. Then he said quietly and didactically:
+
+"Someday there will arise a Strange Man who will proclaim to the world
+the Word to which there never was a beginning. But to which of us is
+the hour when that Man will arise known? To none of us... And to which
+of us are known the miracles which that Word will perform? To none of
+us."
+
+      *      *      *      *      *
+
+Once upon a time there used to glide past the window of my room the
+fair, curly, wavering, golden head of Nilushka the idiot, a lad looking
+like a thing which the earth has begotten of love. Yes, Nilushka was
+like an angel in some sacred picture adorning the southern or the
+northern gates of an ancient church, as, with his flushed face smeared
+with wax-smoke and oil, and his light blue eyes gleaming in a cold,
+unearthly smile, and a frame clad in a red smock reaching to below his
+knees, and the soles of his feet showing black (always he walked on
+tiptoe), and his thin calves, as straight and white as the calves of a
+woman, covered with golden down, he walked the streets.
+
+Sometimes hopping along on one leg, and smiling, and waving his arms,
+and causing the ample folds and sleeves of his smock to flutter until
+he seemed to be moving in the midst of a nimbus, Nilushka would sing in
+a halting whisper the childish ditty:
+
+  Oh Lo-ord, pardon me!
+  Wo-olves run,
+  And do-ogs run,
+  And the hunters wait
+  To kill the wolves.
+  Oh Lo-ord, pardon me!
+
+Meanwhile, he would diffuse a cheering atmosphere of happiness with
+which no one in the locality had anything in common. For he was ever a
+lighthearted, winning, essentially pure innocent of the type which
+never fails to evoke good-natured smiles and kindly emotions. Indeed,
+as he roamed the streets, the suburb seemed to live its life with less
+clamour, to appear more decent of outward guise, since the local folk
+looked upon the imbecile with far more indulgence than they did upon
+their own children; and he was intimate with, and beloved by, even the
+worst. Probably the reason for this was that the semblance of flight
+amid an atmosphere of golden dust which was his combined with his
+straight, slender little figure to put all who beheld him in mind of
+churches, angels, God, and Paradise. At all events, all viewed him in a
+manner contemplative, interested, and more than a little deferential.
+
+A curious fact was the circumstance that whenever Nilushka sighted a
+stray gleam from a piece of glass, or the glitter of a morsel of copper
+in sunlight, he would halt dead where he was, turn grey with the
+ashiness of death, lose his smile, and remain dilating to an unnatural
+extent his clouded and troubled eyes. And so, with his whole form
+distorted with horror, and his thin hand crossing himself, and his
+knees trembling, and his smock fluttering around his frail wisp of a
+body, and his features growing stonelike, he would, for an hour or
+more, continue to stand, until at length someone laid a hand in his,
+and led him home.
+
+The tale had it that, in the first instance, born "soft-headed," he
+finally lost his reason, five years before the period of which I am
+writing, when a great fire occurred, and that thenceforth anything,
+save sunlight, that in any way resembled fire plunged him into this
+torpor of dumb dread. Naturally the people of the suburb devoted to him
+a great deal of attention.
+
+"There goes God's fool," would be their remark. "It will not be long
+before he dies and becomes a Saint, and we fall down and worship him."
+
+Yet there were persons who would go so far as to crack rude jests at
+his expense. For instance, as he would be skipping along, with his
+childish voice raised in his little ditty, some idler or another would
+shout from a window, or through the cranny of a fence:
+
+"Hi, Nilushka! Fire! Fire!"
+
+Whereupon the angel-faced imbecile would sink to earth as though his
+legs had been cut away at the knee from under him, and he would huddle,
+frantically clutching his golden head in his permanently soiled hands,
+and exposing his youthful form to the dust, under the nearest house or
+fence.
+
+Only then would the person who had given him the fright repent, and say
+with a laugh:
+
+"God in heaven, what a stupid lad this is!"
+
+And, should that person have been asked why he had thus terrified the
+boy, he would probably have replied:
+
+"Because it is such sport to do so. As a lad who cannot feel things as
+other human beings do, he inclines folk to make fun of him."
+
+As for the omniscient Antipa Vologonov, the following was his frequent
+comment on Nilushka:
+
+"Christ also had to walk in terror. Christ also was persecuted. Why so?
+Because ever He endured in rectitude and strength. Men need to learn
+what is real and what is unreal. Many are the sins of earth come of the
+fact that the seeming is mistaken for the actual, and that men keep
+pressing forward when they ought to be waiting, to be proving
+themselves."
+
+Hence Vologonov, like the rest, bestowed much attention upon Nilushka,
+and frequently held conversations with him.
+
+"Do you now pray to God," he said once as he pointed to heaven with one
+of his crooked fingers, and with the disengaged hand clasped his
+dishevelled, variously coloured beard.
+
+Whereupon Nilushka glanced fearfully at the mysteriously pointing
+finger, and, plucking sharply at his forehead, shoulders, and stomach
+with two fingers and a thumb, intoned in thin, plaintive accents:
+
+"Our Father in Heaven--"
+
+"WHICH ART in Heaven."
+
+"Yes, in the Heaven of Heavens."
+
+"Ah, well! God will understand. He is the friend of all blessed ones."
+[Idiots; since persons mentally deficient are popularly deemed to stand
+in a peculiarly close relation to the Almighty.]
+
+
+Again, great was Nilushka's interest in anything spherical. Also, he
+had a love for handling the heads of children; when, softly approaching
+a group from behind, he would, with his bright, quiet smile, lay
+slender, bony fingers upon a close-cropped little poll; with the result
+that the children, not relishing such fingering, would take alarm at
+the same, and, bolting to a discreet distance, thence abuse the idiot,
+put out their tongues at him, and drawl in a nasal chorus:
+
+"Nilka, the bottle-neck, the neck without a nape to it" [Probably the
+attractiveness of this formula lay rather in the rhyming of the Russian
+words: "Nilka, butilka, bashka bez zatilka!" than in their actual
+meaning].
+
+Yet their fear of him was in no way reciprocated, nor, for that matter,
+did they ever assault him, despite the fact that occasionally they
+would throw an old boot or a chip of wood in his direction-throw it
+aimlessly, and without really desiring to hit the mark aimed at.
+
+Also, anything circular--for example, a plate or the wheel of a toy,
+engaged Nilushka's attention and led him to caress it as eagerly as he
+did globes and balls. Evidently the rotundity of the object was the
+point that excited his interest. And as he turned the object over and
+over, and felt the flat part of it, he would mutter:
+
+"But what about the other one?"
+
+What "the other one" meant I could never divine. Nor could Antipa.
+Once, drawing the idiot to him, he said:
+
+"Why do you always say 'What about the other one'?"
+
+Troubled and nervous, Nilushka merely muttered some unintelligible
+reply as his fingers turned and turned about the circular object which
+he was holding.
+
+"Nothing," at length he replied.
+
+"Nothing of what?
+
+"Nothing here."
+
+"Ah, he is too foolish to understand," said Vologonov with a sigh as
+his eyes darkened in meditative fashion.
+
+"Yes, though it may seem foolish to say so," he added, "some people
+would envy him."
+
+"Why should they?"
+
+"For more than one reason. To begin with, he lives a life free from
+care--he is kept comfortably, and even held in respect. Since no one
+can properly understand him, and everyone fears him, through a belief
+that folk without wit, the 'blessed ones of God,' are more especially
+the Almighty's favourites than persons possessed of understanding. Only
+a very wise man could deal with such a matter, and the less so in that
+it must be remembered that more than one 'blessed one' has become a
+Saint, while some of those possessed of understanding have gone--well,
+have gone whither? Yes, indeed!"
+
+And, thoughtfully contracting the bushy eyebrows which looked as though
+they had been taken from the face of another man, Vologonov thrust his
+hands up his sleeves, and stood eyeing Nilushka shrewdly with his
+intangible gaze.
+
+Never did Felitzata say for certain who the boy's father had been, but
+at least it was known to me that in vague terms she had designated two
+men as such--the one a young "survey student," and the other a merchant
+by name Viporotkov, a man notorious to the whole town as a most
+turbulent rake and bully. But once when she and Antipa and I were
+seated gossiping at the entrance-gates, and I inquired of her whether
+Nilushka's father were still surviving, she replied in a careless way:
+
+"He is so, damn him!"
+
+"Then who is he?"
+
+Felitzata, as usual, licked her faded, but still comely, lips with the
+tip of her tongue before she replied:
+
+"A monk."
+
+"Ah!" Vologonov exclaimed with unexpected animation. "That, then,
+explains things. At all events, we have in it an intelligible THEORY of
+things."
+
+Whereafter, he expounded to us at length, and with no sparing of
+details, the reason why a monk should have been Nilushka's father
+rather than either the merchant or the young "survey student." And as
+Vologonov proceeded he grew unwontedly enthusiastic, and went so far as
+to clench his fists until presently he heaved a sigh, as though
+mentally hurt, and said frowningly and reproachfully to the woman:
+
+"Why did you never tell us this before? It was exceedingly negligent of
+you."
+
+Felitzata looked at the old man with sarcasm and sauciness gleaming in
+her brown eyes. Suddenly, however, she contracted her brows,
+counterfeited a sigh, and whined:
+
+"Ah, I was good-looking then, and desired of all. In those days I had
+both a good heart and a happy nature."
+
+"But the monk may prove to have been an important factor in the
+question," was Antipa's thoughtful remark.
+
+"Yes, and many another man than he has run after me for his pleasure,"
+continued Felitzata in a tone of reminiscence. This led Vologonov to
+cough, rise to his feet, lay his hand upon the woman's claret-coloured
+sleeve of satin, and say sternly:
+
+"Do you come into my room, for I have business to transact with you."
+
+As she complied she smiled and winked at me. And so the pair
+departed--he shuffling carefully with his bandy legs, and she watching
+her steps as though at any moment she might collapse on to her left
+side.
+
+Thenceforth, Felitzata visited Vologonov almost daily; and once during
+the time of two hours or so that the pair were occupied in drinking tea
+I heard, through the partition-wall, the old man say in vigorous,
+level, didactical tones:
+
+"These tales and rumours ought not to be dismissed save with caution.
+At least ought they to be given the benefit of the doubt. For, though
+all that he says may SEEM to us unintelligible, there may yet be
+enshrined therein a meaning, such as--"
+
+"You say a meaning?"
+
+"Yes, a meaning which, eventually, will be vouchsafed to you in a
+vision. For example, you may one day see issue from a dense forest a
+man of God, and hear him cry aloud: Felitzata, Oh servant of God, Oh
+sinner most dark of soul--"
+
+"What a croaking, to be sure!"
+
+"Be silent! No nonsense! Do you blame yourself rather than sing your
+own praises. And in that vision you may hear the man of God cry:
+'Felitzata, go you forth and do that which one who shall meet you may
+request you to perform!' And, having gone forth, you may find the man
+of God to be the monk whom we have spoken of."
+
+"A-a-ah!" the woman drawled with an air of being about to say something
+more.
+
+"Come, fool!"
+
+"You see--"
+
+"Have I, this time, abused you?"
+
+"No, but--"
+
+"I have an idea that the man of God will be holding a crook."
+
+"Of course," assented Felitzata.
+
+Similarly, on another occasion, did I hear Antipa mutter confidentially
+to his companion:
+
+"The fact that all his sayings are so simple is not a favourable sign.
+For, you see, they do not harmonise with the affair in its entirety--in
+such a connection words should be mysterious, and so, able to be
+interpreted in more than one way, seeing that the more meanings words
+possess, the more are those words respected and heeded by mankind."
+
+"Why so?" queried Felitzata.
+
+"Why so?" re-echoed Vologonov irritably. "Are we not, then, to respect
+ANYONE or ANYTHING? Only he is worthy of respect who does not harm his
+fellows; and of those who do not harm their fellows there are but few.
+To this point you must pay attention--you must teach him words of
+variable import, words more abstract, as well as more sonorous."
+
+"But I know no such words."
+
+"I will repeat to you a few, and every night, when he goes to bed, you
+shall repeat them to HIM. For example: 'Adom ispolneni, pokaites'[Do ye
+people who are filled with venom repent].  And mark that the exact
+words of the Church be adhered to. For instance, 'Dushenbitzi,
+pozhaleite Boga, okayannie,' [Murderers of the soul, accursed ones,
+repent ye before God.] must be said rather than 'Dushenbitzi,
+pozhaleite Boga, okayanni,' since the latter, though the shorter form,
+is also not the correct one. But perhaps I had better instruct the lad
+myself."
+
+"Certainly that would be the better plan."
+
+So from that time onwards Vologonov fell to stopping Nilushka in the
+street, and repeating to him something or another in his kindly
+fashion. Once he even took him by the hand, and, leading him to his
+room, and giving him something to cat, said persuasively:
+
+"Say this after me. 'Do not hasten, Oh ye people.' Try if you can say
+that."
+
+"'A lantern,'" began Nilushka civilly.
+
+"'A lantern?' Yes. Well, go on, and say, 'I am a lantern unto thee--"
+
+"I want to sing, it."
+
+"There is no need for that, though presently you shall sing it. For the
+moment your task is to learn the correct speaking of things. So say
+after me--"
+
+"O Lo-ord, have mercy!" came in a quiet, thoughtful chant from the
+idiot. Whereafter he added in the coaxing tone of a child:
+
+"We shall all of us have to die."
+
+"Yes, but come, come!" expostulated Vologonov. "What are you blurting
+out NOW? That much I know without your telling me--always have I known,
+little friend, that each of us is hastening towards his death. Yet your
+want of understanding exceeds what should be."
+
+"Dogs run-"
+
+"Dogs? Now, enough, little fellow."
+
+"Dogs run like chickens. They run here, in the ravine," continued
+Nilushka in the murmuring accents of a child of three.
+
+"Nevertheless," mused Vologonov, "even that seeming nothing of his may
+mean something. Yes, there may lie in it a great deal. Now, say:
+'Perdition will arise before him who shall hasten.'"
+
+"No, I want to SING something."
+
+With a splutter Vologonov said:
+
+"Truly you are a difficult subject to deal with!"
+
+And with that he fell to pacing the floor with long, thoughtful strides
+as the idiot's voice cried in quavering accents:
+
+"O Lo-ord, have me-ercy upon us!"
+
+      *      *      *      *      *
+
+Thus the winsome Nilushka proved indispensable to the foul, mean,
+unhealthy life of the suburb. Of that life he coloured and rounded off
+the senselessness, the ugliness, the superfluity.  He resembled an
+apple hanging forgotten on a gnarled old worm-eaten tree, whence all
+the fruit and the leaves have fallen until only the branches wave in
+the autumn wind. Rather, he resembled a sole-surviving picture in the
+pages of a ragged, soiled old book which has neither a beginning nor an
+ending, and therefore can no longer be read, is no longer worth the
+reading, since now its pages contain nothing intelligible.
+
+And as smiling his gracious smile, the lad's pathetic, legendary figure
+flitted past the mouldy buts and cracked fences and riotous beds of
+nettles, there would readily recur to the memory, and succeed one
+another, visions of some of the finer and more reputable personages of
+Russian lore--there would file before one's mental vision, in endless
+sequence, men whose biographies inform us how, in fear for their souls,
+they left the life of the world, and, hieing them to the forests and
+the caves, abandoned mankind for the wild things of nature. And at the
+same time would there recur to one's memory poems concerning the blind
+and the poor-in particular, the poem concerning Alexei the Man of God,
+and all the multitude of other fair, but unsubstantial, forms wherein
+Russia has embodied her sad and terrified soul, her humble and
+protesting grief. Yet it was a process to depress one almost to the
+point of distraction.
+
+Once, forgetting that Nilushka was imbecile, I conceived an
+irrepressible desire to talk with him, and to read him good poetry, and
+to tell him both of the world's youthful hopes and of my own personal
+thoughts.
+
+The occasion happened on a day when, as I was sitting on the edge of
+the ravine, and dangling my legs over the ravine's depths, the lad came
+floating towards me as though on air. In his hands, with their fingers
+as slender as a girl's, he was holding a large leaf; and as he gazed at
+it the smile of his clear blue eyes was, as it were, pervading him from
+head to foot.
+
+"Whither, Nilushka?" said I.
+
+With a start he raised his head and eyes heavenward. Then timidly he
+glanced at the blue shadow of the ravine, and extended to me his leaf,
+over the veins of which there was crawling a ladybird.
+
+"A bukan," he observed.
+
+"It is so. And whither are you going to take it?"
+
+"We shall all of us die. I was going to take and bury it."
+
+"But it is alive; and one does not bury things before they are dead."
+
+Nilushka closed and opened his eyes once or twice.
+
+"I should like to sing something," he remarked.
+
+"Rather, do you SAY something."
+
+He glanced at the ravine again--his pink nostrils quivering and
+dilating--then sighed as though he was weary, and in all
+unconsciousness muttered a foul expression. As he did so I noticed that
+on the portion of his neck below his right ear there was a large
+birthmark, and that, covered with golden down like velvet, and
+resembling in shape a bee, it seemed to be endowed with a similitude of
+life, through the faint beating of a vein in its vicinity.
+
+Presently the ladybird raised her upper wings as though she were
+preparing for flight; whereupon Nilushka sought with a finger to detain
+her, and, in so doing, let fall the leaf, and enabled the insect to
+detach itself and fly away at a low level. Upon that, bending forward
+with arms outstretched, the idiot went softly in pursuit, much as
+though he himself were launching his body into leisurely flight, but,
+when ten paces away, stopped, raised his face to heaven, and, with arms
+pendent before him, and the palms of his hands turned outwards as
+though resting on something which I could not see, remained fixed and
+motionless.
+
+From the ravine there were tending upwards towards the sunlight some
+green sprigs of willow, with dull yellow flowers and a clump of grey
+wormwood, while the damp cracks which seamed the clay of the ravine
+were lined with round leaves of the "mother-stepmother plant," and
+round about us little birds were hovering, and from both the bushes and
+the bed of the ravine there was ascending the moist smell of decay. Yet
+over our heads the sky was clear, as the sun, now sole occupant of the
+heavens, declined slowly in the direction of the dark marshes across
+the river; only above the roofs of Zhitnaia Street could there be seen
+fluttering about in alarm a flock of snow-white pigeons, while waving
+below them was the black besom which had, as it were, swept them into
+the air, and from afar one could hear the sound of an angry murmur, the
+mournful, mysterious murmur of the town.
+
+Whiningly, like an old man, a child of the suburb was raising its voice
+in lamentation; and as I listened to the sound, it put me in mind of a
+clerk reading Vespers amid the desolation of an empty church. Presently
+a brown dog passed us with shaggy head despondently pendent, and eyes
+as beautiful as those of a drunken woman.
+
+And, to complete the picture, there was standing--outlined against the
+nearest shanty of the suburb, a shanty which lay at the extreme edge of
+the ravine-there was standing, face to the sun, and back to the town,
+as though preparing for flight, the straight, slender form of the boy
+who, while alien to all, caressed all with the eternally
+incomprehensible smile of his angel-like eyes. Yes, that golden
+birthmark so like a bee I can see to this day!
+
+      *      *      *      *      *
+
+Two weeks later, on a Sunday at mid-day, Nilushka passed into the other
+world. That day, after returning home from late Mass, and handing to
+his mother a couple of wafers which had been given him as a mark of
+charity, the lad said:
+
+"Mother, please lay out my bed on the chest, for I think that I am
+going to lie down for the last time."
+
+Yet the words in no way surprised Felitzata, for he had often before
+remarked, before retiring to rest:
+
+"Some day we shall all of us have to die."
+
+At the same time, whereas, on previous occasions, Nilushka had never
+gone to sleep without first of all singing to himself his little song,
+and then chanting the eternal, universal "Lord, have mercy upon us!"
+he, on this occasion, merely folded his hands upon his breast, closed
+his eyes, and relapsed into slumber.
+
+That day Felitzata had dinner, and then departed on business of her
+own; and when she returned in the evening, she was astonished to find
+that her son was still asleep. Next, on looking closer at him, she
+perceived that he was dead.
+
+"I looked," she related plaintively to some of the suburban residents
+who came running to her cot, "and perceived his little feet to be blue;
+and since it was only just before Mass that I had washed his hands with
+soap, I remarked the more readily that his feet were become less white
+than his hands. And when I felt one of those hands, I found that it had
+stiffened."
+
+On Felitzata's face, as she recounted this, there was manifest a
+nervous expression. Likewise, her features were a trifle flushed. Yet
+gleaming also through the tears in her languorous eyes there was a
+sense of relief--one might almost have said a sense of joy.
+
+"Next," continued she, "I looked closer still, and then fell on my
+knees before the body, sobbing: 'Oh my darling, whither art thou fled?
+Oh God, wherefore hast Thou taken him from me?'"
+
+Here Felitzata inclined her head upon her left shoulder contracted her
+brows over her mischievous eyes, clasped her hands to her breast, and
+fell into the lament:
+
+  Oh, gone is my dove, my radiant moon!
+  O star of mine eyes, thou hast set too soon!
+  In darksome depths thy light lies drown'd,
+  And time must yet complete its round,
+  And the trump of the Second Advent sound,
+  Ere ever my--
+
+"Here, you! Hold your tongue!" grunted Vologonov irritably.
+
+For myself, I had, that day, been walking in the forest, until, as I
+returned, I was brought up short before the windows of Felitzata's cot
+by the fact that some of the erstwhile turbulent denizens of the suburb
+were whispering softly together as, with an absence of all noise, they
+took turns to raise themselves on tiptoe, and, craning their necks, to
+peer into one of the black window-spaces. Yes, like bees on the step of
+a hive did they look, and on the great majority of faces, and in the
+great majority of eyes, there was quivering an air of tense, nervous
+expectancy.
+
+Only Vologonov was nudging Felitzata, and saying to her in a loud,
+authoritative tone:
+
+"Very ready are you to weep, but I should like first to hear the exact
+circumstances of the lad's death."
+
+Thus invited, the woman wiped her eyes with the sleeve of her bodice,
+licked her lips, heaved a prolonged sigh, and fell to regarding
+Antipa's red, hardbitten face with the cheerful, unabashed glance of a
+person who is under the influence of liquor. From under her white
+head-band there had fallen over her temples and her right cheek a few
+wisps of golden hair; and indeed, as she drew herself up, and tossed
+her head and bosom, and smoothed out and stretched the creases in her
+bodice, she looked less than her years. Everyone now fell to eyeing her
+in an attentive silence, though not, it would seem, without a touch of
+envy.
+
+Abruptly, sternly, the old man inquired:
+
+"Did the lad ever complain of ill-health?"
+
+"No, never," Felitzata replied. "Never once did he speak of it--never
+once."
+
+"And he had not been beaten?"
+
+"Oh, how can you ask me such a thing, and especially seeing that,
+that--?"
+
+"I did not say beaten by YOU."
+
+"Well, I cannot answer for anyone else, but at least had he no mark on
+his body, seeing that when I lifted the smock I could find nothing save
+for scratches on legs and back."
+
+Her tone now had in it a new ring, a ring of increased assurance, and
+when she had finished she closed her bright eyes languidly before
+heaving a soft, as it were, voluptuous, and, withal, very audible sigh.
+
+Someone here murmured:
+
+"She DID use to beat him."
+
+"What?"
+
+"At all events she used to lose her temper with him."
+
+This led to the putting of a further dozen or so of leading questions;
+whereafter Antipa, for a while, preserved a suggestive silence, and the
+crowd too remained silent, as though it had suddenly been lulled to
+slumber. Only at long last, and with a clearing of his throat, did
+Antipa say:
+
+"Friends, we must suppose that God, of His infinite Mercy, has
+vouchsafed to us here a special visitation, in that, as all of us have
+perceived, a lad bereft of wit, the same radiant lad whom all of us
+have known, has here abided in the closest of communion with the
+Blessed Dispenser of life on earth."
+
+Then I moved away, for upon my heart there was pressing a burden of
+unendurable sorrow, and I was yearning, oh, so terribly, to see
+Nilushka once more.
+
+The back portion of Felitzata's cot stood a little sunken into the
+ground, so that the front portion had its cold window panes and raised
+sash tilted a trifle towards the remote heavens. I bent my head, and
+entered by the open door. Near the threshold Nilushka was lying on a
+narrow chest against the wall. The folds of a dark-red pillow of
+fustian under the head set off to perfection the pale blue tint of his
+round, innocent face under its corona of golden curls; and though the
+eyes were closed, and the lips pressed tightly together, he still
+seemed to be smiling in his old quiet, but joyous, way. In general, the
+tall, thin figure on the mattress of dark felt, with its bare legs, and
+its slender hands and wrists folded across the breast, reminded me less
+of an angel than of a certain image of the Holy Child with which a
+blackened old ikon had rendered me familiar from my boyhood upwards.
+
+Everything amid the purple gloom was still. Even the flies were
+forbearing to buzz. Only from the street was there grating through the
+shaded window the strong, roguish voice of Felitzata as it traced the
+strange, lugubrious word-pattern:
+
+  With my bosom pressed to the warm, grey earth,
+  To thee, grey earth, to thee, Oh my mother of old,
+  I beseech thee, I who am a mother like thee,
+  And a mother in pain, to enfold in thy arms
+  This my son, this my dead son, this my ruby,
+  This my drop of my heart's blood, this my--
+
+Suddenly I caught sight of Antipa standing in the doorway. He was
+wiping his eyes with the back of his hand. Presently in a gruff and
+unsteady voice he said:
+
+"It is all very fine for you to weep, good woman, but the present is
+not the right moment to sing such verses as those--they were meant,
+rather, to be sung in a graveyard at the side of a tomb. Well, tell me
+everything without reserve. Important is it that I should know
+EVERYTHING."
+
+Whereafter, having crossed himself with a faltering hand, he carefully
+scrutinised the corpse, and at last let his eyes halt upon the lad's
+sweet features. Then he muttered sadly:
+
+"How extraordinarily he has grown! Yes, death has indeed enlarged him!
+Ah, well, so be it! Soon I too shall have to be stretching myself out.
+Oh that it were now!"
+
+Then with cautious movements of his deformed fingers he straightened
+the folds of the lad's smock, and drew it over the legs. Whereafter he
+pressed his flushed lips to the hem of the garment.
+
+Said I to him at that moment:
+
+"What is it that you have been wanting of him? Why is it that you have
+been trying to teach him strange words?"
+
+Straightening himself, and glancing at me with dim eyes, Antipa
+repeated:
+
+"What is it that I have been wanting of him?" To the repetition he
+added with manifest sincerity, though also with a self-depreciatory
+movement of the head:
+
+"To tell the truth, I scarcely know WHAT it is that I have been wanting
+of him. By God I do not. Yet, as one speaking the truth in the presence
+of death, I say that never during my long lifetime had I so desired
+aught else.... Yes, I have waited and waited for fortune to reveal
+it to me; and ever has fortune remained mute and tongueless. Foolish
+was it of me to have expected otherwise, to have expected, for
+instance, that some day there might occur something marvellous,
+something unlooked-for."
+
+With a short laugh, he indicated the corpse with his eyes, and
+continued more firmly:
+
+"Yes, bootless was it to have expected anything from such a source as
+that. Never, despite one's wishes, was anything possible of acquisition
+thence... This is usually the case. Felitzata, as a clever woman
+indeed (albeit one cold of heart), was for having her son accounted a
+God's fool, and thereby gaining some provision against her old age."
+
+"But you yourself were the person who suggested that? You yourself
+wished it?"
+
+"I?"
+
+Presently, thrusting his hands up his sleeves, he added dully and
+brokenly:
+
+"Yes, I DID wish it. Why not, indeed, seeing that at least it would
+have brought comfort to the poor people of this place? Sometimes I feel
+very sorry for them with their bitter, troublous lives--lives which may
+be the lives of rogues and villains, yet are lives which have produced
+amongst us a pravednik," [A "just person," a human being without sin].
+
+All the evening sky was now aflame. Upon the ear there fell the
+mournful lament:
+
+When snow has veiled the earth in white, The snowy plain the wild
+wolves tread. They wail for the cheering warmth of spring As I bewail
+the bairn that's dead.
+
+Vologonov listened for a moment. Then he said firmly:
+
+"These are mere accesses of impulse which come upon her. And that is
+only what might be expected. Even as in song or in vice there is no
+holding her, so remorse, when it has fastened upon such a woman's
+heart, will know no bounds. I may tell you that on one occasion two
+young merchants took her, stripped her stark naked, and drove her in
+their carriage down Zhitnaia Street, with themselves sitting on the
+seats of the vehicle, and Felitzata standing upright between them--yes,
+in a state of nudity! Thereafter they beat her almost to death."
+
+As I stepped out into the dark, narrow vestibule, Antipa, who was
+following me, muttered:
+
+"Such a lament as hers could come only of genuine grief."
+
+We found Felitzata in front of the hut, with her back covering the
+window. There, with hands pressed to her bosom, and her skirt all awry,
+she was straining her dishevelled head towards the heavens, while the
+evening breeze, stirring her fine auburn hair, scattered it
+promiscuously over her flushed, sharply-defined features and wildly
+protruding eyes. A bizarre, pitiable, and extraordinary figure did she
+cut as she wailed in a throaty voice which constantly gathered strength:
+
+Oh winds of ice, winds cruel and rude, Press on my heart till its
+throbbings fail! Arrest the current of my blood! Turn these hot melting
+tears to hail!
+
+Before her there was posted a knot of women, compassionate
+contemplators of the singer's distracted, grief-wrought features.
+Through the ravine's dark opening I could see the sun sinking below the
+suburb before plunging into the marshy forest and having his disk
+pierced by sharp, black tips of pine trees. Already everything around
+him was red. Already, seemingly, he had been wounded, and was bleeding
+to death.
+
+
+
+
+THE CEMETERY
+
+In a town of the steppes where I found life exceedingly dull, the best
+and the brightest spot was the cemetery. Often did I use to walk there,
+and once it happened that I fell asleep on some thick, rich,
+sweet-smelling grass in a cradle-like hollow between two tombs.
+
+From that sleep I was awakened with the sound of blows being struck
+against the ground near my head. The concussion of them jarred me not a
+little, as the earth quivered and tinkled like a bell. Raising myself
+to a sitting posture, I found sleep still so heavy upon me that at
+first my eyes remained blinded with unfathomable darkness, and could
+not discern what the matter was. The only thing that I could see amid
+the golden glare of the June sunlight was a wavering blur which at
+intervals seemed to adhere to a grey cross, and to make it give forth a
+succession of soft creaks.
+
+Presently, however--against my wish, indeed--that wavering blur
+resolved itself into a little, elderly man. Sharp-featured, with a
+thick, silvery tuft of hair beneath his under lip, and a bushy white
+moustache curled in military fashion, on his upper, he was using the
+cross as a means of support as, with his disengaged hand outstretched,
+and sawing the air, he dug his foot repeatedly into the ground, and, as
+he did so, bestowed upon me sundry dry, covert glances from the depths
+of a pair of dark eyes.
+
+"What have you got there?" I inquired.
+
+"A snake," he replied in an educated bass voice, and with a rugged
+forefinger he pointed downwards;  whereupon I perceived that wriggling
+on the path at his feet and convulsively whisking its tail, there was
+an echidna.
+
+"Oh, it is only a grassworm," I said vexedly.
+
+The old man pushed away the dull, iridescent, rope-like thing with the
+toe of his boot, raised a straw hat in salute, and strode firmly
+onwards.
+
+"I thank you," I called out; whereupon, he replied without looking
+behind him:
+
+"If the thing really WAS a grassworm, of course there was no danger."
+
+Then he disappeared among the tombstones.
+
+Looking at the sky, I perceived the time to be about five o'clock.
+
+The steppe wind was sighing over the tombs, and causing long stems of
+grass to rock to and fro, and freighting the heated air with the silken
+rustling of birches and limes and other trees, and leading one to
+detect amid the humming of summer a note of quiet grief eminently
+calculated to evoke lofty, direct thoughts concerning life and one's
+fellow-men.
+
+Veiling with greenery, grey and white tombstones worn with the snows of
+winter, crosses streaked with marks of rain, and the wall with which
+the graveyard was encircled, the rank vegetation served to also conceal
+the propinquity of a slovenly, clamorous town which lay coated with
+rich, sooty grime amid an atmosphere of dust and smells.
+
+As I set off for a ramble among the tombs and tangled grass, I could
+discern through openings in the curtain of verdure a belfry's gilded
+cross which reared itself solemnly over crosses and memorials. At the
+foot of those memorials the sacramental vestment of the cemetery was
+studded with a kaleidoscopic sheen of flowers over which bees and wasps
+were so hovering and humming that the grass's sad, prayerful murmur
+seemed charged with a song of life which yet did not hinder reflections
+on death. Fluttering above me on noiseless wing were birds the flight
+of which sometimes made me start, and stand wondering whether the
+object before my gaze was really a bird or not: and everywhere the
+shimmer of gilded sunlight was setting the close-packed graveyard in a
+quiver which made the mounds of its tombs reminiscent of a sea when,
+after a storm, the wind has fallen, and all the green level is an
+expanse of smooth, foamless billows.
+
+Beyond the wall of the cemetery the blue void of the firmament was
+pierced with smoky chimneys of oil-mills and soap factories, the roofs
+of which showed up like particoloured stains against the darker rags
+and tatters of other buildings; while blinking in the sunlight I could
+discern clatter-emitting, windows which looked to me like watchful
+eyes. Only on the nearer side of the wall was a sparse strip of turf
+dotted over with ragged, withered, tremulous stems, and beyond this,
+again, lay the site of a burnt building which constituted a black patch
+of earth-heaps, broken stoves, dull grey ashes, and coal dust. To
+heaven gaped the black, noisome mouths of burning-pits wherein the more
+economical citizens were accustomed nightly to get rid of the contents
+of their dustbins. Among the tall stems of steppe grass waved large,
+glossy leaves of ergot; in the sunlight splinters of broken glass
+sparkled as though they were laughing; and, from two spots in the dark
+brown plot which formed a semicircle around the cemetery, there
+projected, like teeth, two buildings the new yellow paint of which
+nevertheless made them look mean and petty amid the tangle of rubbish,
+pigweed, groundsel, and dock.
+
+Indolently roaming hither and thither, a few speckled hens resembled
+female pedlars, and some pompous red cockerels a troupe of firemen; in
+the orifices of the burning-pits a number of mournful-eyed, homeless
+dogs were lying sheltered; among the shoots of the steppe scrub some
+lean cats were stalking sparrows; and a band of children who were
+playing hide-and-seek among the orifices above-mentioned presented, a
+pitiful sight as they went skipping over the filthy earth, disappearing
+in the crevices among the piles of heaped-up dirt.
+
+Beyond the site of the burnt-out building there stretched a series of
+mean, close-packed huts which, crammed exclusively with needy folk,
+stood staring, with their dim, humble eyes of windows, at the crumbling
+bricks of the cemetery wall, and the dense mass of trees which that
+wall enclosed. Here, in one such hut, had I myself a lodging in a
+diminutive attic, which not only smelt of lamp-oil, but stood in a
+position to have wafted to it the least gasp or ejaculation on the part
+of my landlord, Iraklei Virubov, a clerk in the local treasury. In
+short, I could never glance out of the window at the cemetery on the
+other side of the strip of dead, burnt, polluted earth without
+reflecting that, by comparison, that cemetery was a place of sheer
+beauty, a place of ceaseless attraction.
+
+And ever, that day, as though he had been following me, could there be
+sighted among the tombs the dark figure of the old man who had so
+abruptly awakened me from slumber; and since his straw hat reflected
+the sunlight as brilliantly as the disk of a sunflower as it meandered
+hither and thither, I, in my turn, found myself following him, though
+thinking, all the while, of Iraklei Virubov. Only a week was it since
+Iraklei's wife, a thin, shrewish, long-nosed woman with green and
+catlike eyes, had set forth on a pilgrimage to Kiev, and Iraklei had
+hastened to import into the hut a stout, squint-eyed damsel whom he had
+introduced to me as his "niece by marriage."
+
+"She was baptised Evdokia," he had said on the occasion referred to.
+"Usually, however, I call her Dikanka. Pray be friendly with her, but
+remember, also, that she is not a person with whom to take liberties."
+
+Large, round-shouldered, and clean-shaven like a chef, Virubov was for
+ever hitching up breeches which had slipped from a stomach ruined with
+surfeits of watermelon. And always were his fat lips parted as though
+athirst, and perpetually had he in his colourless eyes an expression of
+insatiable hunger.
+
+One evening I overheard a dialogue to the following effect.
+
+"Dikanka, pray come and scratch my back. Yes, between the
+shoulder-blades. O-o-oh, that is it. My word, how strong you are!"
+
+Whereat Dikanka had laughed shrilly. And only when I had moved my
+chair, and thrown down my book, had the laughter and unctuous
+whispering died away, and given place to a whisper of:
+
+"Holy Father Nicholas, pray for us unto God! Is the supper kvas ready,
+Dikanka?"
+
+And softly the pair had departed to the kitchen--there to grunt and
+squeal once more like a couple of pigs....
+
+The old man with the grey moustache stepped over the turf with the
+elastic stride of youth, until at length he halted before a large
+monument in drab granite, and stood reading the inscription thereon.
+Featured not altogether in accordance with the Russian type, he had on
+a dark-blue jacket, a turned-down collar, and a black stock finished
+off with a large bow--the latter contrasting agreeably with the thick,
+silvery, as it were molten, chin-tuft. Also, from the centre of a
+fierce moustache there projected a long and gristly nose, while over
+the grey skin of his cheeks there ran a network of small red veins. In
+the act of raising his hand to his hat (presumably for the purpose of
+saluting the dead), he, after conning the dark letters of the
+inscription on the tomb, turned a sidelong eye upon myself; and since I
+found the fact embarrassing, I frowned, and passed onward, full, still,
+of thoughts of the street where I was residing and where I desired to
+fathom the mean existence eked out by Virubov and his "niece."
+
+As usual, the tombs were also being patrolled by Pimesha, otherwise
+Pimen Krozootov, a bibulous, broken-down ex-merchant who used to spend
+his time in stumbling and falling about the graves in search of the
+supposed resting-place of his wife. Bent of body, Pimesha had a small,
+bird-like face over-grown with grey down, the eyes of a sick rabbit,
+and, in general, the appearance of having undergone a chewing by a set
+of sharp teeth. For the past three years he had thus been roaming the
+cemetery, though his legs were too weak to support his undersized,
+shattered body; and whenever he caught his foot he fell, and for long
+could not rise, but lay gasping and fumbling among the grass, and
+rooting it up, and sniffing with a nose as sharp and red as though the
+skin had been flayed from it. True, his wife had been buried at
+Novotchevkassk, a thousand versts away, but Pimen refused to credit the
+fact, and always, on being told it, stuttered with much blinking of his
+wet, faded eyes: "Natasha? Natasha is here."
+
+Also, there used to visit the spot, well-nigh daily, a Madame
+Christoforov, a tall old lady who, wearing black spectacles and a plain
+grey, shroudlike dress that was trimmed with black velvet, never failed
+to have a stick between her abnormally long fingers. Wizened of face,
+with cheeks hanging down like bags, and a knot of grey, rather,
+grey-green, hair combed over her temples from under a lace scarf, and
+almost concealing her ears, this lady pursued her way with
+deliberation, and entire assurance, and yielded the path to no one whom
+she might encounter. I have an idea that there lay buried there a son
+who had been killed in a roisterers' brawl.
+
+Another habitual visitor was thin-legged, short-sighted Aulic
+Councillor Praotzev, ex-schoolmaster. With a book stuffed into the
+pocket of his canvas pea-jacket, a white umbrella grasped in his red
+hand, and a smile extending to ears as sharp and pointed as a rabbit's,
+he could, any Sunday after dinner, be seen skipping from tomb to tomb,
+with his umbrella brandished like a white flag soliciting terms of
+peace with death.
+
+And, on returning home before the bell rang for Vespers, he would find
+that a crowd of boys had collected outside his garden wall; whereupon,
+dancing about him like puppies around a stork, they would fall to
+shouting in various merry keys:
+
+"The Councillor, the Councillor! Who was it that fell in love with
+Madame Sukhinikh, and then fell into the pond?"
+
+Losing his temper, and opening a great mouth, until he looked like an
+old rook which is about to caw, the Councillor would stamp his foot
+several times, as though preparing to dance to the boys' shouting, and
+lower his head, grasp his umbrella like a bayonet, and charge at the
+lads with a panting shout of:
+
+"I'll tell your fathers! Oh, I'll tell your mothers!"
+
+As for the Madame Sukhinikh, referred to, she was an old beggar-woman
+who, the year round, and in all weathers, sat on a little bench beside
+the cemetery wicket, and stuck to it like a stone. Her large face, a
+face rendered bricklike by years of inebriety, was covered with dark
+blotches born of frostbite, alcoholic inflammation, sunburn, and
+exposure to wind, and her eyes were perpetually in a state of
+suppuration. Never did anyone pass her but she proffered a wooden cup
+in a suppliant hand, and cried hoarsely, rather as though she were
+cursing the person concerned:
+
+"Give something for Christ's sake! Give in memory of your kinsfolk
+there!"
+
+Once an unexpected storm blew in from the steppes, and brought a
+downpour which, overtaking the old woman on her way home, caused her,
+her sight being poor, to fall into a pond, whence Praotzev attempted to
+rescue her, and into which, in the end, he slipped himself. From that
+day onwards he was twitted on the subject by the boys of the town.
+
+Other frequenters of the cemetery I see before me--dark, silent
+figures, figures of persons whom still unsevered cords of memory seemed
+to have bound to the place for the rest of their lives, and compelled
+to wander, like unburied corpses, in quest of suitable tombs. Yes, they
+were persons whom life had rejected, and death, as yet, refused to
+accept.
+
+Also, at times there would emerge from the long grass a homeless dog
+with large, sullen eyes, eyes startling at once in their intelligence
+and in their absolute Ishmaelitism--until one almost expected to hear
+issue from the animal's mouth reproaches couched in human language.
+
+And sometimes the dog would still remain halted in the cemetery as,
+with tail lowered, it swayed its shelterless, shaggy head to and fro
+with an air of profound reflection, while occasionally venting a
+subdued, long-drawn yelp or howl.
+
+Again, among the dense old lime trees, there would be scurrying an
+unseen mob of starlings and jackdaws whose young would, meanwhile,
+maintain a soft, hungry piping, a sort of gently persuasive, chirruping
+chorus; until in autumn, when the wind had stripped bare the boughs,
+these birds' black nests would come to look like mouldy, rag-swathed
+heads of human beings which someone had torn from their bodies and
+flung into the trees, to hang for ever around the white,
+sugarloaf-shaped church of the martyred St. Barbara. During that autumn
+season, indeed, everything in the cemetery's vicinity looked sad and
+tarnished, and the wind would wail about the place, and sigh like a
+lover who has been driven mad through bereavement....
+
+Suddenly the old man halted before me on the path, and, sternly
+extending a hand towards a white stone monument near us, read aloud:
+
+"'Under this cross there lies buried the body of the respected citizen
+and servant of God, Diomid Petrovitch Ussov,'" etc., etc.
+
+Whereafter the old man replaced his hat, thrust his hands into the
+pockets of his pea-jacket, measured me with eyes dark in colour, but
+exceptionally clear for his time of life, and said:
+
+"It would seem that folk could find nothing to say of this man beyond
+that he was a 'servant of God.' Now, how can a servant be worthy of
+honour at the hand of 'citizens'?"
+
+"Possibly he was an ascetic," was my hazarded conjecture; whereupon the
+old man rejoined with a stamp of his foot:
+
+"Then in such case one ought to write--"
+
+"To write what?"
+
+"To write EVERYTHING, in fullest possible detail."
+
+And with the long, firm stride of a soldier my interlocutor passed
+onwards towards a more remote portion of the cemetery--myself walking,
+this time, beside him. His stature placed his head on a level with my
+shoulder only, and caused his straw hat to conceal his features. Hence,
+since I wished to look at him as he discoursed, I found myself forced
+to walk with head bent, as though I had been escorting a woman.
+
+"No, that is not the way to do it," presently he continued in the soft,
+civil voice of one who has a complaint to present. "Any such proceeding
+is merely a mark of barbarism--of a complete lack of observation of men
+and life."
+
+With a hand taken from one of his pockets, he traced a large circle in
+the air.
+
+"Do you know the meaning of that?" he inquired.
+
+"Its meaning is death," was my diffident reply, made with a shrug of
+the shoulders.
+
+A shake of his head disclosed to me a keen, agreeable, finely cut face
+as he pronounced the following Slavonic words:
+
+"'Smertu smert vsekonechnie pogublena bwist.'" [Death hath been for
+ever overthrown by death."]
+
+"Do you know that passage?" he added presently.
+
+Yet it was in silence that we walked the next ten paces--he threading
+his way along the rough, grassy path at considerable speed. Suddenly he
+halted, raised his hat from his head, and proffered me a hand.
+
+"Young man," he said, "let us make one another's better acquaintance. I
+am Lieutenant Savva Yaloylev Khorvat, formerly of the State Remount
+Establishment, subsequently of the Department of Imperial Lands. I am a
+man who, after never having been found officially remiss, am living in
+honourable retirement--a man at once a householder, a widower, and a
+person of hasty temper."
+
+Then, after a pause, he added:
+
+"Vice-Governor Khorvat of Tambov is my brother--a younger brother; he
+being fifty-five, and I sixty-one, si-i-ixty one."
+
+His speech was rapid, but as precise as though no mistake was
+permissible in its delivery.
+
+"Also," he continued, "as a man cognisant of every possible species of
+cemetery, I am much dissatisfied with this one. In fact, never
+satisfied with such places am I."
+
+Here he brandished his fist in the air, and described a large arc over
+the crosses.
+
+"Let us sit down," he said, "and I will explain things."
+
+So, after that we had seated ourselves on a bench beside a white
+oratory, and Lieutenant Khorvat had taken off his hat, and with a blue
+handkerchief wiped his forehead and the thick silvery hair which
+bristled from the knobs of his scalp, he continued:
+
+"Mark you well the word kladbistche." [The word, though customarily
+used for cemetery, means, primarily, a treasure-house.]  Here he nudged
+me with his elbow--continuing, thereafter, more softly: "In a
+kladbisiche one might reasonably look for kladi, for treasures of
+intellect and enlightenment. Yet what do we find? Only that which is
+offensive and insulting. All of us does it insult, for thereby is an
+insult paid to all who, in life, are bearing still their 'cross and
+burden.' You too will, one day, be insulted by the system, even as
+shall I. Do you understand? I repeat, 'their cross and burden'--the
+sense of the words being that, life being hard and difficult, we ought
+to honour none but those who STILL are bearing their trials, or bearing
+trials for you and me. Now, THESE folk here have ceased to possess
+consciousness."
+
+Each time that the old man waved his hat in his excitement, its small
+shadow, bird-like, flew along the narrow path, and over the cross, and,
+finally, disappeared in the direction of the town.
+
+Next, distending his ruddy cheeks, twitching his moustache, and
+regarding me covertly out of boylike eyes, the Lieutenant resumed:
+
+"Probably you are thinking, 'The man with whom I have to deal is old
+and half-witted.' But no, young fellow; that is not so, for long before
+YOUR time had I taken the measure of life. Regard these memorials. ARE
+they memorials? For what do they commemorate as concerns you and
+myself? They commemorate, in that respect, nothing. No, they are not
+memorials; they are merely passports or testimonials conferred upon
+itself by human stupidity. Under a given cross there may lie a Maria,
+and under another one a Daria, or an Alexei, or an Evsei, or someone
+else--all 'servants of God,' but not otherwise particularised. An
+outrage this, sir! For in this place folk who have lived their
+difficult portion of life on earth are seen robbed of that record of
+their existences, which ought to have been preserved for your and my
+instruction. Yes, A DESCRIPTION OF THE LIFE LIVED BY A MAN is what
+matters. A tomb might then become even more interesting than a novel.
+Do you follow me?"
+
+"Not altogether," I rejoined.
+
+He heaved a very audible sigh.
+
+"It should be easy enough," was his remark. "To begin with, I am NOT a
+'servant of God.' Rather, I am a man intelligently, of set purpose,
+keeping God's holy commandments so far as lies within my power. And no
+one, not even God, has any right to demand of me more than I can give.
+That is so, is it not?"
+
+I nodded.
+
+"There!" the Lieutenant cried briskly as, cocking his hat, he assumed a
+still more truculent air. Then, spreading out his hands, he growled in
+his flexible bass:
+
+"What is this cemetery? It is merely a place of show."
+
+At this moment, for some reason or another, there occurred to me an
+incident which involved the figure of Iraklei Virubov, the figure which
+had carpet slippers on its ponderous feet, thick lips, a greedy mouth,
+deceitful eyes, and a frame so huge and cavernous that the dapper
+little Lieutenant could have stepped into it complete.
+
+The day had been a Sunday, and the hour eventide. On the burnt plot of
+ground some broken glass had been emitting a reddish gleam, shoots of
+ergot had been diffusing their gloss, children shouting at play, dogs
+trotting backwards and forwards, and all things, seemingly, faring
+well, sunken in the stillness of the portion of the town adjoining the
+rolling, vacant steppe, with, above them, only the sky's level,
+dull-blue canopy, and around them, only the cemetery, like an island
+amidst a sea.
+
+With Virubov, I had been sitting on a bench near the wicket-gate of his
+hut, as intermittently he had screwed his lecherous eyes in the
+direction of the stout, ox-eyed lacemaker, Madame Ezhov, who, after
+disposing of her form on a bank hard-by, had fallen to picking lice out
+of the curls of her eight-year-old Petka Koshkodav. Presently, as
+swiftly she had rummaged the boy's hair with fingers grown used to such
+rapid movement, she had said to her husband (a dealer in second-hand
+articles), who had been seated within doors, and therefore rendered
+invisible--she had said with oily derision:
+
+"Oh, yes, you bald-headed old devil, you! Of course you got your price.
+Ye-es. Then, fool, you ought to have had a slipper smacked across that
+Kalmuck snout of yours. Talk of my price, indeed!"
+
+Upon this Virubov had remarked with a sigh, and in sluggish,
+sententious tones:
+
+"To grant the serfs emancipation was a sheer mistake. I am a humble
+enough servant of my country, yet I can see the truth of what I have
+stated, since it follows as a matter of course. What ought to have been
+done is that all the estates of the landowners should have been
+conveyed to the Tsar. Beyond a doubt that is so. Then both the
+peasantry and the townsfolk, the whole people, in short, would have had
+but a single landlord. For never can the people live properly so long
+as it is ignorant of the point where it stands; and since it loves
+authority, it loves to have over it an autocratic force, for its
+control. Always can it be seen seeking such a force."
+
+Then, bending forward, and infusing into each softly uttered word a
+perfect lusciousness of falsity, Virubov had added to his neighbour:
+
+"Take, for example, the working-woman who stands free of every tie."
+
+"How do I stand free of anything?" the neighbour had retorted, in
+complete readiness for a quarrel.
+
+"Oh, I am not speaking in your despite, Pavlushka, but to your credit,"
+hastily Virubov had protested.
+
+"Then keep your blandishments for that heifer, your 'niece,'" had been
+Madame Ezhov's response.
+
+Upon this Virubov had risen heavily, and remarked as he moved away
+towards the courtyard:
+
+"All folk need to be supervised by an autocratic eye."
+
+Thereafter had followed a bout of choice abuse between his neighbour
+and his "niece," while Virubov himself, framed in the wicket-gate, and
+listening to the contest, had smacked his lips as he gazed at the pair,
+and particularly at Madame Ezhov. At the beginning of the bout Dikanka
+had screeched:
+
+"It is my opinion, it is my opinion, that--"
+
+"Don't treat me to any of YOUR slop!" the long-fanged Pavla had
+interrupted for the benefit of the street in general. And thus had the
+affair continued....
+
+Lieutenant Khorvat blew the fag-end of his cigarette from his
+mouthpiece, glanced at me, and said with seemingly, a not over-civil,
+twitch of his bushy moustache:
+
+"Of what are you thinking, if I might inquire?"
+
+"I am trying to understand you."
+
+"You ought not to find that difficult," was his rejoinder as again he
+doffed his hat, and fanned his face with it. "The whole thing may be
+summed up in two words. It is that we lack respect both for ourselves
+and for our fellow men. Do you follow me NOW?"
+
+His eyes had grown once more young and clear, and, seizing my hand in
+his strong and agreeably warm fingers, he continued:
+
+"Why so? For the very simple reason that I cannot respect myself when I
+can learn nothing, simply nothing, about my fellows."
+
+Moving nearer to me, he added in a mysterious undertone:
+
+"In this Russia of ours none of us really knows why he has come into
+existence. True, each of us knows that he was born, and that he is
+alive, and that one day he will die; but which of us knows the reason
+why all that is so?"
+
+Through renewed excitement, its colour had come back to the
+Lieutenant's face, and his gestures became so rapid as to cause the
+ring on his finger to flash through the air like the link of a chain.
+Also, I was able to detect the fact that on the small, neat wrist under
+his left cuff, there was a bracelet finished with a medallion.
+
+"All this, my good sir, is because (partially through the fact that men
+forget the point, and partially through the fact that that point fails
+to be understood aright) the WORK done by a man is concealed from our
+knowledge. For my own part, I have an idea, a scheme--yes, a scheme--in
+two words, a, a--"
+
+"N-n-o-u, n-n-o-u!" the bell of the monastery tolled over the tombs in
+languid, chilly accents.
+
+"--a scheme that every town and every village, in fact, every unit of
+homogeneous population, should keep a record of the particular unit's
+affairs, a, so to speak, 'book of life.' This 'book of life' should be
+more than a list of the results of the unit's labour; it should also be
+a living narrative of the workaday activities accomplished by each
+member of the unit. Eh? And, of course, the record to be compiled
+without official interference--solely by the town council or district
+administration, or by a special 'board, of life and works' or some such
+body, provided only that the task be not carried out by nominees of the
+GOVERNMENT. And in that record there should be entered everything--that
+is to say, everything of a nature which ought to be made public
+concerning every man who has lived among us, and has since gone from
+our midst."
+
+Here the Lieutenant stretched out his hand again in the direction of
+the tombs.
+
+"My right it is," he added, "to know how those folk there spent their
+lives. For it is by their labours and their thoughts, and even on the
+product of their bones, that I myself am now subsisting. You agree, do
+you not?"
+
+In silence I nodded; whereupon he cried triumphantly:
+
+"Ah! You see, do you? Yes, an indispensable point is it, that
+whatsoever a man may have done, whether good or evil, should be
+recorded. For example, suppose he has manufactured a stove specially
+good for heating purposes; record the fact. Or suppose he has killed a
+mad dog; record the fact. Or suppose he has built a school, or cleansed
+a dirty street, or been a pioneer in the teaching of sound farming, or
+striven, by word and deed, his life long, to combat official
+irregularities... record the fact.  Again, suppose a woman has borne
+ten, or fifteen, healthy children; record the fact. Yes, and this last
+with particular care, since the conferment of healthy children upon the
+country is a work of absolute importance."
+
+Further, pointing to a grey headstone with a worn inscription, he
+shouted (or almost did so):
+
+"Under that stone lies buried the body of a man who never in his life
+loved but one woman, but ONE woman. Now, THAT is a fact which ought to
+have been recorded about him for it is not merely a string of names
+that is wanted, but a narrative of deeds. Yes, I have not only a
+desire, but a RIGHT, to know the lives which men have lived, and the
+works which they have performed; and whenever a man leaves our midst we
+ought to inscribe over his tomb full particulars of the 'cross and
+burden' which he bore, as particulars ever to be held in remembrance,
+and inscribed there both for my benefit and for the benefit of life in
+general, as constituting a clear and circumstantial record of the given
+career. Why did that man live? To the question write down, always, the
+answer in large and conspicuous characters. Eh?"
+
+"Most certainly."
+
+This led the Lieutenant's enthusiasm to increase still more as, for the
+third time waving his hand in the direction of the tombs, and mouthing
+each word, he continued:
+
+"The folk of that town are liars pure and simple, for of set purpose
+they conceal the particulars of careers that they may depreciate those
+careers in our eyes, and, while showing us the insignificance of the
+dead, fill the living with a sense of similar insignificance, since
+insignificant folk are the easiest to manage. Yes, it is a scheme
+thought out with diabolical ingenuity. Yet, for myself--well, try and
+make me do what I don't intend to do!"
+
+To which, with his face wrinkled with disgust, he added in a tone like
+a shot from a pistol:
+
+"Machines are we! Yes, machines, and nothing else!"
+
+Curious was it to watch the old man's excitement as one listened to the
+strong bass voice amid the stillness of the cemetery. Once more over
+the tombs, there came floating the languid, metallic notes of "N-n-o-u!
+N-n-o-u!"
+
+The oily gloss on the withered grass had vanished, faded, and
+everything turned dull, though the air remained charged with the spring
+perfume of the geraniums, stocks, and narcissi which encircled some of
+the graves.
+
+"You see," continued the Lieutenant, "one could not deny that each of
+us has his value. By the time that one has lived threescore years, one
+perceives that fact very clearly. Never CONCEAL things, since every
+life lived ought to be set in the light. And is capable of being so, in
+that every man is a workman for the world at large, and constitutes an
+instructor in good or in evil, and that life, when looked into,
+constitutes, as a whole, the sum of all the labour done by the
+aggregate of us petty, insignificant individuals. That is why we ought
+not to hide away a man's work, but to publish it abroad, and to
+inscribe on the cross over his tomb his deeds, his services, in their
+entirety. Yes, however negligible may have been those deeds, those
+services, hold them up for the perusal of those who can discover good
+even in what is negligible. NOW do you understand me?"
+
+"I do," I replied. "Yes, I do."
+
+"Good!"
+
+The bell of the monastery struck two hasty beats--then became silent,
+so that only the sad echo of its voice remained reverberating over the
+cemetery. Once more my interlocutor drew out his cigarette-case,
+silently offered it to myself, and lighted and puffed industriously at
+another cigarette. As he did so his hands, as small and brown as the
+claws of a bird, shook a little, and his head, bent down, looked like
+an Easter egg in plush.
+
+Still smoking, he looked me in the eyes with a self-diffident frown,
+and muttered:
+
+"Only through the labour of man does the earth attain development. And
+only by familiarising himself with, and remembering, the past can man
+obtain support in his work on earth."
+
+In speaking, the Lieutenant lowered his arm; whereupon on to his wrist
+there slipped the broad golden bracelet adorned with a medallion, and
+there gazed at me thence the miniature of a fair-haired woman: and
+since the hand below it was freckled, and its flexible fingers were
+swollen out of shape, and had lost their symmetry, the woman's
+fine-drawn face looked the more full of life, and, clearly picked out,
+could be seen to be smiling a sweet and slightly imperious smile.
+
+"Your wife or your daughter?" I queried.
+
+"My God! My God!" was, with a subdued sigh, the only response
+vouchsafed. Then the Lieutenant raised his arm, and the bracelet slid
+back to its resting place under his cuff.
+
+Over the town the columns of curling smoke were growing redder, and the
+clattering windows blushing to a tint of pink that recalled to my
+memory the livid cheeks of Virubov's "niece," of the woman in whom,
+like her uncle, there was nothing that could provoke one to "take
+liberties."
+
+Next, there scaled the cemetery wall and stealthily stretched
+themselves on the ground, so that they looked not unlike the far-flung
+shadows of the cemetery's crosses, a file of dark, tattered figures of
+beggars, while on the further side of the slowly darkening greenery a
+cantor drawled in sluggish, careless accents:
+
+"E-e-ternal me-e--"
+
+"Eternal memory of what?" exclaimed Lieutenant Khorvat with an angry
+shrug of his shoulders. "Suppose, in his day, a man has been the best
+cucumber-salter or mushroom-pickler in a given town. Or suppose he has
+been the best cobbler there, or that once he said something which the
+street wherein he dwelt can still remember. Would not THAT man be a man
+whose record should be preserved, and made accessible to my
+recollection?"
+
+And again the Lieutenant's face wreathed itself in solid rings of
+pungent tobacco smoke.
+
+Blowing softly for a moment, the wind bent the long stems of grass in
+the direction of the declining sun, and died away. All that remained
+audible amid the stillness was the peevish voices of women saying:
+
+"To the left, I say."
+
+"Oh, what is to be done, Tanechka?"
+
+Expelling a fresh cloud of tobacco smoke in cylindrical form, the old
+man muttered:
+
+"It would seem that those women have forgotten the precise spot where
+their relative or friend happens to lie buried."
+
+As a hawk flew over the sun-reddened belfry-cross, the bird's shadow
+glided over a memorial stone near the spot where we were sitting,
+glanced off the corner of the stone, and appeared anew beyond it. And
+in the watching of this shadow, I somehow found a pleasant diversion.
+
+Went on the Lieutenant:
+
+"I say that a graveyard ought to evince the victory of life, the
+triumph of intellect and of labour, rather than the power of death.
+However, imagine how things would work out under my scheme. Under it
+the record of which I have spoken would constitute a history of a
+town's life which, if anything, would increase men's respect for their
+fellows. Yes, such a history as THAT is what a cemetery ought to be.
+Otherwise the place is useless. Similarly will the past prove useless
+if it can give us nothing. Yet is such a history ever compiled? If it
+is, how can one say that events are brought about by, forsooth,
+'servants of God'?"
+
+Pointing to the tombs with a gesture as though he were swimming, he
+paused for a moment or two.
+
+"You are a good man," I said, "and a man who must have lived a good and
+interesting life."
+
+He did not look at me, but answered quietly and thoughtfully:
+
+"At least a man ought to be his fellows' friend, seeing that to them he
+is beholden for everything that he possesses and for everything that he
+contains. I myself have lived--"
+
+Here, with a contraction of his brows, he fell to gazing about him, as
+though he were seeking the necessary word; until, seeming to fail to
+find it, he continued gravely:
+
+"Men need to be brought closer together, until life shall have become
+better adjusted. Never forget those who are departed, for anything and
+everything in the life of a 'servant of God' may prove instructive and
+of profound significance."
+
+On the white sides of the memorial-stones, the setting sun was casting
+warm lurid reflections, until the stonework looked as though it had
+been splashed with hot blood. Moreover, every thing around us seemed
+curiously to have swelled and grown larger and softer and less cold of
+outline; the whole scene, though as motionless as ever, appeared to
+have taken on a sort of bright-red humidity, and deposited that
+humidity in purple, scintillating, quivering dew on the turf's various
+spikes and tufts. Gradually, also, the shadows were deepening and
+lengthening, while on the further side of the cemetery wall a cow lowed
+at intervals, in a gross and drunken fashion, and a party of fowls
+cackled what seemed to be curses in response, and a saw grated and
+screeched.
+
+Suddenly the Lieutenant burst into a peal of subdued laughter, and
+continued to do so until his shoulders shook. At length he said through
+the paroxysms, as, giving me a push, he cocked his hat boyishly:
+
+"I must confess that, that--that the view which I first took of you was
+rather a tragic one. You see, when I saw a man lying prone on the grass
+I said to myself: 'H'm! What is that?' Next I saw a young fellow
+roaming about the cemetery with a frown settled on his face, and his
+breeches bulging; and again I said to myself--"
+
+"A book is lying in my breeches pocket," I interposed.
+
+"Ah! Then I understand. Yes, I made a mistake, but a very, welcome one.
+However, as I say, when I first saw you, I said to myself: 'There is a
+man lying near that tomb. Perhaps he has a bullet, a wound, in his
+temple?' And, as you know--"
+
+He stopped to wink at me with another outburst of soft, good-humoured
+laughter. Then he continued.
+
+"Nevertheless, the scheme of which I have told you cannot really be
+called a scheme, since it is merely a fancy of my own. Yet I SHOULD
+like to see life lived in better fashion."
+
+He sighed and paused, for evidently he was becoming lost in thought.
+
+"Unfortunately," he continued at last, "the latter is a desire which I
+have conceived too late. If only I had done so fifteen years ago, when
+I was filling the post of Inspector of the prison at Usman--"
+
+His left arm stretched itself out, and once more there slid on to his
+wrist the bracelet. For a moment he touched its gold with a rapid, but
+careful, delicate, movement--then he restored the trinket to its
+retreat, rose suddenly, looked about him for a second or two with a
+frown, and said in dry, brisk tones as he gave his iron-grey moustache
+an energetic twist:
+
+"Now I must be going."
+
+For a while I accompanied him on his way, for I had a keen desire to
+hear him say something more in that pleasant, powerful bass of his; but
+though he stepped past the gravestones with strides as careful and
+regular as those of a soldier on parade, he failed again to break
+silence.
+
+Just as we passed the chapel of the monastery there floated forth into
+the fair evening stillness, from the bars, of a window, while yet not
+really stirring that stillness, a hum of gruff, lazy, peevish
+ejaculations. Apparently they were uttered by two persons who were
+engaged in a dispute, since one of them muttered:
+
+"What have you done? What have you done?"
+
+And the other responded carelessly:
+
+"Hold your tongue, now! Pray hold your tongue!"
+
+
+
+
+ON A RIVER STEAMER
+
+The water of the river was smooth, and dull silver of tint. Also, so
+barely perceptible was the current that it seemed to be almost stagnant
+under the mist of the noontide heat, and only by the changes in the
+aspect of the banks could one realise how quietly and evenly the river
+was carrying on its surface the old yellow-hulled steamer with the
+white-rimmed funnel, and also the clumsy barge which was being towed in
+her wake.
+
+Dreamily did the floats of the paddle-wheels slap the water. Under the
+planks of the deck the engines toiled without ceasing. Steam hissed and
+panted. At intervals the engine-room bell jarred upon the car. At
+intervals, also, the tiller-chains slid to and fro with a dull,
+rattling sound. Yet, owing to the somnolent stillness settled upon the
+river, these sounds escaped, failed to catch one's attention.
+
+Through the dryness of the summer the water was low. Periodically, in
+the steamer's bow, a deck hand like a king, a man with a lean, yellow,
+black-avised face and a pair of languishing eyes, threw overboard a
+polished log as in tones of melting melancholy he chanted:
+
+"Se-em, se-em, shest!"
+
+["Seven, seven, six!" (the depth of water, reckoned in sazheni or
+fathoms)]
+
+It was as though he were wailing:
+
+"Seyem, seyem, a yest-NISHEVO"
+
+[Let us eat, let us eat, but to eat there is--nothing]
+
+Meanwhile, the steamer kept turning her stearlet-like [The stearlet is
+a fish of the salmon species] prow deliberately and alternately towards
+either bank as the barge yawed behind her, and the grey hawser kept
+tautening and quivering, and sending out showers of gold and silver
+sparkles. Ever and anon, too, the captain on the bridge kept shouting,
+hoarsely through a speaking-trumpet:
+
+"About, there!"
+
+Under the stem of the barge a wave ran which, divided into a pair of
+white wings, serpentined away towards either bank.
+
+In the meadowed distance peat seemed to be being burnt, and over the
+black forest there had gathered an opalescent cloud of smoke which also
+suffused the neighbouring marshes.
+
+To the right, the bank of the river towered up into lofty, precipitous,
+clayey slopes intersected with ravines wherein aspens and birches found
+shelter.
+
+Everything ashore had about it a restful, sultry, deserted look. Even
+in the dull blue, torrid sky there was nought save a white-hot sun.
+
+In endless vista were meadows studded with trees--trees sleeping in
+lonely isolation, and, in places, surmounted with either the cross of a
+rural church which looked like a day star or the sails of a windmill;
+while further back from the banks lay the tissue cloths of ripening
+crops, with, here and there, a human habitation.
+
+Throughout, the scene was indistinct. Everything in it was calm,
+touchingly simple, intimate, intelligible, grateful to the soul. So
+much so that as one contemplated the slowly-varying vistas presented by
+the loftier bank, the immutable stretches of meadowland, and the green,
+timbered dance-rings where the forest approached the river, to gaze at
+itself in the watery mirror, and recede again into the peaceful
+distance; as one gazed at all this one could not but reflect that
+nowhere else could a spot more simply, more kindly, more beautiful be
+found, than these peaceful shores of the great river.
+
+Yet already a few shrubs by the river's margin were beginning to
+display yellow leaves, though the landscape as a whole was smiling the
+doubtful, meditative smile of a young bride who, about to bear her
+first child, is feeling at once nervous and delighted at the prospect.
+
+      *      *      *      *      *
+
+The hour was past noon, and the third-class passengers, languid with
+fatigue induced by the heat, were engaged in drinking either tea or
+beer. Seated mostly on the bulwarks of the steamer, they silently
+scanned the banks, while the deck quivered, crockery clattered at the
+buffet, and the deck hand in the bows sighed soporifically:
+
+Six! Six! Six-and-a-half!
+
+From the engine-room a grimy stoker emerged. Rolling along, and
+scraping his bare feet audibly against the deck, he approached the
+boatswain's cabin, where the said boatswain, a fair-haired,
+fair-bearded man from Kostroma was standing in the doorway. The senior
+official contracted his rugged eyes quizzically, and inquired:
+
+"Whither in such a hurry?"
+
+"To pick a bone with Mitka."
+
+"Good!"
+
+With a wave of his black hand the stoker resumed his way, while the
+boatswain, yawning, fell to casting his eyes about him. On a locker
+near the companion of the engine-room a small man in a buff pea-jacket,
+a new cap, and a pair of boots on which there were clots of dried mud,
+was seated.
+
+Through lack of diversion the boatswain began to feel inclined to
+hector somebody, so cried sternly to the man in question:
+
+"Hi there, chawbacon!"
+
+The man on the locker turned about--turned nervously, and much as a
+bullock turns. That is to say, he turned with his whole body.
+
+"Why have you gone and put yourself THERE?" inquired the boatswain.
+"Though there is a notice to tell you NOT to sit there, it is there
+that you must go and sit! Can't you read?"
+
+Rising, the passenger inspected not the notice, but the locker. Then he
+replied:
+
+"Read? Yes, I CAN read."
+
+"Then why sit there where you oughtn't to?"
+
+"I cannot see any notice."
+
+"Well, it's hot there anyway, and the smell of oil comes up from the
+engines.... Whence have you come?"
+
+"From Kashira."
+
+"Long from home?"
+
+"Three weeks, about."
+
+"Any rain at your place?"
+
+"No. But why?"
+
+"How come your boots are so muddy?"
+
+The passenger lowered his head, extended cautiously first one foot, and
+then the other, scrutinised them both, and replied:
+
+"You see, they are not my boots."
+
+With a roar of laughter that caused his brilliant beard to project from
+his chin, the boatswain retorted:
+
+"I think you must drink a bit."
+
+The passenger said nothing more, but retreated quietly, and with short
+strides, to the stem. From the fact that the sleeves of his pea-jacket
+reached far below his wrists, it was clear that the garment had
+originated from the shoulders of another man.
+
+As for the boatswain, on noting the circumspection and diffidence with
+which the passenger walked, he frowned, sucked at his beard, approached
+a sailor who was engaged in vigorously scrubbing the brass on the door
+of the captain's cabin with a naked palm, and said in an undertone:
+
+"Did you happen to notice the gait of that little man there in the
+light pea-jacket and dirty boots?"
+
+"I did."
+
+"Then see here. Do keep an eye upon him."
+
+"But why? Is he a bad lot?"
+
+"Something like it, I think."
+
+"I will then."
+
+At a table near the hatchway of the first-class cabin, a fat man in
+grey was drinking beer. Already he had reached a state of moderate
+fuddlement, for his eyes were protruding sightlessly and staring
+unwinkingly at the opposite wall. Meanwhile, a number of flies were
+swarming in the sticky puddles on the table, or else crawling over his
+greyish beard and the brick-red skin of his motionless features.
+
+The boatswain winked in his direction, and remarked:
+
+"Half-seas over, HE is."
+
+"'Tis his way," a pockmarked, eyebrow-less sailor responded.
+
+Here the drunken man sneezed: with the result that a cloud of flies
+were blown over the table. Looking at them, and sighing as his
+companion had done, the boatswain thoughtfully observed:
+
+"Why, he regularly sneezes flies, eh?"
+
+      *      *      *      *      *
+
+The resting-place which I myself had selected was a stack of firewood
+over the stokehole shoot; and as I lay upon it I could see the hills
+gradually darkening the water with a mourning veil as calmly they
+advanced to meet the steamer; while in the meadows, a last lingering
+glow of the sunset's radiance was reddening the stems of the birches,
+and making the newly mended roof of a hut look as though it were cased
+in red fustian--communicating to everything else in the vicinity a
+semblance of floating amid fire--and effacing all outline, and causing
+the scene as a whole to dissolve into streaks of red and orange and
+blue, save where, on a hill above the hut, a black grove of firs stood
+thrown into tense, keen, and clear-cut relief.
+
+Under a hill a party of fishermen had lit a wood fire, the flames of
+which could be seen playing upon, and picking out, the white hull of a
+boat--the dark figure of a man therein, a fishing net suspended from
+some stakes, and a woman in a yellow bodice who was sitting beside the
+fire. Also, amid the golden radiance there could be distinguished a
+quivering of the leaves on the lower branches of the tree whereunder
+the woman sat shaded.
+
+All the river was calm, and not a sound occurred to break the stillness
+ashore, while the air under the awning of the third-class portion of
+the vessel felt as stifling as during the earlier part of the day. By
+this time the conversation of the passengers, damped by the shadow of
+dusk, had merged into a single sound which resembled the humming of
+bees; and amid it one could not distinguish nor divine who was
+speaking, nor the subject of discussion, since every word therein
+seemed disconnected, even though all appeared to be talking amicably,
+and in order, concerning a common topic. At one moment a suppressed
+laugh from a young woman would reach the ear; in the cabin, a party who
+had agreed to sing a song of general acceptation were failing to hit
+upon one, and disputing the point in low and dispassionate accents; and
+in each, such sound there was something vespertinal, gently sad, softly
+prayer-like.
+
+From behind the firewood near me a thick, rasping voice said in
+deliberate tones:
+
+"At first he was a useful young fellow enough, and clean and spruce;
+but lately, he has become shabby and dirty, and is going to the dogs."
+
+Another voice, loud and gruff, replied:
+
+"Aha! Avoid the ladies, or one is bound to go amiss."
+
+"The saying has it that always a fish makes for deeper water."
+
+"Besides, he is a fool, and that is worse still. By the way, he is a
+relative of yours, isn't he?"
+
+"Yes. He is my brother."
+
+"Indeed? Then pray forgive me."
+
+"Certainly; but, to speak plainly, he is a fool."
+
+At this moment I saw the passenger in the buff pea-jacket approach the
+sally-port, grasp with his left hand a stanchion, and step on to the
+grating under which one of the paddle-wheels was churning the water to
+foam. There he stood looking over the bulwarks with a swinging motion
+akin to that of a bat when, grappling some object or another with its
+wings, it hangs suspended in the air. The fact that the man's cap was
+drawn tightly over his ears caused the latter to stick out almost to
+the point of absurdity.
+
+Presently he turned and peered into the gloom under the awning, though,
+seemingly, he failed to distinguish myself reposing on the firewood.
+This enabled me to gain a clear view of a face with a sharp nose, some
+tufts of light-coloured hair on cheeks and chin, and a pair of small,
+muddy-looking eyes. He stood there as though he were listening to
+something.
+
+All of a sudden he stepped firmly to the sally-port, swiftly unlashed
+from the iron top-rail a mop, and threw it overboard. Then he set about
+unlashing a second article of the same species.
+
+"Hi!" I shouted to him. "What are you doing there?"
+
+With a start the man turned round, clapped a hand to his forehead to
+discover my whereabouts, and replied softly and rapidly, and with a
+stammer in his voice:
+
+"How is that your business? Get away with you!"
+
+Upon this I approached him, for I was astonished and amused at his
+impudence.
+
+"For what you have done the sailors will make you pay right enough," I
+remarked.
+
+He tucked up the sleeves of his pea-jacket as though he were preparing
+for a fight. Then, stamping his foot upon the slippery grating, he
+muttered:
+
+"I perceived the mop to have come untied, and to be in danger of
+falling into the water through the vibration. Upon that I tried to
+secure it, and failed, for it slipped from my hands as I was doing so."
+
+"But," I remarked in amazement, "my belief is that you WILLFULLY untied
+the mop, to throw it overboard!"
+
+"Come, come!" he retorted. "Why should I have done that? What an
+extraordinary thing it would have been to do! How could it have been
+possible?"
+
+Here he dodged me with a dexterous movement, and, rearranging his
+sleeves, walked away. The length of the pea-jacket made his legs look
+absurdly short, and caused me to notice that in his gait there was a
+tendency to shuffle and hesitate.
+
+Returning to my retreat, I stretched myself upon the firewood once
+more, inhaled its resinous odour, and fell to listening to the
+slow-moving dialogue of some of the passengers around me.
+
+"Ah, good sir," a gruff, sarcastic voice began at my side--but
+instantly a yet gruffer voice intervened with:
+
+"Well?"
+
+"Oh, nothing, except that to ask a question is easy, and to answer it
+may be difficult."
+
+"True."
+
+From the ravines a mist was spreading over the river.
+
+      *      *      *      *      *
+
+At length night fell, and as folk relapsed into slumber the babel of
+tongues became stilled. The car, as it grew used to the boisterous roar
+of the engines and the measured rhythm of the paddle-wheels, did not at
+first notice the new sound born of the fact that into the sounds
+previously made familiar there began to intrude the snores of
+slumberers, and the padding of soft footsteps, and an excited whisper
+of:
+
+"I said to him--yes, I said: 'Yasha, you must not, you shall not, do
+this.'"
+
+The banks had disappeared from view. Indeed, one continued to be
+reminded of their existence only by the slow passage of the scattered
+fires ashore, and the fact that the darkness lay blacker and denser
+around those fires than elsewhere. Dimly reflected in the river, the
+stars seemed to be absolutely motionless, whereas the trailing, golden
+reproductions of the steamer's lights never ceased to quiver, as though
+striving to break adrift, and float away into the obscurity. Meanwhile,
+foam like tissue paper was licking our dark hull, while at our stern,
+and sometimes overtaking it, there trailed a barge with a couple of
+lanterns in her prow, and a third on her mast, which at one moment
+marked the reflections of the stars, and at another became merged with
+the gleams of firelight on one or the other bank.
+
+On a bench under a lantern near the spot where I was lying a stout
+woman was asleep. With one hand resting upon a small bundle under her
+head, she had her bodice torn under the armpit, so that the white flesh
+and a tuft of hair could be seen protruding. Also, her face was large,
+dark of brow, and full of jowl to a point that caused the cheeks to
+roll to her very ears. Lastly, her thick lips were parted in an
+ungainly, corpselike smile.
+
+From my own position on a level higher than hers, I looked dreamily
+down upon her, and reflected: "She is a little over forty years of age,
+and (probably) a good woman. Also, she is travelling to visit either
+her daughter and son-in-law, or her son and daughter-in-law, and
+therefore is taking with her some presents. Also, there is in her large
+heart much of the excellent and maternal."
+
+Suddenly something near me flashed as though a match had been struck,
+and, opening my eyes, I perceived the passenger in the curious
+pea-jacket to be standing near the woman spoken of, and engaged in
+shielding a lighted match with his sleeve. Presently, he extended his
+hand and cautiously applied the particle of flame to the tuft of hair
+under the woman's armpit. There followed a faint hiss, and a noxious
+smell of burning hair was wafted to my nostrils.
+
+I leapt up, seized the man by the collar, and shook him soundly.
+
+"What are you at?" I exclaimed.
+
+Turning in my grasp he whispered with a scarcely audible, but
+exceedingly repulsive, giggle:
+
+"Haven't I given her a good fright, eh?"
+
+Then he added:
+
+"Now, let me go! Let go, I say!"
+
+"Have you lost your wits?" I retorted with a gasp.
+
+For a moment or two his blinking eyes continued to glance at something
+over my shoulder. Then they returned to me, while he whispered:
+
+"Pray let me go. The truth is that, unable to sleep, I conceived that I
+would play this woman a trick. Was there any harm in that? See, now.
+She is still asleep."
+
+As I thrust him away his short legs, legs which might almost have been
+amputated, staggered under him. Meanwhile I reflected:
+
+"No, I was NOT wrong. He DID of set purpose throw the mop overboard.
+What a fellow!"
+
+A bell sounded from the engine-room.
+
+"Slow!" someone shouted with a cheerful hail.
+
+Upon that, steam issued with such resounding shrillness that the woman
+awoke with a jerk of her head; and as she put up her left hand to feel
+her armpit, her crumpled features gathered themselves into wrinkles.
+Then she glanced at the lamp, raised herself to a sitting position,
+and, fingering the place where the hair had been destroyed, said softly
+to herself:
+
+"Oh, holy Mother of God!"
+
+Presently the steamer drew to a wharf, and, with a loud clattering,
+firewood was dragged forth and cast into the stokehole with uncouth,
+warning cries of "Tru-us-sha!" [The word means ship's hold or
+stokehole, but here is, probably, equivalent to the English "Heads
+below!"]
+
+Over a little town which had its back pressed against a hill the waning
+moon was rising and brightening all the black river, causing it to
+gather life as the radiance laved, as it were, the landscape in warm
+water.
+
+Walking aft, I seated myself among some bales and contemplated the
+town's frontage. Over one end of it rose, tapering like a
+walking-stick, a factory chimney, while at the other end, as well as in
+the middle, rose belfries, one of which had a gilded steeple, and the
+other one a steeple either green or blue, but looking black in the
+moonlight, and shaped like a ragged paint-brush.
+
+Opposite the wharf there was stuck in the wide gable of a two-storied
+building a lantern which, flickering, diffused but a dull, anaemic
+light from its dirty panes, while over the long strip of the broken
+signboard of the building there could be seen straggling, and executed
+in large yellow letters, the words, "Tavern and--" No more of the
+legend than this was visible.
+
+Lanterns were hanging in two or three other spots in the drowsy little
+town; and wherever their murky stains of light hung suspended in the
+air there stood out in relief a medley of gables, drab-tinted trees,
+and false windows in white paint, on walls of a dull slate colour.
+
+Somehow I found contemplation of the scene depressing.
+
+Meanwhile the vessel continued to emit steam as she rocked to and fro
+with a creaking of wood, a slap-slapping of water, and a scrubbing of
+her sides against the wharf. At length someone ejaculated surlily:
+
+"Fool, you must be asleep! The winch, you say? Why, the winch is at the
+stern, damn you!"
+
+"Off again, thank the Lord!" added the rasping voice already heard from
+behind the bales, while to it an equally familiar voice rejoined with a
+yawn:
+
+"It's time we WERE off!"
+
+Said a hoarse voice:
+
+"Look here, young fellow. What was it he shouted?"
+
+Hastily and inarticulately, with a great deal of smacking of the lips
+and stuttering, someone replied:
+
+"He shouted: 'Kinsmen, do not kill me! Have some mercy, for Christ's
+sake, and I will make over to you everything--yes, everything into your
+good hands for ever! Only let me go away, and expiate my sins, and save
+my soul through prayer. Aye, I will go on a pilgrimage, and remain
+hidden my life long, to the very end. Never shall you hear of me again,
+nor see me.' Then Uncle Peter caught him a blow on the head, and his
+blood splashed out upon me. As he fell I--well, I ran away, and made
+for the tavern, where I knocked at the door and shouted: 'Sister, they
+have killed our father!' Upon that, she put her head out of the window,
+but only said: 'That merely means that the rascal is making an excuse
+for vodka.'... Aye, a terrible time it was--was that night! And how
+frightened I felt! At first, I made for the garret, but presently
+thought to myself: 'No; they would soon find me there, and put me to an
+end as well, for I am the heir direct, and should be the first to
+succeed to the property.' So I crawled on to the roof, and there lay
+hidden behind the chimney-stack, holding on with arms and legs, while
+unable to speak for sheer terror."
+
+"What were you afraid of?" a brusque voice interrupted.
+
+"What was I afraid of?"
+
+"At all events, you joined your uncle in killing your father, didn't
+you?"
+
+"In such an hour one has not time to think--one just kills a man
+because one can't help oneself, or because it seems so easy to kill."
+
+"True," the hoarser voice commented in dull and ponderous accents.
+"When once blood has flowed the fact leads to more blood, and if a man
+has started out to kill, he cares nothing for any reason--he finds good
+enough the reason which comes first to his hand."
+
+"But if this young fellow is speaking the truth, he had a BUSINESS
+reason--though, properly speaking, even property ought not to provoke
+quarrels."
+
+"Similarly one ought not to kill just when one chooses. Folk who commit
+such crimes should have justice meted out to them."
+
+"Yes, but it is difficult always to obtain such justice. For instance,
+this young fellow seems to have spent over a year in prison for
+nothing."
+
+"'For nothing'? Why, did he not entice his father into the hut, and
+then shut the door upon him, and throw a coat over his head? He has
+said so himself. 'For nothing,' indeed!"
+
+Upon this the rapid stream of sobbed, disconnected words, which I had
+heard before from some speaker poured forth anew. Somehow, I guessed
+that it came from the man in the dirty boots, as once more he recounted
+the story of the murder.
+
+"I do not wish to justify myself," he said. "I say merely that,
+inasmuch as I was promised a reprieve at the trial, I told everything,
+and was therefore allowed to go free, while my uncle and my brother
+were sentenced to penal servitude."
+
+"But you KNEW that they had agreed to kill him?"
+
+"Well, it is my idea that at first they intended only to give him a
+good fright. Never did my father recognise me as his son--always he
+called me a Jesuit."
+
+The gruffer of the two voices pulled up the speaker.
+
+"To think," it said, "that you can actually talk about it all!"
+
+"Why shouldn't I? My father brought tears to the eyes of many an
+innocent person."
+
+"A fig for people's tears! If our causes of tears were one and all to
+be murdered, what would the state of things become? Shed tears, but
+never blood; for blood is not yours to shed. And even if you should
+believe your own blood to be your own, know that it is not so, that
+your blood does not belong to you, but to Someone Else."
+
+"The point in question was my father's property. It all shows how a man
+may live awhile, and earn his living, and then suddenly go amiss, and
+lose his wits, and even conceive a grudge against his own father....
+Now I must get some sleep."
+
+Behind the bales all grew quiet. Presently I rose to peer in that
+direction. The passenger in the buff pea-jacket was sitting huddled up
+against a coil of rope, with his hands thrust into his sleeves, and his
+chin resting upon his arms. As the moon was shining straight into his
+face, I could see that the latter was as livid as that of a corpse, and
+had its brows drawn down over its narrow, insignificant eyes.
+
+Beside him, and close to my head, there was lying stretched on the top
+of the coil of rope a broad-shouldered peasant in a short smock and a
+pair of patched boots of white felt. The ringlets of the wearer's curly
+beard were thrust upwards, and his hands clasped behind his head, and
+with ox-like eyes he stared at the zenith where a few stars were
+shining, and the moon was beginning to sink.
+
+At length, in a trumpet-like voice (though he seemed to do his best to
+soften it) the peasant asked:
+
+"Your uncle is on that barge, I suppose?"
+
+"He is. And so is my brother."
+
+"Yet you are here! How strange!"
+
+The dark barge, towed against the steamer's blue-silver wash of foam,
+was cleaving it like a plough, while under the moon the lights of the
+barge showed white, and the hull and the prisoners' cage stood raised
+high out of the water as to our right the black, indentated bank glided
+past in sinuous convolutions.
+
+From the whole, soft, liquescent fluid scene, the impression which I
+derived was melancholy. It evoked in my spirit a sense of instability,
+a lack of restfulness.
+
+"Why are you travelling?"
+
+"Because I wish to have a word with him."
+
+"With your uncle?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"About the property?"
+
+"What else?"
+
+"Then look here, my young fellow. Drop it all--both your uncle and the
+property, and betake yourself to a monastery, and there live and pray.
+For if you have shed blood, and especially if you have shed the blood
+of a kinsman, you will stand for ever estranged from all, while,
+moreover, bloodshed is a dangerous thing--it may at any time come back
+upon you."
+
+"But the property?" the young fellow asked with a lift of his head.
+
+"Let it go," the peasant vouchsafed as he closed his eyes.
+
+On the younger man's face the down twitched as though a wind had
+stirred it. He yawned, and looked about him for a moment. Then,
+descrying myself, he cried in a tone of resentment:
+
+"What are you looking at? And why do you keep following me about?"
+
+Here the big peasant opened his eyes, and, with a glance first at the
+man, and then at myself, growled:
+
+"Less noise there, you mitten-face!"
+
+      *      *      *      *      *
+
+As I retired to my nook and lay down, I reflected that what the big
+peasant had said was apposite enough-that the young fellow's face did
+in very truth resemble an old and shabby woollen mitten.
+
+Presently I dreamt that I was painting a belfry, and that, as I did so,
+huge, goggle-eyed jackdaws kept flying around the belfry's gables, and
+flapping at me with their wings and hindering my work: until, as I
+sought to beat them off, I missed my footing, fell to earth, and awoke
+to find my breath choking amid a dull, sick, painful feeling of
+lassitude and weakness, and a kaleidoscopic mist quavering before my
+eyes till it rendered me dizzy. From my head, behind the car, a thin
+stream of blood was trickling.
+
+Rising with some difficulty to my feet, I stepped aft to a pump, washed
+my head under a jet of cold water, bound it with my handkerchief, and,
+returning, inspected my resting-place in a state of bewilderment as to
+what could have caused the accident to happen.
+
+On the deck near the spot where I had been asleep, there was standing
+stacked a pile of small logs prepared for the cook's galley; while, in
+the precise spot where my head had rested there was reposing a birch
+faggot of which the withy-tie had come unfastened. As I raised the
+fallen faggot I perceived it to be clean and composed of silky loppings
+of birch-bark which rustled as I fingered them; and, consequently, I
+reflected that the ceaseless vibration of the steamer must have caused
+the faggot to become jerked on to my head.
+
+Reassured by this plausible explanation of the unfortunate, but absurd,
+occurrence of which I have spoken, I next returned to the stern, where
+there were no oppressive odours to be encountered, and whence a good
+view was obtainable.
+
+The hour was the turn of the night, the hour of maximum tension before
+dawn, the hour when all the world seems plunged in a profundity of
+slumber whence there can be no awakening, and when the completeness of
+the silence attunes the soul to special sensibility, and when the stars
+seem to be hanging strangely close to earth, and the morning star, in
+particular, to be shining as brightly as a miniature sun. Yet already
+had the heavens begun to grow coldly grey, to lose their nocturnal
+softness and warmth, while the rays of the stars were drooping like
+petals, and the moon, hitherto golden, had turned pale and become
+dusted over with silver, and moved further from the earth as intangibly
+the water of the river sloughed its thick, viscous gleam, and swiftly
+emitted and withdrew, stray, pearly reflections of the changes
+occurring in the heavenly tints.
+
+In the east there was rising, and hanging suspended over the black
+spears of the pine forest, a thin pink mist the sensuous hue of which
+was glowing ever brighter, and assuming a density ever greater, and
+standing forth more boldly and clearly, even as a whisper of timid
+prayer merges into a song of exultant thankfulness. Another moment, and
+the spiked tops of the pines blazed into points of red fire resembling
+festival candles in a sanctuary.
+
+Next, an unseen hand threw over the water, drew along its surface, a
+transparent and many-coloured net of silk. This was the morning breeze,
+herald of dawn, as with a coating of tissue-like, silvery scales it
+rippled the river until the eye grew weary of trying to follow the play
+of gold and mother-of-pearl and purple and bluish-green reflected from
+the sun-renovated heavens.
+
+Next, like a fan there unfolded themselves the first sword-shaped beams
+of day, with their tips blindingly white; while simultaneously one
+seemed to hear descending from an illimitable height a dense sound-wave
+of silver bells, a sound-wave advancing triumphantly to greet the sun
+as his roseate rim became visible over the forest like the rim of a cup
+that, filled with the essence of life, was about to empty its contents
+upon the earth, and to pour a bounteous flood of creative puissance
+upon the marshes whence a reddish vapour as of incense was arising.
+Meanwhile on the more precipitous of the two banks some of the trees
+near the river's margin were throwing soft green shadows over the
+water, while gilt-like dew was sparkling on the herbage, and birds were
+awakening, and as a white gull skimmed the water's surface on level
+wings, the pale shadow of those wings followed the bird over the tinted
+expanse, while the sun, suspended in flame behind the forest, like the
+Imperial bird of the fairy-tale, rose higher and higher into the
+greenish-blue zenith, until silvery Venus, expiring, herself looked
+like a bird.
+
+Here and there on the yellow strip of sand by the river's margin,
+long-legged snipe were scurrying about. Two fishermen were rocking in a
+boat in the steamer's wash as they hauled their tackle. Floating from
+the shore there began to reach us such vocal sounds of morning as the
+crowing of cocks, the lowing of cattle, and the persistent murmur of
+human voices.
+
+Similarly the buff-coloured bales in the steamer's stem gradually
+reddened, as did the grey tints in the beard of the large peasant
+where, sprawling his ponderous form over the deck, he was lying asleep
+with mouth open, nostrils distended with stertorous snores, brows
+raised as though in astonishment, and thick moustache intermittently
+twitching.
+
+Someone amid the piles of bales was panting as he fidgeted, and as I
+glanced in that direction I encountered the gaze of a pair of small,
+narrow, inflamed eyes, and beheld before me the ragged, mitten-like
+face, though now it looked even thinner and greyer than it had done on
+the previous evening. Apparently its owner was feeling cold, for he had
+hunched his chin between his knees, and clasped his hirsute arms around
+his legs, as his eyes stared gloomily, with a hunted air, in my
+direction. Then wearily, lifelessly he said:
+
+"Yes, you have found me. And now you can thrash me if you wish to do
+so--you can give me a blow, for I gave you one, and, consequently, it's
+your turn to do the hitting."
+
+Stupefied with astonishment, I inquired in an undertone.
+
+"It was you, then, that hit me?"
+
+"It was so, but where are your witnesses?"
+
+The words came in hoarse, croaked, suppressed accents, with a
+separation of the hands, and an upthrow of the head and projecting cars
+which had such a comical look of being crushed beneath the weight of
+the battened-down cap. Next, thrusting his hands into the pockets of
+his pea-jacket, the man repeated in a tone of challenge:
+
+"Where, I say, are your witnesses? You can go to the devil!"
+
+I could discern in him something at once helpless and froglike which
+evoked in me a strong feeling of repulsion; and since, with that, I had
+no real wish to converse with him, or even to revenge myself upon him
+for his cowardly blow, I turned away in silence.
+
+But a moment later I looked at him again, and saw that he was seated in
+his former posture, with his arms embracing his knees, his chin resting
+upon them, and his red, sleepless eyes gazing lifelessly at the barge
+which the steamer was towing between wide ribbons of foaming
+water--ribbons sparkling in the sunlight like mash in a brewer's vat.
+
+And those eyes, that dead, alienated expression, the gay cheerfulness
+of the morning, and the clear radiance of the heavens, and the kindly
+tints of the two banks, and the vocal sounds of the June day, and the
+bracing freshness of the air, and the whole scene around us served but
+to throw into the more tragic relief.
+
+      *      *      *      *      *
+
+Just as the steamer was leaving Sundir the man threw himself into the
+water; in the sight of everybody he sprang overboard. Upon that all
+shouted, jostled their neighbours as they rushed to the side, and fell
+to scanning the river where from bank to bank it lay wrapped in
+blinding glitter.
+
+The whistle sounded in fitful alarm, the sailors threw lifebelts
+overboard, the deck rumbled like a drum under the crowd's surging
+rush, steam hissed afflightedly, a woman vented an hysterical cry, and
+the captain bawled from the bridge the imperious command:
+
+"Avast heaving lifebelts! By now the fool will have got one! Damn you,
+calm the passengers!"
+
+An unwashed, untidy priest with timid, staring eyes thrust back his
+long, dishevelled hair, and fell to repeating, as his fat shoulder
+jostled all and sundry, and his feet tripped people up.
+
+"A muzhik, is it, or a woman? A muzhik, eh?"
+
+By the time that I had made my way to the stern the man had fallen far
+behind the stern of the barge, and his head looked as small as a fly on
+the glassy surface of the water. However, towards that fly a
+fishing-boat was already darting with the swiftness of a water beetle,
+and causing its two oars to show quiveringly red and grey, while from
+the marshier of the two banks there began hastily to put out a second
+boat which leapt in the steamer's wash with the gaiety of a young calf.
+
+Suddenly there broke into the painful hubbub on the steamer's deck a
+faint, heartrending cry of "A-a-ah!"
+
+In answer to it a sharp-nosed, black-bearded, well-dressed peasant
+muttered with a smack of his lips:
+
+"Ah! That is him shouting. What a madman he must have been! And an ugly
+customer too, wasn't he?"
+
+The peasant with the curly beard rejoined in a tone of conviction
+engulfing all other utterances:
+
+"It is his conscience that is catching him. Think what you like, but
+never can conscience be suppressed."
+
+Therewith, constantly interrupting one another, the pair betook
+themselves to a public recital of the tragic story of the fair-haired
+young fellow, whom the fishermen had now lifted from the water, and
+were conveying towards the steamer with oars that oscillated at top
+speed.
+
+The bearded peasant continued:
+
+"As soon as it was seen that he was but running after the soldier's
+wife."
+
+"Besides," the other peasant interrupted, "the property was not to be
+divided after the death of the father."
+
+With which the bearded muzhik eagerly recounted the history of the
+murder done by the brother, the nephew, and a son, while the spruce,
+spare, well-dressed peasant interlarded the general buzz of
+conversation with words and comments cheerfully and stridently
+delivered, much as though he were driving in stakes for the erection of
+a fence.
+
+"Every man is drawn most in the direction whither he finds it easiest
+to go."
+
+"Then it will be the Devil that will be drawing him, since the
+direction of Hell is always the easiest."
+
+"Well, YOU will not be going that way, I suppose? You don't altogether
+fancy it?"
+
+"Why should I?"
+
+"Because you have declared it to be the easiest way."
+
+"Well, I am not a saint."
+
+"No, ha-ha! you are not."
+
+"And you mean that--?"
+
+"I mean nothing. If a dog's chain be short, he is not to be blamed."
+
+Whereupon, setting nose to nose, the pair plunged into a quarrel still
+more heated as they expounded in simple, but often curiously apposite,
+language opinions intelligible to themselves alone. The one peasant, a
+lean fellow with lengthy limbs, cold, sarcastic eyes, and a dark, bony
+countenance, spoke loudly and sonorously, with frequent shrugs of the
+shoulders, while the other peasant, a man stout and broad of build who
+until now had seemed calm, self-assured of demeanour, and a man of
+settled views, breathed heavily, while his oxlike eyes glowed with an
+ardour causing his face to flush patchily, and his beard to stick out
+from his chin.
+
+"Look here, for instance," he growled as he gesticulated and rolled his
+dull eyes about. "How can that be? Does not even God know wherein a man
+ought to restrain himself?"
+
+"If the Devil be one's master, God doesn't come into the matter."
+
+"Liar! For who was the first who raised his hand against his fellow?"
+
+"Cain."
+
+"And the first man who repented of a sin?"
+
+"Adam."
+
+"Ah! You see!"
+
+Here there broke into the dispute a shout of: "They are just getting
+him aboard!" and the crowd, rushing away from the stern, carried with
+it the two disputants--the sparer peasant; lowering his shoulders, and
+buttoning up his jacket as he went; while the bearded peasant,
+following at his heels, thrust his head forward in a surly manner as he
+shifted his cap from the one ear to the other.
+
+With a ponderous beating of paddles against the current the steamer
+heaved to, and the captain shouted through a speaking-trumpet, with a
+view to preventing a collision between the barge and the stem of the
+vessel:
+
+"Put her over! Put her o-o-ove-r!"
+
+Soon the fishing-boat came alongside, and the half-drowned man, with a
+form as limp as a half-empty sack, and water exuding from every stitch,
+and his hitherto haggard face grown smooth and simple-looking, was
+hoisted on board.
+
+Next, on the sailors laying him upon the hatchway of the baggage hold,
+he sat up, leaned forward, smoothed his wet hair with the palms of his
+hands, and asked dully, without looking at anyone:
+
+"Have they also recovered my cap?"
+
+Someone among the throng around him exclaimed reprovingly:
+
+"It is not about your cap that you ought to be thinking, but about your
+soul."
+
+Upon this he hiccuped loudly and freely, like a camel, and emitted a
+stream of turgid water from his mouth. Then, looking at the crowd with
+lack-lustre eyes, he said in an apathetic tone:
+
+"Let me be taken elsewhere."
+
+In answer, the boatswain sternly bade him stretch himself out, and this
+the young fellow did, with his hands clasped under his head, and his
+eyes closed, while the boatswain added brusquely to the onlookers:
+
+"Move away, move away, good people. What is there to stare at? This is
+not a show.... Hi, you muzhik! Why did you play us such a trick,
+damn you?"
+
+The crowd however, was not to be suppressed, but indulged in comments.
+
+"He murdered his father, didn't he?"
+
+"What? THAT wretched creature?"
+
+As for the boatswain, he squatted upon his heels, and proceeded to
+subject the rescued man to a course of strict interrogation.
+
+"What is the destination marked on your ticket?"
+
+"Perm."
+
+"Then you ought to leave the boat at Kazan. And what is your name?"
+
+"Yakov."
+
+"And your surname?"
+
+"Bashkin--though we are known also as the Bukolov family."
+
+"Your family has a DOUBLE surname, then?"
+
+With the full power of his trumpet-like lungs the bearded peasant
+(evidently he had lost his temper) broke in:
+
+"Though his uncle and his brother have been sentenced to penal
+servitude and are travelling together on that barge, he--well, he has
+received his discharge! That is only a personal matter, however. In
+spite of what judges may say, one ought never to kill, since conscience
+cannot bear the thought of blood. Even nearly to become a murderer is
+wrong."
+
+By this time more and more passengers had collected as they awakened
+from sleep and emerged from the first- and second-class cabins. Among
+them was the mate, a man with a black moustache and rubicund features
+who inquired of someone amid the confusion: "You are not a doctor, I
+suppose?" and received the astonished, high-pitched reply: "No, sir,
+nor ever have been one."
+
+To this someone added with a drawl:
+
+"Why is a doctor needed? Surely the man is a fellow of no particular
+importance?"
+
+Over the river the radiance of the summer daylight had gathered
+increased strength, and, since the date was a Sunday, bells were
+sounding seductively from a hill, and a couple of women in gala apparel
+who were following the margin of the river waved handkerchiefs towards
+the steamer, and shouted some greeting.
+
+Meanwhile the young fellow lay motionless, with his eyes closed.
+Divested of his pea-jacket, and wrapped about with wet, clinging
+underclothing, he looked more symmetrical than previously--his chest
+seemed better developed, his body plumper, and his face more rotund and
+less ugly.
+
+Yet though the passengers gazed at him with compassion or distaste or
+severity or fear, as the case might be, all did so without ceremony, as
+though he had not been a living man at all.
+
+For instance, a gaunt gentleman in a grey frock-coat said to a lady in
+a yellow straw hat adorned with a pink ribbon:
+
+"At our place, in Riazan, when a certain master-watchmaker went and
+hanged himself to a ventilator, he first of all stopped every watch and
+clock in his shop. Now, the question is, why did he stop them?"
+
+"An abnormal case indeed!"
+
+On the other hand, a dark-browed woman who had her hands hidden beneath
+her shawl stood gazing at the rescued man in silence, and with her side
+turned towards him. As she did so tears were welling in her grey-blue
+eyes.
+
+Presently two sailors appeared. One of them bent over the young fellow,
+touched him on the shoulder, and said:
+
+"Hi! You are to get up."
+
+Whereupon the young fellow rose, and was removed elsewhither.
+
+      *      *      *      *      *
+
+When, after an interval, he reappeared on deck, he was clean and dry,
+and clad in a cook's white jumper and a sailor's blue serge trousers.
+Clasping his hands behind his back, hunching his shoulders, and bending
+his head forward, he walked swiftly to the stern, with a throng of
+idlers--at first one by one, and then in parties of from three to a
+dozen--following in his wake.
+
+The man seated himself upon a coil of rope, and, craning his neck in
+wolf-like fashion to eye the bystanders, frowned, let fall his temples
+upon hands thrust into his flaxen hair, and fixed his gaze upon the
+barge.
+
+Standing or sitting about in the hot sunshine, people stared at him
+without stint. Evidently they would have liked, but did not dare, to
+engage him in conversation. Presently the big peasant also arrived on
+the scene, and, after glancing at all present, took off his hat, and
+wiped his perspiring face. Next, a grey-headed old man with a red nose,
+a thin wisp of beard, and watery eyes cleared his throat, and in
+honeyed tones took the initiative.
+
+"Would you mind telling us how it all happened?" he began.
+
+"Why should I do so?" retorted the young fellow without moving.
+
+Taking a red handkerchief from his bosom, the old man shook it out and
+applied it cautiously to his eyes. Then he said through its folds in
+the quiet accents of a man who is determined to persevere:
+
+"Why, you say? For the reason that the occasion is one when all ought
+to know the tru--"
+
+Lurching forward, the bearded peasant interposed with a rasp:
+
+"Yes, do you tell us all about it, and things will become easier for
+you. For a sin always needs to be made known."
+
+While, like an echo, a voice said in bold and sarcastic accents:
+
+"It would be better to seize him and tie him up."
+
+Upon this the young fellow raised his brows a little, and retorted in
+an undertone:
+
+"Let me bide."
+
+"The rascal!" the crowd commented, while the old man, neatly folding
+and replacing his handkerchief, raised a hand as dry as a cock's leg,
+and remarked with a sharp, knowing smile:
+
+"Possibly it is not merely out of idle curiosity that folk are making
+this request."
+
+"Go and be damned to you!" the young fellow exclaimed with a grim snap.
+Whereupon the big peasant bellowed out in a blustering fashion:
+
+"What? Then you will not tell us at least your destination?"
+
+Whereafter the same speaker continued to hold forth on humanity, God,
+and the human conscience--staring wildly around him as he did so,
+waving his arms about, and growing ever more frantic, until really it
+was curious to watch him.
+
+At length the crowd grew similarly excited, and took to encouraging the
+speaker with cries of "True! That is so!"
+
+As for the young fellow, he listened awhile in silence, without moving.
+Then, straightening his back, he rose, thrust his hands into the
+pockets of his trousers, and, swaying his body to and fro, began to
+glare at the crowd with greenish eyes which were manifestly lightening
+to a vicious gleam. At length, thrusting forth his chest, he cried
+hoarsely:
+
+"So you ask me whither I am bound? I am bound for the brigands' lair,
+for the brigands' lair, where, unless you first take and put me in
+fetters, I intend to cut the throat of every man that I meet. Yes, a
+hundred murders will I commit, for all folk will be the same to me, and
+not a soul will I spare. Aye, the end of my tether is reached, so take
+and fetter me whilst you can."
+
+His breath was issuing with difficulty, and as he spoke his shoulders
+heaved, and his legs trembled beneath him. Also, his face had turned
+grey and become distorted with tremors.
+
+Upon this, the crowd broke into a gruff, ugly, resentful roar, and
+edged away from the man. Yet, in doing so, many of its members looked
+curiously like the man himself in the way that they lowered their
+heads, caught at their breath, and let their eyes flash. Clearly the
+man was in imminent danger of being assaulted.
+
+Suddenly he recovered his subdued demeanour--he, as it were, thawed in
+the sunlight: until, as suddenly, his legs gave way beneath him, and,
+narrowly escaping injury to his face from the corner of a bale, he fell
+forward upon his knees as though felled with an axe. Thereafter,
+clutching at his throat, he shouted in a strange voice, and crowding
+the words upon one another:
+
+"Tell me what I am to do. Is all of it my fault? Long I lay in prison
+before I was tried and told to go free... yet--"
+
+Tearing at his ears and cheeks, he rocked his head to and fro as though
+seeking to rend it from its socket. Then he continued:
+
+"Yet I am NOT free. Nor is it in my power to say what will become of
+me. For me there remains neither life nor death."
+
+"Aha!" exclaimed the big peasant; and at the sound the crowd drew back
+as in consternation, while some hastened to depart altogether. As for
+the remainder (numbering a dozen or so), they herded sullenly,
+nervously, involuntarily into a mass as the young fellow continued in
+distracted tones and with a trembling head:
+
+"Oh that I could sleep for the next ten years! For then could I prove
+myself, and decide whether I am guilty or not. Last night I struck a
+man with a faggot. As I was walking about I saw asleep a man who had
+angered me, and thereupon thought, 'Come! I should like to deal him a
+blow, but can I actually do it?' And strike him I did. Was it my fault?
+Always I keep asking myself, 'Can I, or can I not, do a thing?' Aye,
+lost, lost am I!"
+
+Apparently this outburst caused the man to reach the end of his power,
+for presently he sank from knees to heels--then on to his side, with
+hands clasping his head, and his tongue finally uttering the words,
+"Better had you kill me!"
+
+A hush fell, for all now stood confounded and silent, with, about them,
+a greyer, a more subdued, look which made all more resemble their
+fellows. In fact, to all had the atmosphere become oppressive, as
+though everyone's breast had had clamped into it a large, soft clod of
+humid, viscid earth. Until at last someone said in a low, shamefaced,
+but friendly, tone:
+
+"Good brother, we are not your judges."
+
+To which someone else added with an equal measure of gentleness:
+
+"Indeed, we may be no better than you."
+
+"We pity you, but we must not judge you. Only pity is permitted."
+
+As for the well-dressed peasant, his loud, triumphant utterance was:
+
+"Let God judge him, but men suffer him. Of judging of one another there
+has been enough."
+
+And a fifth man remarked to a friend as he walked away:
+
+"What are we to make of this? To judge by the book, the young fellow is
+at once guilty and not guilty."
+
+"Bygones ought to be bygones. Of all courses that is the best."
+
+"Yes, for we are too quick. What good can that do?"
+
+"Aye, what?"
+
+At length the dark-browed woman stepped forward. Letting her shawl to
+her shoulders, straightening hair streaked with grey under a bright
+blue scarf, and deftly putting aside a skirt she so seated herself
+beside the young fellow as to screen from the crowd with the height of
+her figure. Then, raising kindly face, she said civilly, but
+authoritatively, to the bystanders:
+
+"Do all of you go away."
+
+Whereupon the crowd began to depart, the big peasant saying as he went:
+
+"There! Just as I foretold has the matter turned out. Conscience HAS
+asserted itself."
+
+Yet the words were spoken without self-complacency, rather,
+thoughtfully, and with a sense of awe.
+
+As for the red-nosed old man who was walking like a shadow behind the
+last speaker, he opened his snuff-box, peered therein with his moist
+eyes, and drawled to no one in particular:
+
+"How often does one see a man play with conscience, yes, even though he
+be a rogue! He erects that conscience as a screen to his knaveries and
+tricks and wiles, and masks the whole with a cloud of words. Yes, we
+know how it is done, even though folk may stare at him, and say to one
+another, 'How fervently his soul is glowing!' Aye, all the time that he
+is holding his hand to his heart he will be dipping the other hand into
+your pocket."
+
+The lover of proverbs, for his part, unbuttoned his jacket, thrust his
+hands under his coat-tails, and said in a loud voice:
+
+"There is a saying that you can trust any wild beast, such as a fox or
+a hedgehog or a toad, but not--"
+
+"Quite so, dear sir. The common folk are exceedingly degenerate."
+
+"Well, they are not developing as they ought to do."
+
+"No, they are over-cramped," was the big peasant's rasped-out comment.
+"They have no room for GROWTH."
+
+"Yes, they DO grow, but only as regards beard and moustache, as a tree
+grows to branch and sap."
+
+With a glance at the purveyor of proverbs the old man assented by
+remarking: "Yes, true it is that the common folk are cramped."
+Whereafter he thrust a pinch of snuff into his nostrils, and threw back
+his head in anticipation of the sneeze which failed to come. At length,
+drawing a deep breath through his parted lips, he said as he measured
+the peasant again with his eyes:
+
+"My friend, you are of a sort calculated to last."
+
+In answer the peasant nodded.
+
+"SOME day," he remarked, "we shall get what we want."
+
+In front of us now, was Kazan, with the pinnacles of its churches and
+mosques piercing the blue sky, and looking like garlands of exotic
+blooms. Around them lay the grey wall of the Kremlin, and above them
+soared the grim Tower of Sumbek.
+
+Here one and all were due to disembark.
+
+I glanced towards the stern once more. The dark-browed woman was
+breaking off morsels from a wheaten scone that was lying in her lap,
+and saying as she did so:
+
+"Presently we will have a cup of tea, and then keep together as far as
+Christopol."
+
+In response the young fellow edged nearer to her, and thoughtfully eyed
+the large hands which, though inured to hard work, could also be very
+gentle.
+
+"I have been trodden upon," he said.
+
+"Trodden upon by whom?"
+
+"By all. And I am afraid of them."
+
+"Why so?"
+
+"Because I am."
+
+Breathing upon a morsel of the scone, the woman offered it him with the
+quiet words:
+
+"You have had much to bear. Now, shall I tell you my history, or shall
+we first have tea?"
+
+      *      *      *      *      *
+
+On the bank there was now to be seen the frontage of the gay, wealthy
+suburb of Uslon, with its brightly-dressed, rainbow-tinted women and
+girls tripping through the streets, and the water of its foaming river
+sparkling hotly, yet dimly, in the sunlight.
+
+It was a scene like a scene beheld in a vision.
+
+
+
+
+A WOMAN
+
+The wind is scudding over the steppe, and beating upon the rampart of
+the Caucasian heights until their backbone seems to be bellying like a
+huge sail, and the earth to be whirling and whizzing through
+unfathomable depths of blue, and leaving behind it a rack of wind-torn
+clouds which, as their shadows glide over the surface of the land, seem
+ever to be striving to keep in touch with the onrush of the gale, and,
+failing to maintain the effort, dissolving in tears and despondency.
+
+The trees too are bending in the attitude of flight--their boughs are
+brandishing their foliage as a dog worries a fleece, and littering the
+black soil with leaves among which runs a constant querulous hissing
+and rustling. Also, storks are uttering their snapping cry, sleek rooks
+cawing, steppe grasshoppers maintaining their tireless chirp, sturdy,
+well-grown husbandmen uttering shouts like words of command, the
+threshing-floors of the rolling steppe diffusing a rain of golden
+chaff, and eddying whirlwinds catching up stray poultry feathers,
+dried-onion strips, and leaves yellowed with the heat, to send them
+dancing again over the trim square of the little Cossack hamlet.
+
+Similarly does the sun keep appearing and disappearing as though he
+were pursuing the fugitive earth, and ever and anon halting through
+weariness before his decline into the dark, shadowy vista where the
+snowclad peaks of the western mountains are rearing their heads, and
+fast-reddening clouds are reminding one of the surface of a ploughed
+field.
+
+At times those clouds part their bulk to reveal in blinding splendour
+the silvery saddle of Mount Elburz, and the crystal fangs of other
+peaks--all, apparently, striving to catch and detain the scudding
+vapours. And to such a point does one come to realise the earth's
+flight through space that one can scarcely draw one's breath for the
+tension, the rapture, of the thought that with the rush of that dear
+and beautiful earth oneself is keeping pace towards, and ever tending
+towards, the region where, behind the eternal, snow-clad peaks, there
+lies a boundless ocean of blue--an ocean beside which there may lie
+stretched yet other proud and marvellous lands, a void of azure amid
+which one may come to descry far-distant, many-tinted spheres of
+planets as yet unknown, but sisters, all, to this earth of ours.
+
+Meanwhile from the steppe slow, ponderous grey oxen with sharp horns
+are drawing an endless succession of wagon-loads of threshed grain
+through rich, black, sootlike dust. Patiently the beasts' round eyes
+regard the earth, while on the top of each load there lolls a Cossack
+who, with face sunburnt to the last pitch of swarthiness, and eyes
+reddened with exposure to the wind, and beard matted, seemingly
+solidified, with dust and sweat, is clad in a shirt drab with grime,
+and has a shaggy Persian cap thrust to the back of his head.
+Occasionally, also, he may be seen riding on the pole in front of his
+team, and being buffeted from behind by the wind which inflates his
+shirt. And as sleek and comfortable as the carcasses of the bullocks
+are these Cossacks' frames in proportion their eyes are sluggishly
+intelligent, and in their every movement is the deliberate air of men
+who know precisely what they have to do.
+
+"Tsob, tsobe!" such fellows shout to their teams. This year they are
+reaping a splendid harvest.
+
+Yet though these folk, one and all, look fat and prosperous, their mien
+is dour, and they speak reluctantly, and through their teeth. Possibly
+this is because they are over-weary with toil. However that may be, the
+full-fed country people of the region laugh but little, and seldom sing.
+
+In the centre of the hamlet soars the red brick church of the place--an
+edifice which, with its five pinnacles, its belfry over its porch, and
+its yellow plaster window-mouldings, looks like an edifice that has
+been fashioned of meat, and cemented with grease. Nay, its very shadow
+seems so richly heavy as to be the shadow of a fane erected by men
+endowed with a plethora of this world's goods to a god otiose in his
+grandeur. Ranged around the building in ring fashion, the hamlet's
+squat white huts stand girdled with belts of plaited wattle, shawled in
+the gorgeous silken scarves of gardens, and crowned with a flowered
+brocadework of reed-thatched roofs. In fact, they resemble a bevy of
+buxom babi, [Peasant women] as over and about them wave silver poplar
+trees, with quivering, lacelike leaves of acacias, and dark-leaved
+chestnuts (the leaves of the latter like the palms of human hands)
+which rock to and fro as though they would fain seize, and detain the
+driving clouds. Also, from court to court scurry Cossack women who,
+with skirt-tails tucked up to reveal muscular legs bare to the knee,
+are preparing to array themselves for the morrow's festival, and,
+meanwhile, chattering to one another, or shouting to plump infants
+which may be seen bathing in the dust like sparrows, or picking up
+handfuls of sand, and tossing them into the air.
+
+Sheltered from the wind by the churchyard wall, there may be seen also,
+as they sprawl on the dry, faded herbage, a score of "strollers for
+work" that is to say, of folk who, a community apart, consist of
+"nowhere people," of dreamers who live constantly in expectation of
+some stroke of luck, some kindly smile from fortune, and of wastrels
+who, intoxicated with the abundant bounty of the opulent region, have
+fallen passive victims to the Russian craze for vagrancy. These folk
+tramp from hamlet to hamlet in parties of two or three, and, while
+purporting to seek employment, merely contemplate that employment
+lethargically, express astonishment at the plenitude which it produces,
+and then decline to put their hands to toil save when dire necessity
+renders it no longer possible to satisfy hunger's pangs through the
+expedients of mendicancy and theft. Dull, or cowed, or timid, or
+furtive of eye, these folk have lost all sense of the difference
+between that which constitutes honesty and that which does not.
+
+The morrow being the Feast of the Assumption, these people have, in the
+present instance, gathered from every quarter of the country, for the
+reason that they hope to be provided with food and drink without first
+being made to earn their entertainment.
+
+For the most part they are Russians from the central provinces,
+vagabonds whose faces are blackened, and heads blanched with the
+unaccustomed sunshine of the South, but whose bodies are clad merely in
+rags tossed and tumbled by the wind. True, the wearers of those rags
+declare themselves to be peaceful, respectable citizens whom toil and
+life's buffetings have exhausted, and compelled to seek temporary rest
+and prayer; yet never does a creaking, groaning, ponderous grain wagon,
+with its Cossack driver, pass them by without their according the
+latter a humble, obsequious salute as, with straw in mouth, and
+omitting, always, to raise his cap, the man glances at them askance and
+with contempt, or, more frequently, does not even descry these
+tattered, grimy hulks between whom and himself there is absolutely
+nothing in common.
+
+Lower even, and more noticeably, more pretentiously, than the rest does
+a certain "needy" native of Tula named Konev salute each Cossack. A
+hardbitten muzhik as sunburnt as a stick of ergot, he has a black beard
+distributed irregularly over a lean face, a fawning smile, and eyes
+deep-sunken in their sockets.
+
+Most of these persons I have met for the first time today; but Konev is
+an old acquaintance of mine, for he and I have more than once
+encountered one another on the road between Kursk and the province of
+Ter. An "artelni," that is to say, a member of a workman's union, he
+cultivates his fellows' good graces for the reason that he is also an
+arrant coward, and accustomed, everywhere save in his own village
+(which lies buried among the sands of Alexin), to assert that:
+
+"Certainly, this countryside is rich, yet I cannot hit things off with
+its inhabitants. In my own part of the country folk are more spiritual,
+more truly Russian, by far than here--they are folk with whom the
+natives of this region are not to be compared, since in the one
+locality the population has a human soul, whereas in the other locality
+it is a flint-stone."
+
+And with a certain quiet reflectiveness, he loves also to recount a
+marvellous example of unlooked-for enrichment. He will say to you:
+
+"Maybe you do not believe in the virtue of horseshoes? Yet I tell YOU
+that once, when a certain peasant of Efremov found a horseshoe, the
+next three weeks saw it befall that that peasant's uncle, a tradesman
+of Efremov, was burnt to death with all his family, and the property
+devolved to the peasant. Did you ever hear of such a thing? What is
+going to happen CANNOT be foretold, for at any moment fortune may pity
+a man, and send him a windfall."
+
+As Konev says this his dark, pointed eyebrows will go shooting up his
+forehead, and his eyes come protruding out of their sockets, as though
+he himself cannot believe what he has just related.
+
+Again, should a Cossack pass him without returning his salute, he will
+mutter as he follows the man with his eyes:
+
+"An overfed fellow, that--a fellow who can't even look at a human
+being! The souls of these folk, I tell you, are withered."
+
+On the present occasion he has arrived on the scene in company with two
+women. One of them, aged about twenty, is gentle-looking, plump, and
+glassy of eye, with a mouth perpetually half-open, so that the face
+looks like that of an imbecile, and though the exposed teeth of its
+lower portion may seem to be set in a smile, you will perceive, should
+you peer into the motionless eyes under the overhanging brows, that she
+has recently been weeping in the terrified, hysterical fashion of a
+person of weak intellect.
+
+I have come here with that man and other strangers thus I heard her
+narrate in low, querulous tones as with a stumpy finger she rearranged
+the faded hair under her yellow and green scarf.
+
+A fat-faced youth with high cheek-bones and the small eyes of a Mongol
+here nudged her, and said carelessly:
+
+"You mean, rather, that your own man has cast you off. Probably he was
+the only man you ever saw."
+
+"Aye," Konev drawled thoughtfully as he felt in his wallet. "Nowadays
+folk need think little of deserting a woman, since in this year of
+grace women are no good at all."
+
+Upon this the woman frowned--then blinked her eyes timidly, and would
+have opened her lips to reply, but that her companion interrupted her
+by saying in a brisk, incisive tone:
+
+"Do not listen to those rascals!"
+
+      *      *      *      *      *
+
+The woman's companion, some five or six years her senior, has a face
+exceptional in the constant change and movement of its great dark eyes
+as at one moment they withdraw themselves from the street of the
+Cossack hamlet, to gaze fixedly and gravely towards the steppe where it
+lies scoured with the scudding breeze, and at another moment fall to
+scanning the faces of the persons around her, and, at another, frown
+anxiously, or send a smile flitting across her comely lips as she bends
+her head, until her features are concealed. Next, the head is raised
+again, for the eyes have taken on another phase, and become dilated
+with interest, while a sharp furrow is forming between the slender
+eyebrows, and the finely moulded lips and trim mouth have compressed
+themselves together, and the thin nostrils of the straight nose are
+snuffing the air like those of a horse.
+
+In fact, in the woman there is something non-peasant in its origin. For
+instance, let one but watch her sharply clicking feet as, in walking,
+they peep from under her blue skirt, and one will perceive that they
+are not the splayed feet of a villager, but, rather, feet arched of
+instep, and at one time accustomed to the wearing of boots. Or, as the
+woman sits engaged in embroidering a blue bodice with a pattern of
+white peas, one will perceive that she has long been accustomed to
+plying the needle so dexterously; swiftly do the small, sunburnt hands
+fly in and out under the tumbled material, eagerly though the wind may
+strive to wrest it from her. Again, as she sits bending over her work,
+one will descry through a rent in her bodice a small, firm bosom which
+might almost have been that of a virgin, were it not for the fact that
+a projecting teat proclaims that she is a woman preparing to suckle an
+infant. In short, as she sits among her companions she looks like a
+fragment of copper flung into the midst of some rusty old scrap-iron.
+
+Most of the people in whose society I wander neither rise to great
+heights nor sink to great depths, but are as colourless as dust, and
+wearisomely insignificant. Hence is it that whenever I chance upon a
+person whose soul I can probe and explore for thoughts unfamiliar to me
+and words not hitherto heard I congratulate myself, seeing that though
+it is my desire to see life grow more fair and exalted, and I yearn to
+bring about that end, there constantly reveals itself to me merely a
+vista of sharp angles and dark spaces and poor crushed, defrauded
+people. Yes, never do I seek to project a spark of my own fire into the
+darkness of my neighbour's soul but I see that spark disappear, become
+lost, in a chaos of dumb vacuity.
+
+Hence the woman of whom I have just spoken particularly excites my
+fancy, and leads me to attempt divinations of her past, until I find
+myself evolving a story which is not only of vast complexity, but has
+got painted into it merely the colours of my own hopes and aspirations.
+It is a story necessarily illusory, necessarily bound to make life seem
+even worse than before. Yet it is a grievous thing NEVER to distort
+actuality, NEVER to envelop actuality in the wrappings of one's
+imagination....
+
+Closing his eyes, and picking his words with difficulty, a tall, fair
+peasant drawls in thick, gluelike tones:
+
+"'Very well,' I said: and off we set. On the way I said again: 'Gubin,
+though you may not like to be told so, you are no better than a thief.'"
+
+The o's uttered by this peasant are uniformly round and firm--they roll
+forward as a cartwheel trundles along a hot, dusty country road.
+
+The youth with the high cheek-bones fixes the whites of his porcine
+eyes (eyes the pupils of which are as indeterminate as the eyes of a
+blind man) upon the woman in the green scarf. Then, having, like a
+calf, plucked and chewed some stalks of the withered grass, he rolls up
+the sleeves of his shirt, bends one fist into the crook of the elbow,
+and says to Konev with a glance at the well-developed muscle:
+
+"Should you care to hit me?"
+
+"No, you can hit yourself. Hit yourself over the head. Then, perhaps,
+you'll grow wiser."
+
+Stolidly the young fellow looks at Konev, and inquires:
+
+"How do you know me to be a fool?"
+
+"Because your personality tells me so."
+
+"Eh?" cries the young fellow truculently as he raises himself to a
+kneeling posture. "How know you what I am?"
+
+"I have been told what you are by the Governor of your province."
+
+The young fellow opens his mouth, and stares at Konev. Then he asks:
+
+"To what province do I belong?"
+
+"If you yourself have forgotten to what province you belong, you had
+better try and loosen your wits."
+
+"Look here. If I were to hit you, I--"
+
+The woman who has been sewing drops her work to shrug one rounded
+shoulder as though she were cold, and ask conciliatorily:
+
+"Well, WHAT province do you belong to?"
+
+"I?" the young fellow re-echoes as he subsides on to his heels. "I
+belong to Penza. Why do you ask?"
+
+"Oh never mind why."
+
+Presently, with a strangely youthful laugh, the woman adds in a murmur:
+
+"I ask because I too belong to that province."
+
+"And to which canton?"
+
+"To that of Penza." In the woman's tone is a touch of pride.
+
+The young fellow squats down before her, as before a wood fire,
+stretches out his hands, and says in an ingratiating voice:
+
+"What a fine place is our cantonal town! What churches and shops and
+stone houses there are in it! In fact, one shop sells a machine on
+which you can play anything you like, any sort of a tune!"
+
+"As well as, probably, the fool," comments Konev in an undertone,
+though the young fellow is too enthralled with the memory of the
+amenities of his cantonal capital to notice the remark. Next, smacking
+his lips, and chewing his words, he continues in a murmur:
+
+"In those stone houses."
+
+Here the woman drops her sewing a second time to inquire: "Is there a
+convent there?"
+
+"A convent?"
+
+And the young fellow pauses uncouthly to scratch his neck. Only after a
+while does he answer:
+
+"A convent? Well, I do not know, for only once, to tell the truth, have
+I been in the town, and that was when some of us famine folk were set
+to a job of roadmaking."
+
+"Well, well!" gasps Konev, as he rises and takes his departure.
+
+The vagabonds, huddled against the churchyard wall, look like litter
+driven thither by the steppe wind, and as liable to be whirled away
+again whenever the wind shall choose. Three of the party are sleeping,
+and the remainder either mending their clothing, or killing fleas, or
+lethargically munching bread collected at the windows of the Cossacks'
+huts. I find the sight of them weary me as much as does the young
+fellows fatuous babble. Also, I find that whenever the elder of the two
+women lifts her eyes from her work, and half smiles, the faint
+half-smile in question vexes me intensely. Consequently, I end by
+departing in Konev's wake.
+
+Guarding the entrance of the churchyard, four poplar trees stand erect,
+save when, as the wind harries them, they bow alternately to the arid,
+dusty earth and towards the dim vista of tow-coloured steppe and
+snowcapped mountain peaks. Yet, oh how that steppe, bathed in golden
+sunshine, draws one to itself and its smooth desolation of sweet, dry
+grasses as the parched, fragrant expanse rustles under the soughing
+wind!
+
+"You ask about that woman, eh?" queries Konev, whom I find leaning
+against one of the poplar trunks, and embracing it with an arm.
+
+"Yes. From where does she hail?"
+
+"From Riazan, she says. Another story of hers is that her name is
+Tatiana."
+
+"Has she been with you long?"
+
+"No. In fact, it was only this morning, some thirty versts from here,
+that I overtook her and her companion. However, I have seen her before,
+at Maikop-on-Laba, during the season of hay harvest, when she had with
+her an elderly, smoothfaced muzhik who might have been a soldier, and
+certainly was either her lover or an uncle, as well as a bully and a
+drunkard of the type which, before it has been two days in a place,
+starts about as many brawls. At present, however, she is tramping with
+none but this female companion, for, after that the 'uncle' had drunk
+away his very belly-band and reins, he was clapped in gaol. The
+Cossack, you know, is an awkward person to deal with."
+
+Although Konev speaks without constraint, his eyes are fixed upon the
+ground in a manner suggestive of some disturbing thought. And as the
+breeze ruffles his dishevelled beard and ragged pea-jacket it ends by
+robbing his head of his cap--of the tattered, peakless clout which,
+with rents in its lining, so closely resembles a tchepchik [Woman's
+mob-cap], as to communicate to the picturesque features of its wearer
+an appearance comically feminine.
+
+"Ye-es," expectorating, and drawling the words between his teeth, he
+continues: "She is a remarkable woman, a regular, so to speak,
+highstepper. Yet it must have been the Devil himself that blew this
+young oaf with the bloated jowl on to the scene. Otherwise I should
+soon have fixed up matters with her. The cur that he is!"
+
+"But once you told me that you had a wife already?"
+
+Darting at me an angry glance, he turns away with a mutter of:
+
+"AM I to carry my wife about with me in my wallet?"
+
+Here there comes limping across the square a moustachioed Cossack. In
+one hand he is holding a bunch of keys, and in the other hand a
+battered Cossack cap, peak in front. Behind him, sobbing and applying
+his knuckles to his eyes, there is creeping a curly-headed urchin of
+eight, while the rear is brought up by a shaggy dog whose dejected
+countenance and lowered tail would seem to show that he too is in
+disgrace. Each time that the boy whimpers more loudly than usual the
+Cossack halts, awaits the lad's coming in silence, cuffs him over the
+head with the peak of the cap, and, resuming his way with the gait of a
+drunken man, leaves the boy and the dog standing where they are--the
+boy lamenting, and the dog wagging its tail as its old black muzzle
+sniffs the air. Somehow I discern in the dog's mien of holding itself
+prepared for anything that may turn up, a certain resemblance to
+Konev's bearing, save that the dog is older in appearance than is the
+vagabond.
+
+"You mentioned my wife, I think?" presently he resumes with a sigh.
+"Yes, I know, but not EVERY malady proves mortal, and I have been
+married nineteen years!"
+
+The rest is well-known to me, for all too frequently have I heard it
+and similar tales. Unfortunately, I cannot now take the trouble to stop
+him; so once more I am forced to let his complaints come oozing
+tediously into my ears.
+
+"The wench was plump," says Konev, "and panting for love; so we just
+got married, and brats began to come tumbling from her like bugs from a
+bunk."
+
+Subsiding a little, the breeze takes, as it were, to whispering.
+
+"In fact, I could scarcely turn round for them. Even now seven of them
+are alive, though originally the stud numbered thirteen. And what was
+the use of such a gang? For, consider: my wife is forty-two, and I am
+forty-three. She is elderly, and I am what you behold. True, hitherto I
+have contrived to keep up my spirits; yet poverty is wearing me down,
+and when, last winter, my old woman went to pieces I set forth (for
+what else could I do?) to tour the towns. In fact, folk like you and
+myself have only one job available--the job of licking one's chops, and
+keeping one's eyes open. Yet, to tell you the truth, I no sooner
+perceive myself to be growing superfluous in a place than I spit upon
+that place, and clear out of it."
+
+Never to this sturdy, inveterate rascal does it seem to occur to
+insinuate that he has been doing work of any kind, or that he in the
+least cares to do any; while at the same time all self-pity is eschewed
+in his narrative, and he relates his experiences much as though they
+are the experiences of another man, and not of himself.
+
+Presently, as the Cossack and the boy draw level with us, the former,
+fingering his moustache, inquires thickly:
+
+"Whence are you come?"
+
+"From Russia."
+
+"All such folk come from there."
+
+Thereafter, with a gesture of disdain, this man of the abnormally broad
+nose, eyes floating in fat, and flaxen head shaped like a flounder's,
+resumes his way towards the porch of the church. As for the boy, he
+wipes his nose and follows him while the dog sniffs at our legs, yawns,
+and stretches itself by the churchyard wall.
+
+"Did you see?" mutters Konev. "Oh yes, I tell you that the folk here
+are far less amiable than our own folk in Russia... But hark! What is
+that?"
+
+To our ears there have come from behind the corner of the churchyard
+wall a woman's scream and the sound of dull blows. Rushing thither, we
+behold the fair-headed peasant seated on the prostrate form of the
+young fellow from Penza, and methodically, gruntingly delivering blow
+after blow upon the young fellow's ears with his ponderous fists, while
+counting the blows as he does so. Vainly, at the same time, the woman
+from Riazan is prodding the assailant in the back, whilst her female
+companion is shrieking, and the crowd at large has leapt to its feet,
+and, collected into a knot, is shouting gleefully, "THAT'S the way!
+THAT'S the way!"
+
+"Five!" the fair-headed peasant counts.
+
+"Why are you doing this?" the prostrate man protests.
+
+"Six!"
+
+"Oh dear!" ejaculates Konev, dancing with nervousness. "Oh dear, oh
+dear!"
+
+The smacking, smashing blows fall in regular cadence as, prone on his
+face, the young fellow kicks, struggles and puffs up the dust.
+Meanwhile a tall, dour man in a straw hat is rolling up a shirt-sleeve,
+and alternately bending and stretching a long arm, whilst a lithe,
+white-headed young stripling is hopping, sparrow-like, from one
+onlooker to another, and exclaiming in suppressed, cautious tones:
+
+"Stop it, pray stop it, or we shall be arrested for creating a
+disturbance!"
+
+Presently the tall man strides towards the fair-headed peasant, deals
+him a single blow which knocks him from the back of the young fellow,
+and, turning to the crowd, says with an informing air:
+
+"THAT'S how we do it in Tambov!"
+
+"Brutes! Villains!" screams the woman from Riazan, as she bends over
+the young fellow. Her cheeks are livid, and as she wipes the flushed
+face of the beaten youth with the hem of her gown, her dark eyes are
+flashing with dry wrath, and her lips quivering so painfully as to
+disclose a set of fine, level teeth.
+
+Konev, pecking up to her, says with an air of advice:
+
+"You had better take him away, and give him some water."
+
+Upon this the fair-headed muzhik, rising to his knees, stretches a fist
+towards the man from Tambov, and exclaims:
+
+"Why should he have gone and bragged of his strength, pray?"
+
+"Was that a good reason for thrashing him?"
+
+"And who are you?"
+
+"Who am I?"
+
+"Yes, who are YOU?"
+
+"Never mind. See that I don't give you another swipe!"
+
+Upon this the onlookers plunge into a heated debate as to who was
+actually the beginner of the disturbance, while the lithe young fellow
+continues to wring his hands, and cry imploringly:
+
+"DON'T make so much noise about it! Remember that we are in a strange
+land, and that the folk hereabouts are strict."
+
+So queerly do his ears project from his head that he would seem to be
+able, if he pleased, to fold them right over his eyes.
+
+Suddenly from the roseate heavens comes the vibrant note of a bell;
+whereupon, the hubbub ceases and at the same moment a young Cossack
+with a face studded with freckles, and, in his hands, a cudgel, makes
+his appearance among the crowd.
+
+"What does all this mean?" he inquires not uncivilly.
+
+"They have been beating a man," the woman from Riazan replies. As she
+does so she looks comely in spite of her wrath.
+
+The Cossack glances at her--then smiles.
+
+"And where is the party going to sleep?" he inquires of the crowd.
+
+"Here," someone ventures.
+
+"Then you must not--someone might break into the church. Go, rather, to
+the Ataman [Cossack headman or mayor], and you will be billeted among
+the huts."
+
+"It is a matter of no consequence," Konev remarks as he paces beside
+me. "Yet--"
+
+"They seem to be taking us for robbers," is my interruption.
+
+"As is everywhere the way," he comments. "It is but one thing more laid
+to our charge. Caution decides always that a stranger is a thief."
+
+In front of us walks the woman from Riazan, in company with the young
+fellow of the bloated features. He is downcast of mien, and at length
+mutters something which I cannot catch, but in answer to which she
+tosses her head, and says in a distinct, maternal tone:
+
+"You are too young to associate with such brutes."
+
+The bell of the church is slowly beating, and from the huts there keep
+coming neat old men and women who make the hitherto deserted street
+assume a brisk appearance, and the squat huts take on a welcoming air.
+
+In a resonant, girlish voice there meets our ears:
+
+"Ma-am! Ma-amka! Where is the key of the green box? I want my ribands!"
+
+While in answer to the bell's summons, the oxen low a deep echo.
+
+The wind has fallen, but reddish clouds still are gliding over the
+hamlet, and the mountain peaks blushing until they seem, thawing, to be
+sending streams of golden, liquid fire on to the steppes, where, as
+though cast in stone, a stork, standing on one leg, is listening,
+seemingly, to the rustling of the heat-exhausted herbage.
+
+      *      *      *      *      *
+
+In the forecourt of the Ataman's hut we are deprived of our passports,
+while two of our number, found to be without such documents, are led
+away to a night's lodging in a dark storehouse in a corner of the
+premises. Everything is executed quietly enough, and without the least
+fuss, purely as a matter of routine; yet Konev mutters, as dejectedly
+he contemplates the darkening sky:
+
+"What a surprising thing, to be sure!"
+
+"What is?"
+
+"A passport. Surely a decent, peaceable man ought to be able to travel
+WITHOUT a passport? So long as he be harmless, let him--"
+
+"You are not harmless," with angry emphasis the woman from Riazan
+interposes.
+
+Konev closes his eyes with a smile, and says nothing more.
+
+Almost until the vigil service is over are we kept kicking our heels
+about that forecourt, like sheep in a slaughter-house. Then Konev,
+myself, the two women, and the fat-faced young fellow are led away
+towards the outskirts of the village, and allotted an empty hut with
+broken-down walls and a cracked window.
+
+"No going out will be permitted," says the Cossack who has conducted us
+thither. "Else you will be arrested."
+
+"Then give us a morsel of bread," Konev says with a stammer. "Have you
+done any work here?" the Cossack inquires.
+
+"Yes--a little."
+
+"For me?"
+
+"No. It did not so happen."
+
+"When it does so happen I will give you some bread."
+
+And like a water-butt the fat kindly-looking man goes rolling out of
+the yard.
+
+"What else was to be expected?" grumbles Konev with his eyebrows
+elevated to the middle of his forehead. "The folk hereabouts are
+knaves. Ah, well!"
+
+As for the women, they withdraw to the darkest corner of the hut, and
+lie down, while the young fellow disappears after probing the walls and
+floor, and returns with an armful of straw which he strews upon the
+hard, beaten clay. Then he stretches himself thereon with hands clasped
+behind his battered head.
+
+"See the resourcefulness of that fellow from Penza!" comments Konev
+enviously. "Hi, you women! There is, it would seem, some straw about."
+
+To this comes from the women's corner the acid reply:
+
+"Then go and fetch some."
+
+"For you?"
+
+"Yes, for us."
+
+"Then I must, I suppose."
+
+Nevertheless Konev merely remains sitting on the windowsill, and
+discoursing on the subject of certain needy folk who do but desire to
+go and say their prayers in church, yet are banded into barns.
+
+"Yes, and though you may say that folk, the world over, have a soul in
+common, I tell you that this is not so--that, on the contrary, we
+Russian strangers find it a hard matter here to get looked upon as
+respectable."
+
+With which he slips out quietly into the street, and disappears from
+view.
+
+The young fellow's sleep is restless--he keeps tossing about, with his
+fat arms and legs sprawling over the floor, and grunting, and snoring.
+Under him the straw makes a crackling sound, while the two women
+whisper together in the darkness, and the reeds of the dry thatch on
+the roof rustle (the wind is still drawing an occasional breath), and
+ever and anon a twig brushes against an outside wall. The scene is like
+a scene in a dream.
+
+Out of doors the myriad tongues of the pitch-black, starless night seem
+to be debating something in soft, sad, pitiful tones which ever keep
+growing fainter; until, when the hour of ten has been struck on the
+watchman's gong, and the metal ceases to vibrate, the world grows
+quieter still, much as though all living things, alarmed by the clang
+in the night, have concealed themselves in the invisible earth or the
+equally invisible heavens.
+
+I seat myself by the window, and watch how the earth keeps exhaling
+darkness, and the darkness enveloping, drowning the grey, blurred huts
+in black, tepid vapour, though the church remains invisible--evidently
+something stands interposed between it and my viewpoint. And it seems
+to me that the wind, the seraph of many pinions which has spent three
+days in harrying the land, must now have whirled the earth into a
+blackness, a denseness, in which, exhausted, and panting, and scarcely
+moving, it is helplessly striving to remain within the encompassing,
+all-pervading obscurity where, helpless and weary in like degree, the
+wind has sloughed its thousands of wing-feathers--feathers white and
+blue and golden of tint, but also broken, and smeared with dust and
+blood.
+
+And as I think of our petty, grievous human life, as of a drunkard's
+tune on a sorry musical instrument, or as of a beautiful song spoilt by
+a witless, voiceless singer, there begins to wail in my soul an
+insatiable longing to breathe forth words of sympathy with all mankind,
+words of burning love for all the world, words of appreciation of, for
+example, the sun's beauty as, enfolding the earth in his beams, and
+caressing and fertilising her, he bears her through the expanses of
+blue. Yes, I yearn to recite to my fellow-men words which shall raise
+their heads. And at length I find myself compounding the following
+jejune lines:
+
+  To our land we all are born
+  In happiness to dwell.
+  The sun has bred us to this land
+  Its fairness to excel.
+  In the temple of the sun
+  We high priests are, divine.
+  Then each of us should claim his life,
+  And cry, "This life is mine!"
+
+Meanwhile from the women's corner there comes a soft, intermittent
+whispering; and as it continues to filter through the darkness, I
+strain my ears until I succeed in catching a few of the words uttered,
+and can distinguish at least the voices of the whisperers.
+
+The woman from Riazan mutters firmly, and with assurance:
+
+"Never ought you to show that it hurts you."
+
+And with a sniff, in a tone of dubious acquiescence, her companion
+replies:
+
+"Ye-es-so long as one can bear it."
+
+"Ah, but never mind. PRETEND. That is to say, when he beats you, make
+light of it, and treat it as a joke."
+
+"But what if he beats me very much indeed?"
+
+"Continue still to make light of it, still to smile at him kindly."
+
+"Well, YOU can never have been beaten, for you do not seem to know what
+it is like."
+
+"Oh, but I have, my dear--I do know what it is like, for my experience
+of it has been large. Do not be afraid, however. HE won't beat you."
+
+A dog yelps, pauses a moment to listen, and then barks more angrily
+than ever. Upon that other dogs reply, and for a moment or two I am
+annoyed to find that I cannot overhear the women's conversation. In
+time, however, the dogs cease their uproar, for want of breath, and the
+suppressed dialogue filters once more to my ears.
+
+"Never forget, my dear, that a muzhik's life is a hard one. Yes, for us
+plain folk life is hard. Hence, one ought to make nothing of things,
+and let them come easy to one."
+
+"Mother of God!"
+
+"And particularly should a woman so face things; for upon her
+everything depends. For one thing, let her take to herself, in place of
+her mother, a husband or a sweetheart. Yes, try that, and see. And
+though, at first, your husband may find fault with you, he will
+afterwards take to boasting to other muzhiks that he has a wife who can
+do everything, and remain ever as bright and loving as the month of
+May. Never does she give in; never WOULD she give in--no, not if you
+were to cut off her head!"
+
+"Indeed?"
+
+"Yes. And see if that will not come to be your opinion as much as mine."
+
+Again, to my annoyance, the dialogue is interrupted--this time by the
+sound of uncertain footsteps in the street without. Thus the next words
+of the women's conversation escape me. Then I hear:
+
+"Have you ever read 'The Vision of the Mother of God'?"
+
+"N-no, I have not."
+
+"Then you had better ask some older woman than myself to tell you about
+it, for it is a good book to become acquainted with. Can you read?"
+
+"No, I cannot. But tell me, yourself, what the vision was?"
+
+"Listen, and I will do so."
+
+From outside the window Konev's voice softly inquires:
+
+"Is that our lot in there? Yes? Thank God, then, for I had nearly lost
+my way after stirring up a lot of dogs, and being forced to use my
+fists upon them. Here, you! Catch hold!"
+
+With which, handing me a large watermelon, he clambers through the
+window with a great clattering and disturbance.
+
+"I have managed also to gee a good supply of bread," he continues.
+"Perhaps you believe that I stole it? But no. Indeed, why should one
+steal when one can beg-a game at which I am particularly an old hand,
+seeing that always, on any  occasion, I can make up to people? It
+happened like this. When I went out I saw a fire glowing in a hut, and
+folk seated at supper. And since, wherever many people are present, one
+of them at least has a kind heart, I ate and drank my fill, and then
+managed to make off with provender for you as well. Hi, you women!"
+
+There follows no answer.
+
+"I believe those daughters of whores must be asleep," he comments. "Hi,
+women!"
+
+"What is it?" drily inquires the woman from Riazan.
+
+"Should you like a taste of water-melon?"
+
+"I should, thank you."
+
+Thereupon, Konev begins to make his way towards the voice.
+
+"Yes, bread, soft wheaten bread such as you--"
+
+Here the other woman whines in beggar fashion:
+
+"And give ME a taste, too."
+
+"Oh, yes, I will. But where the devil are you?"
+
+"And a taste of melon as well?"
+
+"Yes, certainly. Hullo! Who is this?"
+
+From the woman from Riazan comes a cry of pain.
+
+"Mind how you step, wretch!" she exclaims.
+
+"All right, but you needn't make so much noise about it. You see how
+dark it is, and I--"
+
+"You ought to have struck a match, then."
+
+"I possess but a quarter of a match, for matches are not
+over-plentiful, and even if I did catch hold of you no great harm can
+have been done. For instance, when your husband used to beat you he
+must have hurt you far worse than I. By the way, DID he beat you?"
+
+"What business is that of yours?"
+
+"None; only, I am curious to know. Surely a woman like you--"
+
+"See here. Do not dare to touch me, or I--"
+
+"Or you what?"
+
+There ensues a prolonged altercation amid which I can hear epithets of
+increasing acerbity and opprobrium being applied; until the woman from
+Riazan exclaims hoarsely:
+
+"Oh, you coward of a man, take that!"
+
+Whereupon follows a scrimmage amid which I can distinguish slappings,
+gross chuckles from Konev, and a muffled cry from the younger woman of:
+
+"Oh, do not so behave, you wretch!"
+
+Striking a match, I approach the spot, and pull Konev away. He is in no
+way abashed, but merely cooled in his ardour as, seated on the floor at
+my feet, and panting and expectorating, he says reprovingly to the
+woman:
+
+"When folk wish merely to have a game with you, you ought not to let
+yourself lose your temper. Fie, fie!"
+
+"Are you hurt?" the woman inquires quietly.
+
+"What do you suppose? You have cut my lip, but that is the worst
+damage."
+
+"Then if you come here again I will lay the whole of your face open."
+
+"Vixen! What bumpkinish stupidity!"
+
+Konev turns to myself.
+
+"And as for you, you go catching at the first thing you find, and have
+torn my coat."
+
+"Then do not insult people."
+
+"INSULT people, fool? The idea of anyone insulting a woman like THAT!"
+
+Whereafter, with a mean chuckle, the fellow goes on to discourse upon
+the ease with which peasant women err, and upon their love of deceiving
+their husbands.
+
+"The impudent rascal!" comments the woman from Penza sleepily.
+
+After a while the young fellow springs to his feet, and grates his
+teeth. Then, reseating himself, and clutching at his head, he says
+gloomily:
+
+"I intend to leave here tomorrow, and go home. I do not care WHAT
+becomes of me."
+
+With which he subsides on to the floor as though exhausted.
+
+"The blockhead!" is Konev's remark.
+
+Amid the darkness a black shape rises. It does so as soundlessly as a
+fish in a pond, glides to the door, and disappears.
+
+"That was she," remarks Konev. "What a strong woman! However, if you
+had not pulled me away, I should have got the better of her. By God I
+should!"
+
+"Then follow her, and make another attempt."
+
+"No," after a moment's reflection he rejoins. "Out there she might get
+hold of a stick, or a brick, or some such thing. However, I'LL get even
+with her. As a matter of fact, you wasted your time in stopping me, for
+she detests me like the very devil."
+
+And he renews his wearisome boastings of his conquests; until suddenly,
+he stops as though he has swallowed his tongue.
+
+All becomes quiet; everything seems to have come to a halt, and to be
+pressing close in sleep to the motionless earth. I too grow drowsy, and
+have a vision amid which my mind returns to the donations which I have
+received that day, and sees them swell and multiply and increase in
+weight until I feel their bulk pressing upon me like a tumulus of the
+steppes. Next, the coppery notes of a bell jar in my ears, and, struck
+at random intervals, go floating away into the darkness.
+
+It is the hour of midnight.
+
+Soon, scattered drops of rain begin to patter down upon the dry thatch
+of the hut and the dust in the street outside, while a cricket
+continues chirping as though it were hurriedly relating a tale. Also, I
+hear filtering forth into the darkness a softly gulped, eager
+whispering.
+
+"Think," says one of the voices, "what it must mean to have to go
+tramping about without work, or only with work for another to do!"
+
+The young fellow who has been so soundly thrashed replies in a dull
+voice:
+
+"I know nothing of you."
+
+"More softly, more softly!" urges the woman.
+
+"What is it you want?"
+
+"I want NOTHING. It is merely that I am sorry for you as a man yet
+young and strong. You see--well, I have not lived with my eyes shut.
+That is why I say, come with me."
+
+"But come whither?"
+
+"To the coast, where I know there to be beautiful plots of land for the
+asking. You yourself can see how good the land hereabout is. Well,
+there land better still is to be obtained."
+
+"Liar!"
+
+"More softly, more softly!" again urges the woman. "Moreover, I am not
+bad-looking, and can manage things well, and do any sort of work. Hence
+you and I might live quite peacefully and happily, and come,
+eventually, to have a place of our own. Yes, and I could bear and rear
+you a child. Only see how fit I am. Only feel this breast of mine."
+
+The young fellow snorts, and I begin to find the situation oppressive,
+and to long to let the couple know that I am not asleep. Curiosity,
+however, prevents me, and I continue listening to the strange,
+arresting dialogue.
+
+"Wait a little," whispers the woman with a gasp. "Do not play with me,
+for I am not that sort of woman. Yes, I mean what I say. Let be!"
+
+Rudely, roughly the young fellow replies:
+
+"Then don't run after me. A woman who runs after a man, and plays the
+whore with him, is--"
+
+"Less noise, please--less noise, I beg of you, or we shall be heard,
+and I shall be put to shame!"
+
+"Doesn't it put you to shame to be offering yourself to me like this?"
+
+A silence ensues, save that the young fellow goes on snorting and
+fidgeting, and the raindrops continue to fall with the same reluctance,
+the same indolence, as ever. Then once more the woman's voice is heard
+through the pattering.
+
+"Perhaps," says the voice, "you have guessed that I am seeking a
+husband? Yes, I AM seeking one--a good, steady muzhik."
+
+"But I am NOT a good, steady muzhik."
+
+"Fie, fie!"
+
+"What?" he sniggers. "A husband for you? The impudence of you! A
+'husband'! Go along!"
+
+"Listen to me. I am tired of tramping."
+
+"Then go home."
+
+This time there ensues a long pause. Then the woman says very softly:
+
+"I have neither home nor kindred."
+
+"A lie!" ejaculates the young fellow.
+
+"No, by God it is not a lie! The Mother of God forget me if it is."
+
+In these last words I can detect the note of tears. By this time the
+situation has become intolerable, for I am yearning to rise and kick
+the young fellow out of the hut, and then to have a long and earnest
+talk with his companion. "Oh that I could take her to my arms," I
+reflect, "and cherish her as I would a poor lost child!"
+
+After a while the sounds of a new struggle between the pair are heard.
+
+"Don't put me off like that!" growls the young fellow.
+
+"And don't you make any attempt upon me! I am not the sort of woman to
+be forced."
+
+The next moment there arises a cry of pain and astonishment.
+
+"What was that for? What was that for?" the woman wails.
+
+With an answering exclamation I spring to my feet, for my feelings have
+become those of a wild beast.
+
+At once everything grows quiet again, save that someone, crawls over
+the floor and, in leaving the hut, jars the latch of the crazy,
+single-hinged portal.
+
+"It was not my fault," grumbles the young fellow. "It all came of that
+stinking woman offering herself to me. Besides, the place is full of
+bugs, and I cannot sleep."
+
+"Beast!" pants someone in the vicinity.
+
+"Hold your tongue, bitch!" is the fellow's retort.
+
+By now the rain has ceased, and such air as filters through the window
+seems increasedly stifling. Momentarily the hush grows deeper, until
+the breast feels filled with a sense of oppression, and the face and
+eyes as though they were glued over with a web. Even when I step into
+the yard I find the place to be like a cellar on a summer's day, when
+the very ice has melted in the dark retreat, and the latter's black
+cavity is charged with hot, viscous humidity.
+
+Somewhere near me a woman is gulping out sobs. For a moment or two I
+listen; then I approach her, and come upon her seated in a corner with
+her head in her hands, and her body rocking to and fro as though she
+were doing me obeisance.
+
+Yet I feel angry, somehow, and remain standing before her without
+speaking--until at length I ask:
+
+"Are you mad?"
+
+"Go away," is, after a pause, her only reply.
+
+"I heard all that you said to that young fellow."
+
+"Oh, did you? Then what business is it of yours? Are you my brother?"
+
+Yet she speaks the words absent-mindedly rather than angrily. Around us
+the dim, blurred walls are peering in our direction with sightless
+eyes, while in the vicinity a bullock is drawing deep breaths.
+
+I seat myself by her side.
+
+"Should you remain much longer in that position," I remark, "you will
+have a headache."
+
+There follows no reply.
+
+"Am I disturbing you?" I continue.
+
+"Oh no; not at all." And, lowering her hands, she looks at me. "Whence
+do you come?"
+
+"From Nizhni Novgorod."
+
+"Oh, from a long way off!"
+
+"Do you care for that young fellow?"
+
+Not for a moment or two does she answer; and when she does so she
+answers as though the words have been rehearsed.
+
+"Not particularly. It is that he is a strong young fellow who has lost
+his way, and is too much of a fool (as you too must have seen) to find
+it again. So I am very sorry for him. A good muzhik ought to be well
+placed."
+
+On the bell of the church there strikes the hour of two. Without
+interrupting herself, the woman crosses her breast at each stroke.
+
+"Always," she continues, "I feel sorry when I see a fine young fellow
+going to the dogs. If I were able, I would take all such young men, and
+restore them to the right road."
+
+"Then you are not sorry FOR YOURSELF?"
+
+"Not for myself? Oh yes, for myself as well."
+
+"Then why flaunt yourself before this booby, as you have been doing?"
+
+"Because I might reform him. Do you not think so? Ah, you do not know
+me."
+
+A sigh escapes her.
+
+"He hit you, I think?" I venture.
+
+"No, he did not. And in any case you are not to touch him."
+
+"Yet you cried out?"
+
+Suddenly she leans towards me, and says:
+
+"Yes, he did strike me--he struck me on the breast, and would have
+overpowered me had it not been that I cannot, I will not, do things
+heartlessly, like a cat. Oh, the brutes that men can be!"
+
+Here the conversation undergoes an interruption through the fact that
+someone has come out to the hut door, and is whistling softly, as for a
+dog.
+
+"There he is!" whispers the woman.
+
+"Then had I not best send him about his business?"
+
+"No, no!" she exclaims, catching at my knees. "No need is there for
+that, no need is there for that!"
+
+Then with a low moan she adds:
+
+"Oh Lord, how I pity our folk and their lives! Oh God our Father!"
+
+Her shoulders heave, and presently she bursts into tears, with a
+whisper, between the pitiful sobs, of:
+
+"How, on such a night as this, one remembers all that one has ever
+seen, and the folk that ever one has known! And oh, how wearisome,
+wearisome it all is! And how I should like to cry throughout the
+world--But to cry what? I know not--I have no message to deliver."
+
+That feeling I can understand as well as she, for all too often has it
+seemed to crush my soul with voiceless longing.
+
+Then, as I stroke her bowed head and quivering shoulder, I ask her who
+she is; and presently, on growing a little calmer, she tells me the
+history of her life.
+
+She is, it appears, the daughter of a carpenter and bee-keeper. On her
+mother's death, this man married a young woman, and allowed her, as
+stepmother, to persuade him to place the narrator, Tatiana, in a
+convent, where she (Tatiana) lived from the age of nine till
+adolescence, and, meanwhile, was taught her letters, and also a certain
+amount of manual labour; until, later, her father married her off to a
+friend of his, a well-to-do ex-soldier, who was acting as forester on
+the convent's estate.
+
+As the woman relates this, I feel vexed that I cannot see her
+face--only a dim, round blur amid which there looms what appears to be
+a pair of closed eyes. Also, so complete is the stillness, that she can
+narrate her story in a barely audible whisper; and I gain the
+impression that the pair of us are sitting plunged in a void of
+darkness where life does not exist, yet where we are destined to begin
+life.
+
+"However, the man was a libertine and a drunkard, and many a riotous
+night did he spend with his cronies in the porter's lodge of the
+convent. Also, he tried to arouse a similar taste in myself; and though
+for a time I resisted the tendency, I at length, on his taking to
+beating me, yielded. Only for one man, however, had I really a liking;
+and with him it was, and not with my husband, that I first learnt the
+meaning of spousehood.... Unfortunately, my lover himself was
+married; and in time his wife came to hear of me, and procured my
+husband's dismissal. The chief reason was that the lady, a person of
+great wealth, was herself handsome, albeit stout, and did not care to
+see her place assumed by a nobody. Next, my husband died of drink; and
+as my father had long been dead, and I found myself alone, I went to
+see and consult my stepmother. All that she said, however, was: 'Why
+come to me? Go and think things out for yourself.' And I too then
+reflected: 'Yes, why should I have gone to her?' and repaired to the
+convent. Yet even there there seemed to be no place left for me, and
+eventually old Mother Taisia, who had once been my governess, said:
+'Tatiana, do you return to the world, for there, and only there, will
+you have a chance of happiness. So to the world I returned--and still
+am roaming it."
+
+"Your quest of happiness is not following an easy road!"
+
+"It is following the road that it best can."
+
+By now the darkness has ceased to keep spread over us, as it were, the
+stretched web of a heavy curtain, but has grown thinner and more
+transparent with the tension, save that, in places (for instance, in
+the window of the hut), it still lies in thick folds or clots as it
+peers at us with its sightless eyes.
+
+Over the hummock-like roofs of the huts rise the church's steeple and
+the poplar trees; while hither and thither on the wall of the hut, the
+cracks and holes in the crumbling plaster have caused the wall to
+resemble the map of an unknown country.
+
+Glancing at the woman's dark eyes, I perceive them to be shining as
+pensively, innocently as the eyes of a young maiden.
+
+"You are indeed a curious woman!" I remark.
+
+"Perhaps I am," she replies as she moistens her lips with a slender,
+almost feline tongue.
+
+"What are you really seeking?"
+
+"I have considered the matter, and know, at last, my mind. It is this:
+I hope some day to fall in with a good muzhik with whom to go in search
+of land. Probably land of the kind, I mean, is to be found in the
+neighbourhood of New Athos, [A monastery in the Caucasus, built on the
+reputed site of a cave tenanted by Simeon the Canaanite] for I have
+been there already, and know of a likely spot for the purpose. And
+there we shall set our place in order, and lay out a garden and an
+orchard, and prepare as much plough land as we may need for our
+working."
+
+Her words are now firmer, more assured.
+
+"And when we have put everything in order, other folk may join us; and
+then, as the oldest settlers in the place, we shall hold the position
+of honour. And thus things will continue until a new village, really a
+fine settlement, will have become formed--a settlement of which my
+husband will be selected the warden until such time as I shall have
+made of him a barin [Gentleman or squire] outright. Also, children may
+one day play in that garden, and a summer-house be built there. Ah, how
+delightful such a life appears!"
+
+In fact, she has planned out the future so thoroughly that already she
+can describe the new establishment in as much detail as though she has
+long been a resident in it.
+
+"Yes, I yearn indeed for a nice home!" she continues. "Oh that such a
+home could fall to my lot! But the first requisite, of course, is a
+muzhik."
+
+Her gentle face and eyes peer into the waning night as though they
+aspire to caress everything upon which they may light.
+
+And all the while I am feeling sorry for her--sorry almost to tears. To
+conceal the fact I murmur:
+
+"Should I myself suit you?"
+
+She gives a faint laugh.
+
+"No."
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"Because the ideas in your mind are different from mine."
+
+"How do you know what my ideas are?"
+
+She edges away from me a little, then says drily:
+
+"Because I can see them in your eyes. To be plain, I could never
+consent."
+
+With a finger tapping upon the mouldy, gnarled old oaken stump on which
+we are sitting, she adds:
+
+"The Cossacks, for instance, live comfortably enough; yet I do not like
+them."
+
+"What in them is it that displeases you?"
+
+"Somehow they repel me. True, much of everything is theirs; yet also
+they have ways which alienate me."
+
+Unable any longer to conceal from her my pity, I say gently:
+
+"Never, I fear, will you discover what you are seeking."
+
+She shakes her head protestingly.
+
+"And never ought a woman to be discouraged," she retorts. "Woman's
+proper round is to wish for a child, and to nurse it, and, when it has
+been weaned, to get herself ready to have another one. That is how
+woman should live.  She should live as pass spring and summer, autumn
+and winter."
+
+I find it a pleasure to watch the play of the woman's intellectual
+features; and though, also, I long to take her in my arms, I feel that
+my better plan will be to seek once more the quiet, empty steppe, and,
+bearing in me the recollection of this woman, to resume my lonely
+journey towards the region where the silver wall of the mountains
+merges with the sky, and the dark ravines gape at the steppe with their
+chilly jaws. At the moment, however, I cannot so do, for the Cossacks
+have temporarily deprived me of my passport.
+
+"What are you yourself seeking?" she asks suddenly as again she edges
+towards me.
+
+"Simply nothing. My one desire is to observe how folk live."
+
+"And are you travelling alone?"
+
+"I am."
+
+"Even as am I. Oh God, how many lonely people there are in the world!"
+
+By this time the cattle are awakening from slumber, and, with their
+soft lowings, reminding one of a pipe which I used to hear played by a
+certain blind old man. Next, four times, with unsteady touch, the
+drowsy watchman strikes his gong--twice softly, once with a vigour that
+clangs the metal again, and a fourth time with a mere tap of the iron
+hammer against the copper plate.
+
+"What sort of lives do the majority of folk lead?"
+
+"Sorry lives."
+
+"Yes, that is what I too have found."
+
+A pause follows. Then the woman says quietly:
+
+"See, dawn is breaking, yet never this night have my eyes closed. Often
+I am like that; often I keep thinking and thinking until I seem to be
+the only human being in the world, and the only human being destined to
+re-order it."
+
+"Many folk live unworthy lives. They live them amid discord, abasement,
+and wrongs innumerable, wrongs born of want and stupidity."
+
+And as the words leave my lips my mind loses itself in recollections of
+all the dark and harrowing and shameful scenes that I have beheld.
+
+"Listen," I say. "You may approach a man with nothing but good in your
+heart, and be prepared to surrender both your freedom and your
+strength; yet still he may fail to understand you aright. And how shall
+he be blamed for this, seeing that never may he have been shown what is
+good?"
+
+She lays a hand upon my shoulder, and looks straight into my eyes as
+she parts her comely lips.
+
+"True," she rejoins--"But, dear friend, it is also true that goodness
+never bargains."
+
+Together she and I seem to be drifting towards a vista which is coming
+to look, as it sloughs the shadow of night, ever clearer and clearer.
+It is a vista of white huts, silvery trees, a red church, and
+dew-bespangled earth. And as the sun rises he reveals to us clustered,
+transparent clouds which, like thousands of snow-white birds, go
+gliding over our heads.
+
+"Yes," she whispers again as gently she gives me a nudge. "As one
+pursues one's lonely way one thinks and thinks--but of what? Dear
+friend, you have said that no one really cares what is the matter. Ah,
+HOW true that is!"
+
+Here she springs to her feet, and, pulling me up with her, glues
+herself to my breast with a vehemence which causes me momentarily to
+push her away. Upon this, bursting into tears, she tends towards me
+again, and kisses me with lips so dry as almost to cut me--she kisses
+me in a way which penetrates to my very soul.
+
+"You have been oh, so good!" she whispers softly. As she speaks, the
+earth seems to be sinking under my feet.
+
+Then she tears herself away, glances around the courtyard, and darts to
+a corner where, under a fence, a clump of herbage is sprouting.
+
+"Go now," she adds in a whisper. "Yes, go."
+
+Then, with a confused smile, as, crouching among the herbage as though
+it had been a small cave, she rearranges her hair, she adds:
+
+"It has befallen so. Ah, me! May God grant unto me His pardon!"
+
+Astonished, feeling that I must be dreaming, I gaze at her with
+gratitude, for I sense an extraordinary lightness to be present in my
+breast, a radiant void through which joyous, intangible words and
+thoughts keep flying as swallows wheel across the firmament.
+
+"Amid a great sorrow," she adds, "even a small joy becomes a great
+felicity."
+
+Yet as I glance at the woman's bosom, whereon moist beads are standing
+like dewdrops on the outer earth; as I glance at that bosom, whereon
+the sun's rays are finding a roseate reflection, as though the blood
+were oozing through the skin, my rapture dies away, and turns to
+sorrow, heartache, and tears. For in me there is a presentiment that
+before the living juice within that bosom shall have borne fruit, it
+will have become dried up.
+
+Presently, in a tone almost of self-excuse, and one wherein the words
+sound a little sadly, she continues:
+
+"Times there are when something comes pouring into my soul which makes
+my breasts ache with the pain of it. What is there for me to do at such
+moments save reveal my thoughts to the moon, or, in the daytime, to a
+river? Oh God in Heaven! And afterwards I feel as ashamed of myself!...
+Do not look at me like that. Why stare at me with those eyes, eyes
+so like the eyes of a child?"
+
+"YOUR face, rather, is like a child's," I remark.
+
+"What? Is it so stupid?"
+
+"Something like that."
+
+As she fastens up her bodice she continues:
+
+"Soon the time will be five o'clock, when the bell will ring for Mass.
+To Mass I must go today, for I have a prayer to offer to the Mother of
+God... Shall you be leaving here soon?"
+
+"Yes--as soon, that is to say, as I have received back my passport."
+
+"And for what destination?"
+
+"For Alatyr. And you?"
+
+She straightens her attire, and rises. As she does so I perceive that
+her hips are narrower than her shoulders, and that throughout she is
+well-proportioned and symmetrical.
+
+"I? As yet I do not know. True, I had thought of proceeding to
+Naltchik, but now, perhaps, I shall not do so, for all my future is
+uncertain."
+
+Upon that she extends to me a pair of strong, capable arms, and
+proposes with a blush:
+
+"Shall we kiss once more before we part?"
+
+She clasps me with the one arm, and with the other makes the sign of
+the cross, adding:
+
+"Good-bye, dear friend, and may Christ requite you for all your words,
+for all your sympathy!"
+
+"Then shall we travel together?"
+
+At the words she frees herself, and says firmly, nay, sternly:
+
+"Not so. Never would I consent to such a plan. Of course, had you been
+a muzhik--but no. Even then what would have been the use of it, seeing
+that life is to be measured, not by a single hour, but by years?"
+
+And, quietly smiling me a farewell, she moves away towards the hut,
+whilst I, remaining seated, lose myself in thoughts of her. Will she
+ever overtake her quest in life? Shall I ever behold her again?
+
+The bell for early Mass begins, though for some time past the hamlet
+has been astir, and humming in a sedate and non-festive fashion.
+
+I enter the hut to fetch my wallet, and find the place empty. Evidently
+the whole party has left by the gap in the broken-down wall.
+
+I repair, next, to the Ataman's office, where I receive back my
+passport before setting out to look for my companions in the square.
+
+In similar fashion to yesterday those "folk from Russia" are lolling
+alongside the churchyard wall, and also have seated among them, leaning
+his back against a log, the fat-jowled youth from Penza, with his
+bruised face looking even larger and uglier than before, for the reason
+that his eyes are sunken amid purple protuberances.
+
+Presently there arrives a newcomer in the shape of an old man with a
+grey head adorned with a faded velvet skull-cap, a pointed beard, a
+lean, withered frame, prominent cheekbones, a red, porous-looking,
+cunningly hooked nose, and the eyes of a thief.
+
+Him a flaxen-haired youth from Orel joins with a similar youth in
+accosting.
+
+"Why are YOU tramping?" inquires the former.
+
+"And why are YOU?" the old man retorts in nasal tones as, looking at no
+one, he proceeds to mend the handle of a battered metal teapot with a
+piece of wire.
+
+"We are travelling in search of work, and therefore living as we have
+been commanded to live."
+
+"By WHOM commanded?"
+
+"By God. Have you forgotten?"
+
+Carelessly, but succinctly, the old man retorts:
+
+"Take heed lest upon you, some day, God vomit all the dust and litter
+which you are raising by tramping His earth!"
+
+"How?" cries one of the youths, a long-eared stripling.
+
+"Were not Christ and His Apostles also tramps?"
+
+"Yes, CHRIST," is the old man's meaning reply as he raises his sharp
+eyes to those of his opponent. "But what are you talking of, you fools?
+With whom are you daring to compare yourselves? Take care lest I report
+you to the Cossacks!"
+
+I have listened to many such arguments, and always found them
+distasteful, even as I have done discussions regarding the soul. Hence
+I feel inclined to depart.
+
+At this moment, however, Konev makes his appearance. His mien is
+dejected, and his body perspiring, while his eyes keep blinking rapidly.
+
+"Has any one seen Tanka--that woman from Riazan?" he inquires. "No?
+Then the bitch must have bolted during the night. The fact is that,
+overnight, someone gave me a drop or two to drink, a mere dram, but
+enough to lay me as fast asleep as a bear in winter-time. And in the
+meantime, she must have run away with that Penza fellow."
+
+"No, HE is here," I remark.
+
+"Oh, he is, is he? Well, as what has the company registered itself? As
+a set of ikon-painters, I should think!"
+
+Again he begins to look anxiously about him.
+
+"Where can she have got to?" he queries.
+
+"To Mass, maybe."
+
+"Of course! Well, I am greatly smitten with her. Yes, my word I am!"
+
+Nevertheless, when Mass comes to an end, and, to the sound of a merry
+peal of bells, the well-dressed local Cossacks file out of church, and
+distribute themselves in gaudy streams about the hamlet, no Tatiana
+makes her appearance.
+
+"Then she IS gone," says Konev ruefully. "But I'll find her yet! I'LL
+come up with her!"
+
+That this will happen I do not feel confident. Nor do I desire that it
+should.
+
+      *      *      *      *      *
+
+Five years later I am pacing the courtyard of the Metechski Prison in
+Tiflis, and, as I do so, trying to imagine for what particular offence
+I have been incarcerated in that place of confinement.
+
+Picturesquely grim without, the institution is, inwardly, peopled with
+a set of cheerful, but clumsy, humourists. That is to say, it would
+seem as though, "by order of the authorities," the inmates are
+presenting a stage spectacle in which they are playing, willingly and
+zealously, but with a complete lack of experience, imperfectly
+comprehended roles as prisoners, warders, and gendarmes.
+
+For instance, today, when a warder and a gendarme came to my cell to
+escort me to exercise, and I said to them, "May I be excused exercise
+today? I am not very well, and do not feel like, etcetera, etcetera,"
+the gendarme, a tall, handsome man with a red beard, held up to me a
+warning finger.
+
+"NO ONE," he said, "has given you permission to feel, or not to feel,
+like doing things."
+
+To which the warder, a man as dark as a chimney-sweep, with large blue
+"whites" to his eyes, added stutteringly:
+
+"To no one here has permission been given to feel, or not to feel, like
+doing things. You hear that?"
+
+So to exercise I went.
+
+In this stone-paved yard the air is as hot as in an oven, for overhead
+there lours only a small, flat patch of dull, drab-tinted sky, and on
+three sides of the yard rise high grey walls, with, on the fourth, the
+entrance-gates, topped by a sort of look-out post.
+
+Over the roof of the building there comes floating the dull roar of the
+turbulent river Kura, mingled with shouts from the hucksters of the
+Avlabar Bazaar (the town's Asiatic quarter) and as a cross motif thrown
+into these sounds, the sighing of the wind and the cooing of doves. In
+fact, to be here is like being in a drum which a myriad drumsticks are
+beating.
+
+Through the bars of the double line of windows on the second and the
+third stories peer the murky faces and towsled heads of some of the
+inmates. One of the latter spits his furthest into the yard--evidently
+with the intention of hitting myself: but all his efforts prove vain.
+Another one shouts with a mordant expletive:
+
+"Hi, you! Why do you keep tramping up and down like an old hen? Hold up
+your head!"
+
+Meanwhile the inmates continue to intone in concert a strange chant
+which is as tangled as a skein of wool after serving as a plaything for
+a kitten's prolonged game of sport. Sadly the chant meanders, wavers,
+to a high, wailing note. Then, as it were, it soars yet higher towards
+the dull, murky sky, breaks suddenly into a snarl, and, growling like a
+wild beast in terror, dies away to give place to a refrain which coils,
+trickles forth from between the bars of the windows until it has
+permeated the free, torrid air.
+
+As I listen to that refrain, long familiar to me, it seems to voice
+something intelligible, and agitates my soul almost to a sense of
+agony....
+
+Presently, while pacing up and down in the shadow of the building, I
+happen to glance towards the line of windows. Glued to the framework of
+one of the iron window-squares, I can discern a blue-eyed face.
+Overgrown with an untidy sable beard it is, as well as stamped with a
+look of perpetually grieved surprise.
+
+"That must be Konev," I say to myself aloud.
+
+Konev it is--Konev of the well-remembered eyes. Even at this moment
+they are regarding me with puckered attention.
+
+I throw around me a hasty glance. My own warder is dozing on a shady
+bench near the entrance. Two more warders are engaged in throwing dice.
+A fourth is superintending the pumping of water by two convicts, and
+superciliously marking time for their lever with the formula, "Mashkam,
+dashkam! Dashkam, mashkam!"
+
+I move towards the wall.
+
+"Is that you, Konev?" is my inquiry.
+
+"It is," he mutters as he thrusts his head a little further through the
+grating. "Yes, Konev I am, but who you are I have not a notion."
+
+"What are you here for?"
+
+"For a matter of base coin, though, to be truthful, I am here
+accidentally, without genuine cause."
+
+The warder rouses himself, and, with his keys jingling like a set of
+fetters, utters drowsily the command:
+
+"Do not stand still. Also, move further from the wall. To approach it
+is forbidden."
+
+"But it is so hot in the middle of the yard, sir!"
+
+"Everywhere it is hot," retorts the man reprovingly, and his head
+subsides again. From above comes the whispered query:
+
+"Who ARE you?"
+
+"Well, do you remember Tatiana, the woman from Riazan?"
+
+"DO I remember her?" Konev's voice has in it a touch of subdued
+resentment. "DO I remember her? Why, I was tried in court together with
+her!"
+
+"Together with HER? Was she too sentenced for the passing of base coin?"
+
+"Yes. Why should she not have been? She was merely the victim of an
+accident, even as I was."
+
+As I resume my walk in the stifling shade I detect that, from the
+windows of the basement there is issuing a smell of, in equal parts,
+rotten leather, mouldy grain, and dampness. To my mind there recur
+Tatiana's words: "Amid a great sorrow even a small joy becomes a great
+felicity," and, "I should like to build a village on some land of my
+own, and create for myself a new and better life."
+
+And to my recollection there recur also Tatiana's face and yearning,
+hungry breast. As I stand thinking of these things, there come dropping
+on to my head from above the low-spoken, ashen-grey words:
+
+"The chief conspirator in the matter was her lover, the son of a
+priest. He it was who engineered the plot. He has been sentenced to ten
+years penal servitude."
+
+"And she?"
+
+"Tatiana Vasilievna? To the same, and I also. I leave for Siberia the
+day after tomorrow. The trial was held at Kutair. In Russia I should
+have got off with a lighter sentence than here, for the folk in these
+parts are, one and all, evil, barbaric scoundrels."
+
+"And Tatiana, has she any children?"
+
+"How could she have while living such a rough life as this? Of course
+not! Besides, the priest's son is a consumptive."
+
+"Indeed sorry for her am I!"
+
+"So I expect." And in Konev's tone there would seem to be a touch of
+meaning. "The woman was a fool--of that there can be no doubt; but also
+she was comely, as well as a person out of the common in her pity for
+folk."
+
+"Was it then that you found her again?"
+
+"When?"
+
+"On that Feast of the Assumption?"
+
+"Oh no. It was only during the following winter that I came up with
+her. At the time she was serving as governess to the children of an old
+officer in Batum whose wife had left him."
+
+Something snaps behind me--something sounding like the hammer of a
+revolver. However, it is only the warder closing the lid of his huge
+watch before restoring the watch to his pocket, giving himself a
+stretch, and yawning to the utmost extent of his jaws.
+
+"You see, she had money, and, but for her restlessness, might have
+lived a comfortable life enough. As it was, her restlessness--"
+
+"Time for exercise is up!" shouts the warder.
+
+"Who are you?" adds Konev hastily. "Somehow I seem to remember your
+face; but I cannot place it."
+
+Yet so stung am I with what I have heard that I move away in silence:
+save that just as I reach the top of the steps I turn to cry:
+
+"Goodbye, mate, and give her my greeting."
+
+"What are you bawling for?" blusters the warder....
+
+The corridor is dim, and filled with an oppressive odour. The warder
+swings his keys with a dry, thin clash, and I, to dull the pain in my
+heart, strive to imitate him. But the attempt proves futile; and as the
+warder opens the door of my cell he says severely:
+
+"In with you, ten-years man!"
+
+Entering, I move towards the window. Between some grey spikes on a wall
+I can just discern the boisterous current of the Kura, with sakli
+[warehouses] and houses glued to the opposite bank, and the figures of
+some workmen on the roof of a tanning shed. Below, with his cap pushed
+to the back of his head, a sentry is pacing backwards and forwards.
+
+Wearily my mind recalls the many scores of Russian folk whom it has
+seen perish to no purpose. And as it does so it feels crushed, as in a
+vice, beneath the burden of great and inexorable sorrow with which all
+life is dowered.
+
+
+
+
+IN A MOUNTAIN DEFILE
+
+In a mountain defile near a little tributary of the Sunzha, there was
+being built a workman's barraque--a low, long edifice which reminded
+one of a large coffin lid.
+
+The building was approaching completion, and, meanwhile, a score of
+carpenters were employed in fashioning thin planks into doors of equal
+thinness, knocking together benches and tables, and fitting
+window-frames into the small window-squares.
+
+Also, to assist these carpenters in the task of protecting the barraque
+from tribesmen's nocturnal raids, the shrill-voiced young student of
+civil engineering who had been set in charge of the work had sent to
+the place, as watchman, an ex-soldier named Paul Ivanovitch, a man of
+the Cossack type, and myself.
+
+Yet whereas we were out-at-elbows, the carpenters were sleek,
+respectable, monied, well-clad fellows. Also, there was something dour
+and irritating about them, since, for one thing, they had failed to
+respond to our greeting on our first appearance, and eyed us with
+nothing but dislike and suspicion. Hence, hurt by their chilly
+attitude, we had withdrawn from their immediate neighbourhood,
+constructed a causeway of stepping stones to the eastern bank of the
+rivulet, and taken up our abode beneath the chaotic grey mists which
+enveloped the mountain side in that direction.
+
+Also, over the carpenters there was a foreman--a man whose bony frame,
+clad in a white shirt and a pair of white trousers, looked always as
+though it were ready-attired for death. Moreover, he wore no cap to
+conceal the yellow patch of baldness which covered most of his head,
+and, in addition, his nose was squat and grey, his neck and face had
+over them skin of a porous, pumice-like consistency, his eyes were
+green and dim, and upon his features there was stamped a dead and
+disagreeable expression. To be candid, however, behind the dark lips
+lay a set of fine, close teeth, while the hairs of the grey beard (a
+beard trimmed after the Tartar fashion) were thick and, seemingly, soft.
+
+Never did this man put a hand actually to the work; always he kept
+roaming about with the large, rigid-looking fingers of his hands tucked
+into his belt, and his fixed and expressionless eyes scanning the
+barraque, the men, and the work as his lips vented some such lines as:
+
+  Oh God our Father, bound hast Thou
+  A crown of thorns upon my brow!
+  Listen to my humble prayer!
+  Lighten the burden which I bear!
+
+"What on earth can be in the man's mind?" once remarked the ex-soldier,
+with a frowning glance at the singer.
+
+As for our duties, my mates and I had nothing to do, and soon began to
+find the time tedious. For his part, the man with the Cossack
+physiognomy scaled the mountain side; whence he could be heard
+whistling and snapping twigs with his heavy feet, while the ex-soldier
+selected a space between two rocks for a shelter of ace-rose boughs,
+and, stretching himself on his stomach, fell to smoking strong mountain
+tobacco in his large meerschaum pipe as dimly, dreamily he contemplated
+the play of the mountain torrent. Lastly, I myself selected a seat on a
+rock which overhung the brook, dipped my feet in the coolness of the
+water, and proceeded to mend my shirt.
+
+At intervals, the defile would convey to our ears a dull echo of sounds
+so wholly at variance with the locality as muffled hammer-blows, a
+screeching of saws, a rasping of planes, and a confused murmur of human
+voices.
+
+Also, a moist breeze blew constantly from the dark-blue depths of the
+defile, and caused the stiff, upright larches on the knoll behind the
+barraque to rustle their boughs, and distilled from the rank soil the
+voluptuous scents of ace-rose and pitch-pine, and evoked in the trees'
+quiet gloom a soft, crooning, somnolent lullaby.
+
+About a sazhen [Fathom] below the level of the barraque there coursed
+noisily over its bed of stones a rivulet white with foam. Yet though of
+other sounds in the vicinity there were but few, the general effect was
+to suggest that everything in the neighbourhood was speaking or singing
+a tale of such sort as to shame the human species into silence.
+
+On our own side of the valley the ground lay bathed in sunshine--lay
+scorched to the point of seeming to have spread over it a tissue-cloth.
+Old gold in colour, while from every side arose the sweet perfume of
+dried grasses, and in dark clefts there could be seen sprouting the
+long, straight spears and fiery, reddish, cone-shaped blossoms of that
+bold, hardy plant which is known to us as saxifrage--the plant of which
+the contemplation makes one long to burst into music, and fills one's
+whole body with sensuous languor.
+
+Laced with palpitating, snow-white foam, the beautiful rivulet pursued
+its sportive way over tessellated stones which flashed through the
+eddies of the glassy, sunlit, amber-coloured water with the silken
+sheen of a patchwork carpet or costly shawl of Cashmir.
+
+Through the mouth of the defile one could reach the valley of the
+Sunzha, whence, since men were ther, building a railway to Petrovsk on
+the Caspian Sea, there kept issuing and breaking against the crags a
+dull rumble of explosions, of iron rasped against stone, of whistles of
+works locomotives, and of animated human voices.
+
+From the barraque the distance to the point where the defile debouched
+upon the valley was about a hundred paces, and as one issued thence one
+could see, away to the left, the level steppes of the Cis-Caucasus,
+with a boundary wall of blue hills, topped by the silver-hewn saddle of
+Mount Elburz behind it. True, for the most part the steppes had a dry,
+yellow, sandy look, with merely here and there dark patches of gardens
+or black poplar clumps which rendered the golden glare more glaring
+still; yet also there could be discerned on the expanse farm buildings
+shaped like lumps of sugar or butter, with, in their vicinity, toylike
+human beings and diminutive cattle--the whole shimmering and melting in
+a mirage born of the heat. And at the mere sight of those steppes, with
+their embroidery of silk under the blue of the zenith, one's muscles
+tightened, and one felt inspired with a longing to spring to one's
+feet, close one's eyes, and walk for ever with the soft, mournful song
+of the waste crooning in one's ears.
+
+To the right also of the defile lay the winding valley of the Sunzha,
+with more hills; and above those hills hung the blue sky, and in their
+flanks were clefts which, full of grey mist, kept emitting a ceaseless
+din of labour, a sound of dull explosions, as a great puissant force
+attained release.
+
+Yet almost at the same moment would that hurly-burly so merge with the
+echo of our defile, so become buried in the defile's verdure and rock
+crevices, that once more the place would seem to be singing only its
+own gentle, gracious song.
+
+And, should one turn to glance up the defile, it could be seen to grow
+narrower and narrower as it ascended towards the mists, and the latter
+to grow thicker and thicker until the whole defile was swathed in a
+dark blue pall. Higher yet there could be discerned the brilliant gleam
+of blue sky. Higher yet one could distinguish the ice-capped peak of
+Kara Dagh, floating and dissolving amid the ( from here) invisible
+sunlight. Highest of all again brooded the serene, steadfast peace of
+heaven.
+
+Also, everything was bathed in a strange tint of bluish grey: to which
+circumstance must have been due the fact that always one's soul felt
+filled with restlessness, one's heart stirred to disquietude, and fired
+as with intoxication, charged with incomprehensible thoughts, and
+conscious as of a summons to set forth for some unknown destination.
+
+      *      *      *      *      *
+
+The foreman of the carpenters shaded his eyes to gaze in our direction;
+and as he did so, he drawled and rasped out in tedious fashion:
+
+  "Some shall to the left be sent,
+  And in the pit of Hell lie pent.
+  While others, holding palm in hand,
+  Shall on God's right take up their stand."
+
+"DID you hear that?" the ex-soldier growled through clenched teeth.
+"'Palm in hand' indeed! Why, the fellow must be a Mennonite or a
+Molokan, though the two, really, are one, and absolutely
+indistinguishable, as well as equally foolish. Yes, 'palm in hand'
+indeed!"
+
+Similarly could I understand the ex-soldier's indignation, for, like
+him, I felt that such dreary, monotonous singing was altogether out of
+place in a spot where everything could troll a song so delightful as to
+lead one to wish to hear nothing more, to hear only the whispering of
+the forest and the babbling of the stream. And especially out of place
+did the terms "palm" and "Mennonite" appear.
+
+Yet I had no great love for the ex-soldier. Somehow he jarred upon me.
+Middle-aged, squat, square, and bleached with the sun, he had faded
+eyes, flattened-out features, and an expression of restless moroseness.
+Never could I make out what he really wanted, what he was really
+seeking. For instance, once, after reviewing the Caucasus from
+Khassav-Urt to Novorossisk, and from Batum to Derbent, and, during the
+review, crossing the mountain range by three different routes at least,
+he remarked with a disparaging smile:
+
+"I suppose the Lord God made the country."
+
+"You do not like it, then? How should I? Good for nothing is what I
+call it."
+
+Then, with a further glance at me, and a twist of his sinewy neck, he
+added:
+
+"However, not bad altogether are its forests."
+
+A native of Kaluga, he had served in Tashkend, and, in fighting with
+the Chechintzes of that region, had been wounded in the head with a
+stone. Yet as he told me the story of this incident, he smiled
+shamefacedly, and, throughout, kept his glassy eyes fixed upon the
+ground.
+
+"Though I am ashamed to confess it," he said, "once a woman chipped a
+piece out of me. You see, the women of that region are shrieking
+devils--there is no other word for it; and when we captured a village
+called Akhal-Tiapa a number of them had to be cut up, so that they lay
+about in heaps, and their blood made walking slippery. Just as our
+company of the reserve entered the street, something caught me on the
+head. Afterwards, I learnt that a woman on a roof had thrown a stone,
+and, like the rest, had had to be put out of the way."
+
+Here, knitting his brows, the ex-soldier went on in more serious vein:
+
+"Yet all that folk used to say about those women, about their having
+beards to shave, turned out to be so much gossip, as I ascertained for
+myself. I did so by lifting the woman's skirt on the point of my
+bayonet, when I perceived that, though she was lean, and smelt like a
+goat, she was quite as regular as, as--"
+
+"Things must have been indeed terrible on that expedition!" I
+interposed.
+
+"I do not know for certain, since, though men who took an actual part
+in the expedition's engagements have said that they were so (the
+Chechintze is a vicious brute, and never gives in), I myself know but
+little of the affair, since I spent my whole time in the reserve, and
+never once did my company advance to the assault. No, it merely lay
+about on the sand, and fired at long range. In fact, nothing but sand
+was to be seen thereabouts; nor did we ever succeed in finding out what
+the fighting was for. True, if a piece of country be good, it is in our
+interest to take it; but in the present case the country was poor and
+bare, with never a river in sight, and a climate so hot that all one
+thought of was one's mortal need of a drink. In fact, some of our
+fellows died of thirst outright. Moreover, in those parts there grows a
+sort of millet called dzhugar--millet which not only has a horrible
+taste, but proves absolutely delusive, since the more one eats of it,
+the less one feels filled."
+
+As the ex-soldier told me the tale colourlessly and reluctantly, with
+frequent pauses between the sentences (as though either he found it
+difficult to recall the experience or he were thinking of something
+else), he never once looked me straight in the face, but kept his eyes
+shamefacedly fixed upon the ground.
+
+Unwieldily and unhealthily stout, he always conveyed to me the
+impression of being charged with a vague discontent, a sort of captious
+inertia.
+
+"Absolutely unfit for settlement is this country" he continued as he
+glanced around him. "It is fit only to do nothing in. For that matter,
+one doesn't WANT to do anything in it, save to live with one's eyes
+bulging like a drunkard's--for the climate is too hot, and the place
+smells like a chemist's shop or a hospital."
+
+Nevertheless, for the past eight years had he been roaming this "too
+hot" country, as though fascinated!
+
+"Why not return to Riazan?" I suggested.
+
+"Nothing would there be there for me to do," he replied through his
+teeth, and with an odd division of his words.
+
+My first encounter with him had been at the railway station at Armavir,
+where, purple in the face with excitement, he had been stamping like a
+horse, and, with distended eyes, hissing, or, rather, snarling, at a
+couple of Greeks:
+
+"I'll tear the flesh from your bones!"
+
+Meanwhile the two lean, withered, ragged, identically similar denizens
+of Hellas had been baring their sharp white teeth at intervals, and
+saying apologetically:
+
+"What has angered you, sir?"
+
+Finally, regardless of the Greeks' words, the ex-soldier had beat his
+breast like a drum, and shouted in accents of increased venom:
+
+"Now, where are you living? In Russia, do you say? Then who is
+supporting you there? Aha-a-a! Russia, it is said, is a good
+foster-mother. I expect you say the same."
+
+And, lastly, he had approached a fat, grey-headed, bemedalled gendarme,
+and complained to him:
+
+"Everyone curses us born Russians, yet everyone comes to live with
+us--Greeks, Germans, Songs, and the lot. And while they get their
+livelihood here, and cat and drink their fill, they continue to curse
+us. A scandal, is it not?"
+
+      *      *      *      *      *
+
+
+The third member of our party was a man of about thirty who wore a
+Cossack cap over his left ear, and had a Cossack forelock, rounded
+features, a large nose, a dark moustache, and a retrousse lip. When the
+volatile young engineering student first brought him to us and said,
+"Here is another man for you," the newcomer glanced at me through the
+lashes of his elusive eyes--then plunged his hands into the pockets of
+his Turkish overalls. Just as we were departing, however, he withdrew
+one hand from the left trouser pocket, passed it slowly over the dark
+bristles of his unshaven chin, and asked in musical tones:
+
+"Do you come from Russia?"
+
+"Whence else, I should like to know?" snapped the ex-soldier gruffly.
+
+Upon this the newcomer twisted his right-hand moustache then replaced
+his hand in his pocket. Broad-shouldered, sturdy, and well-built
+throughout, he walked with the stride of a man who is accustomed to
+cover long distances. Yet with him he had brought neither wallet nor
+gripsack, and somehow his supercilious, retrousse upper lip and thickly
+fringed eyes irritated me, and inclined me to be suspicious of, and
+even actively to dislike, the man.
+
+Suddenly, while we were proceeding along the causeway by the side of
+the rivulet, he turned to us, and said, as he nodded towards the
+sportively coursing water:
+
+"Look at the matchmaker!"
+
+The ex-soldier hoisted his bleached eyebrows, and gazed around him for
+a moment in bewilderment. Then he whispered:
+
+"The fool!"
+
+But, for my own part, I considered that what the man had said was
+apposite; that the rugged, boisterous little river did indeed resemble
+some fussy, light-hearted old lady who loved to arrange affaires du
+coeur both for her own private amusement and for the purpose of
+enabling other folk to realise the joys of affection amid which she was
+living, and of which she would never grow weary, and to which she
+desired to introduce the rest of the world as speedily as possible.
+
+Similarly, when we arrived at the barraque this man with the Cossack
+face glanced at the rivulet, and then at the mountains and the sky,
+and, finally, appraised the scene in one pregnant, comprehensive
+exclamation of "Slavno!" [How splendid!]
+
+The ex-soldier, who was engaged in ridding himself of his knapsack,
+straightened himself, and asked with his arms set akimbo:
+
+"WHAT is it that is so splendid?"
+
+For a moment or two the newcomer merely eyed the squat figure of his
+questioner--a figure upon which hung drab shreds as lichen hangs upon a
+stone. Then he said with a smile:
+
+"Cannot you see for yourself? Take that mountain there, and that cleft
+in the mountain--are they not good to look at?"
+
+And as he moved away, the ex-soldier gaped after him with a repeated
+whisper of:
+
+"The fool!"
+
+To which presently he added in a louder, as well as a mysterious, tone:
+
+"I have heard that occasionally they send fever patients hither for
+their health."
+
+The same evening saw two sturdy women arrive with supper for the
+carpenters; whereupon the clatter of labour ceased, and therefore the
+rustling of the forest and the murmuring of the rivulet became the more
+distinct.
+
+Next, deliberately, and with many coughs, the ex-soldier set to work to
+collect some twigs and chips for the purpose of lighting a fire. After
+which, having arranged a kettle over the flames, he said to me
+suggestively:
+
+"You too should collect some firewood, for in these parts the nights
+are dark and chilly."
+
+I set forth in search of chips among the stones which lay around the
+barraque, and, in so doing, stumbled across the newcomer, who was lying
+with his body resting on an elbow, and his head on his hand, as he
+conned a manuscript spread out before him. As he raised his eyes to
+gaze vaguely, inquiringly into my face, I saw that one of his eyes was
+larger than the other.
+
+Evidently he divined that he interested me, for he smiled. Yet so taken
+aback by this was I, that I passed on my way without speaking.
+
+Meanwhile the carpenters, disposed in two circles around the barraque
+(a circle to each woman), partook of a silent supper.
+
+Deeper and deeper grew the shadow of night over the defile. Warmer and
+warmer, denser and denser, grew the air, until the twilight caused the
+slopes of the mountains to soften in outline, and the rocks to seem to
+swell and merge with the bluish-blackness which overhung the bed of the
+defile, and the superimposed heights to form a single apparent whole,
+and the scene in general to resolve itself into, become united into,
+one compact bulk.
+
+Quietly then did tints hitherto red extinguish their tremulous
+glow--softly there flared up, dusted purple in the sunset's sheen, the
+peak of Kara Dagh. Vice versa, the foam of the rivulet now blushed to
+red, and, seemingly, assuaged its vehemence--flowed with a deeper, a
+more pensive, note; while similarly the forest hushed its voice, and
+appeared to stoop towards the water while emitting ever more powerful,
+intoxicating odours to mingle with the resinous, cloyingly sweet
+perfume of our wood fire.
+
+The ex-soldier squatted down before the little blaze, and rearranged
+some fuel under the kettle.
+
+"Where is the other man?" said he. "Go and fetch him."
+
+I departed for the purpose, and, on my way, heard one of the carpenters
+in the neighbourhood of the barraque say in a thick, unctuous,
+sing-song voice.
+
+"A great work is it indeed!"
+
+Whereafter I heard the two women fall to drawling in low, hungry
+accents:
+
+  "With the flesh I'll conquer pain;
+  The spirit shall my lust restrain;
+  All-supreme the soul shall reign;
+  And carnal vices lure in vain."
+
+True, the women pronounced their words distinctly enough; yet always
+they prolonged the final "u" sound of the stanza's first and third
+lines until, as the melody floated away into the darkness, and, as it
+were, sank to earth, it came to resemble the long-drawn howl of a wolf.
+
+In answer to my invitation to come to supper, the newcomer sprang to
+his feet, folded up his manuscript, stuffed it into one of the pockets
+of his ragged coat, and said with a smile:
+
+"I had just been going to resort to the carpenters, for they would have
+given us some bread, I suppose? Long is it since I tasted anything."
+
+The same words he repeated on our approaching the ex-soldier; much as
+though he took a pleasure in their phraseology.
+
+"You suppose that they would have given us bread?" echoed the
+ex-soldier as he unfastened his wallet. "Not they! No love is lost
+between them and ourselves."
+
+"Whom do you mean by 'ourselves'?"
+
+"Us here--you and myself--all Russian folk who may happen to be in
+these parts. From the way in which those fellows keep singing about
+palms, I should judge them to be sectarians of the sort called
+Mennonites."
+
+"Or Molokans, rather?" the other man suggested as he seated himself in
+front of the fire.
+
+"Yes, or Molokans. Molokans or Mennonites--they're all one. It is a
+German faith and though such fellows love a Teuton, they do not exactly
+welcome US."
+
+Upon this the man with the Cossack forelock took a slice of bread which
+the ex-soldier cut from a loaf, with an onion and a pinch of salt.
+Then, as he regarded us with a pair of good-humoured eyes, he said,
+balancing his food on the palms of his hands:
+
+"There is a spot on the Sunzha, near here, where those fellows have a
+colony of their own. Yes, I myself have visited it. True, those fellows
+are hard enough, but at the same time to speak plainly, NO ONE in these
+parts has any regard for us since only too many of the sort of Russian
+folk who come here in search of work are not overly-desirable."
+
+"Where do you yourself come from?" The ex-soldier's tone was severe.
+
+"From Kursk, we might say."
+
+"From Russia, then?"
+
+"Yes, I suppose so. But I have no great opinion even of myself."
+
+The ex-soldier glanced distrustfully at the newcomer. Then he remarked:
+
+"What you say is cant, sheer Jesuitism. It is fellows like THOSE,
+rather, that ought to have a poor opinion of themselves."
+
+To this the other made no reply--merely he put a piece of bread into
+his mouth. For a moment or two the ex-soldier eyed him frowningly. Then
+he continued:
+
+"You seem to me to be a native of the Don country?"
+
+"Yes, I have lived on the Don as well."
+
+"And also served in the army?"
+
+"No. I was an only son."
+
+"Of a miestchanin?" [A member of the small commercial class.]
+
+"No, of a merchant."
+
+"And your name--?"
+
+"Is Vasili."
+
+The last reply came only after a pause, and reluctantly; wherefore,
+perceiving that the Kurskan had no particular desire to discuss his own
+affairs, the ex-soldier said no more on the subject, but lifted the
+kettle from the fire.
+
+The Molokans also had kindled a blaze behind the corner of the
+barraque, and now its glow was licking the yellow boards of the
+structure until they seemed almost to be liquescent, to be about to
+dissolve and flow over the ground in a golden stream.
+
+Presently, as their fervour increased, the carpenters, invisible amid
+the obscurity, fell to singing hymns--the basses intoning monotonously,
+"Sing, thou Holy Angel!" and voices of higher pitch responding, coldly
+and formally.
+
+  "Sing ye!
+  Sing glory unto Christ, thou Angel of Holiness!
+  Sing ye!
+  Our singing will we add unto Thine,
+  Thou Angel of Holiness!"
+
+And though the chorus failed altogether to dull the splashing of the
+rivulet and the babbling of the by-cut over a bed of stones, it seemed
+out of place in this particular spot; it aroused resentment against men
+who could not think of a lay more atune with the particular living,
+breathing objects around us.
+
+Gradually darkness enveloped the defile until only over the mouth of
+the pass, over the spot where, gleaming a brilliant blue, the rivulet
+escaped into a cleft that was overhung with a mist of a deeper shade,
+was there not yet suspended the curtain of the Southern night.
+
+Presently, the gloom caused one of the rocks in our vicinity to assume
+the guise of a monk who, kneeling in prayer, had his head adorned with
+a pointed skull-cap, and his face buried in his hands. Similarly, the
+stems of the trees stirred in the firelight until they developed the
+semblance of a file of friars entering, for early Mass, the porch of
+their chapel-of-ease.
+
+To my mind there then recurred a certain occasion when, on just such a
+dark and sultry night as this, I had been seated tale-telling under the
+boundary-wall of a row of monastic cells in the Don country. Suddenly I
+had heard a window above my head open, and someone exclaim in a kindly,
+youthful voice:
+
+"The Mother of God be blessed for all this goodly world of ours!"
+
+And though the window had closed again before I had had time to discern
+the speaker, I had known that there was resident in the monastery a
+friar who had large eyes, and a limp, and just such a face as had
+Vasili here; wherefore, in all probability it had been he who had
+breathed the benediction upon mankind at large, for the reason that
+moments there are when all humanity seems to be one's own body, and in
+oneself there seems to beat the heart of all humanity....
+
+Vasili consumed his food deliberately as, breaking off morsels from his
+slice, and neatly parting his moustache, he placed the morsels in his
+mouth with a curious stirring of two globules which underlay the skin
+near the ears.
+
+The ex-soldier, however, merely nibbled at his food--he ate but little,
+and that lazily. Then he extracted a pipe from his breast pocket,
+filled it with tobacco, lit it with a faggot taken from the fire, and
+said as he set himself to listen to the singing of the Molokans:
+
+"They are filled full, and have started bleating. Always folk like them
+seek to be on the right side of the Almighty."
+
+"Does that hurt you in any way?" Vasili asked with a smile.
+
+"No, but I do not respect them--they are less saints than humbugs, than
+prevaricators whose first word is God, and second word rouble."
+
+"How do you know that?" cried Vasili amusedly. "And even if their first
+word IS God, and their second word rouble, we had best not be too hard
+upon them, since if they chose to be hard upon US, where should WE be?
+Yes, we have only to open our mouths to speak a word or two for
+ourselves, and we should find every fist at our teeth."
+
+"Quite so," the ex-soldier agreed as, taking up a square of scantling,
+he examined it attentively.
+
+"Whom DO you respect?" Vasili continued after a pause.
+
+"I respect," the ex-soldier said with some emphasis, "only the Russian
+people, the true Russian people, the folk who labour on land whereon
+labour is hard. Yet who are the folk whom you find HERE? In this part
+of the world the business of living is an easy one. Much of every sort
+of natural produce is to be had, and the soil is generous and
+light--you need but to scratch it for it to bear, and for yourself to
+reap. Yes, it is indulgent to a fault. Rather, it is like a maiden. Do
+but touch her, and a child will arrive."
+
+"Agreed," was Vasili's remark as he drank tea from a tin mug. "Yet to
+this very part of the world is it that I should like to transport every
+soul in Russia."
+
+"And why?"
+
+"Because here they could earn a living."
+
+"Then is not that possible in Russia?"
+
+"Well, why are you yourself here?"
+
+"Because I am a man lacking ties."
+
+"And why are you lacking ties?"
+
+"Because it has been so ordered--it is, so to speak, my lot."
+
+"Then had you not better consider WHY it is your lot?"
+
+The ex-soldier took his pipe from his mouth, let fall the hand which
+held it, and smoothed his plain features in silent amazement. Then he
+exclaimed in uncouth, querulous tones:
+
+"Had I not better consider WHY it is my lot, and so forth? Why, damn
+it, the causes are many. For one thing, if one has neighbours who
+neither live nor see things as oneself does, but are uncongenial, what
+does one do? One just leaves them, and clears out--more especially if
+one be neither a priest nor a magistrate. Yet YOU say that I had better
+consider why this is my lot. Do you think that YOU are the only man
+able to consider things, possessed of a brain?"
+
+And in an access of fury the speaker replaced his pipe, and sat
+frowning in silence. Vasili eyed his interlocutor's features as the
+firelight played red upon them, and, finally, said in an undertone:
+
+"Yes, it is always so. We fail to get on with our neighbours, yet lack
+a charter of our own, so, having no roots to hold us, just fall to
+wandering, troubling other folk, and earning dislike!"
+
+"The dislike of whom?" gruffly queried the ex-soldier.
+
+"The dislike of everyone, as you yourself have said!"
+
+In answer the ex-soldier merely emitted a cloud of smoke which
+completely concealed his form. Yet Vasili's voice had in it an
+agreeable note, and was flexible and ingratiating, while enunciating
+its words roundly and distinctly.
+
+A mountain owl, one of those splendid brown creatures which have the
+crafty physiognomy of a cat, and the sharp grey ears of a mouse, made
+the forest echo with its obtrusive cry. A bird of this species I once
+encountered among the defile's crags, and as the creature sailed over
+my head it startled me with the glassy eyes which, as round as buttons,
+seemed to be lit from within with menacing fire. Indeed, for a moment
+or two I stood half-stupefied with terror, for I could not conceive
+what the creature was.
+
+"Whence did you get that splendid pipe?" next asked Vasili as he rolled
+himself a cigarette. "Surely it is a pipe of old German make?"
+
+"You need not fear that I stole it," the ex-soldier responded as he
+removed it from his lips and regarded it proudly. "It was given me by a
+woman."
+
+To which, with a whimsical wink, he added a sigh.
+
+"Tell me how it happened," said Vasili softly. Then he flung up his
+arms, and stretched himself with a despondent cry of:
+
+"Ah, these nights here! Never again may God send me such bad ones! Try
+to sleep as one may, one never succeeds. Far easier, indeed, is it to
+sleep during the daytime, provided that one can find a shady spot.
+During such nights I go almost mad with thinking, and my heart swells
+and murmurs."
+
+The ex-soldier, who had listened with mouth agape and eyebrows raised
+even higher than usual, responded to this:
+
+"It is the same with me. If one could only--What did you say?"
+
+This last was addressed to myself, who had been about to remark, "The
+same with me also," but on seeing the pair exchanging a strange glance
+(as though involuntarily they had surprised one another), had left the
+words unspoken. My companions then set themselves to a mutually eager
+questioning with respect to their respective identities, past
+experiences, places of origin, and destinations, even as though they
+had been two kinsmen who, meeting unexpectedly, had discovered for the
+first time their bond of relationship.
+
+Meanwhile the black, fringed boughs of the pine trees hung stretched
+over the flames of the Molokans' fire as though they would catch some
+of the fire's glow and warmth, or seize it altogether, and put it out.
+And when, at times, their red tongues projected beyond the corner of
+the barraque, they made the building look as though it had caught
+alight, and extended their glow even to the rivulet. Constantly the
+night was growing denser and more stifling; constantly it seemed to
+embrace the body more and more caressingly, until one bathed in it as
+in an ocean. Also, much as a wave removes dirt from the skin, so the
+softly vocal darkness seemed to refresh and cleanse the soul. For it is
+on such nights as that that the soul dons its finest raiment, and
+trembles like a bride at the expectation of something glorious.
+
+"You say that she had a squint?" presently I heard Vasili continue in
+an undertone, and the ex-soldier slowly reply:
+
+"Yes, she had one from childhood upwards--she had one from the day when
+a fall from a cart caused her to injure her eyes. Yet, if she had not
+always gone about with one of her eyes shaded, you would never have
+guessed the fact. Also, she was so neat and practical! And her
+kindness--well, it was kindness as inexhaustible as the water of that
+rivulet there; it was kindness of the sort that wished well to all the
+world, and to all animals, and to every beggar, and even to myself!  So
+at last there gripped my heart the thought, 'Why should I not try a
+soldier's luck? She is the master's favourite--true; yet none the less
+the attempt shall be made by me.' However, this way or that, always the
+reply was 'No'; always she put out at me an elbow, and cut me short."
+
+Vasili, lying prone upon his back, twitched his moustache, and chewed a
+stalk of grass. His eyes were fully open, and for the second time I
+perceived that one of them was larger than the other. The ex-soldier,
+seated near Vasili's shoulder, stirred the fire with a bit of charred
+stick, and sent sparks of gold flying to join the midges which were
+gliding to and fro over the blaze. Ever and anon night-moths subsided
+into the flames with a plop, crackled, and became changed into lumps of
+black. For my own part, I constructed a couch on a pile of pine boughs,
+and there lay down. And as I listened to the ex-soldier's familiar
+story, I recalled persons whom I had on one and another occasion
+remembered, and speeches which on one and another occasion had made an
+impression upon me.
+
+"But at last," the ex-soldier continued, "I took heart of grace, and
+caught her in a barn. Pressing her into a corner, I said: 'Now let it
+be yes or no. Of, course it shall be as you wish, but remember that I
+am a soldier with a small stock of patience.' Upon that she began to
+struggle and exclaim: 'What do you want? What do you want?' until,
+bursting into tears like a girl, she said through her sobs: 'Do not
+touch me. I am not the sort of woman for you. Besides, I love
+another--not our master, but another, a workman, a former lodger of
+ours. Before he departed he said to me: "Wait for me until I have found
+you a nice home, and returned to fetch you"; and though it is seventeen
+years since I heard speech or whisper of him, and maybe he has since
+forgotten me, or fallen in love with someone else, or come to grief, or
+been murdered, you, who are a map, will understand that I must bide a
+little while longer.' True, this offended me (for in what respect was I
+any worse than the other man?); yet also I felt sorry for her, and
+grieved that I should have wronged her by thinking her frivolous, when
+all the time there had been THIS at her heart. I drew back,
+therefore--I could not lay a finger upon her, though she was in my
+power. And at last I said: 'Good-bye! I am going away.' 'Go,' she
+replied. 'Yes, go for the love of Christ!'... Wherefore, on the
+following evening I settled accounts with our master, and at dawn of a
+Sunday morning packed my wallet, took with me this pipe, and departed.
+'Yes, take the pipe, Paul Ivanovitch,' she said before my departure.
+'Perhaps it will serve to keep you in remembrance of me--you whom
+henceforth I shall regard as a brother, and whom I thank.'... As I
+walked away I was very nigh to tears, so keen was the pain in my heart.
+Aye, keen it was indeed!"
+
+"You did right," Vasili remarked softly after a pause.
+
+"Things must always so befall. Always must it be a case either of
+'Yes?' 'Yes,' and of folk coming together, or of 'No' 'No,' and of folk
+parting. And invariably the one person in the case grieves the other.
+Why should that be?"
+
+Emitting a cloud of grey smoke, the ex-soldier replied thoughtfully:
+
+"Yes, I know I did right; but that right was done only at a great cost."
+
+"And always that too is the case," Vasili agreed. Then he added:
+
+"Generally such fortune falls to the lot of people who have tender
+consciences. He who values himself also values his fellows; but,
+unfortunately a man all too seldom values even himself."
+
+"To whom are you referring? To you and myself?"
+
+"To our Russian folk in general."
+
+"Then you cannot have very much respect for Russia." The ex-soldier's
+tone had taken on a curious note. He seemed to be feeling both
+astonished at and grieved for his companion.
+
+The other, however, did not reply; and after a few moments the
+ex-soldier softly concluded:
+
+"So now you have heard my story."
+
+By this time the carpenters had ceased singing around the barraque, and
+let their fire die down until quivering on the wall of the edifice
+there was only a fiery-red patch, a patch barely sufficient to render
+visible the shadows of the rocks; while beside the fire there was
+seated only a tall figure with a black beard which had, grasped in its
+hands, a heavy cudgel, and, lying near its right foot, an axe. The
+figure was that of a watchman set by the carpenters to keep an eye upon
+ourselves, the appointed watchmen; though the fact in no way offended
+us.
+
+Over the defile, in a ragged strip of sky, there were gleaming stars,
+while the rivulet was bubbling and purling, and from the obscurity of
+the forest there kept coming to our ears, now the cautious, rustling
+tread of some night animal, and now the mournful cry of an owl, until
+all nature seemed to be instinct with a secret vitality the sweet
+breath of which kept moving the heart to hunger insatiably for the
+beautiful.
+
+Also, as I lay listening to the voice of the ex-soldier, a voice
+reminiscent of a distant tambourine, and to Vasili's pensive questions,
+I conceived a liking for the men, and began to detect that in their
+relations there was dawning something good and human. At the same time,
+the effect of some of Vasili's dicta on Russia was to arouse in me
+mingled feelings which impelled me at once to argue with him and to
+induce him to speak at greater length, with more clarity, on the
+subject of our mutual fatherland. Hence always I have loved that night
+for the visions which it brought to me--visions which still come back
+to me like a dear, familiar tale.
+
+I thought of a student of Kazan whom I had known in the days of the
+past, of a young fellow from Viatka who, pale-browed, and sententious
+of diction, might almost have been brother to the ex-soldier himself.
+And once again I heard him declare that "before all things must I learn
+whether or not there exists a God; pre-eminently must I make a
+beginning there."
+
+And I thought, too, of a certain accoucheuse named Velikova who had
+been a comely, but reputedly gay, woman. And I remembered a certain
+occasion when, on a hill overlooking the river Kazan and the Arski
+Plain, she had stood contemplating the marshes below, and the far blue
+line of the Volga; until suddenly turning pale, she had, with tears of
+joy sparkling in her fine eyes, cried under her breath, but
+sufficiently loudly for all present to hear her:
+
+"Ah, friends, how gracious and how fair is this land of ours! Come, let
+us salute that land for having deemed us worthy of residence therein!"
+
+Whereupon all present, including a deacon-student from the
+Ecclesiastical School, a Morduine from the Foreign College, a student
+of veterinary science, and two of our tutors, had done obeisance. At
+the same time I recalled the fact that subsequently one of the party
+had gone mad, and committed suicide.
+
+Again, I recalled how once, on the Piani Bor [Liquor Wharf] by the
+river Kama, a tall, sandy young fellow with intelligent eyes and the
+face of a ne'er-do-well had caught my attention. The day had been a
+hot, languorous Sunday on which all things had seemed to be exhibiting
+their better side, and telling the sun that it was not in vain that he
+was pouring out his brilliant potency, and diffusing his living gold;
+while the man of whom I speak had, dressed in a new suit of blue serge,
+a new cap cocked awry, and a pair of brilliantly polished boots, been
+standing at the edge of the wharf, and gazing at the brown waters of
+the Kama, the emerald expanse beyond them and the silver-scaled pools
+left behind by the tide. Until, as the sun had begun to sink towards
+the marshes on the other side of the river, and to become dissolved
+into streaks, the man had smiled with increasing rapture, and his face
+had glowed with creasing eagerness and delight; until finally he had
+snatched the cap from his head, flung it, with a powerful throw far out
+into the russet waters, and shouted: "Kama, O my mother, I love you,
+and never will desert you!"
+
+And the last, and also the best, recollection of things seen before the
+night of which I speak was the recollection of an occasion when, one
+late autumn, I had been crossing the Caspian Sea on an old two-masted
+schooner laden with dried apricots, plums, and peaches. Sailing on her
+also she had had some hundred fishermen from the Bozhi Factory, men
+who, originally forest peasants of the Upper Volga, had been
+well-built, bearded, healthy, goodhumoured, animal-spirited young
+fellows, youngsters tanned with the wind, and salted with the sea
+water; youngsters who, after working hard at their trade, had been
+rejoicing at the prospect of returning home. And careering about the
+deck like youthful bears as ever and anon lofty, sharp-pointed waves
+had seized and tossed aloft the schooner, and the yards had cracked,
+and the taut-run rigging had whistled, and the sails had bellied into
+globes, and the howling wind had shaved off the white crests of
+billows, and partially submerged the vessel in clouds of foam.
+
+And seated on the deck with his broad back resting against the mainmast
+there had been one young giant in particular. Clad in a white linen
+shirt and a pair of blue serge trousers, and innocent alike of beard
+and moustache, this young fellow had had full, red lips, blue, boyish,
+and exceedingly translucent eyes, and a face intoxicated in excelsis
+with the happiness of youth; while leaning across his knees as they had
+rested sprawling over the deck there had been a young female trimmer of
+fish, a wench as massive and tall as the young man himself, and a wench
+whose face had become tanned to roughness with the sun and wind,
+eyebrows dark, full, and as large as the wings of a swallow, breasts as
+firm as stone, and teats around which, as they projected from the folds
+of a red bodice, there had lain a pattern of blue veins.
+
+The broad, iron-black palm of the young fellow's long, knotted hand had
+been resting on the woman's left breast, with the arm bare to the
+elbow; while in his right hand, as he had sat gazing pensively at the
+woman's robust figure, there had been grasped a tin mug from which some
+of the red liquor had scattered stains over the front of his linen
+shirt.
+
+Meanwhile, around the pair there had been hovering some of the
+youngster's comrades, who, with coats buttoned to the throat, and caps
+gripped to prevent their being blown away by the wind, had employed
+themselves with scanning the woman's figure with envious eyes, and
+viewing her from either side. Nay, the shaggy green waves themselves
+had been stealing occasional glimpses at the picture as clouds had
+swirled across the sky, gulls had uttered their insatiable scream, and
+the sun, dancing on the foam-flecked waters, had vested the billows,
+now in tints of blue, now in natural tints as of flaming jewels.
+
+In short, all the passengers on the schooner had been shouting and
+laughing and singing, while the great bearded peasants had also been
+paying assiduous court to a large leathern bottle which had lain
+ensconced on a heap of peach-sacks, with the result that the scene had
+come to have about it something of the antique, legendary air of the
+return of Stepan Razin from his Persian campaign.
+
+At length the buffeting of the wind had caused an old man with a
+crooked nose set on a hairy, faun-like face to stumble over one of the
+woman's feet; whereupon he had halted, thrown up his head with
+nonsenile vigour, and exclaimed:
+
+"May the devil fly away with you, you shameless hussy! Why lie
+sprawling about the deck like this? See, too, how exposed you are!"
+
+The woman had not stirred at the words--she had not even opened an eye;
+only over her lips there had passed a faint tremor. Whereas the young
+fellow had straightened himself, deposited his tin mug upon the deck,
+and cried loudly as he laid his disengaged hand upon the woman's breast.
+
+"Ah, you envy me, do you, Yakim Petrov? Never mind, though you have
+done no great harm. But run no risks; do not look for needless trouble,
+for your day for sucking sugarplums is past."
+
+Whereafter, raising both his hands, the young fellow had softly let
+them sink again upon the woman's bosom as he added triumphantly:
+
+"These breasts could feed all Russia!"
+
+Then, and only then, had the woman smiled a long, slow smile. And as
+she had done so everything in the vicinity had seemed to smile in
+unison, and to rise and fall in harmony with her bosom--yes, the whole
+vessel, and the vessel's freight. And at the moment when a particularly
+large wave had struck the bulwarks, and besprinkled all on board with
+spray, the woman had opened her dark eyes, looked kindly at the old
+man, and at the young fellow, and at the scene in general--then set
+herself to recover her bosom.
+
+"Nay," the young fellow had cried as he interposed to remove her hands.
+"There is no need for that, there is no need for that. Let them ALL
+look."
+
+      *      *      *      *      *
+
+Such the memories that came back to my recollection that night. Gladly
+I would have recounted them to my companions, but, unfortunately, these
+had, by now, succumbed to slumber. The ex-soldier, resting in a sitting
+posture, and snoring loudly, had his back prised against his wallet,
+his head sloped sideways, and his hands clasped upon his knees, while
+Vasili was lying on his back with his face turned upwards, his hands
+clasped behind his head, his dark, finely moulded brows raised a
+little, and his moustache erect. Also, he was weeping in his
+sleep--tears were coursing down his brown, sunburnt cheeks; tears
+which, in the moonlight, had in them something of the greenish tint of
+a chrysolite or sea water, and which, on such a manly face, looked
+strange indeed!
+
+Still the rivulet was purling as it flowed, and the fire crackling;
+while bathed in the red glow of the flames there was sitting, bent
+forward, the dark, stonelike figure of the Molokans' watchman, with the
+axe at his feet reflecting the radiant gleam of the moon in the sky
+above us.
+
+All the earth seemed to be sleeping as ever the waning stars seemed to
+draw nearer and nearer....
+
+The slow length of the next day was dragged along amid an inertia born
+of the moist heat, the song of the river, and the intoxicating scents
+of forest and flowers. In short, one felt inclined to do nothing, from
+morn till night, save roam the defile without the exchanging of a word,
+the conceiving of a desire, or the formulating of a thought.
+
+At sunset, when we were engaged in drinking tea by the fire, the
+ex-soldier remarked:
+
+"I hope that life in the next world will exactly resemble life in this
+spot, and be just as quiet and peaceful and immune from work. Here one
+needs but to sit and melt like butter and suffer neither from wrong nor
+anxiety."
+
+Then, as carefully he withdrew his pipe from his lips, and sighed, he
+added:
+
+"Aye! If I could but feel sure that life in the next world will be like
+life here, I would pray to God: 'For Christ's sake take my soul at the
+earliest conceivable moment.'"
+
+"What might suit YOU would not suit ME," Vasili thoughtfully observed.
+"I would not always live such a life as this. I might do so for a time,
+but not in perpetuity."
+
+"Ah, but never have you worked hard," grunted the ex-soldier.
+
+In every way the evening resembled the previous one; there were to be
+observed the same luscious flooding of the defile with dove-coloured
+mist, the same flashing of the silver crags in the roseate twilight,
+the same rocking of the dense, warm forest's soft, leafy tree-tops, the
+same softening of the rocks' outlines in the gloom, the same gradual
+uplift of shadows, the same chanting of the "matchmaking" river, the
+same routine on the part of the big, sleek carpenters around the
+barraque--a routine as slow and ponderous in its course as the
+movements of a drove of wild boars.
+
+More than once during the off hours of the day had we sought to make
+the carpenters' acquaintance, to start a conversation with them, but
+always their answers had been given reluctantly, in monosyllables, and
+never had a discussion seemed likely to get under way without the
+whiteheaded foreman shouting to the particular member of the gang
+concerned: "Hi, you, Pavlushka! Get back to work, there!" Indeed, he,
+the foreman, had outdone all in his manifestations of dislike for our
+friendship, and as monotonously as though he had been minded to rival
+the rivulet as a songster, he had hummed his pious ditties, or else
+raised his snuffling voice to sing them with an ever-importunate
+measure of insistence, so that all day long those ditties had been
+coursing their way in a murky, melancholy-compelling flood. Indeed, as
+the foreman had stepped cautiously on thin legs from stone to stone
+during his ceaseless inspection of the work of his men, he had come to
+seem to have for his object the describing of an invisible, circular
+path, as a means of segregating us more securely than ever from the
+society of the carpenters.
+
+Personally, however, I had no desire to converse with him, for his
+frozen eyes chilled and repelled me and from the moment when I had
+approached him, and seen him fold his hands behind him, and recoil a
+step as he inquired with suppressed sternness, "What do you want?"
+there had fallen away from me all further ambition to learn the nature
+of the songs which he sang.
+
+The ex-soldier gazed at him resentfully, then said with an oath:
+
+"The old wizard and pilferer! Take my word for it that a lump of piety
+like that has got a pretty store put away somewhere."
+
+Whereafter, as he lit his pipe and squinted in the direction of the
+carpenters, he added with stifled wrath:
+
+"The airs that the 'elect' give themselves--the sons of bitches!"
+
+"It is always so," commented Vasili with a resentment equal to the last
+speaker's. "Yes, no sooner, with us, does a man accumulate a little
+money than he sticks his nose in the air, and falls to thinking himself
+a real barin."
+
+"Why is it that you always say 'With us,' and 'Among us,' and so on?"
+
+"Among us Russians, then, if you like it better."
+
+"I do like it better. For you are not a German, are you, nor a Tartar?"
+
+"No. It is merely that I can see the faults in our Russian folk."
+
+Upon that (not for the first time) the pair plunged into a discussion
+which had come so to weary them that now they spoke only indifferently,
+without effort.
+
+"The word 'faults' is, I consider, an insult," began the ex-soldier as
+he puffed at his pipe. "Besides, you don't speak consistently. Only
+this moment I observed a change in your terms."
+
+"To what?"
+
+"To the term 'Russians.'"
+
+"What should you prefer?"
+
+A new sound floated into the defile as from some point on the steppe
+the sound of a bell summoning folk to the usual Saturday vigil service.
+Removing his pipe from his mouth, the ex-soldier listened for a moment
+or two. Then, at the third and last stroke of the bell, he doffed his
+cap, crossed himself with punctilious piety, and said:
+
+"There are not very many churches in these parts."
+
+Whereafter he threw a glance across the river, and added venomously:
+
+"Those devils THERE don't cross themselves, the accursed Serbs!"
+
+Vasili looked at him, twisted a left-hand moustache, smoothed it again,
+regarded for a moment the sky and the defile, and sank his head.
+
+"The trouble with me," he remarked in an undertone, "is that I can
+never remain very long in one place--always I keep fancying that I
+shall meet with better things elsewhere, always I keep hearing a bird
+singing in my heart, 'Do you go further, do you go further.'"
+
+"That bird sings in the heart of EVERY man," the ex-soldier growled
+sulkily.
+
+With a glance at us both, Vasili laughed a subdued laugh.
+
+"'In the heart of every man'?" he repeated. "Why, such a statement is
+absurd. For it means, does it not, that every one of us is an idler,
+every one of us is constantly waiting for something to turn up--that,
+in fact, no one of us is any better than, or able to do any better
+than, the folk whose sole utterance is 'Give unto us, pray give unto
+us'? Yes, if that be the case, it is an unfortunate case indeed!"
+
+And again he laughed. Yet his eyes were sorrowful, and as the fingers
+of his right hand lay upon his knee they twitched as though they were
+longing to grasp something unseen.
+
+The ex-soldier frowned and snorted. For my own part, however, I felt
+troubled for, and sorry for, Vasili. Presently he rose, broke into a
+soft whistle, and moved away by the side of the stream.
+
+"His head is not quite right," muttered the ex-soldier as he winked in
+the direction of the retreating figure. "Yes, I tell you that straight,
+for from the first it was clear to me. Otherwise, what could his words
+in depredation of Russia mean, when of Russia nothing the least hard or
+definite can be said? Who really knows her? What is she in reality,
+seeing that each of her provinces is a soul to itself, and no one could
+state which of the two Holy Mothers stands nearest to God--the Holy
+Mother of Smolensk, or the Holy Mother of Kazan?"
+
+For a while the speaker sat scraping greasy deposit from the bottom and
+sides of the kettle; and all that while he grumbled as though he had a
+grudge against someone. At length, however, he assumed an attitude of
+attention, with his neck stretched out as though to listen to some
+sound.
+
+"Hist!" was his exclamation.
+
+What then followed, followed as unexpectedly as when, like an evil
+bird, a summer whirlwind suddenly sweeps up from the horizon, and
+discharges a bluish-black cloud in torrents of rain and hail, until
+everything is overwhelmed and battered to mud.
+
+That is to say, with much din of whistling and other sounds there now
+came pouring into the defile, and began to ascend the trail beside the
+stream, a straggling procession of some thirty workmen with, gleaming
+dully in the hands of their leading files, flagons of vodka, and,
+suspended on the backs and shoulders of others, wallets and bags of
+bread and other comestibles, and, in two instances, poised on the heads
+of yet other processionists, large black cauldrons the effect of which
+was to make their bearers look like mushrooms.
+
+"A vedro [2 3/4 gallons] and a half to the cauldron!" whispered the
+ex-soldier with a computative grunt as he gained his feet.
+
+"Yes, a vedro and a half," he repeated. As he spoke the tip of his
+tongue protruded until it rested on the under-lip of his half-opened
+mouth. In his face there was a curiously thirsty, gross expression, and
+his attitude, as he stood there, was that of one who had just received
+a blow, and was about to cry out in consequence.
+
+Meanwhile the defile rumbled like a barrel into which heavy weights are
+being dropped, for one of the newcomers was beating an empty tin pail,
+and another one whistling in a manner the tossed echoes of which
+drowned even the rivulet's murmur as nearer and nearer came the mob of
+men, a mob clad variously in black, grey, or russet, with sleeves
+rolled up, and heads, in many cases, bare save for their own towsled,
+dishevelled locks, and bodies bent with fatigue, or carried stumblingly
+along on legs bowed outwards. Meanwhile, as the dull, polyphonous roar
+of voices swept through the neck of the defile, a man shouted in
+broken, but truculent, accents:
+
+"I say no! Fiddlesticks! Not a man is there who could drink more than a
+vedro of 'blood-and-sweat' in a day."
+
+"A man could drink a lake of it."
+
+"No, a vedro and a half. That is the proper reckoning."
+
+"Aye, a vedro and a half." And the ex-soldier, as he repeated the
+words, spoke both as though he were an expert in the matter and as
+though he felt for the matter a touch of respect. Then, lurching
+forward like a man pushed by the scruff of the neck, he crossed the
+rivulet, intercepted the crowd, and became swallowed up in its midst.
+
+Around the barraque the carpenters (the foreman ever glimmering among
+them) were hurriedly collecting tools. Presently Vasili returned--his
+right hand thrust into his pocket, and his left holding his cap.
+
+"Before long those fellows will be properly drunk!" he said with a
+frown. "Ah, that vodka of ours! It is a perfect curse!" Then to me: "Do
+YOU drink?"
+
+"No," I replied.
+
+"Thank God for that! If one does not drink one will never really get
+into trouble."
+
+For a moment he gazed gloomily in the direction of the newcomers. Then
+he said without moving, without even looking at me:
+
+"You have remarkable eyes, young fellow. Also, they seem familiar to
+me--I have seen them somewhere before. Possibly that happened in a
+dream, though I cannot be sure. Where do you come from?"
+
+I answered, but, after scanning me perplexedly, he shook his head.
+
+"No," he remarked. "I have never visited that part of the country, or
+indeed, been so far from home."
+
+"But this place is further still?"
+
+"Further still?"
+
+"Yes--from Kursk."
+
+He laughed.
+
+"I must tell you the truth," he said. "I am not a Kurskan at all, but a
+Pskovian. The reason why I told the ex-soldier that I was from Kursk
+was that I neither liked him nor cared to tell him the whole truth-he
+was not worth the trouble. And as for my real name, it is Paul, not
+Vasili--Paul Nikolaev Silantiev--and is so marked on my passport (for a
+passport, and a passport quite in order, I have got)."
+
+"And why are you on your travels?"
+
+"For the reason that I am so--I can say no more. I look back from a
+given place, and wave my hand, and am gone again as a feather floats
+before the wind."
+
+      *      *      *      *      *
+
+"Silence!" a threatening voice near the barraque broke in. "I am the
+foreman here."
+
+The voice of the ex-soldier replied:
+
+"What workmen are these of yours? They are mere sectarians, fellows who
+are for ever singing hymns."
+
+To which someone else added:
+
+"Besides, old devil that you are, aren't you bound to finish all
+building work before the beginning of a Sunday?"
+
+"Let us throw their tools into the stream."
+
+"Yes, and start a riot," was Silantiev's comment as he squatted before
+the embers of the fire.
+
+Around the barraque, picked out against the yellow of its framework, a
+number of dark figures were surging to and fro as around a
+conflagration. Presently we heard something smashed to pieces--at all
+events, we heard the cracking and scraping of wood against stone, and
+then the strident, hilarious command:
+
+"Hold on there! I'LL soon put things to rights! Carpenters, just hand
+over the saw!"
+
+Apparently there were three men in charge of the proceedings: the one a
+red-bearded muzhik in a seaman's blouse; the second a tall man with
+hunched shoulders, thin legs, and long arms who kept grasping the
+foreman by the collar, shaking him, and bawling, "Where are your
+lathes? Bring them out!" (while noticeable also was a broad-shouldered
+young fellow in a ragged red shirt who kept thrusting pieces of
+scantling through the windows of the barraque, and shouting, "Catch
+hold of these! Lay them out in a row!"); and the third the ex-soldier
+himself. The last-named, as he jostled his way among the crowd, kept
+vociferating, viciously, virulently, and with a curious system of
+division of his syllables:
+
+"Aha-a, ra-abble, secta-arians. Yo-ou would have nothing to say to me,
+you Se-erbs! Yet I say to YOU: Go along, my chickens, for the re-est of
+us are ti-ired of you, and come to sa-ay so!"
+
+"What does he want?" asked Silantiev quietly as he lit a cigarette.
+"Vodka? Oh, THEY'LL give him vodka!... Yet are you not sorry for
+fellows of that stamp?"
+
+Through the blue tobacco-smoke he gazed into the glowing embers; until
+at last he took a charred stick, and collected the embers into a heap
+glowing red-gold like a bouquet of fiery poppies; and as he did so, his
+handsome eyes gleamed with just such a reverent affection, such a
+prayerful kindliness, as must have lurked in the eyes of primeval,
+nomadic man in the presence of the dancing, beneficent source of light
+and heat.
+
+"At least I am sorry for such fellows," Vasili continued. "Aye, the
+very thought of the many, many folk who have come to nothing! The very
+thought of it! Terrible, terrible!"
+
+A touch of daylight was still lingering on the tops of the mountains,
+but in the defile itself night was beginning to loom, and to lull all
+things to sleep--to incline one neither to speak oneself nor to listen
+to the dull clamour of those others on the opposite bank, where even to
+the murmur of the rivulet the distasteful din seemed to communicate a
+note of anger.
+
+There the crowd had lit a huge bonfire, and then added to it a second
+one which, crackling, hissing, and emitting coils of bluish-tinted
+smoke, had fallen to vying with its fellow in lacing the foam of the
+rivulet with muslin-like patterns in red. As the mass of dark figures
+surged between the two flares an hilarious voice shouted to us the
+invitation:
+
+"Come over here, you! Don't be backward! Come over here, I say!"
+
+Upon which followed a clatter as of the smashing of a drinking-vessel,
+while from the red-bearded muzhik came a thick, raucous shout of:
+
+"These fellows needed to be taught a lesson!"
+
+Almost at the same moment the foreman of the carpenters broke his way
+clear of the crowd, and, carefully crossing the rivulet by the
+stepping-stones which we had constructed, squatted down upon his heels
+by the margin, and with much puffing and blowing fell to rinsing his
+face, a face which in the murky firelight looked flushed and red.
+
+"I think that someone has given him a blow," hazarded Silantiev sotto
+voce.
+
+And when the foreman rose to approach us this proved to be the case,
+for then we saw that dripping from his nose, and meandering over his
+moustache and soaked white beard, there was a stream of dark blood
+which had spotted and streaked his shirt-front.
+
+"Peace to this gathering!" he said gravely as, pressing his left hand
+to his stomach, he bowed.
+
+"And we pray your indulgence," was Silantiev's response, though he did
+not raise his eyes as he spoke. "Pray be seated."
+
+Small, withered, and, for all but his blood-stained shirt, scrupulously
+clean, the old man reminded me of certain pictures of old-time hermits,
+and the more so since either pain or shame or the gleam of the
+firelight had caused his hitherto dead eyes to gather life and grow
+brighter--aye, and sterner. Somehow, as I looked at him, I felt awkward
+and abashed.
+
+A cough twisted his broad nose. Then he wiped his beard on the palm of
+his hand, and his hand on his knee; whereafter, as he stretched forth
+the pair of senile, dark-coloured hands, and held them over the embers,
+he said:
+
+"How cold the water of the rivulet is! It is absolutely icy."
+
+With a glance from under his brows Silantiev inquired:
+
+"Are you very badly hurt?"
+
+"No. Merely a man caught me a blow on the bridge of the nose, where the
+blood flows readily. Yet, as God knows, he will gain nothing by his
+act, whereas the suffering which he has caused me will go to swell my
+account with the Holy Spirit."
+
+As the man spoke he glanced across the rivulet. On the opposite bank
+two men were staggering along, and drunkenly bawling the tipsy refrain:
+
+"In the du-u-uok let me die, In the au-autumn time!"
+
+"Aye, long is it since I received a blow," the old man continued,
+scanning the two revellers from under his hand. "Twenty years it must
+be since last I did so. And now the blow was struck for nothing, for no
+real fault.. You see, I have been allowed no nails for the doing of the
+work, and have been obliged to make use of wooden clamps for most of
+it, while battens also have not been forthcoming; and, this being so,
+it was through no remissness of mine that the work could not be
+finished by sunset tonight. I suspect, too, that, to eke out its wages,
+that rabble has been thieving, with the eldest leading the rest. And
+that, again, is not a thing for which I can be held responsible. True,
+this is a Government job, and some of those fellows are young, and
+young, hungry fellows such as they will (may they be forgiven!) steal,
+since everyone hankers to get something in return for a very little.
+But, once more, how is that my fault? Yes, that rabble must be a
+regular set of rascals! Just now they deprived my eldest son of a saw,
+of a brand-new saw; and thereafter they spilt my blood, the blood of a
+greybeard!"
+
+Here his small, grey face contracted into wrinkles, and, closing his
+eyes, he sobbed a dry, grating sob.
+
+Silantiev fidgeted--then sighed. Presently the old man looked at him,
+blew his nose, wiped his hand upon his trousers, and said quietly:
+
+"Somewhere, I think, I have seen you before."
+
+"That is so. You saw me one evening when I visited your settlement for
+the mending of a thresher."
+
+"Yes, yes. That is where I DID see you. It was you, was it not? Well,
+do you still disagree with me?"
+
+To which the old man added with a nod and a smile:
+
+"See how well I remember your words! You are, I imagine, still of the
+same opinion?"
+
+"How should I not be?" responded Silantiev dourly.
+
+"Ah, well! Ah, well!"
+
+And the old man stretched his hands over the fire once more,
+discoloured hands the thumbs of which were curiously bent outwards and
+splayed, and, seemingly, unable to move in harmony with the fingers.
+
+The ex-soldier shouted across the river:
+
+"The land here is easy to work, and makes the people lazy. Who would
+care to live in such a region? Who would care to come to it? Much
+rather would I go and earn a living on difficult land."
+
+The old man paid no heed, but said to Silantiev--said to him with an
+austere, derisive smile:
+
+"Do you STILL think it necessary to struggle against what has been
+ordained of God? Do you STILL think that long-suffering is bad, and
+resistance good? Young man, your soul is weak indeed: and remember that
+it is only the soul that can overcome Satan."
+
+In response Silantiev rose to his feet, shook his fist at the old man,
+and shouted in a rough, angry voice, a voice that was not his own:
+
+"All that I have heard before, and from others besides yourself. The
+truth is that I hold all you father-confessors in abhorrence.
+Moreover," (this last was added with a violent oath) "it is not Satan
+that needs to be resisted, but such devil's ravens, such devil's
+vampires, as YOU."
+
+Which said, he kicked a stone away from the fire, thrust his hands into
+his pockets, and turned slowly on his heel, with his elbows pressed
+close to his sides. Nevertheless the old man, still smiling, said to me
+in an undertone:
+
+"He is proud, but that will not last for long."
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"Because I know in advance that--"
+
+Breaking off short, he turned his head upon his shoulder, and sat
+listening to some shouting that was going on across the river. Everyone
+in that quarter was drunk, and, in particular, someone could be heard
+bawling in a tone of challenge:
+
+"Oh? I, you say? A-a-ah! Then take that!"
+
+Silantiev, stepping lightly from stone to stone, crossed the river.
+Then he mingled--a conspicuous figure (owing to his apparent
+handlessness)--with the crowd. Somehow, on his departure, I felt ill at
+ease.
+
+Twitching his fingers as though performing a conjuring trick, the old
+man continued to sit with his hands stretched over the embers. By this
+time his nose had swollen over the bridge, and bruises risen under his
+eyes which tended to obscure his vision. Indeed, as he sat there, sat
+mouthing with dark, bestreaked lips under a covering of hoary beard and
+moustache, I found that his bloodstained, disfigured, wrinkled, as it
+were "antique" face reminded me more than ever of those of great
+sinners of ancient times who abandoned this world for the forest and
+the desert.
+
+"I have seen many proud folk," he continued with a shake of his hatless
+head and its sparse hairs. "A fire may burn up quickly, and continue to
+burn fiercely, yet, like these embers, become turned to ashes, and so
+lie smouldering till dawn. Young man, there you have something to think
+of. Nor are they merely my words. They are the words of the Holy Gospel
+itself."
+
+Ever descending, ever weighing more heavily upon us, the night was as
+black and hot and stifling as the previous one had been, albeit as
+kindly as a mother. Still the two fires on the opposite bank of the
+rivulet were aflame, and sending hot blasts of vapour across a seeming
+brook of gold.
+
+Folding his arms upon his breast, the old man tucked the palms of his
+hands into his armpits, and settled himself more comfortably.
+Nevertheless, when I made as though to add more twigs and shavings to
+the embers he exclaimed imperiously:
+
+"There is no need for that."
+
+"Why is there not?"
+
+"Because that would cause the fire to be seen, and bring some of those
+men over here."
+
+Again, as he kicked away some boughs which I had just broken up, he
+repeated:
+
+"There is no need for that, I tell you."
+
+Presently, there approached us through the shimmering fire light on the
+opposite bank two carpenters with boxes on their backs, and axes in
+their hands.
+
+"Are all the rest of our men gone?" inquired the foreman of the
+newcomers.
+
+"Yes," replied one of them, a tall man with a drooping moustache and no
+beard.
+
+"Well, 'shun evil, and good will result.'"
+
+"Aye, and we likewise wish to depart."
+
+"But a task ought not to be left unfinished. At dinner-time I sent
+Olesha to say that none of those fellows had better be released from
+work; but released they have been, and now the result is apparent!
+Presently, when they have drunk a little more of their poison, they
+will fire the barraque."
+
+Every time that the first of the two carpenters inhaled the smoke of my
+cigarette he spat into the embers, while the other man, a young fellow
+as plump as a female baker, sank his towsled head upon his breast as
+soon as he sat down, and fell asleep.
+
+Next, the clamour across the rivulet subsided for awhile. But suddenly
+I heard the ex-soldier exclaim in drunken, singsong accents which came
+from the very centre of the tumult:
+
+"Hi, do you answer me! How comes it that you have no respect for
+Russia? Is not Riazan a part of Russia? What is Russia, then, I should
+like to know?"
+
+"A tavern," the foreman commented quietly; whereafter, turning to me,
+he added more loudly:
+
+"I say this of such fellows--that a tavern... But what a noise those
+roisterers are making, to be sure!"
+
+The young fellow in the red shirt had just shouted:
+
+"Hi, there, soldier! Seize him by the throat! Seize him, seize him!"
+
+While from Silantiev had come the gruff retort:
+
+"What? Do you suppose that you are hunting a pack of hounds?"
+
+"Here, answer me!" was the next shouted utterance--it came from the
+ex-soldier--whereupon the old man remarked to me in an undertone:
+
+"It would seem that a fight is brewing."
+
+Rising, I moved in the direction of the uproar. As I did so, I heard
+the old man say softly to his companions:
+
+"He too is gone, thank God!"
+
+Suddenly there surged towards me from the opposite bank a crowd of men.
+Belching, hiccuping, and grunting, they seemed to be carrying or
+dragging in their midst some heavy weight. Presently a woman's voice
+screamed, "Ya-av-sha!" and other voices raised mingled shouts of "Throw
+him in! Give him a thrashing!" and "Drag him along!"
+
+The next moment we saw Silantiev break out of the crowd, straighten
+himself, swing his right fist in the air, and hurl himself at the crowd
+again. As he did so the young fellow in the red shirt raised a gigantic
+arm, and there followed the sound of a muffled, grisly blow. Staggering
+backwards, Silantiev slid silently into the water, and lay there at my
+feet.
+
+"That's right!" was the comment of someone.
+
+For a moment or two the clamour subsided a little, and during that
+moment or two one's ears once more became laved with the sweet singsong
+of the river. Shortly afterwards someone threw into the water a huge
+stone, and someone else laughed in a dull way.
+
+As I was bending to look at Silantiev some of the men jostled me.
+Nevertheless, I continued to struggle to raise him from the spot where,
+half in and half out of the water, he lay with his head and breast
+resting against the stepping-stones.
+
+"You have killed him!" next I shouted--not because I believed the
+statement to be true, but because I had a mind to frighten into
+sobriety the men who were impeding me.
+
+Upon this someone exclaimed in a faltering, sobered tone:
+
+"Surely not?"
+
+As for the young fellow in the red shirt, he passed me by with a
+braggart, resentful shout of:
+
+"Well? He had no right to insult me. Why should he have said that I was
+a nuisance to the whole country?"
+
+And someone else shouted:
+
+"Where is the ex-soldier? Who is the watchman here?"
+
+"Bring a light," was the cry of a third.
+
+Yet all these voices were more sober, more subdued, more restrained
+than they had been, and presently a little muzhik whose poll was
+swathed in a red handkerchief stooped and raised Silantiev's head. But
+almost as instantly he let it fall again, and, dipping his hands into
+the water, said gravely:
+
+"You have killed him. He is dead."
+
+At the moment I did not believe the words; but presently, as I stood
+watching how the water coursed between Silantiev's legs, and turned
+them this way and that, and made them stir as though they were striving
+to divest themselves of the shabby old boots, I realised with all my
+being that the hands which were resting in mine were the hands of a
+corpse. And, true enough, when I released them they slapped down upon
+the surface like wet dish-cloths.
+
+Until now, about a dozen men had been standing on the bank to observe
+what was toward, but as soon as the little muzhik's words rang out
+these men recoiled, and, with jostlings, began to vent, in subdued,
+uneasy tones, cries of:
+
+"Who was it first struck him?"
+
+"This will lose us our jobs."
+
+"It was the soldier that first started the racket."
+
+"Yes, that is true."
+
+"Let us go and denounce him."
+
+As for the young fellow in the red shirt, he cried:
+
+"I swear on my honour, mates, that the affair was only a quarrel."
+
+"To hit a man with a bludgeon is more than a quarrel."
+
+"It was a stone that was used, not a bludgeon."
+
+"The soldier ought to--"
+
+A woman's high-pitched voice broke in with a plaintive cry of:
+
+"Good Lord! Always something happens to us!"
+
+As for myself, I felt stunned and hurt as I seated myself upon the
+stepping-stones; and though everything was plain to my sight, nothing
+was plain to my understanding, while in my breast a strange emptiness
+was present, save that the clamour of the bystanders aroused me to a
+certain longing to outshout them all, to send forth my voice into the
+night like the voice of a brazen trumpet.
+
+Presently two other men approached us. In the hand of the first was a
+torch which he kept waving to and fro to prevent its being
+extinguished, and whence, therefore, he kept strewing showers of golden
+sparks. A fair-headed little fellow, he had a body as thin as a pike
+when standing on its tail, a grey, stonelike countenance that was
+deeply sunken between the shoulders, a mouth perpetually half-agape,
+and round, owlish-looking eyes.
+
+As he approached the corpse he bent forward with one hand upon his knee
+to throw the more light upon Silantiev's bruised head and body. That
+head was resting turned upon the shoulder, and no longer could I
+recognise the once handsome Cossack face, so buried was the jaunty
+forelock under a clot of black-red mud, and concealed by a swelling
+which had made its appearance above the left ear. Also, since the mouth
+and moustache had been bashed aside the teeth lay bared in a twisted,
+truly horrible smile, while, as the most horrible point of all, the
+left eye was hanging from its socket, and, become hideously large,
+gazing, seemingly, at the inner pocket of the flap of Silantiev's
+pea-jacket, whence there was protruding a white edging of paper.
+
+Slowly the torch holder described a circle of fire in the air, and
+thereby sprinkled a further shower of sparks over the poor mutilated
+face, with its streaks of shining blood. Then he muttered with a smack
+of the lips:
+
+"You can see for yourselves who the man is."
+
+As he spoke a few more sparks descended upon Silantiev's scalp and wet
+cheeks, and went out, while the flare's reflection so played in the
+ball of Silantiev's eye as to communicate to it an added appearance of
+death.
+
+Finally the torch holder straightened his back, threw his torch into
+the river, expectorated after it, and said to his companion as he
+smoothed a flaxen poll which, in the darkness, looked almost greenish:
+
+"Do you go to the barraque, and tell them that a man has been done to
+death."
+
+"No; I should be afraid to go alone."
+
+"Come, come! Nothing is there to be afraid of. Go, I tell you."
+
+"But I would much rather not."
+
+"Don't be such a fool!"
+
+Suddenly there sounded over my head the quiet voice of the foreman.
+
+"I will accompany you," he said. Then he added disgustedly as he
+scraped his foot against a stone:
+
+"How horrible the blood smells! It would seem that my very foot is
+smeared with it."
+
+With a frown the fair-headed muzhik eyed him, while the foreman
+returned the muzhik's gaze with a scrutiny that never wavered. Finally
+the elder man commented with cold severity:
+
+"All the mischief has come of vodka and tobacco, the devil's drugs."
+
+Not only were the pair strangely alike, but both of them strangely
+resembled wizards, in that both were short of stature, as
+sharp-finished as gimlets, and as green-tinted by the darkness as tufts
+of lichen.
+
+"Let us go, brother," the foreman said. "Go we with the Holy Spirit."
+
+And, omitting even to inquire who had been killed, or even to glance at
+the corpse, or even to pay it the last salute demanded of custom, the
+foreman departed down the stream, while in his wake followed the
+messenger, a man who kept stumbling as he picked his way from stone to
+stone. Amid the gloom the pair moved as silently as ghosts.
+
+The narrow-chested, fair-headed little muzhik then raked me with his
+eyes; whereafter he produced a cigarette from a tin box, snapped-to the
+lid of the box, struck a match (illuminating once more the face of the
+dead man), and applied the flame to the cigarette. Lastly he said:
+
+"This is the sixth murder which I have seen one thing and another
+commit."
+
+"One thing and another commit?" I queried.
+
+The reply came only after a pause; when the little muzhik asked: "What
+did you say? I did not quite catch it."
+
+I explained that human beings, not inanimate entities, murdered human
+beings.
+
+"Well, be they human beings or machinery or lightning or anything else,
+they are all one. One of my mates was caught in some machinery at
+Bakhmakh. Another one had his throat cut in a brawl. Another one was
+crushed against the bucket in a coal mine. Another one was--"
+
+Carefully though the man counted, he ended by erring in his reckoning
+to the extent of making his total "five." Accordingly he re-computed
+the list--and this time succeeded in making the total amount to "seven."
+
+"Never mind," he remarked with a sigh as he blew his cigarette into a
+red glow which illuminated the whole of his face. "The truth is that I
+cannot always repeat the list correctly, just as I should like. Were I
+older than I am, I too should contrive to get finished off; for old-age
+is a far from desirable thing. Yes, indeed! But, as things are, I am
+still alive, nor, thank the Lord, does anything matter very much."
+
+Presently, with a nod towards Silantiev, he continued:
+
+"Even now HIS kinsfolk or his wife may be looking for news of him, or a
+letter from him. Well, never again will he write, and as likely as not
+his kinsfolk will end by saying to themselves: 'He has taken to bad
+ways, and forgotten his family.' Yes, good sir."
+
+By this time the clamour around the barraque had ceased, and the two
+fires had burnt themselves out, and most of the men dispersed. From the
+smooth yellow walls of the barraque dark, round, knot-holes were gazing
+at the rivulet like eyes. Only in a single window without a frame was
+there visible a faint light, while at intervals there issued thence
+fragmentary, angry exclamations such as:
+
+"Look sharp there, and deal! Clubs will be the winners."
+
+"Ah! Here is a trump!"
+
+"Indeed? What luck, damn it!"
+
+The fair-headed muzhik blew the ashes from his cigarette, and observed:
+
+"No such thing is there at cards as luck--only skill."
+
+At this juncture we saw approaching us softly from across the rivulet a
+young carpenter who wore a moustache. He halted beside us, and drew a
+deep breath.
+
+"Well, mate?" the fair-headed muzhik inquired.
+
+"Would you mind giving me something to smoke?" the carpenter asked. The
+obscurity caused him to look large and shapeless, though his manner of
+speaking was bashful and subdued.
+
+"Certainly. Here is a cigarette."
+
+"Christ reward you! Today my wife forgot to bring my tobacco, and my
+grandfather has strict ideas on the subject of smoking."
+
+"Was it he who departed just now? It was."
+
+As the carpenter inhaled a whiff he continued:
+
+"I suppose that man was beaten to death?"
+
+"He was--to death."
+
+For a while the pair smoked in silence. The hour was past midnight.
+
+Over the defile the jagged strip of sky which roofed it looked like a
+river of blue flowing at an immense height above the night-enveloped
+earth, and bearing the brilliant stars on its smooth current.
+
+Quieter and quieter was everything growing; more and more was
+everything becoming part of the night....
+
+One might have thought that nothing particular had happened.
+
+
+
+
+KALININ
+
+Whistling from off the sea, the wind was charged with moist, salt
+spray, and dashing foaming billows ashore with their white manes full
+of snakelike, gleaming black ribands of seaweed, and causing the rocks
+to rumble angrily in response, and the trees to rustle with a dry,
+agitated sound as their tops swayed to and fro, and their trunks bent
+earthwards as though they would fain reeve up their roots, and betake
+them whither the mountains stood veiled in a toga of heavy, dark mist.
+
+Over the sea the clouds were hurrying towards the land as ever and anon
+they rent themselves into strips, and revealed fathomless abysses of
+blue wherein the autumn sun burned uneasily, and sent cloud-shadows
+gliding over the puckered waste of waters, until, the shore reached,
+the wind further harried the masses of vapour towards the sharp flanks
+of the mountains, and, after drawing them up and down the slopes,
+relegated them to clefts, and left them steaming there.
+
+There was about the whole scene a louring appearance, an appearance as
+though everything were contending with everything, as now all things
+turned sullenly dark, and now all things emitted a dull sheen which
+almost blinded the eyes. Along the narrow road, a road protected from
+the sea by a line of wave-washed dykes, some withered leaves of oak and
+wild cherry were scudding in mutual chase of one another; with the
+general result that the combined sounds of splashing and rustling and
+howling came to merge themselves into a single din which issued as a
+song with a rhythm marked by the measured blows of the waves as they
+struck the rocks.
+
+"Zmiulan, the King of the Ocean, is abroad!" shouted my fellow
+traveller in my ear. He was a tall, round-shouldered man of childishly
+chubby features and boyishly bright, transparent eyes.
+
+"WHO do you say is abroad?" I queried.
+
+"King Zmiulan."
+
+Never having heard of the monarch, I made no reply.
+
+The extent to which the wind buffeted us might have led one to suppose
+that its primary objective was to deflect our steps, and turn them in
+the direction of the mountains. Indeed, at times its pressure was so
+strong that we had no choice but to halt, to turn our backs to the sea,
+and, with feet planted apart, to prise ourselves against our sticks,
+and so remain, poised on three legs, until we were past any risk of
+being overwhelmed with the soft incubus of the tempest, and having our
+coats torn from our shoulders.
+
+At intervals such gasps would come from my companion that he might well
+have been standing on the drying-board of a bath. Nor, as they did so,
+was his appearance aught but comical, seeing that his ears, appendages
+large and shaggy like a dog's, and indifferently shielded with a shabby
+old cap, kept being pushed forward by the wind until his small head
+bore an absurd resemblance to a china bowl. And that, to complete the
+resemblance, his long and massive nose, a feature grossly
+disproportionate to the rest of his diminutive face, might equally well
+have passed for the spout of the receptacle indicated.
+
+Yet a face out of the common it was, like the whole of his personality.
+And this was the fact which had captivated me from the moment when I
+had beheld him participating in a vigil service held in the
+neighbouring church of the monastery of New Athos. There, spare, but
+with his withered form erect, and his head slightly tilted, he had been
+gazing at the Crucifix with a radiant smile, and moving his thin lips
+in a sort of whispered, confidential, friendly conversation with the
+Saviour. Indeed, so much had the man's smooth, round features (features
+as beardless as those of a Skopetz [A member of the Skoptzi, a
+non-Orthodox sect the members of which "do make of themselves eunuchs
+for the Lord's sake."], save for two bright tufts at the corners of the
+mouth) been instinct with intimacy, with a consciousness of actually
+being in the presence of the Son of God, that the spectacle,
+transcending anything of the kind that my eyes had before beheld, had
+led me, with its total absence of the customary laboured, servile,
+pusillanimous attitude towards the Almighty which I had generally found
+to be the rule, to accord the man my whole interest, and, as long as
+the service had lasted, to keep an eye upon one who could thus converse
+with God without rendering Him constant obeisance, or again and again
+making the sign of the cross, or invariably making it to the
+accompaniment of groans and tears which had always hitherto obtruded
+itself upon my notice.
+
+Again had I encountered the man when I had had supper at the workmen's
+barraque, and then proceeded to the monastery's guest-chamber. Seated
+at a table under a circle of light falling from a lamp suspended from
+the ceiling, he had gathered around him a knot of pilgrims and their
+women, and was holding forth in low, cheerful tones that yet had in
+them the telling, incisive note of the preacher, of the man who
+frequently converses with his fellow men.
+
+"One thing it may be best always to disclose," he was saying, "and
+another thing to conceal. If aught in ourselves seems harmful or
+senseless, let us put to ourselves the question: 'Why is this so?'
+Contrariwise ought a prudent man never to thrust himself forward and
+say: 'How discreet am I!' while he who makes a parade of his hard lot,
+and says, 'Good folk, see ye and hear how bitter my life is,' also does
+wrong."
+
+Here a pilgrim with a black beard, a brigand's dark eyes, and the
+wasted features of an ascetic rose from the further side of the table,
+straightened his virile frame, and said in a dull voice:
+
+"My wife and one of my children were burnt to death through the falling
+of an oil lamp. On THAT ought I to keep silence?"
+
+No answer followed. Only someone muttered to himself:
+
+"What? Again?": until the first speaker, the speaker seated near the
+corner of the table, launched into the oppressive lull the unhesitating
+reply:
+
+"That of which you speak may be taken to have been a punishment by God
+for sin."
+
+"What? For a sin committed by one three years of age (for, indeed, my
+little son was no more)? The accident happened of his pulling down a
+lamp upon himself, and of my wife seizing him, and herself being burnt
+to death. She was weak, too, for but eleven days had passed since her
+confinement."
+
+"No. What I mean is that in that accident you see a punishment for sins
+committed by the child's father and mother."
+
+This reply from the corner came with perfect confidence. The
+black-bearded man, however, pretended not to hear it, but spread out
+his hands as though parting the air before him, and proceeded
+hurriedly, breathlessly to detail the manner in which his wife and
+little one had met their deaths. And all the time that he was doing so
+one had an inkling that often before had he recounted his narrative of
+horror, and that often again would he repeat it. His shaggy black
+eyebrows, as he delivered his speech, met in a single strip, while the
+whites of his eyes grew bloodshot, and their dull, black pupils never
+ceased their nervous twitching.
+
+Presently the gloomy recital was once more roughly, unceremoniously
+broken in upon by the cheerful voice of the Christ-loving pilgrim.
+
+"It is not right, brother," the voice said, "to blame God for untoward
+accidents, or for mistakes and follies committed by ourselves."
+
+"But if God be God, He is responsible for all things."
+
+"Not so. Concede to yourself the faculty of reason."
+
+"Pah! What avails reason if it cannot make me understand?"
+
+"Cannot make you understand WHAT?"
+
+"The main point, the point why MY wife had to be burnt rather than my
+neighbour's?"
+
+Somewhere an old woman commented in spitefully distinct tones:
+
+"Oh ho, ho! This man comes to a monastery, and starts railing as soon
+as he gets there!"
+
+Flashing his eyes angrily, the black-bearded man lowered his head like
+a bull. Then, thinking better of his position, and contenting himself
+with a gesture, he strode swiftly, heavily towards the door. Upon this
+the Christ-loving pilgrim rose with a swaying motion, bowed to everyone
+present, and set about following his late interlocutor.
+
+"It has all come of a broken heart," he said with a smile as he passed
+me. Yet somehow the smile seemed to lack sympathy.
+
+With a disapproving air someone else remarked:
+
+"That fellow's one thought is to enlarge and to enlarge upon his tale."
+
+"Yes, and to no purpose does he do so," added the Christ-loving pilgrim
+as he halted in the doorway. "All that he accomplishes by it is to
+weary himself and others alike. Such experiences are far better put
+behind one."
+
+Presently I followed the pair into the forecourt, and near the
+entrance-gates heard a voice say quietly:
+
+"Do not disturb yourself, good father."
+
+"Nevertheless" (the second voice was that of the porter of the
+monastery, Father Seraphim, a strapping Vetlugan) "a spectre walks here
+nightly."
+
+"Never mind if it does. As regards myself, no spectre would touch me."
+
+Here I moved in the direction of the gates.
+
+"Who comes there?" Seraphim inquired as he thrust a hairy and uncouth,
+but infinitely kindly, face close to mine. "Oh, it is the young fellow
+from Nizhni Novgorod! You are wasting your time, my good sir, for the
+women have all gone to bed."
+
+With which he laughed and chuckled like a bear.
+
+Beyond the wall of the forecourt the stillness of the autumn night was
+the languid inertia of a world exhausted by summer, and the withered
+grass and other objects of the season were exhaling a sweet and bracing
+odour, and the trees looking like fragments of cloud where motionless
+they hung in the moist, sultry air. Also, in the darkness the
+half-slumbering sea could be heard soughing as it crept towards the
+shore while over the sky lay a canopy of mist, save at the point where
+the moon's opal-like blur could be descried over the spot where that
+blur's counterfeit image glittered and rocked on the surface of the
+dark waters.
+
+Under the trees there was set a bench whereon I could discern there to
+be resting a human figure. Approaching the figure, I seated myself
+beside it.
+
+"Whence, comrade?" was my inquiry.
+
+"From Voronezh. And you?"
+
+A Russian is never adverse to talking about himself. It would seem as
+though he is never sure of his personality, as though he is ever
+yearning to have that personality confirmed from some source other
+than, extraneous to, his own ego. The reason for this must be that we
+Russians live diffused over a land of such vastness that, the more we
+grasp the immensity of the same, the smaller do we come to appear in
+our own eyes; wherefore, traversing, as we do, roads of a length of a
+thousand versts, and constantly losing our way, we come to let slip no
+opportunity of restating ourselves, and setting forth all that we have
+seen and thought and done.
+
+Hence, too, must it be that in conversations one seems to hear less of
+the note of "I am I" than of the note of "Am I really and truly myself?"
+
+"What may be your name?"  next I inquired of the figure on the bench.
+
+"A name of absolute simplicity--the name of Alexei Kalinin."
+
+"You are a namesake of mine, then."
+
+"Indeed? Is that so?"
+
+With which, tapping me on the knee, the figure added:
+
+"Come, then, namesake. 'I have mortar, and you have water, so together
+let us paint the town.'"
+
+Murmuring amid the silence could be heard small, light waves that were
+no more than ripples. Behind us the busy clamour of the monastery had
+died down, and even Kalinin's cheery voice seemed subdued by the
+influence of the night--it seemed to have in it less of the note of
+self-confidence.
+
+"My mother was a wet-nurse," he went on to volunteer, "and I her only
+child. When I was twelve years of age I was, owing to my height,
+converted into a footman. It happened thus. One day, on General Stepan
+(my mother's then employer) happening to catch sight of me, he
+exclaimed: 'Evgenia, go and tell Fedor' (the ex-soldier who was then
+serving the General as footman) 'that he is to teach your son to wait
+at table! The boy is at least tall enough for the work.' And for nine
+years I served the General in this capacity. And then, and then--oh,
+THEN I was seized with an illness.... Next, I obtained a post under
+a merchant who was then mayor of our town, and stayed with him
+twenty-one months. And next I obtained a situation in an hotel at
+Kharkov, and held it for a year. And after that I kept changing my
+places, for, steady and sober though I was, I was beginning to lack
+taste for my profession, and to develop a spirit of the kind which
+deemed all work to be beneath me, and considered that I had been
+created to serve only myself, not others."
+
+Along the high road to Sukhum which lay behind us there were proceeding
+some invisible travellers whose scraping of feet as they walked
+proclaimed the fact that they were not over-used to journeying on foot.
+Just as the party drew level with us, a musical voice hummed out softly
+the line "Alone will I set forth upon the road," with the word "alone"
+plaintively stressed. Next, a resonant bass voice said with a sort of
+indolent incisiveness:
+
+"Aphon or aphonia means loss of speech to the extent of, to the extent
+of--oh, to WHAT extent, most learned Vera Vasilievna?"
+
+"To the extent of total loss of power of articulation," replied a voice
+feminine and youthful of timbre.
+
+Just at that moment we saw two dark, blurred figures, with a paler
+figure between them, come gliding into view.
+
+"Strange indeed is it that, that--"
+
+"That what?"
+
+"That so many names proper to these parts should also be so suggestive.
+Take, for instance, Mount Nakopioba. Certainly folk hereabouts seem to
+have "amassed" things, and to have known how to do so." [The verb
+nakopit means to amass, to heap up.]
+
+"For my part, I always fail to remember the name of Simon the
+Canaanite. Constantly I find myself calling him 'the Cainite.'"
+
+"Look here," interrupted the musical voice in a tone of chastened
+enthusiasm. "As I contemplate all this beauty, and inhale this
+restfulness, I find myself reflecting: 'How would it be if I were to
+let everything go to the devil, and take up my abode here for ever?'"
+
+At this point all further speech became drowned by the sound of the
+monastery's bell as it struck the hour. The only utterance that came
+borne to my ears was the mournful fragment:
+
+  Oh, if into a single word
+  I could pour my inmost thoughts!
+
+To the foregoing dialogue my companion had listened with his head
+tilted to one side, much as though the dialogue had deflected it in
+that direction: and now, as the voices died away into the distance, he
+sighed, straightened himself, and said:
+
+"Clearly those people were educated folk. And see too how, as they
+talked of one thing and another, there cropped up the old and
+ever-persistent point."
+
+"To what point are you referring?"
+
+My companion paused a moment before he replied. Then he said:
+
+"Can it be that you did not hear it? Did you not hear one of those
+people remark: 'I have a mind to surrender everything '?"
+
+Whereafter, bending forward, and peering at me as a blind man would do,
+Kalinin added in a half-whisper:
+
+"More and more are folk coming to think to themselves: 'Now must I
+forsake everything.' In the end I myself came to think it. For many a
+year did I increasingly reflect: 'Why should I be a servant? What will
+it ever profit me? Even if I should earn twelve, or twenty, or fifty
+roubles a month, to what will such earnings lead, and where will the
+man in me come in? Surely it would be better to do nothing at all, but
+just to gaze into space (as I am doing now), and let my eyes stare
+straight before me?'"
+
+"By the way, what were you talking to those people about?"
+
+"Which people do you mean?"
+
+"The bearded man and the rest, the company in the guest-chamber?"
+
+"Ah, THAT man I did not like--I have no fancy at all for fellows who
+strew their grief about the world, and leave it to be trampled upon by
+every chance-comer. For how can the tears of my neighbour benefit me?
+True, every man has his troubles; but also has every man such a
+predilection for his particular woe that he ends by deeming it the most
+bitter and remarkable grief in the universe--you may take my word for
+that."
+
+Suddenly the speaker rose to his feet, a tall, lean figure.
+
+"Now I must seek my bed," he remarked. "You see, I shall have to leave
+here very early tomorrow."
+
+"And for what point?"
+
+"For Novorossisk."
+
+Now, the day being a Saturday, I had drawn my week's earnings from the
+monastery's pay-office just before the vigil service. Also, Novorossisk
+did not really lie in my direction. Thirdly, I had no particular wish
+to exchange the monastery for any other lodging. Nevertheless, despite
+all this, the man interested me to such an extent (of persons who
+genuinely interest one there never exist but two, and, of them, oneself
+is always one) that straightway I observed:
+
+"I too shall be leaving here tomorrow."
+
+"Then let us travel together."
+
+      *      *      *      *      *
+
+At dawn, therefore, we set forth to foot the road in company. At times
+I mentally soared aloft, and viewed the scene from that vantage-point.
+Whenever I did so, I beheld two tall men traversing a narrow track by a
+seashore--the one clad in a grey military overcoat and a hat with a
+broken crown, and the other in a drab kaftan and a plush cap. At their
+feet the boundless sea was splashing white foam, salt-dried ribands of
+seaweed were strewing the path, golden leaves were dancing hither and
+thither, and the wind was howling at, and buffeting, the travellers as
+clouds sailed over their heads. Also, to their right there lay
+stretched a chain of mountains towards which the clouds kept wearily,
+nervelessly tending, while to their left there lay spread a white-laced
+expanse over the surface of which a roaring wind kept ceaselessly
+driving transparent columns of spray.
+
+On such stormy days in autumn everything near a seashore looks
+particularly cheerful and vigorous, seeing that, despite the soughing
+of wind and wave, and the swift onrush of cloud, and the fact that the
+sun is only occasionally to be seen suspended in abysses of blue, and
+resembles a drooping flower, one feels that the apparent chaos has
+lurking in it a secret harmony of mundane, but imperishable, forces--so
+much so that in time even one's puny human heart comes to imbibe the
+prevalent spirit of revolt, and, catching fire, to cry to all the
+universe: "I love you!"
+
+Yes, at such times one desires to taste life to the full, and so to
+live that the ancient rocks shall smile, and the sea's white horses
+prance the higher, as one's mouth acclaims the earth in such a paean
+that, intoxicated with the laudation, it shall unfold its riches with
+added bountifulness and display more and more manifest beauty under the
+spur of the love expressed by one of its creatures, expressed by a
+human being who feels for the earth what he would feel for a woman, and
+yearns to fertilise the same to ever-increasing splendour.
+
+Nevertheless, words are as heavy as stones, and after felling fancy to
+the ground, serve but to heap her grey coffin-lid, and cause one, as
+one stands contemplating the tomb, to laugh in sheer self-derision...
+.
+
+Suddenly, plunged in dreams as I walked along, I heard through the
+plash of the waves and the sizzle of the foam the unfamiliar words:
+
+"Hymen, Demon, Igamon, and Zmiulan. Good devils are these, not bad."
+
+"How does Christ get on with them?" I asked.
+
+"Christ? He does not enter into the matter."
+
+"Is He hostile to them?"
+
+"Is He HOSTILE to them? How could He be? Devils of that kind are devils
+to themselves-devils of a decent sort. Besides, to no one is Christ
+hostile"  ..............................   . . . . .
+
+[In the Russian this hiatus occurs as marked.]
+
+
+As though unable any longer to brave the assault of the billows, the
+path suddenly swerved towards the bushes on our right, and, in doing
+so, caused the cloud-wrapped mountains to shift correspondingly to our
+immediate front, where the masses of vapour were darkening as though
+rain were probable.
+
+Kalinin's discourse proved instructive as with his stick he from time
+to time knocked the track clear of clinging tendrils.
+
+"The locality is not without its perils," once he remarked. "For
+hereabouts there lurks malaria. It does so because long ago Maliar of
+Kostroma banished his evil sister, Fever, to these parts. Probably he
+was paid to do so, but the exact circumstances escape my memory."
+
+So thickly was the surface of the sea streaked with cloud-shadows that
+it bore the appearance of being in mourning, of being decked in the
+funeral colours of black and white. Afar off, Gudaout lay lashed with
+foam, while constantly objects like snowdrifts kept gliding towards it.
+
+"Tell me more about those devils," I said at length.
+
+"Well, if you wish. But what exactly am I to tell you about them?"
+
+"All that you may happen to know."
+
+"Oh, I know EVERYTHING about them."
+
+To this my companion added a wink. Then he continued:
+
+"I say that I know everything about those devils for the reason that
+for my mother I had a most remarkable woman, a woman cognisant of each
+and every species of proverb, anathema, and item of hagiology. You must
+know that, after spreading my bed beside the kitchen stove each night,
+and her own bed on the top of the stove (for, after her wet-nursing of
+three of the General's children, she lived a life of absolute ease, and
+did no work at all)--"
+
+Here Kalinin halted, and, driving his stick into the ground, glanced
+back along the path before resuming his way with firm, lengthy strides.
+
+"I may tell you that the General had a niece named Valentina
+Ignatievna. And she too was a most remarkable woman."
+
+"Remarkable for what?"
+
+"Remarkable for EVERYTHING."
+
+At this moment there came floating over our heads through the
+damp-saturated air a cormorant--one of those voracious birds which so
+markedly lack intelligence. And somehow the whistling of its powerful
+pinions awoke in me an unpleasant reminiscent thought.
+
+"Pray continue," I said to my fellow traveller.
+
+"And each night, as I lay on the floor (I may mention that never did I
+climb on to the stove, and to this day I dislike the heat of one), it
+was her custom to sit with her legs dangling over the edge of the top,
+and tell me stories. And though the room would be too dark for me to
+see her face, I could yet see the things of which she would be
+speaking. And at times, as these tales came floating down to me, I
+would find them so horrible as to be forced to cry out, 'Oh, Mamka,
+Mamka, DON'T!...' To this hour I have no love for the bizarre, and
+am but a poor hand at remembering it. And as strange as her stories was
+my mother. Eventually she died of an attack of blood-poisoning and,
+though but forty, had become grey-headed. Yes, and so terribly did she
+smell after her death that everyone in the kitchen was constrained to
+exclaim at the odour."
+
+"Yes, but what of the devils?"
+
+"You must wait a minute or two."
+
+Ever as we proceeded, clinging, fantastic branches kept closing in upon
+the path, so that we appeared to be walking through a sea of murmuring
+verdure. And from time to time a bough would flick us as though to say:
+"Speed, speed, or the rain will be upon you!"
+
+If anything, however, my companion slackened his pace as in measured,
+sing-song accents he continued:
+
+"When Jesus Christ, God's Son, went forth into the wilderness to
+collect His thoughts, Satan sent devils to subject Him to temptation.
+Christ was then young; and as He sat on the burning sand in the middle
+of the desert, He pondered upon one thing and another, and played with
+a handful of pebbles which He had collected. Until presently from afar,
+there descried Him the devils Hymen, Demon, Igamon, and Zmiulan--devils
+of equal age with the Saviour.
+
+"Drawing near unto Him, they said, 'Pray suffer us to sport with Thee.'
+Whereupon Christ answered with a smile: 'Pray be seated.' Then all of
+them did sit down in a circle, and proceed to business, which business
+was to see whether or not any member of the party could so throw a
+stone into the air as to prevent it from falling back upon the burning
+sand.
+
+  ..............................  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
+. . . . . . .
+
+[In the original Russian this hiatus occurs as given.]
+
+
+"Christ Himself was the first to throw a stone; whereupon His stone
+became changed into a six-winged dove, and fluttered away towards the
+Temple of Jerusalem. And, next, the impotent devils strove to do the
+same; until at length, when they saw that Christ could not in any wise
+be tempted, Zmiulan, the senior of the devils, cried:
+
+"'Oh Lord, we will tempt Thee no more; for of a surety do we avail not,
+and, though we be devils, never shall do so!'
+
+"'Aye, never shall ye!' Christ did agree. 'And, therefore, I will now
+fulfil that which from the first I did conceive. That ye be devils I
+know right well. And that, while yet afar off, ye did, on beholding me,
+have compassion upon me I know right well. While also ye did not in any
+wise seek to conceal from me the truth as concerning yourselves. Hence
+shall ye, for the remainder of your lives, be GOOD devils; so that at
+the last shall matters be rendered easier for you. Do thou, Zmiulan,
+become King of the Ocean, and send the winds of the sea to cleanse the
+land of foul air. And do thou, Demon, see to it that the cattle shall
+eat of no poisonous herb, but that all herbs of the sort be covered
+with prickles. Do thou, Igamon, comfort, by night, all comfortless
+widows who shall be blaming God for the death of their husbands? And do
+thou, Hymen, as the youngest devil of the band, choose for thyself
+wherein shall lie thy charge.'
+
+"'Oh Lord,' replied Hymen, 'I do love but to laugh.'
+
+"And the Saviour replied:
+
+"'Then cause thou folk to laugh. Only, mark thou, see to it that they
+laugh not IN CHURCH.'
+
+"'Yet even in church would I laugh, Oh Lord,' the devil objected.
+
+"'Jesus Christ Himself laughed.
+
+"'God go with you!' at length He said. 'Then let folk laugh even in
+church--but QUIETLY.'
+
+"In such wise did Christ convert those four evil devils into devils of
+goodness."
+
+Soaring over the green, bushy sea were a number of old oaks. On them
+the yellow leaves were trembling as though chilled; here and there a
+sturdy hazel was doffing its withered garments, and elsewhere a wild
+cherry was quivering, and elsewhere an almost naked chestnut was
+politely rendering obeisance to the earth.
+
+"Did you find that story of mine a good one?" my companion inquired.
+
+"I did, for Christ was so good in it."
+
+"Always and everywhere He is so," Kalinin proudly rejoined. "But do you
+also know what an old woman of Smolensk used to sing concerning Him?"
+
+"I do not."
+
+Halting, my strange traveller chanted in a feignedly senile and
+tremulous voice, as he beat time with his foot:
+
+  In the heavens a flow'r doth blow,
+  It is the Son of God.
+  From it all our joys do flow,
+  It is the Son of God.
+  In the sun's red rays He dwells
+  He, the Son of God.
+  His light our every ill dispels.
+  Praised be the Son of God!
+
+Each successive line seemed to inspire Kalinin's voice with added
+youthfulness, until, indeed, the concluding words--"The One and Only
+God"--issued in a high, agreeable tenor.
+
+Suddenly a flash of lightning blazed before us, while dull thunder
+crashed among the mountains, and sent its hundred-voiced echoes rolling
+over land and sea. In his consternation, Kalinin opened his mouth until
+a set of fine, even teeth became bared to view. Then, with repeated
+crossings of himself, he muttered.
+
+"Oh dread God, Oh beneficent God, Oh God who sittest on high, and on a
+golden throne, and under a gilded canopy, do Thou now punish Satan,
+lest he overwhelm me in the midst of my sins!"
+
+Whereafter, turning a small and terrified face in my direction, and
+blinking his bright eyes, he added with hurried diction:
+
+"Come, brother! Come! Let us run on ahead, for thunderstorms are my
+bane. Yes, let us run with all possible speed, run ANYWHERE, for soon
+the rain will be pouring down, and these parts are full of lurking
+fever."
+
+Off, therefore, we started, with the wind smiting us behind, and our
+kettles and teapots jangling, and my wallet, in particular, thumping me
+about the middle of the body as though it had been wielding a large,
+soft fist. Yet a far cry would it be to the mountains, nor was any
+dwelling in sight, while ever and anon branches caught at our clothes,
+and stones leapt aloft under our tread, and the air grew steadily
+darker, and the mountains seemed to begin gliding towards us.
+
+Once more from the black cloud-masses, heaven belched a fiery dart
+which caused the sea to scintillate with blue sapphires in response,
+and, seemingly, to recoil from the shore as the earth shook, and the
+mountain defiles emitted a gigantic scrunching sound of their rock-hewn
+jaws.
+
+"Oh Holy One! Oh Holy One! Oh Holy One!" screamed Kalinin as he dived
+into the bushes.
+
+In the rear, the waves lashed us as though they had a mind to arrest
+our progress; from the gloom to our front came a sort of scraping and
+rasping; long black hands seemed to wave over our heads; just at the
+point where the mountain crests lay swathed in their dense coverlet of
+cloud, there rumbled once more the deafening iron chariot of the
+thunder-god; more and more frequently flashed the lightning as the
+earth rang, and rifts cleft by the blue glare disclosed, amid the
+obscurity, great trees that were rustling and rocking and, to all
+appearances, racing headlong before the scourge of a cold, slanting
+rain.
+
+The occasion was a harassing but bracing one, for as the fine bands of
+rain beat upon our faces, our bodies felt filled with a heady vigour of
+a kind to fit us to run indefinitely--at all events to run until this
+storm of rain and thunder should be outpaced, and clear weather be
+reached again.
+
+Suddenly Kalinin shouted: "Stop! Look!"
+
+This was because the fitful illumination of a flash had just shown up
+in front of us the trunk of an oak tree which had a large black hollow
+let into it like a doorway. So into that hollow we crawled as two mice
+might have done--laughing aloud in our glee as we did so.
+
+"Here there is room for THREE persons," my companion remarked.
+"Evidently it is a hollow that has been burnt out--though rascals
+indeed must the burners have been to kindle a fire in a living tree!"
+
+However, the space within the hollow was both confined and redolent of
+smoke and dead leaves. Also, heavy drops of rain still bespattered our
+heads and shoulders, and at every peal of thunder the tree quivered and
+creaked until the strident din around us gave one the illusion of being
+afloat in a narrow caique. Meanwhile at every flash of the lightning's
+glare, we could see slanting ribands of rain cutting the air with a
+network of blue, glistening, vitreous lines.
+
+Presently, the wind began to whistle less loudly, as though now it felt
+satisfied at having driven so much productive rain into the ground, and
+washed clean the mountain tops, and loosened the stony soil.
+
+"U-oh! U-oh!" hooted a grey mountain owl just over our heads.
+
+"Why, surely it believes the time to be night!" Kalinin commented in a
+whisper.
+
+"U-oh! U-u-u-oh!" hooted the bird again, and in response my companion
+shouted:
+
+"You have made a mistake, my brother!"
+
+By this time the air was feeling chilly, and a bright grey fog had
+streamed over us, and wrapped a semi-transparent veil about the
+gnarled, barrel-like trunks with their outgrowing shoots and the few
+remaining leaves still adhering.
+
+Far and wide the monotonous din continued to rage--it did so until
+conscious thought began almost to be impossible. Yet even as one
+strained one's attention, and listened to the rain lashing the fallen
+leaves, and pounding the stones, and bespattering the trunks of the
+trees, and to the murmuring and splashing of rivulets racing towards
+the sea, and to the roaring of torrents as they thundered over the
+rocks of the mountains, and to the creaking of trees before the wind,
+and to the measured thud-thud of the waves; as one listened to all
+this, the thousand sounds seemed to combine into a single heaviness of
+hurried clamour, and involuntarily one found oneself striving to
+disunite them, and to space them even as one spaces the words of a song.
+
+Kalinin fidgeted, nudged me, and muttered:
+
+"I find this place too close for me. Always I have hated confinement."
+
+Nevertheless he had taken far more care than I to make himself
+comfortable, for he had edged himself right into the hollow, and, by
+squatting on his haunches, reduced his frame to the form of a ball.
+Moreover, the rain-drippings scarcely or in no wise touched him, while,
+in general, he appeared to have developed to the full an aptitude for
+vagrancy as a permanent condition, and for the allowing of no
+unpleasant circumstance to debar him from invariably finding the most
+convenient vantage-ground at a given juncture. Presently, in fact, he
+continued:
+
+"Yes; despite the rain and cold and everything else, I consider life to
+be not quite intolerable."
+
+"Not quite intolerable in what?"
+
+"Not quite intolerable in the fact that at least I am bound to the
+service of no one save God. For if disagreeablenesses have to be
+endured, at all events they come better from Him than from one's own
+species."
+
+"Then you have no great love for your own species?"
+
+"One loves one's neighbour as the dog loves the stick." To which, after
+a pause, the speaker added:
+
+"For WHY should I love him?"
+
+It puzzled me to cite a reason off-hand, but, fortunately, Kalinin did
+not wait for an answer--rather, he went on to ask:
+
+"Have you ever been a footman?"
+
+"No," I replied.
+
+"Then let me tell you that it is peculiarly difficult for a footman to
+love his neighbour."
+
+"Wherefore?"
+
+"Go and be a footman; THEN you will know. In fact, it is never the case
+that, if one serves a man, one can love that man.... How steadily
+the rain persists!"
+
+Indeed, on every hand there was in progress a trickling and a splashing
+sound as though the weeping earth were venting soft, sorrowful sobs
+over the departure of summer before winter and its storms should arrive.
+
+"How come you to be travelling the Caucasus?" I asked at length.
+
+"Merely through the fact that my walking and walking has brought me
+hither," was the reply. "For that matter, everyone ends by heading for
+the Caucasus."
+
+"Why so?"
+
+"Why NOT, seeing that from one's earliest years one hears of nothing
+but the Caucasus, the Caucasus? Why, even our old General used to harp
+upon the name, with his moustache bristling, and his eyes protruding,
+as he did so. And the same as regards my mother, who had visited the
+country in the days when, as yet, the General was in command but of a
+company. Yes, everyone tends hither. And another reason is the fact
+that the country is an easy one to live in, a country which enjoys much
+sunshine, and produces much food, and has a winter less long and severe
+than our own winter, and therefore presents pleasanter conditions of
+life."
+
+"And what of the country's people?"
+
+"What of the country's people? Oh, so long as you keep yourself to
+yourself they will not interfere with you."
+
+"And why will they not?"
+
+Kalinin paused, stared at me, smiled condescendingly, and, finally,
+said:
+
+"What a dullard you are to ask about such simple things! Were you never
+given any sort of an education? Surely by this time you ought to be
+able to understand something?"
+
+Then, with a change of subject, and subduing his tone to one of
+snuffling supplication, he added in the sing-song chant of a person
+reciting a prayer:
+
+"'Oh Lord, suffer me not to become bound unto the clergy the
+priesthood, the diaconate, the tchinovstvo, [The official class] or the
+intelligentsia!' This was a petition which my mother used often to
+repeat."
+
+The raindrops now were falling more gently, and in finer lines and more
+transparent network, so that one could once more descry the great
+trunks of the blackened oaks, with the green and gold of their leaves.
+Also, our own hollow had grown less dark, and there could be discerned
+its smoky, satin-bright walls. From those walls Kalinin picked a bit of
+charcoal with finger and thumb, saying:
+
+"It was shepherds that fired the place. See where they dragged in hay
+and dead leaves! A shepherd's fife hereabouts must be a truly glorious
+one!"
+
+Lastly, clasping his head as though he were about to fall asleep, he
+sank his chin between his knees, and relapsed into silence.
+
+Presently a brilliant, sinuous little rivulet which had long been
+laving the bare roots of our tree brought floating past us a red and
+fawn leaf.
+
+"How pretty," I thought, "that leaf will look from a distance when
+reposing on the surface of the sea! For, like the sun when he is in
+solitary possession of the heavens, that leaf will stand out against
+the blue, silky expanse like a lonely red star."
+
+After awhile my companion began, catlike, to purr to himself a song.
+Its melody, the melody of "the moon withdrew behind a cloud," was
+familiar enough, but not so the words, which ran:
+
+  Oh Valentina, wondrous maid,
+  More comely thou than e'er a flow'r!
+  The nurse's son doth pine for thee,
+  And yearn to serve thee every hour!
+
+"What does that ditty mean?" I inquired.
+
+Kalinin straightened himself, gave a wriggle to a form that was as
+lithe as a lizard's, and passed one hand over his face.
+
+"It is a certain composition," he replied presently. "It is a
+composition that was composed by a military clerk who afterwards died
+of consumption. He was my friend his life long, and my only friend, and
+a true one, besides being a man out of the common."
+
+"And who was Valentina?"
+
+"My one-time mistress," Kalinin spoke unwillingly.
+
+"And he, the clerk--was he in love with her?"
+
+"Oh dear no!"
+
+Evidently Kalinin had no particular wish to discuss the subject, for he
+hugged himself together, buried his face in his hands, and muttered:
+
+"I should like to kindle a fire, were it not that everything in the
+place is too damp for the purpose."
+
+The wind shook the trees, and whistled despondently, while the fine,
+persistent rain still whipped the earth.
+
+"I but humble am, and poor, Nor fated to be otherwise,"
+
+sang Kalinin softly as, flinging up his head with an unexpected
+movement, he added meaningly:
+
+"Yes, it is a mournful song, a song which could move to tears. Only to
+two persons has it ever been known; to my friend the clerk and to
+myself. Yes, and to HER, though I need hardly add that at once she
+forgot it."
+
+And Kalinin's eyes flashed into a smile as he added:
+
+"I think that, as a young man, you had better learn forthwith where the
+greatest danger lurks in life. Let me tell you a story."
+
+And upon that a very human tale filtered through the silken monotonous
+swish of the downpour, with, for listeners to it, only the rain and
+myself.
+
+"Lukianov was NEVER in love with her," he narrated. "Only I was that.
+All that Lukianov did in the matter was to write, at my request, some
+verses. When she first appeared on the scene (I mean Valentina
+Ignatievna) I was just turned nineteen years of age; and the instant
+that my eyes fell upon her form I realised that in her alone lay my
+fate, and my heart almost stopped beating, and my vitality stretched
+out towards her as a speck of dust flies towards a fire. Yet all this I
+had to conceal as best I might; with the result that in the company's
+presence I felt like a sentry doing guard duty in the presence of his
+commanding officer. But at last, though I strove to pull myself
+together, to steady myself against the ferment that was raging in my
+breast, something happened. Valentina Ignatievna was then aged about
+twenty-five, and very beautiful--marvellous, in fact! Also, she was an
+orphan, since her father had been killed by the Chechentzes, and her
+mother had died of smallpox at Samarkand. As regards her kinship with
+the General, she stood to him in the relation of niece by marriage.
+Golden-locked, and as skin-fair as enamelled porcelain, she had eyes
+like emeralds, and a figure wholly symmetrical, though as slim as a
+wafer. For bedroom she had a little corner apartment situated next to
+the kitchen (the General possessed his own house, of course), while, in
+addition, they allotted her a bright little boudoir in which she
+disposed her curios and knickknacks, from cut-glass bottles and goblets
+to a copper pipe and a glass ring mounted on copper. This ring, when
+turned, used to emit showers of glittering sparks, though she was in no
+way afraid of them, but would sing as she made them dance:
+
+  "Not for me the spring will dawn!
+  Not for me the Bug will spate!
+  Not for me love's smile will wait!
+  Not for me, ah, not for me!
+
+"Constantly would she warble this.
+
+"Also, once she flashed an appeal at me with her eyes, and said:
+
+"'Alexei, please never touch anything in my room, for my things are too
+fragile.'
+
+"Sure enough, in HER presence ANYTHING might have fallen from my hands!
+
+"Meanwhile her song about 'Not for me' used to make me feel sorry for
+her. 'Not for you?' I used to say to myself. 'Ought not EVERYTHING to
+be for you?' And this reflection would cause my heart to yearn and
+stretch towards her. Next, I bought a guitar, an instrument which I
+could not play, and took it for instruction to Lukianov, the clerk of
+the Divisional Staff, which had its headquarters in our street. In
+passing I may say that Lukianov was a little Jewish convert with dark
+hair, sallow features, and gimlet-sharp eyes, but beyond all things a
+fellow with brains, and one who could play the guitar unforgettably.
+
+"Once he said: 'In life all things are attainable--nothing need we lose
+for want of trying. For whence does everything come? From the plainest
+of mankind. A man may not be BORN in the rank of a general, but at
+least he may attain to that position. Also, the beginning and ending of
+all things is woman. All that she requires for her captivation is
+poetry. Hence, let me write you some verses, that you may tender them
+to her as an offering.'
+
+"These, mind you, were the words of a man in whom the heart was
+absolutely single, absolutely dispassionate."
+
+Until then Kalinin had told his story swiftly, with animation; but
+thereafter he seemed, as it were, to become extinguished. After a pause
+of a few seconds he continued--continued in slower, to all appearances
+more unwilling, accents--
+
+"At the time I believed what Lukianov said, but subsequently I came to
+see that things were not altogether as he had represented--that woman
+is merely a delusion, and poetry merely fiddle-faddle; and that a man
+cannot escape his fate, and that, though good in war, boldness is, in
+peace affairs, but naked effrontery. In this, brother, lies the chief,
+the fundamental law of life. For the world contains certain people of
+high station, and certain people of low; and so long as these two
+categories retain their respective positions, all goes well; but as
+soon as ever a man seeks to pass from the upper category to the
+inferior category, or from the inferior to the upper, the fat falls
+into the fire, and that man finds himself stuck midway, stuck neither
+here nor there, and bound to abide there for the remainder of his life,
+for the remainder of his life.... Always keep to your own position,
+to the position assigned you by fate..... Will the rain NEVER cease,
+think you?"
+
+By this time, as a matter of fact, the raindrops were falling less
+heavily and densely than hitherto, and the wet clouds were beginning to
+reveal bright patches in the moisture-soaked firmament, as evidence
+that the sun was still in existence.
+
+"Continue," I said.
+
+Kalinin laughed.
+
+"Then you find the story an interesting one," he remarked.
+
+Presently he resumed:
+
+"As I have said, I trusted Lukianov implicitly, and begged of him to
+write the verses. And write them he did--he wrote them the very next
+day. True, at this distance of time I have forgotten the words in their
+entirety, but at least I remember that there occurred in them a phrase
+to the effect that 'for days and weeks have your eyes been consuming my
+heart in the fire of love, so pity me, I pray.' I then proceeded to
+copy out the poem, and tremblingly to leave it on her table.
+
+"The next morning, when I was tidying her boudoir, she made an
+unexpected entry, and, clad in a loose, red dressing-gown, and holding
+a cigarette between her lips, said to me with a kindly smile as she
+produced my precious paper of verses:
+
+"'Alexei, did YOU write these?'
+
+"'Yes,' was my reply. 'And for Christ's sake pardon me for the same.'
+
+"'What a pity that such a fancy should have entered your head! For, you
+see, I am engaged already--my uncle is intending to marry me to Doctor
+Kliachka, and I am powerless in the matter.'
+
+"The very fact that she could address me with so much sympathy and
+kindness struck me dumb. As regards Doctor Kliachka, I may mention that
+he was a good-looking, blotchy-faced, heavy-jowled fellow with a
+moustache that reached to his shoulders, and lips that were for ever
+laughing and vociferating. 'Nothing has either a beginning or an end.
+The only thing really existent is pleasure.'
+
+"Nay, even the General could, at times, make sport of the fellow, and
+say as he shook with merriment:
+
+"'A doctor-comedian is the sort of man that you are.'
+
+"Now, at the period of which I am speaking I was as straight as a dart,
+and had a shock of luxuriant hair over a set of ruddy features. Also, I
+was living a life clean in every way, and maintaining a cautious
+attitude towards womenfolk, and holding prostitutes in a contempt born
+of the fact that I had higher views with regard to my life's destiny.
+Lastly, I never indulged in liquor, for I actually disliked it, and
+gave way to its influence only in days subsequent to the episode which
+I am narrating. Yes, and, last of all, I was in the habit of taking a
+bath every Saturday.
+
+"The same evening Kliachka and the rest of the party went out to the
+theatre (for, naturally, the General had horses and a carriage of his
+own), and I, for my part, went to inform Lukianov of what had happened.
+
+"He said: 'I must congratulate you, and am ready to wager you two
+bottles of beer that your affair is as good as settled. In a few
+seconds a fresh lot of verses shall be turned out, for poetry
+constitutes a species of talisman or charm.'
+
+"And, sure enough, he then and there composed the piece about 'the
+wondrous Valentina.' What a tender thing it is, and how full of
+understanding! My God, my God!"
+
+And, with a thoughtful shake of his bead, Kalinin raised his boyish
+eyes towards the blue patches in the rain-washed sky.
+
+"Duly she found the verses," he continued after a while, and with a
+vehemence that seemed wholly independent of his will. "And thereupon
+she summoned me to her room.
+
+"'What are we to do about it all?' she inquired.
+
+"She was but half-dressed, and practically the whole of her bosom was
+visible to my sight. Also, her naked feet had on them only slippers,
+and as she sat in her chair she kept rocking one foot to and fro in a
+maddening way.
+
+"'What are we to do about it all?' she repeated.
+
+"'What am I to say about it, at length I replied, 'save that I feel as
+though I were not really existing on earth?'
+
+"'Are you one who can hold your tongue?' was her next question.
+
+"I nodded--nothing else could I compass, for further speech had become
+impossible. Whereupon, rising with brows puckered, she fetched a couple
+of small phials, and, with the aid of ingredients thence, mixed a
+powder which she wrapped in paper, and handed me with the words:
+
+"'Only one way of escape offers from the Plagues of Egypt. Here I have
+a certain powder. Tonight the doctor is to dine with us. Place the
+powder in his soup, and within a few days I shall be free!--yes, free
+for you!'
+
+"I crossed myself, and duly took from her the paper, whilst a mist
+rose, and swam before my eyes, as I did so, and my legs became
+perfectly numb. What I next did I hardly know, for inwardly I was
+swooning. Indeed, until Kliachka's arrival the same evening I remained
+practically in a state of coma."
+
+Here Kalinin shuddered--then glanced at me with drawn features and
+chattering teeth, and stirred uneasily.
+
+"Suppose we light a fire?" he ventured. "I am growing shivery all over.
+But first we must move outside."
+
+The torn clouds were casting their shadows wearily athwart the sodden
+earth and glittering stones and silver-dusted herbage. Only on a single
+mountain top had a blur of mist settled like an arrested avalanche, and
+was resting there with its edges steaming. The sea too had grown calmer
+under the rain, and was splashing with more gentle mournfulness, even
+as the blue patches in the firmament had taken on a softer, warmer
+look, and stray sunbeams were touching upon land and sea in turn, and,
+where they chanced to fall upon herbage, causing pearls and emeralds to
+sparkle on every leaf, and kaleidoscopic tints to glow where the
+dark-blue sea reflected their generous radiance. Indeed, so goodly, so
+full of promise, was the scene that one might have supposed autumn to
+have fled away for ever before the wind and the rain, and beneficent
+summer to have been restored.
+
+Presently through the moist, squelching sound of our footsteps, and the
+cheerful patter of the rain-drippings, Kalinin's narrative resumed its
+languid, querulous course:
+
+"When, that evening, I opened the door to the doctor I could not bring
+myself to look him in the face--I could merely hang my head; whereupon,
+taking me by the chin, and raising it, he inquired:
+
+"Why is your face so yellow? What is the matter with you?'
+
+"Yes, a kind-hearted man was he, and one who had never failed to tip me
+well, and to speak to me with as much consideration as though I had not
+been a footman at all.
+
+"'I am not in very good health,' I replied. 'I, I--'
+
+"'Come, come!' was his interjection. 'After dinner I must look you
+over, and in the meanwhile, do keep up your spirits.'
+
+"Then I realised that poison him I could not, but that the powder must
+be swallowed by myself--yes, by myself! Aye, over my heart a flash of
+lightning had gleamed, and shown me that now I was no longer following
+the road properly assigned me by fate.
+
+"Rushing away to my room, I poured out a glass of water, and emptied
+into it the powder; whereupon the water thickened, fizzed, and became
+topped with foam. Oh, a terrible moment it was!... Then I drank the
+mixture. Yet no burning sensation ensued, and though I listened to my
+vitals, nothing was to be heard in that quarter, but, on the contrary,
+my head began to lighten, and I found myself losing the sense of
+self-pity which had brought me almost to the point of tears....
+Shall we settle ourselves here?"
+
+Before us a large stone, capped with green moss and climbing plants,
+was good-humouredly thrusting upwards a broad, flat face beneath which
+the body had, like that of the hero Sviatogov, sunken into the earth
+through its own weight until only the face, a visage worn with aeons of
+meditation, was now visible. On every side, also, had oak-trees
+overgrown and encompassed the bulk of the projection, as though they
+too had been made of stone, with their branches drooping sufficiently
+low to brush the wrinkles of the ancient monolith. Kalinin seated
+himself on his haunches under the overhanging rim of the stone, and
+said as he snapped some twigs in half:
+
+"This is where we ought to have been sitting whilst the rain was coming
+down."
+
+"And so say I," I rejoined. "But pray continue your story."
+
+"Yes, when you have put a match to the fire."
+
+Whereafter, further withdrawing his spare frame under the stone, so
+that he might stretch himself at full length, Kalinin continued:
+
+"I walked to the pantry quietly enough, though my legs were tottering
+beneath me, and I had a cold sensation in my breast. Suddenly I heard
+the dining-room echo to a merry peal of laughter from Valentina
+Ignatievna, and the General reply to that outburst:
+
+"'Ah, that man! Ah, these servants of ours! Why, the fellow would do
+ANYTHING for a piatak '[A silver five-kopeck piece, equal in value to 2
+1/4 pence.]
+
+"To this my beloved one retorted:
+
+"'Oh, uncle, uncle! Is it only a piatak that I am worth?
+
+And then I heard the doctor put in:
+
+"'What was it you gave him?'
+
+"'Merely some soda and tartaric acid. To think of the fun that we shall
+have!'"
+
+Here, closing his eyes, Kalinin remained silent for a moment, whilst
+the moist breeze sighed as it drove dense, wet mist against the black
+branches of the trees.
+
+"At first my feeling was one of overwhelming joy at the thought that at
+least not DEATH was to be my fate. For I may tell you that, so far from
+being harmful, soda and tartaric acid are frequently taken as a remedy
+against drunken headache. Then the thought occurred to me: 'But, since
+I am not a tippler, why should such a joke have been played upon ME?'
+However, from that moment I began to feel easier, and when the company
+had sat down to dinner, and, amid a general silence, I was handing
+round the soup, the doctor tasted his portion, and, raising his head
+with a frown, inquired:
+
+"'Forgive me, but what soup is this?'
+
+"'Ah!' I inwardly reflected. 'Soon, good gentlefolk, you will see how
+your jest has miscarried.'
+
+"Aloud I replied--replied with complete boldness:
+
+"'Do not fear, sir. I have taken the powder myself.'
+
+Upon this the General and his wife, who were still in ignorance that
+the jest had gone amiss, began to titter, but the others said nothing,
+though Valentina Ignatievna's eyes grew rounder and rounder, until in
+an undertone she murmured:
+
+"'Did you KNOW that the stuff was harmless?'
+
+"'I did not,' I replied. 'At least, not at the moment of my drinking
+it.'
+
+"Whereafter falling headlong to the floor, I lost consciousness."
+
+Kalinin's small face had become painfully contracted, and grown old and
+haggard-looking. Rolling over on to his breast before the languishing
+fire, he waved a hand to dissipate the smoke which was lazily drifting
+slant-wise.
+
+"For seventeen days did I remain stretched on a sick-bed, and was
+attended by the doctor in person. One day, when sitting by my side, he
+inquired:
+
+"'I presume your intention was to poison yourself, you foolish fellow?'
+
+"Yes, merely THAT was what he called me--a 'foolish fellow.' Yet
+indeed, what was I to him? Only an entity which might become food for
+dogs, for all he cared. Nor did Valentina Ignatievna herself pay me a
+single visit, and my eyes never again beheld her. Before long she and
+Dr. Kliachka were duly married, and departed to Kharkov, where he was
+assigned a post in the Tchuguerski Camp. Thus only the General
+remained. Rough and ready, he was, nevertheless, old and sensible, and
+for that reason, did not matter; wherefore I retained my situation as
+before. On my recovery, he sent for me, and said in a tone of reproof:
+
+"'Look here. You are not wholly an idiot. What has happened is that
+those vile books of yours have corrupted your mind' (as a matter of
+fact, I had never read a book in my life, since for reading I have no
+love or inclination). 'Hence you must have seen for yourself that only
+in tales do clowns marry princesses. You know, life is like a game of
+chess. Every piece has its proper move on the board, or the game could
+not be played at all.'"
+
+Kalinin rubbed his hands over the fire (slender, non-workmanlike hands
+they were), and winked and smiled.
+
+"I took the General's words very seriously, and proceeded to ask
+myself: 'To what do those words amount? To this: that though I may not
+care actually to take part in the game, I need not waste my whole
+existence through a disinclination to learn the best use to which that
+existence can be put.'"
+
+With a triumphant uplift of tone, Kalinin continued:
+
+"So, brother, I set myself to WATCH the game in question; with the
+result that soon I discovered that the majority of men live surrounded
+with a host of superfluous commodities which do but burden them, and
+have in themselves no real value. What I refer to is books, pictures,
+china, and rubbish of the same sort. Thought I to myself: 'Why should I
+devote my life to tending and dusting such commodities while risking,
+all the time, their breakage? No more of it for me! Was it for the
+tending of such articles that my mother bore me amid the agonies of
+childbirth? Is it an existence of THIS kind that must be passed until
+the tomb be reached? No, no--a thousand times no! Rather will I, with
+your good leave, reject altogether the game of life, and subsist as may
+be best for me, and as may happen to be my pleasure.'"
+
+Now, as Kalinin spoke, his eyes emitted green sparks, and as he waved
+his hands over the fire, as though to lop off the red tongues of flame,
+his fingers twisted convulsively.
+
+"Of course, not all at a stroke did I arrive at this conclusion; I did
+so but gradually. The person who finally confirmed me in my opinion was
+a friar of Baku, a sage of pre-eminent wisdom, through his saying to
+me: 'With nothing at all ought a man to fetter his soul. Neither with
+bond-service, nor with property, nor with womankind, nor with any other
+concession to the temptations of this world ought he to constrain its
+action. Rather ought he to live alone, and to love none but Christ.
+Only this is true. Only this will be for ever lasting.'
+
+"And," added Kalinin with animation and inflated cheeks and flushed,
+suppressed enthusiasm, "many lands and many peoples have I seen, and
+always have I found (particularly in Russia) that many folk already
+have reached an understanding of themselves, and, consequently, refused
+any longer to render obeisance to absurdities. 'Shun evil, and you will
+evolve good.' That is what the friar said to me as a parting
+word--though long before our encounter had I grasped the meaning of the
+axiom. And that axiom I myself have since passed on to other folk, as I
+hope to do yet many times in the future."
+
+At this point the speaker's tone reverted to one of querulous anxiety.
+
+"Look how low the sun has sunk!" he exclaimed.
+
+True enough, that luminary, large and round, was declining
+into--rather, towards--the sea, while suspended between him and the
+water were low, dark, white-topped cumuli.
+
+"Soon nightfall will be overtaking us," continued Kalinin as he fumbled
+in his kaftan. "And in these parts jackals howl when darkness is come."
+
+In particular did I notice three clouds that looked like Turks in white
+turbans and robes of a dusky red colour. And as these cloud Turks bent
+their heads together in private converse, suddenly there swelled up on
+the back of one of the figures a hump, while on the turban of a second
+there sprouted forth a pale pink feather which, becoming detached from
+its base, went floating upwards towards the zenith and the now rayless,
+despondent, moonlike sun. Lastly the third Turk stooped forward over
+the sea to screen his companions, and as he did so, developed a huge
+red nose which comically seemed to dip towards, and sniff at, the
+waters.
+
+"Sometimes," continued Kalinin's even voice through the crackling and
+hissing of the wood fire, "a man who is old and blind may cobble a shoe
+better than cleverer men than he, can order their whole lives."
+
+But no longer did I desire to listen to Kalinin, for the threads which
+had drawn me, bound me, to his personality had now parted. All that I
+desired to do was to contemplate in silence the sea, while thinking of
+some of those subjects which at eventide never fail to stir the soul to
+gentle, kindly emotion. Bombers, Kalinin's words continued dripping
+into my ear like belated raindrops.
+
+"Nowadays everybody is a busybody. Nowadays everyone inquires of his
+fellow-man, 'How is your life ordered?' To which always there is added
+didactically, 'But you ought not to live as you are doing. Let me show
+you the way.' As though anyone can tell me how best my life may attain
+full development, seeing that no one can possibly have such a matter
+within his knowledge! Nay, let every man live as best he pleases,
+without compulsion. For instance, I have no need of you. In return, it
+is not your business either to require or to expect aught of me. And
+this I say though Father Vitali says the contrary, and avers that
+throughout should man war with the evils of the world."
+
+In the vague, wide firmament a blood-red cluster of clouds was hanging,
+and as I contemplated it there occurred to me the thought, "May not
+those clouds be erstwhile righteous world-folk who are following an
+unseen path across that expanse, and dyeing it red with their good
+blood as they go, in order that the earth may be fertilised?"
+
+To right and left of that strip of living flame the sea was of a
+curious wine tint, while further off, rather, it was as soft and black
+as velvet, and in the remote east sheet-lightning was flashing even as
+though some giant hand were fruitlessly endeavouring to strike a match
+against the sodden firmament.
+
+Meanwhile Kalinin continued to discourse with enthusiasm on the subject
+of Father Vitali, the Labour Superintendent of the monastery of New
+Athos, while describing in detail the monk's jovial, clever features
+with their pearly teeth and contrasting black and silver beard. In
+particular he related how once Vitali had knitted his fine, almost
+womanlike eyes, and said in a bass which stressed its "o's":
+
+"On our first arrival here, we found in possession only prehistoric
+chaos and demoniacal influence. Everywhere had clinging weeds grown to
+rankness; everywhere one found one's feet entangled among bindweed and
+other vegetation of the sort. And now see what beauty and joy and
+comfort the hand of man has wrought!"
+
+And, having thus spoken, the monk had traced a great circle with his
+eye and doughty hand, a circle which had embraced as in a frame the
+mount, and the gardens fashioned and developed by ridgings of the rock,
+and the downy soil which had been beaten into those ridgings, and the
+silver streak of waterfall playing almost at Vitali's feet, and the
+stone-hewn staircase leading to the cave of Simeon the Canaanite, and
+the gilded cupolas of the new church where they had stood flashing in
+the noontide sun, and the snow-white, shimmering blocks of the
+guesthouse and the servants' quarters, and the glittering fishponds,
+and the trees of uniform trimness, yet a uniformly regal dignity.
+
+"Brethren," the monk had said in triumphant conclusion, "wheresoever
+man may be, he will, as he so desires, be given power to overcome the
+desolation of the wilds."
+
+"And then I pressed him further," Kalinin added. "Yes, I said to him:
+'Nevertheless Christ, our Lord, was not like you, for He was homeless
+and a wanderer. He was one who utterly rejected your life of intensive
+cultivation of the soil'" (as he related the incident Kalinin gave his
+head sundry jerks from side to side which made his ears flap, to and
+fro). "'Also neither for the lowly alone nor for the exalted alone did
+Christ exist. Rather, He, like all great benefactors, was one who had
+no particular leaning. Nay, even when He was roaming the Russian Land
+in company with Saints Yuri and Nikolai, He always forbore to intrude
+Himself into the villages' affairs, just as, whenever His companions
+engaged in disputes concerning mankind, He never failed to maintain
+silence on the subject.' Yes, thus I plagued Vitali until he shouted at
+my head, 'Ah, impudence, you are a heretic!'"
+
+By this time, the air under the lee of the stone was growing smoky and
+oppressive, for the fire, with its flames looking like a bouquet
+compounded of red poppies or azaleas and blooms of an aureate tint, had
+begun fairly to live its beautiful existence, and was blazing, and
+diffusing warmth, and laughing its bright, cheerful, intelligent laugh.
+Yet from the mountains and the cloud-masses evening was descending, as
+the earth emitted profound gasps of humidity, and the sea intoned its
+vague, thoughtful, resonant song.
+
+"I presume we are going to pass the night here?" Kalinin at length
+queried.
+
+"No, for my intention is, rather, to continue my journey."
+
+"Then let us make an immediate start."
+
+"But my direction will not be the same as yours, I think?"
+
+Previously to this, Kalinin had squatted down upon his haunches, and
+taken some bread and a few pears from his wallet; but now, on hearing
+my decision, he replaced the viands in his receptacle, snapped--to the
+lid of it with an air of vexation--and asked:
+
+"Why did you come with me at all?"
+
+"Because I wanted to have a talk with you--I had found you an
+interesting character."
+
+"Yes. At least I am THAT; many like me do not exist."
+
+"Pardon me; I have met several."
+
+"Perhaps you have." After which utterance, doubtfully drawled, the
+speaker added more sticks to the fire.
+
+Eventide was falling with tardy languor, but, as yet, the sun, though
+become a gigantic, dull, red lentil in appearance, was not hidden, and
+the waves were still powerless to besprinkle his downward road of fire.
+Presently, however, he subsided into a cloud bank; whereupon darkness
+flooded the earth like water poured from an empty basin, and the great
+kindly stars shone forth, and the nocturnal profundity, enveloping the
+world, seemed to soften it even as a human heart may be rendered gentle.
+
+"Good-bye!" I said as I pressed my companion's small, yielding hand:
+whereupon he looked me in the eyes in his open, boyish way, and replied:
+
+"I wish I were going with you!"
+
+"Well, come with me as far as Gudaout."
+
+"Yes, I will."
+
+So we set forth once more to traverse the land which I, so alien to its
+inhabitants, yet so at one with all that it contained, loved so dearly,
+and of which I yearned to fertilise the life in return for the vitality
+with which it had filled my own existence.
+
+For daily, the threads with which my heart was bound to the world at
+large were growing more numerous; daily my heart was storing up
+something which had at its root a sense of love for life, of interest
+in my fellow-man.
+
+And that evening, as we proceeded on our way, the sea was singing its
+vespertinal hymn, the rocks were rumbling as the water caressed them,
+and on the furthermost edge of the dark void there were floating dim
+white patches where the sunset's glow had not yet faded--though already
+stars were glowing in the zenith. Meanwhile every slumbering treetop
+was aquiver, and as I stepped across the scattered rain-pools, their
+water gurgled dreamily, timidly under my feet.
+
+Yes, that night I was a torch unto myself, for in my breast a red flame
+was smouldering like a living beacon, and leading me to long that some
+frightened, belated wayfarer should, as it were, sight my little speck
+of radiancy amid the darkness.
+
+
+
+
+THE DEAD MAN
+
+One evening I was sauntering along a soft, grey, dusty track between
+two breast-high walls of grain. So narrow was the track that here and
+there tar-besmeared cars were lying--tangled, broken, and crushed--in
+the ruts of the cartway.
+
+Field mice squeaked as a heavy car first swayed--then bent forwards
+towards the sun-baked earth. A number of martins and swallows were
+flitting in the sky, and constituting a sign of the immediate proximity
+of dwellings and a river; though for the moment, as my eyes roved over
+the sea of gold, they encountered naught beyond a belfry rising to
+heaven like a ship's mast, and some trees which from afar looked like
+the dark sails of a ship. Yes, there was nothing else to be seen save
+the brocaded, undulating steppe where gently it sloped away
+south-westwards. And as was the earth's outward appearance, so was that
+of the sky--equally peaceful.
+
+Invariably, the steppe makes one feel like a fly on a platter.
+Invariably, it inclines one to believe, when the centre of the expanse
+is reached, that the earth lies within the compass of the sky, with the
+sun embracing it, and the stars hemming it about as, half-blinded, they
+stare at the sun's beauty.
+
+      *      *      *      *      *
+
+Presently the sun's huge, rosy-red disk impinged upon the blue shadows
+of the horizon before preparing to sink into a snow-white cloud-bank;
+and as it did so it bathed the ears of grain around me in radiance and
+caused the cornflowers to seem the darker by comparison; and the
+stillness, the herald of night, to accentuate more than ever the burden
+of the earth's song.
+
+Fanwise then spread the ruddy beams over the firmament; and, in so
+doing, they cast upon my breast a shaft of light like Moses' rod, and
+awoke therein a flood of calm, but ardent, sentiments which set me
+longing to embrace all the evening world, and to pour into its ear
+great, eloquent, and never previously voiced, utterances.
+
+Now, too, the firmament began to spangle itself with stars; and since
+the earth is equally a star, and is peopled with humankind, I found
+myself longing to traverse every road throughout the universe, and to
+behold, dispassionately, all the joys and sorrows of life, and to join
+my fellows in drinking honey mixed with gall.
+
+Yet also there was upon me a feeling of hunger, for not since the
+morning had my wallet contained a morsel of food. Which circumstance
+hindered the process of thought, and intermittently vexed me with the
+reflection that, rich though is the earth, and much thence though
+humanity has won by labour, a man may yet be forced to walk hungry...
+.
+
+Suddenly the track swerved to the right, and as the walls of grain
+opened out before me, there lay revealed a steppe valley, with, flowing
+at its bottom, a blue rivulet, and spanning the rivulet, a
+newly-constructed bridge which, with its reflection in the water,
+looked as yellow as though fashioned of rope. On the further side of
+the rivulet some seven white huts lay pressed against a small declivity
+that was crowned with a cattle-fold, and amid the silver-grey trunks of
+some tall black poplars whose shadows, where they fell upon the hamlet,
+seemed as soft as down a knee-haltered horse, was stumping with
+swishing tail. And though the air, redolent of smoke and tar and hemp
+ensilage, was filled with the sounds of poultry cackling and a baby
+crying during the process of being put to bed, the hubbub in no way
+served to dispel the illusion that everything in the valley was but
+part of a sketch executed by an artistic hand, and cast in soft tints
+which the sun had since caused, in some measure, to fade.
+
+In the centre of the semi-circle of huts there stood a brick-kiln, and
+next to it, a high, narrow red chapel which resembled a one-eyed
+watchman. And as I stood gazing at the scene in general, a crane
+stooped with a faint and raucous cry, and a woman who had come out to
+draw water looked as though, as she raised bare arms to stretch herself
+upwards--cloud-like, and white-robed from head to foot--she were about
+to float away altogether.
+
+Also, near the brick-kiln there lay a patch of black mud in the
+glistening, crumpled-velvet blue substance of which two urchins of five
+and three were, breechless, and naked from the waist upwards, kneading
+yellow feet amid a silence as absorbed as though their one desire in
+life had been to impregnate the mud with the red radiance of the sun.
+And so much did this laudable task interest me, and engage my sympathy
+and attention, that I stopped to watch the strapping youngsters, seeing
+that even in mire the sun has a rightful place, for the reason that the
+deeper the sunlight's penetration of the soil, the better does that
+soil become, and the greater the benefit to the people dwelling on its
+surface.
+
+Viewed from above, the scene lay, as it were, in the palm of one's
+hand. True, by no manner of means could such lowly farm cots provide me
+with a job, but at least should I, for that evening, be able to enjoy
+the luxury of a chat with the cots' kindly inhabitants. Hence, with, in
+my mind, a base and mischievous inclination to retail to those
+inhabitants tales of the marvellous kind of which I knew them to stand
+wellnigh as much in need as of bread, I resumed my way, and approached
+the bridge.
+
+As I did so, there arose from the ground-level an animated clod of
+earth in the shape of a sturdy individual. Unwashed and unshaven, he
+had hanging on his frame an open canvas shirt, grey with dust, and
+baggy blue breeches.
+
+"Good evening," I said to the fellow.
+
+"I wish you the same," he replied. "Whither are you bound?"
+
+"First of all, what is the name of this river?"
+
+"What is its name? Why, it is the Sagaidak, of course."
+
+On the man's large, round head there was a shock of bristling, grizzled
+curls, while pendent to the moustache below it were ends like those of
+the moustache of a Chinaman. Also, as his small eyes scanned me with an
+air of impudent distrust, I could detect that they were engaged in
+counting the holes and dams in my raiment. Only after a long interval
+did he draw a deep breath as from his pocket he produced a clay pipe
+with a cane mouthpiece, and, knitting his brows attentively, fell to
+peering into the pipe's black bowl. Then he said:
+
+"Have you matches?"
+
+I replied in the affirmative.
+
+"And some tobacco?"
+
+For awhile he continued to contemplate the sun where that luminary hung
+suspended above a cloud-bank before finally declining. Then he remarked:
+
+"Give me a pinch of the tobacco. As for matches, I have some."
+
+So both of us lit up; after which he rested his elbows upon the
+balustrade of the bridge, leant back against the central stanchions,
+and for some time continued merely to emit and inhale blue coils of
+smoke. Then his nose wrinkled, and he expectorated.
+
+"Muscovite tobacco is it?" he inquired.
+
+"No--Roman, Italian."
+
+"Oh!" And as the wrinkles of his nose straightened themselves again he
+added: "Then of course it is good tobacco."
+
+To enter a dwelling in advance of one's host is a breach of decorum;
+wherefore, I found myself forced to remain standing where I was until
+my interlocutor's tale of questions as to my precise identity, my exact
+place of origin, my true destination, and my real reasons for
+travelling should tardily win its way to a finish. Greatly the process
+vexed me, for I was eager, rather, to learn what the steppe settlement
+might have in store for my delectation.
+
+"Work?" the fellow drawled through his teeth. "Oh no, there is no work
+to be got here. How could there be at this season of the year?"
+
+Turning aside, he spat into the rivulet.
+
+On the further bank of the latter, a goose was strutting importantly at
+the head of a string of round, fluffy, yellow goslings, whilst driving
+the brood were two little girls--the one a child but little larger than
+the goose itself, dressed in a red frock, and armed with a switch; and
+the other one a youngster absolutely of a size with the bird, pale of
+feature, plump of body, bowed of leg, and grave of expression.
+
+"Ufim!" came at this moment in the strident voice of a woman unseen,
+but incensed; upon which my companion bestowed upon me a sidelong nod,
+and muttered with an air of appreciation:
+
+"THERE'S lungs for you!"
+
+Whereafter, he fell to twitching the toes of a chafed and blackened
+foot, and to gazing at their nails. His next question was:
+
+"Are you, maybe, a scholar?"
+
+"Why do you ask?"
+
+"Because, if you are, you might like to read the Book over a corpse."
+
+And so proud, apparently, was he of the proposal that a faint smile
+crossed his flaccid countenance.
+
+"You see, it would be work," he added with his brown eyes veiled,
+"whilst, in addition, you would be paid ten kopecks for your trouble,
+and allowed to keep the shroud."
+
+"And should also be given some supper, I suppose?"
+
+"Yes--and should also be given some supper."
+
+"Where is the corpse lying?"
+
+"In my own hut. Shall we go there?"
+
+Off we set. En route we heard once more a strident shout of:
+
+"Ufi-i-im!"
+
+As we proceeded, shadows of trees glided along the soft road to meet
+us, while behind a clump of bushes on the further bank of the rivulet
+some children were shouting at their play. Thus, what with the
+children's voices, and the purling of the water, and the noise of
+someone planing a piece of wood, the air seemed full of tremulous,
+suspended sound. Meanwhile, my host said to me with a drawl:
+
+"Once we did have a reader here. An old woman she was, a regular old
+witch who at last had to be removed to the town for amputation of the
+feet. They might well have cut off her tongue too whilst they were
+about it, since, though useful enough, she could rail indeed!"
+
+Presently a black puppy, a creature of about the size of a toad, came
+ambling, three-legged fashion, under our feet. Upon that it stiffened
+its tail, growled, and snuffed the air with its tiny pink nose.
+
+Next there popped up from somewhere or another a barefooted young
+woman. Clapping her hands, she bawled:
+
+"Here, you Ufim, how I have been calling for you, and calling for you!"
+
+"Eh? Well, I never heard you."
+
+"Where were you, then?"
+
+By way of reply, my conductor silently pointed in my direction with the
+stem of his pipe. Then he led me into the forecourt of the hut next to
+the one whence the young woman had issued, whilst she proceeded to
+project fresh volleys of abuse, and fresh expressions of accentuated
+non-amiability.
+
+In the little doorway of the dwelling next to hers, we found seated two
+old women. One of them was as rotund and dishevelled as a battered,
+leathern ball, and the other one was a woman bony and crooked of back,
+swarthy of skin, and irritable of feature. At the women's feet lay,
+lolling out a rag-like tongue, a shaggy dog which, red and pathetic of
+eye, could boast of a frame nearly as large as a sheep's.
+
+First of all, Ufim related in detail how he had fallen in with myself.
+Then he stated the purpose for which he conceived it was possible that
+I might prove useful. And all the time that he was speaking, two pairs
+of eyes contemplated him in silence; until, on the completion of his
+recital, one of the old women gave a jerk to a thin, dark neck, and the
+other old dame invited me to take a seat whilst she prepared some
+supper.
+
+Amid the tangled herbage of the forecourt, a spot overgrown with mallow
+and bramble shoots, there was standing a cart which, lacking wheels,
+had its axle-points dark with mildew. Presently a herd of cattle was
+driven past the hut, and over the hamlet there seemed to arise, drift,
+and float, a perfect wave of sound. Also, as evening descended, I could
+see an ever-increasing number of grey shadows come creeping forth from
+the forecourt's recesses, and overlaying and darkening the turf.
+
+"One day all of us must die," remarked Ufim, with empressement as he
+tapped the bowl of his pipe against a wall.
+
+The next moment the barefooted, red-cheeked young woman showed herself
+at the gate, and asked in tones rather less vehement than recently:
+
+"Are you coming, or are you not?"
+
+"Presently," replied Ufim. "One thing at a time."
+
+For supper I was given a hunch of bread and a bowl of milk; whereupon
+the dog rose, laid its aged, slobbering muzzle upon my knee, and gazed
+into my face with its dim eyes as though it were saying, "May I too
+have a bite?"
+
+Next, like an eventide breeze among withered herbage, there floated
+across the forecourt the hoarse voice of the crook-backed old woman.
+
+"Let us pray," she said. "Oh God, take away from us all sorrow, and
+receive therefore requitement in twofold measure!"
+
+As she recited the prayer with a mien as dark as fate, the supplicant
+rolled her long neck from side to side, and nodded her ophidian-shaped
+head in accordance with a sort of regular, lethargic rhythm. Next I
+heard sink to earth, at my feet, some senile words uttered in a sort of
+singsong.
+
+"Some folk need work just as much as they wish, and others need do no
+work at all. Yet OUR folk have to work beyond their strength, and to
+work without any recompense for the toil which they undergo."
+
+Upon this the smaller of the old crones whispered:
+
+"But the Mother of God will recompense them. She recompenses everyone."
+
+Then a dead silence fell--a weighty silence, a silence seemingly
+fraught with matters of import, and inspiring in one an assurance that
+presently there would be brought forth impressive reflections--there
+would reach the ear words of mark.
+
+"I may tell you," at length the crook-backed old woman remarked as she
+attempted to straighten herself, "that though my husband was not
+without enemies, he also had a particular friend named Andrei, and that
+when failing strength was beginning to make life difficult for us in
+our old home on the Don, and folk took to reviling and girding at my
+husband, Andrei came to us one day, and said: 'Yakov, let not your
+hands fail you, for the earth is large, and in all parts has been given
+to men for their use. If folk be cruel, they are so through stupidity
+and prejudice, and must not be judged for being so. Live your own life.
+Let theirs be theirs, and yours yours, so that, dwelling in peace,
+while yielding to none, you shall in time overcome them all.'"
+
+"That is what Vasil too used to say. He used to say: 'Let theirs be
+theirs, and ours ours.'"
+
+"Aye, never a good word dies, but, wheresoever it be uttered, flies
+thence through the world like a swallow."
+
+Ufim corroborated this with a nod.
+
+"True indeed!" he remarked. "Though also it has been said that a good
+word is Christ's, and a bad word the priest's."
+
+One of the old women shook her head vigorously at this, and croaked:
+
+"The badness lies not in any word of a priest, but in what you yourself
+have just said. You are greyheaded, Ufim, yet often you speak without
+thought."
+
+Presently Ufim's wife reappeared, and, waving her hands as though she
+were brandishing a sieve, began to vent renewed volleys of virulent
+abuse.
+
+"My God," she cried, "what sort of a man is that? Why, a man who
+neither speaks nor listens, but for ever keeps baying at the moon like
+a dog!"
+
+"NOW she's started!" Ufim drawled.
+
+Westward there were arising, and soaring skyward, clouds of such a
+similarity to blue smoke and blood-red flame that the steppe seemed
+almost to be in danger of catching fire thence. Meanwhile a soft
+evening breeze was caressing the expanse as a whole, and causing the
+grain to bend drowsily earthward as golden-red ripples skimmed its
+surface. Only in the eastern quarter whence night's black, sultry
+shadow was stealthily creeping in our direction had darkness yet
+descended.
+
+At intervals there came vented from the window above my head the hot
+odour of a dead body; and, whenever that happened, the dog's grey
+nostrils and muzzle would quiver, and its eyes would blink pitifully as
+it gazed aloft. Glancing at the heavens, Ufim remarked with conviction:
+
+"There will be no rain tonight."
+
+"Do you keep such a thing as a Psalter here?" I inquired.
+
+"Such a thing as a what?"
+
+"As a Psalter--a book?"
+
+No answer followed.
+
+Faster and faster the southern night went on descending, and wiping the
+land clean of heat, as though that heat had been dust. Upon me there
+came a feeling that I should like to go and bury myself in some
+sweet-smelling hay, and sleep there until sunrise.
+
+"Maybe Panek has one of those things?" hazarded Ufim after a long
+pause. "At any rate he has dealings with the Molokans."
+
+After that, the company held further converse in whispers. Then all
+save the more rotund of the old women left the forecourt, while its
+remaining occupant said to me with a sigh:
+
+"You may come and look at him if you wish."
+
+Small and gentle looked the woman's meekly lowered head as, folding her
+hands across her breast, she added in a whisper:
+
+"Oh purest Mother of God! Oh Thou of spotless chastity!"
+
+In contrast to her expression, that on the face of the dead man was
+stem and, as it were, fraught with importance where thick grey eyebrows
+lay parted over a large nose, and the latter curved downwards towards a
+moustache which divided introspective, partially closed eyes from a
+mouth that was set half-open. Indeed, it was as though the man were
+pondering something of annoyance, so that presently he would make shift
+to deliver himself of a final and urgent injunction. The blue smoke of
+a meagre candle quivered meanwhile, over his head, though the wick
+diffused so feeble a light that the death blurs under the eyes and in
+the cheek furrows lay uneffaced, and the dark hands and wrists,
+disposed, lumplike, on the front of the greyish-blue shroud, seemed to
+have had their fingers twisted in a manner which even death had failed
+to rectify. And ever and anon, streaming from door to window, came a
+draught variously fraught with the odours of wormwood, mint, and
+corruption.
+
+Presently the old woman's whispering grew more animated and
+intelligible, while constantly, amid the wheezed mutterings, sheet
+lightning cut the black square of the window space with menacing
+flashes, and seemed, with their blue glare, as it shot through the
+tomblike hut, to cause the candle's flickering flame to undergo a
+temporary extinction, a temporary withdrawal, and the grey bristles on
+the dead man's face to gleam like the scales of a fish, and his
+features to gather themselves into a grim frown. Meanwhile, like a
+stream of cold, bitter water dripping upon my breast, the old woman's
+whispered soliloquy maintained its uninterrupted flow.
+
+At length there recurred, somehow, to my mind the words which,
+impressive though they be, never can assuage sorrow--the words:
+
+"Weep not for me, Martha, nor gaze into the tomb, for, lo, I am risen!"
+
+Nay, and never would THIS man rise again....
+
+Presently the bony old woman returned with a report that nowhere among
+the huts could a Psalter be found, but only a book of another kind.
+Would it do?
+
+The other book turned out to be a grammar of the Church Slavonic
+dialect, with the first pages torn out, and beginning with the words,
+"Drug, drugi, druzhe." ["A friend, of a friend, O friend."]
+
+"What, then, are we to do?" vexedly asked the smaller of the dames when
+I had explained to her that a grammar could work no benefit to a
+corpse. As she put the query, her small, childlike face quivered with
+disappointment, and her eyes swelled and overflowed with tears.
+
+"My man has lived his life," she said with a sob, "and now he cannot
+even be given proper burial!"
+
+And, similarly, when next I offered to recite over her husband each and
+every prayer and psalm that I could contrive to recall to my
+recollection, on condition that all present should meanwhile leave the
+hut (for I felt that, since the task would be one novel to me, the
+attendance of auditors might hinder me from mustering my entire stock
+of petitions), she so disbelieved me, or failed to understand me, that
+for long enough she could only stand tottering in the doorway as, with
+twitching nose, she drew her sleeve across her worn, diminutive
+features.
+
+Nevertheless she did, at last, take her departure.
+
+      *      *      *      *      *
+
+Low over the steppe, stray flashes of summer lightning still gleamed
+against the jet black sky as they flooded the hut with their lurid
+shimmer; and each time that the darkness of the sultry night swept back
+into the room, the candle flickered, and the corpse's prone figure
+seemed to open its half-closed eyes and glance at the shadows which
+palpitated on its breast, and danced over the white walls and ceiling.
+
+Similarly did I glance from time to time at HIM, yet glance with a
+guarded eye, and with a feeling in me that when a corpse is present
+anything may happen; until finally I rallied conscience to my aid, and
+recited under my breath:
+
+"Pardon Thou all who have sinned, whether they be men, or whether they,
+being not men, do yet stand higher than the beasts of the field."
+
+However, the only result of the recitation was to bring to my mind a
+thought directly at variance with the import of the words, the thought
+that "it is not sin that is hard and bitter to ensue, but
+righteousness."
+
+"Sins wilful and of ignorance," I continued. "Sins known and unknown.
+Sins committed through imprudence and evil example. Sins committed
+through forwardness and sloth."
+
+"Though to YOU, brother," mentally I added to the corpse, "none of
+this, of course, applies."
+
+Again, glancing at the blue stars, where they hung glittering in the
+fathomless obscurity of the sky, I reflected:
+
+"Who in this house is looking at them save myself?"
+
+Presently, with a pattering of claws over the beaten clay of the floor,
+there entered the dog. Once or twice it paced the length of the room.
+Then, with a sniff at my legs, and a grumble to itself, it departed as
+it had come. Perhaps the creature felt too old to bay a dirge to its
+master after the manner of its kind. In any case, as it vanished
+through the doorway, the shadows--so I fancied--sought to slip out
+after it, and, floating in that direction, fanned my face with a breath
+as of ice, while the flame of the candle flickered the more--as though
+it too were seeking to wrest itself from the candlestick, and go
+floating upwards to join the band of stars--a band of luminaries which
+it might well have deemed to be of a brilliance as small and as pitiful
+as its own. And I, for my part, since I had no wish to see what light
+there was disappear, followed the struggles of the tiny flame with a
+tense anxiety which made my eyes ache. Oppressed and uneasy all over as
+I stood by the dead man's shoulder, I strained my ears and listened,
+listened ever, to the silence encompassing the hut.
+
+Eventually, drowsiness began to steal over me, and proved a feeling
+hard to resist. Yet still with an effort did I contrive to recall the
+beautiful prayers of Saints Makari Veliki, Chrysostom, and Damarkin,
+while at the same time something resembling a swarm of mosquitos
+started to hum in my head, the words wherein the Sixth Precept issues
+its injunction to: "all persons about to withdraw to a couch of rest."
+
+And next, to escape falling asleep, I fell to reciting the kondak [Hymn
+for the end of the day] which begins:
+
+"Oh Lord, refresh my soul thus grievously made feeble with wrong doing."
+
+Still engaged in this manner, suddenly I heard something rustle outside
+the door. Then a dry whisper articulated:
+
+"Oh God of Mercy, receive unto Thyself also my soul!"
+
+Upon that, the fancy occurred to me that probably the old woman's soul
+was as grey and timid as a linnet, and that when it should fly up to
+the throne of the Mother of God, and the Mother should extend to that
+little soul her tender, white, and gracious hand, the newcomer would
+tremble all over, and flutter her gentle wings until well nigh death
+should supervene.
+
+And then the Mother of God would say to Her Son:
+
+"Son, pray see the fearfulness of Thy people on earth, and their
+estrangement from joy! Oh Son, is that well?"
+
+And He would make answer to Her--
+
+He would make answer to Her, and say I know not what.
+
+      *      *      *      *      *
+
+And suddenly, so I fancied, a voice answered mine out of the brooding
+hush, as though it too were reciting a prayer. Yet so complete, so
+profound, was the stillness, that the voice seemed far away, submerged,
+unreal--a mere phantom of an echo, of the echo of my own voice. Until,
+on my desisting from my recital, and straining my cars yet more, the
+sound seemed to approach and grow clearer as shuffling footsteps also
+advanced in my direction, and there came a mutter of:
+
+"Nay, it CANNOT be so!"
+
+"Why is it that the dogs have failed to bark?" I reflected, rubbing my
+eyes, and fancying as I did so that the dead man's eyebrows twitched,
+and his moustache stirred in a grim smile.
+
+Presently a deep, hoarse, rasping voice vociferated in the forecourt:
+
+"What do you say, old woman? Yes, that he must die--I knew all
+along,--so you can cease your chattering? Men like him keep up to the
+last, then lay them down to rise to more... WHO is with him? A
+stranger? A-ah!"
+
+And, the next moment, a bulk so large and shapeless that it might well
+have been the darkness of the night embodied, stumbled against the
+outer side of the door, grunted, hiccuped, and lurching head foremost
+into the hut, grew wellnigh to the ceiling. Then it waved a gigantic
+hand, crossed itself in the direction of the candle, and, bending
+forward until its forehead almost touched the feet of the corpse,
+queried under its breath:
+
+"How now, Vasil?"
+
+Thereafter, the figure vented a sob whilst a strong smell of vodka
+arose in the room, and from the doorway the old woman said in an
+appealing voice:
+
+"Pray give HIM the book, Father Demid."
+
+"No indeed! Why should I? I intend to do the reading myself."
+
+And a heavy hand laid itself upon my shoulder, while a great hairy face
+bent over mine, and inquired:
+
+"A young man, are you not? A member of the clergy, too, I suppose?"
+
+So covered with tufts of auburn hair was the enormous head above
+me--tufts the sheen of which even the semi-obscurity of the pale
+candlelight failed to render inconspicuous--that the mass, as a whole,
+resembled a mop. And as its owner lurched to and fro, he made me lurch
+responsively by now drawing me towards himself, now thrusting me away.
+Meanwhile he continued to suffuse my face with the hot, thick odour of
+spirituous liquor.
+
+"Father Demid!" again essayed the old woman with an imploring wail, but
+he cut her short with the menacing admonition:
+
+"How often have I told you that you must not address a deacon as
+'Father'? Go to bed! Yes, be off with you, and let me mind my affairs
+myself! GO, I say! But first light me another candle, for I cannot see
+a single thing in front of me."
+
+With which, throwing himself upon a bench, the deacon slapped his knee
+with a book which he had in his hands, and put to me the query:
+
+"Should you care to have a dram of gorielka? [Another name for vodka.]
+
+"No," I replied. "At all events, not here."
+
+"Indeed?" the deacon cried, unabashed. "But come, a bottle of the stuff
+is here, in my very pocket."
+
+"This is no place in which to be drinking."
+
+For a moment the deacon said nothing. Then he muttered:
+
+"True, true. So let us adjourn to the forecourt.... Yes, what you
+say is no more than the truth."
+
+"Had you not better remain seated where you are, and begin the reading?"
+
+"No, I am going to do no such thing. YOU shall do the reading. Tonight
+I, I--well I am not very well, for I have been drinking a little."
+
+And, thrusting the book into my stomach, he sank his head upon his
+breast, and fell to swaying it ponderously up and down.
+
+"Folk die," was his next utterance, "and the world remains as full of
+grief as ever. Yes, folk die even before they have seen a little good
+accrue to themselves."
+
+"I see that your book is not a Psalter," here I interposed after an
+inspection of the volume.
+
+"You are wrong."
+
+"Then look for yourself."
+
+He grabbed the book by its cover, and, by dint of holding the candle
+close to its pages, discovered, eventually, that matters were as I had
+stated.
+
+This took him aback completely.
+
+"What can the fact mean?" he exclaimed. "Oh, I know what has happened.
+The mistake has come of my being in such a hurry. The other book, the
+true Psalter, is a fat, heavy volume, whereas this one is--"
+
+For a moment he seemed sobered by the shock. At all events, he rose
+and, approaching the corpse, said, as he bent over the bed with his
+beard held back:
+
+"Pardon me, Vasil, but what is to be done?"
+
+Then he straightened himself again, threw back his curls, and, drawing
+a bottle from his pocket, and thrusting the neck of the bottle into his
+mouth, took a long draught, with a whistling of his nostrils as he did
+so.
+
+"Well?" I said.
+
+"Well, I intend to go to bed--my idea is to drink and enjoy myself
+awhile."
+
+"Go, then."
+
+"And what of the reading?"
+
+"Who would wish you to mumble words which you would not be
+comprehending as you uttered them?"
+
+The deacon reseated himself upon the bench, leaned forward, buried his
+face in his hands and remained silent.
+
+Fast the July night was waning. Fast its shadows were dissolving into
+corners, and allowing a whiff of fresh dewy morningtide to enter at the
+window. Already was the combined light of the two candles growing
+paler, with their flames looking like the eyes of a frightened child.
+
+"You have lived your life, Vasi," at length the deacon muttered, "and
+though once I had a place to which to resort, now I shall have none.
+Yes, my last friend is dead. Oh Lord--where is Thy justice?"
+
+For myself, I went and took a seat by the window, and, thrusting my
+head into the open air, lit a pipe, and continued to listen with a
+shiver to the deacon's wailings.
+
+"Folk used to gird at my wife," he went on, "and now they are gnawing
+at me as pigs might gnaw at a cabbage. That is so, Vasil. Yes that is
+so."
+
+Again the bottle made its appearance. Again the deacon took a draught.
+Again he wiped his beard. Then he bent over the dead man once more, and
+kissed the corpse's forehead.
+
+"Good-bye, friend of mine!" he said. Then to myself he added with
+unlooked-for clarity and vigour:
+
+"My friend here was but a plain man--a man as inconspicuous among his
+fellows as a rook among a flock of rooks. Yet no rook was he. Rather,
+he was a snow-white dove, though none but I realised the fact. And now
+he has been withdrawn from the 'grievous bondage of Pharaoh.' Only I am
+left. Verily, after my passing, shall my soul torment and vomit spittle
+upon his adversaries!"
+
+"Have you known much sorrow?"
+
+The deacon did not reply at once. When he did so he said dully:
+
+"All of us have known much sorrow. In some cases we have known more
+than was rightfully our due. I certainly, have known much. But go to
+sleep, for only in sleep do we recover what is ours."
+
+And he added as he tripped over his own feet, and lurched heavily
+against me:
+
+"I have a longing to sing something. Yet I feel that I had best not,
+for song at such an hour awakens folk, and starts them bawling...
+But beyond all things would I gladly sing."
+
+With which he buzzed into my ear:
+
+  "To whom shall I sing of my grief?
+  To whom resort for relief?
+  To the One in whose ha-a-and--"
+
+At this point the sharp bristles of his beard so tickled my neck as to
+cause me to edge further away.
+
+"You do not like me?" he queried. "Then go to sleep, and to the devil
+too!"
+
+"It was your beard that was tickling me."
+
+"Indeed? Ought I to have shaved for your benefit before I came?"
+
+He reflected awhile--then subsided on to the floor with a sniff and an
+angry exclamation of:
+
+"Read, you, whilst I sleep. And see to it that you do not make off with
+the book, for it belongs to the church, and is very valuable. Yes. I
+know you hard-ups! Why do you go roaming about as you do--what is it
+you hope to gain by your tramping?... However, tramp as much as you
+like. Yes, be off, and tell people that a deacon has come by
+misfortune, and is in need of some good person to take pity upon his
+plight.... Diomid Kubasov my name is--that of a man lost beyond
+recall."
+
+With which he fell asleep. Opening the book at random, I read the words:
+
+"A land unapportioned that shall produce a nourisher of humanity, a
+being that shall put forth the bounty of his hand to feed every
+creature."
+
+"A nourisher of humanity." Before my eyes that "nourisher" lay
+outspread, a nourisher overlaid with dry and fragrant herbage. And as I
+gazed, in the haze of a vision, upon that nourisher's dark and
+enigmatical face, I saw also the thousands of men who have seamed this
+earth with furrows, to the end that dead things should become things of
+life. And in particular, there uprose before me a picture strange
+indeed. In that picture I saw marching over the steppe, where the
+expanse lay bare and void--yes, marching in circles that increasingly
+embraced a widening area--a gigantic, thousand-handed being in whose
+train the dead steppe gathered unto itself vitality, and became swathed
+in juicy, waving verdure, and studded with towns and villages. And
+ever, as the being receded further and further into the distance, could
+I see him sowing with tireless hands that which had in it life, and was
+part of himself, and human as, with thoughts intent upon the benefiting
+of humanity, he summoned all men to put forth the mysterious force that
+is in them, and thus to conquer death, and eternally and invincibly to
+convert, dead things into things of life, while traversing in company
+the road of death towards that which has no knowledge of death, and
+ensuring that, in swallowing up mankind, the jaws of death should not
+close upon death's victims.
+
+And this caused my heart to beat with emotions the pulsing wings of
+which at once gladdened me, and cooled my fervour... And how greatly,
+at that moment, did I feel the need of someone able to respond to my
+questions without passion, yet with truth, and in the language of
+simplicity! For beside me there lay but a man dead and a man drunken,
+while without the threshold there was stationed one who had far
+outlived her span of years. No matter, however. If not today, then
+tomorrow, should I find a fellow-creature with whom my soul might
+commune.
+
+Mentally I left the hut, and passed on to the steppe, that I might
+contemplate thence the little dwelling in which alone, though lost amid
+the earth's immensity, the windows were not blind and black as in its
+fellow huts, but showed, burning over the head of a dead human being,
+the fire which humanity had conquered for humanity's benefit.
+
+And that heart which had ceased to beat in the dead man--had everything
+conceived in life by that heart found due expression in a world
+poverty, stricken of heart-conceived ideas? I knew that the man just
+passed away had been but a plain and insignificant mortal, yet as I
+reflected upon even the little that he had done, his labour loomed
+before me as greater than prowess of larger magnitude. Yes, to my mind
+there recurred the immature, battered ears of corn lying in the ruts of
+the steppe track, the swallows traversing the blue sky above the
+golden, brocaded grain, the kite hovering in the void over the
+landscape's vast periphery.....
+
+And along with these thoughts, there struck upon my ears a whistling of
+pinions as the shadow of a bird flitted across the brilliant,
+dew-bespangled green of the forecourt, and five cocks crowed in
+succession, and a flock of geese announced the fact of their awakening,
+and a cow lowed, and the gate of the cattle-pen creaked.
+
+And with that I fell to thinking how I should like really to go out on
+to the steppe, and there to fall asleep under a warm, dry bank.
+
+As for the deacon, he was still slumbering at my feet--slumbering with
+his breast, the breast of a prize-fighter, turned uppermost, and his
+fine, golden shock of hair falling like a nimbus around his head, and
+hot, fat, flushed red features and gaping mouth and ceaselessly
+twitching moustache. In passing, I had noticed that his hands were
+long, and that they were set upon shovel-shaped wrists.
+
+Next I found myself imagining the scene as the powerful figure of this
+man embraced a woman. Probably her face would become lost to sight in
+his beard, until nothing of her features remained visible. Then, when
+the beard began to tickle her, she would throw back her head, and
+laugh. And the children that such a man might have begotten!
+
+All this only made it the more painful and disagreeable to me to
+reflect that the breast of a human being of such a type should be
+bearing a burden of sorrow. Surely naught but joy should have been
+present therein!
+
+Meanwhile, the old woman's gentle face was still peering at me through
+the doorway, and presently the first beam of sunlight came glancing
+through the window-space. Above the rivulet's silky glimmer, a
+transparent mist lay steaming, while trees and herbage alike were
+passing through that curiously inert stage when at any moment (so one
+fancied) they might give themselves a shake, and burst into song, and
+in keys intelligible to the soul alone, set forth the wondrous mystery
+of their existence.
+
+"What a good man he is!" the old woman whispered plaintively as she
+gazed at the deacon's gigantic frame. Whereafter, as though reading
+aloud from a book invisible to my sight, she proceeded quietly and
+simply to relate the story of his wife.
+
+"You see," she went on "his lady committed a certain sin with a certain
+man; and folk remarked this, and, after setting the husband on to the
+couple, derided him--yes, him, our Demid!--for the reason that he
+persisted in forgiving the woman her fault. At length the jeers made
+her take to her room and him to liquor, and for two years past he has
+been drinking, and soon is going to be deprived of his office. One who
+scarcely drank at all, my poor husband, used to say: 'Ah, Demid, yield
+not to these folk, but live your own life, and let theirs be theirs,
+and yours, yours.'"
+
+With the words, tears welled from the old woman's dim, small eyes, and
+became merged with the folds and wrinkles on her grief-stained cheeks.
+And in the presence of that little head, a head shaking like a dead
+leaf in the autumn time, and of those kindly features so worn with age
+and sorrow, my eyes fell, and I felt smitten with shame to find that,
+on searching my soul for at least a word of consolation to offer to the
+poor fellow-mortal before me, I could discover none that seemed
+suitable.
+
+But at length there recurred to my mind some strange words which I had
+encountered in I know not what antique volume--words which ran:
+
+"Let not the servants of the Gods lament but, rather, rejoice, in that
+weeping and lamentation grieve both the Gods and mankind."
+
+Thereafter, I muttered confusedly:
+
+"It is time that I was going."
+
+"What?" was her hasty exclamation, an exclamation uttered as though the
+words had affrighted her. Whereafter, with quivering lips, she began
+hesitantly and uncertainly to fumble in her bodice.
+
+"No, I have no need of money," I interposed. "Only, if you should be so
+willing, give me a piece of bread."
+
+"You have no need of money?" she re-echoed dubiously.
+
+"No, none. For that matter, of what use could it be to me?"
+
+"Well, well!" she said after a thoughtful pause. "Then be it as you
+wish, and--and I thank you."
+
+      *      *      *      *      *
+
+The sun, as he rose and ascended towards the blue of the firmament, was
+spreading over the earth a braggart, peacock-like tail of beams. And as
+he did so, I winked at him, for by experience I knew that some two
+hours later his smiles would be scorching me with fire. Yet for the
+time being he and I had no fault to find with one another. Wherefore, I
+set myself to search for a bank whence I might sing to him, as to the
+Lord of Life:
+
+  Oh Thou of intangible substance,
+  Reveal now that substance to me!
+  Enwrap me within the great vestment
+  Of light which encompasseth Thee!
+  That with Thy uprising, my substance
+  May Come all-prevailing to be!
+
+      *      *      *      *      *
+
+"Let us live our lives unto ourselves. Let theirs be theirs, and ours,
+ours."
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Through Russia, by Maxim Gorky
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THROUGH RUSSIA ***
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