diff options
| -rw-r--r-- | .gitattributes | 3 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 2288-h.zip | bin | 0 -> 239909 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 2288-h/2288-h.htm | 18936 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 2288.txt | 12918 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 2288.zip | bin | 0 -> 234687 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | LICENSE.txt | 11 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | README.md | 2 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/truss10.txt | 13636 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/truss10.zip | bin | 0 -> 233449 bytes |
9 files changed, 45506 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/2288-h.zip b/2288-h.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..409d5c9 --- /dev/null +++ b/2288-h.zip diff --git a/2288-h/2288-h.htm b/2288-h/2288-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..f0fd815 --- /dev/null +++ b/2288-h/2288-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,18936 @@ +<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"> +<HTML> +<HEAD> + +<META HTTP-EQUIV="Content-Type" CONTENT="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1"> + +<TITLE> +The Project Gutenberg E-text of Through Russia, by Maxim Gorky +</TITLE> + +<STYLE TYPE="text/css"> +BODY { color: Black; + background: White; + margin-right: 10%; + margin-left: 10%; + font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; + text-align: justify } + +P {text-indent: 4% } + +P.noindent {text-indent: 0% } + +P.poem {text-indent: 0%; + margin-left: 10%; + font-size: small } + +P.letter {text-indent: 0%; + font-size: small ; + margin-left: 10% ; + margin-right: 10% } + +P.finis { font-size: small ; + text-align: center ; + text-indent: 0% ; + margin-left: 0% ; + margin-right: 0% } + +</STYLE> + +</HEAD> + +<BODY> + + +<pre> + +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: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THROUGH RUSSIA *** + + + + +Produced by Martin Adamson. HTML version by Al Haines. + + + + + +</pre> + + +<BR><BR> + +<H1 ALIGN="center"> +Through Russia +</H1> + +<BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +by +</H3> + +<H2 ALIGN="center"> +Maxim Gorky +</H2> + +<BR><BR> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +Translated by C. J. Hogarth +</H4> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<H2 ALIGN="center"> +CONTENTS +</H2> + +<H4 STYLE="margin-left: 20%"> + <A HREF="#birth">THE BIRTH OF A MAN</A><BR> + <A HREF="#icebreaker">THE ICEBREAKER</A><BR> + <A HREF="#gubin">GUBIN</A><BR> + <A HREF="#nilushka">NILUSHKA</A><BR> + <A HREF="#cemetery">THE CEMETERY</A><BR> + <A HREF="#steamer">ON A RIVER STEAMER</A><BR> + <A HREF="#woman">A WOMAN</A><BR> + <A HREF="#mountain">IN A MOUNTAIN DEFILE</A><BR> + <A HREF="#kalinin">KALININ</A><BR> + <A HREF="#deadman">THE DEAD MAN</A><BR> +</H4> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="birth"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +THE BIRTH OF A MAN +</H3> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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." +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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! +</P> + +<P> +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.... +</P> + +<P> +No, it is not that good folk are lacking. It is that they need to be +rounded off—better still, to be made anew. +</P> + +<HR ALIGN="center" WIDTH="60%"> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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: +</P> + +<P> +"What a country!" +</P> + +<P> +"Aye,—that it is!—a country to make one sweat!" +</P> + +<P> +"As hard as a stone it is!" +</P> + +<P> +"Aye, an evil country!" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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: +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + Behind the graveyard wall,<BR> + Where fair green bushes stand.<BR> + I'll spread me on the sand<BR> + A shroud as white as snow.<BR> + And not long will it be<BR> + Before my heart's adored,<BR> + My master and my lord,<BR> + Shall answer my curtsey low.<BR> +</P> + +<P> +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: +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + Ah, my beloved, sweetheart of mine,<BR> + Never again will these eyes seek thine!<BR> +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +The head with the yellow scarf rose, dipped, and disappeared. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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! +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<HR ALIGN="center" WIDTH="60%"> + +<P> +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! +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"What is the matter?" I said as I bent over her. "Has anyone assaulted +you?" +</P> + +<P> +The only result was that, shuffling bare feet in the sand like a fly, +she shook her nerveless hand, and gasped: +</P> + +<P> +"Away, villain! Away with you!" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"Beast!" she panted. "Oh, you devil!" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"Lie still," I said, "and if you do that it will not be long before you +are delivered of the child." +</P> + +<P> +Whereafter, running down to the sea, I pulled up my sleeves, and, on +returning, embarked upon my role, of accoucheur. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"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. +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +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!" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"Cut it!" at length whispered the mother with eyes closed, and features +suddenly swollen and resembling those of a corpse. +</P> + +<P> +"A knife!" again she whispered with her livid lips. "Cut it!" +</P> + +<P> +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: +</P> + +<P> +"I have not a single piece of string or riband to bind the caul with." +</P> + +<P> +Upon that I set to, and managed to produce a piece of riband, and to +fasten it in the required position. +</P> + +<P> +Thereafter she smiled more brightly than ever. So radiantly did she +smile that my eyes came near to being blinded with the spectacle. +</P> + +<P> +"And now rearrange yourself," I said, "and in the meanwhile I will go +and wash the baby." +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, yes," she murmured uneasily. "But be very careful with him—be +very gentle." +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"Come, now!" at length I said. "You must have done, or your very head +will drop off." +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"Shout, young Orlovian!" said I encouragingly. "Let fly with all the +power of your lungs!" +</P> + +<P> +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: +</P> + +<P> +"Give him to me! Give him to me!" +</P> + +<P> +"You had better wait a little," I urged. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh no! Give him to me now!" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"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. +</P> + +<P> +"Thanks to thee O purest Mother of God!" she murmured. "Thanks indeed +to thee!" +</P> + +<P> +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: +</P> + +<P> +"Young fellow, unfasten my satchel." +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"Now," said she, "do you, for the present, go away." +</P> + +<P> +"And if I do so, see that in the meanwhile you do not move about too +much." +</P> + +<P> +"No, I will not. But please go away." +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +Presently, the woman's yellow-scarfed head (the scarf now tidily +rearranged) reappeared over the bushes. +</P> + +<P> +"Come, come, good woman!" was my exclamation. "I tell you that you must +not move about so soon." +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"See how he is sleeping!" she murmured. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"Now, do you yourself lie down awhile," was my advice. +</P> + +<P> +"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—" +</P> + +<P> +"Towards Otchenchiri" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes. By now my folk will have gone many a verst in that direction." +</P> + +<P> +"And can you walk so far?" +</P> + +<P> +"The Holy Mother will help me." +</P> + +<P> +Yes, she was to journey in the company of the Mother of God. So no more +on the point required to be said. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +Then I arranged sticks for a fire, and also adjusted stones to support +the kettle. +</P> + +<P> +"Soon I will have tea ready for you," I remarked. +</P> + +<P> +"And thankful indeed I shall be," she responded, "for my breasts are +dried up." +</P> + +<P> +"Why have your companions deserted you?" I said next. +</P> + +<P> +"They have not deserted me. It was I that left them of my own accord. +How could I have exposed myself in their presence?" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"This is your first child, I take it?" +</P> + +<P> +"It is.... And who are you?" +</P> + +<P> +"A man." +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, a man, of course; but, are you a MARRIED man?" +</P> + +<P> +"No, I have never been able to marry." +</P> + +<P> +"That cannot be true." +</P> + +<P> +"Why not?" +</P> + +<P> +With lowered eyes she sat awhile in thought. +</P> + +<P> +"Because, if so, how do you come to know so much about women's affairs?" +</P> + +<P> +This time I DID lie, for I replied: +</P> + +<P> +"Because they have been my study. In fact, I am a medical student." +</P> + +<P> +"Ah! Our priest's son also was a student, but a student for the Church." +</P> + +<P> +"Very well. Then you know what I am. Now I will go and fetch some +water." +</P> + +<P> +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: +</P> + +<P> +"I too should like to have a wash, but I do not know what the water is +like. What is it? Brackish or salt?" +</P> + +<P> +"No; quite good water—fit for you to wash in." +</P> + +<P> +"Is it really?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, really. Moreover, it is warmer than the water of the streams +hereabouts, which is as cold as ice." +</P> + +<P> +"Ah! Well, you know best." +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"The folk of these parts are ugly to look at," softly commented the +woman from Orlov. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"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. +</P> + +<P> +"Give it to me," was my only remark. "I will go and bury it." +</P> + +<P> +"How so? For, as a matter of fact, it ought to be buried under the +floor in front of some stove." +</P> + +<P> +"Are we to build a stove HERE? Build it in five minutes?" I retorted. +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +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: +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +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: +</P> + +<P> +"How strong indeed she is!" +</P> + +<P> +Next, as we drank a mixture of tea and honey, she inquired: +</P> + +<P> +"Have you now ceased to be a student?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes." +</P> + +<P> +"And why so? Through too much drink?" +</P> + +<P> +"Even so, good mother." +</P> + +<P> +"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.'" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"How will he live?" thoughtfully she said with a sigh—then added: +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"You are not going yet?" I queried protestingly. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, I must." +</P> + +<P> +"But—" +</P> + +<P> +"The Blessed Virgin will go with me. So please hand me over the child." +</P> + +<P> +"No, I will carry him." +</P> + +<P> +And, after a contest for the honour, she yielded, and we walked away +side by side. +</P> + +<P> +"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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +Once, as she halted, she exclaimed: +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +And the sea murmured and murmured. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="icebreaker"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +THE ICEBREAKER +</H3> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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: +</P> + +<P> +"Look alive there, my hearties!" +</P> + +<P> +Presently he turned his attention to myself, and smiled insinuatingly. +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +Then he shouted to the workmen: +</P> + +<P> +"Now, then! No shirking! Is the job going to be finished tonight, or +is it not?" +</P> + +<P> +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: +</P> + +<P> +"Look here, lads. Once upon a time—" +</P> + +<P> +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: +</P> + +<P> +"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!'" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +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: +</P> + +<P> +"How could your tench have wriggled across dry land if it was a fish?" +</P> + +<P> +"Can, for that matter, a fish speak?" was Ossip's good-humoured retort. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"That is true enough," he said. +</P> + +<P> +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." +</P> + +<P> +Thereafter he would tap me on the breast with his hard and ponderous +fist. +</P> + +<P> +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: +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +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: +</P> + +<P> +"Hi, you Budirin! You've had your say, and given us some fun, and there +must be no more of it." +</P> + +<P> +"But I had only just begun what I want to say," the old soldier +grumbled, spitting upon the palms of his hands. +</P> + +<P> +Next, Ossip turned to myself. +</P> + +<P> +"Inspector," he began... +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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: +</P> + +<P> +"I scarcely know. Goodness alone knows! No, I do not know anything +about him." +</P> + +<P> +To which, after a pause, he added: +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +Lastly, after another pause the Morduine concluded: +</P> + +<P> +"No matter. He is not such a bad sort." +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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: +</P> + +<P> +"Is it jotted down, eh? Then let me look at it." +</P> + +<P> +And, eyeing the notebook with a frown, he would add vaguely: +</P> + +<P> +"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.) +</P> + +<P> +"For example, that scoop there—what does IT say?" +</P> + +<P> +"It is the word 'Good.'" +</P> + +<P> +"'Good'? But what a slip-knot of a thing! And what are those words +THERE, on THAT line?" +</P> + +<P> +"They say, 'Planks, 1 vershok by 9 arshini, 5.'" +</P> + +<P> +"No, six was the number used." +</P> + +<P> +"No, five." +</P> + +<P> +"Five? Why, the soldier broke one, didn't he?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, but never mind—at least it wasn't a plank that was wanted." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh! Well, I may tell you that he took the two pieces to the tavern to +get drink with." +</P> + +<P> +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: +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"That's it—that's right. And how fine the figure looks now, as it +squats there like a merchant's buxom, comely dame!" +</P> + +<P> +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: +</P> + +<P> +"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?" +</P> + +<P> +Again, there befell an occasion when the men stole two pounds' weight +of five vershok mandrels and bolts. +</P> + +<P> +"Look here," I said to Ossip warningly. "I am going to report this." +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +And to the men themselves he shouted: +</P> + +<P> +"Hi, boobies! Each of you now stands docked for some mandrels and +bolts." +</P> + +<P> +"Why?" was the old soldier's grim inquiry. +</P> + +<P> +"Because you DO so stand," carelessly retorted the other. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +Ossip stroked his beard awhile, and pondered. Then he seated himself +beside me, and said in an undertone: +</P> + +<P> +"That is true." +</P> + +<P> +"Well?" +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +He rolled and handed me a cigarette. +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +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: +</P> + +<P> +"In the sight of the Lord our ways are the ways of thieves, and such as +will never gain of Him salvation." +</P> + +<P> +"And that is true enough," responded Mokei Budirin after the fashion of +a clarionet. +</P> + +<P> +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: +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"A man's duty consists in being good," I remarked on one occasion. +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +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: +</P> + +<P> +"What precisely is the human soul?" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +Only as regarded the soul of the intelligent Ossip was I absolutely at +a loss, absolutely unable to reach a conclusion. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +Presently a young fellow with flaxen hair, a pendent underlip, and a +tall, ungainly figure, by name Mishuk Diatlov, essayed to troll the +stanza: +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + "That morn to him the maiden came,<BR> + To find his soul had fled."<BR> +</P> + +<P> +Whereupon the old soldier shouted: +</P> + +<P> +"Hi, you! Have you forgotten the day?" +</P> + +<P> +And even Boev saw fit to take umbrage at the singing, and, threatening +Diatlov with his fist, to rap out: +</P> + +<P> +"Ah, sobatchnia dusha!" ["Soul of a dog."] +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +At this point someone shouted hoarsely: +</P> + +<P> +"Go and fetch the German. We have not got hands enough." +</P> + +<P> +And from the bank someone bawled in reply: +</P> + +<P> +"Where IS he?" +</P> + +<P> +"In the tavern. That is where you must go and look for him." +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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: +</P> + +<P> +"It's cracking now, eh?" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, it IS cracking," at length Mishuk replied with a hoist of his +ginger eyebrows. +</P> + +<P> +Ossip too scanned the river from under his hand. Then he said to Mishuk: +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"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?" +</P> + +<P> +At this juncture there came from somewhere on the bank a seemingly +exultant shout of: +</P> + +<P> +"Ah! NOW it's giving way!" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"Put the tools together," Ossip shouted. "And look alive there, and +make for the bank." +</P> + +<P> +"Aye, and a fine Easter Day it will be for us on THAT bank!" growled +Sashok. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"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?" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"No, no, Narodetz," he said. +</P> + +<P> +"But, my good Ossip—" +</P> + +<P> +"Never mind. What has to be, has to be." +</P> + +<P> +"But, as likely as not, we may remain stuck here for two days!" +</P> + +<P> +"Never mind even if we DO remain stuck here." +</P> + +<P> +"But what of the festival?" +</P> + +<P> +"It will have, for this year at least, to be kept without you." +</P> + +<P> +Seating himself on the sand, the old soldier lit his pipe and growled: +</P> + +<P> +"What cowards you all are! The bank was only fifteen sazheni from us, +yet you ran as though possessed!" +</P> + +<P> +"With you yourself as leader," put in Mokei. +</P> + +<P> +The old soldier took no notice, but added: +</P> + +<P> +"What were you all afraid of? Once upon a time Christ Himself, Our +Little Father, died." +</P> + +<P> +"And rose again," muttered the Morduine with a tinge of resentment. +Which led Boev to exclaim: +</P> + +<P> +"Puppy, hold your tongue! What right have you to air your opinions?" +</P> + +<P> +"Besides, this is Good Friday, not Easter Day," the old soldier +concluded with severe, didactical mien. +</P> + +<P> +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: +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, it IS rising—but that will not last for long." +</P> + +<P> +"No, but long enough to make us miss the festival," grumbled Sashok. +</P> + +<P> +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: +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +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: +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +"Damn it, but none of us have a barge for property, have we? +</P> + +<P> +"You had better go and talk to a fool." +</P> + +<P> +"The truth is that the icebreaker ought to have been taken in hand +sooner." +</P> + +<P> +Finally, the old soldier made a queer grimace, and ejaculated: +</P> + +<P> +"Blockhead!" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +One of the younger men asked diffidently, beneath his breath: +</P> + +<P> +"Mate Ossip, what are we going to do?" +</P> + +<P> +"What do you say?" Ossip queried absent-mindedly. +</P> + +<P> +"I say, what are we going to do? Just to sit here?" +</P> + +<P> +To this Boev responded, with loud, nasal derision in his tone: +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, my lad, for the Lord has seen fit to prevent you from +participating in His most holy festival." +</P> + +<P> +And the old soldier, in support of his mate, extended his pipe towards +the river, and muttered with a grin: +</P> + +<P> +"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?" +</P> + +<P> +"True enough," Mokei re-echoed. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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: +</P> + +<P> +"Very well, my mates. Go in peace, and may the Lord go with you!" +</P> + +<P> +"But whither?" asked Sashok, leaping to his feet. "To the town?" +</P> + +<P> +"Whither else?" +</P> + +<P> +The old soldier was the only one not to rise, and with conviction he +remarked: +</P> + +<P> +"It will result but in our getting drowned." +</P> + +<P> +"Then stay where you are." +</P> + +<P> +Ossip glanced around the party. Then he continued: +</P> + +<P> +"Bestir yourselves! Look alive!" +</P> + +<P> +Upon which all crowded together, and Boev, thrusting the tools into a +hole in the bank, groaned: +</P> + +<P> +"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?'" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +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: +</P> + +<P> +"Where are you off to, you fools?" +</P> + +<P> +"Never mind," said Ossip to ourselves. "Come along with you, and don't +stand staring." +</P> + +<P> +"You blockheads!" the voice repeated. "You had far better return." +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +Next Ossip sounded a police whistle, which act led the old soldier to +exclaim: +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +In spite of this remonstrance, Ossip's sturdy voice drew his companions +after him as though they had been tied to a rope. +</P> + +<P> +"Watch your feet carefully," once more he cried. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"I won't be responsible," said the one voice. +</P> + +<P> +"Nor I," responded the other. +</P> + +<P> +"The only reason why I have come is that I was told to do so. That's +all about it." +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, and the same with me." +</P> + +<P> +"One man gives an order, and another man, perhaps a man a thousand +times more sensible than he, is forced to obey it." +</P> + +<P> +"Is any man, in these days, sensible, seeing what a racket we have to +live among?" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"Mother of God!" he shouted. "Scatter, lads! Get away from one another, +and keep each to himself! Now! Courage!" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"Where are you coming to, fool?" was his shout as he brandished the +spirit-level. "Stand still where you are!" +</P> + +<P> +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: +</P> + +<P> +"Don't shuffle about, nor crowd upon one another, or I'll break your +heads!" +</P> + +<P> +Whereafter, of myself in particular, he inquired as he raised the +spirit-level: +</P> + +<P> +"What is the matter with YOU, pray?" +</P> + +<P> +"I am feeling frightened," I muttered in response. +</P> + +<P> +"Feeling frightened of WHAT, indeed?" +</P> + +<P> +"Of being drowned." +</P> + +<P> +"Pooh! Just you hold your tongue." +</P> + +<P> +Yet the next moment he glanced at me, and added in a gentler, quieter +tone: +</P> + +<P> +"None but a fool gets drowned. Pick yourself up and come along." +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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!'?" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh that all of us may live to hear that sound!" was my unspoken +thought. +</P> + +<P> +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: +</P> + +<P> +"Do not stare about you!" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"Run and help him, somebody!" was Ossip's instant cry. "Yes, but not +all of you—just one or two. Help him I say!" +</P> + +<P> +The spluttering Mokei, however, said to the Morduine and myself: +</P> + +<P> +"No; do you move away, mates, for I shall best help myself. Never you +mind." +</P> + +<P> +And, sure enough, he did succeed in drawing himself out on to the ice +without assistance. Whereafter he remarked as he shook himself: +</P> + +<P> +"A nice pickle, this, to be in! I might as well have been drowned!" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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: +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +With which, carefully wrapping up the fragment in some shavings, he had +thrust the whole into his pocket, and bandaged the wounded hand. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"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. +</P> + +<P> +The next moment Boev achieved a second plunge, and screamed, as before, +for help. +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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: +</P> + +<P> +"That's the way to do it, eh?" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"Lads, there is no need to be downhearted," he would cry at intervals. +</P> + +<P> +"Ah, that brave Ossip!" the Morduine once ejaculated. "In very truth is +he a man, and no mistake! Just look at him!" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"By your leave, we are going to be drowned," the Morduine murmured as +he glanced at the blue shadow of eventide on our left. +</P> + +<P> +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! +</P> + +<P> +"Run, all of you!" came a furious shout from Ossip. "Hurry up, now! Put +your very best legs foremost!" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"Run, you young fools!" the latter exclaimed. "Come! Be off with you!" +</P> + +<P> +Somehow in his face there was now a livid, uncertain air, while his +eyes had lost their fire, and his mouth was curiously agape. +</P> + +<P> +"No, mate. Do YOU get up," was my counter-adjuration. +</P> + +<P> +"Unfortunately, I have hurt my leg," he replied with his head bent +down. "In fact, I am not sure that I can get up." +</P> + +<P> +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: +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +Next, with a frowning scrutiny of my face, he inquired: +</P> + +<P> +"That notebook of our misdeeds—hasn't it had a wetting and got done +for?" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"Ah!" was the Morduine's quizzical comment. "YOU knew well enough what +needed to be done." +</P> + +<P> +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: +</P> + +<P> +"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. +</P> + +<P> +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!" +</P> + +<P> +Upon this, a tall old man with the beard of an apostle and the eyes of +a brigand muttered: +</P> + +<P> +"Infidels, why disturb peaceful folk like this? You ought to be +thrashed!" +</P> + +<P> +Whereupon Boev, who was changing his clothes, retorted: +</P> + +<P> +"What do you mean by 'disturb'?" +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +"What could we have done?" +</P> + +<P> +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: +</P> + +<P> +"Holy Mother, how wet I am! My clothes, though I have only worn them a +year, are ruined for ever!" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +But suddenly he raised himself to a sitting posture, groaned, and +exclaimed in high-pitched, wrathful accents: +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +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: +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +One of the townspeople put in officiously: +</P> + +<P> +"Aye, aye. The police have been sent for." +</P> + +<P> +And this led Boev to exclaim to Ossip: +</P> + +<P> +"Why pretend like that?" +</P> + +<P> +"Pretend? I?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes—you." +</P> + +<P> +"What do you mean?" +</P> + +<P> +"I mean that it was you who egged us on to cross the river." +</P> + +<P> +"You say that it was I?" +</P> + +<P> +"I do." +</P> + +<P> +"Indeed?" +</P> + +<P> +"Aye," put in Budirin quietly, but incisively. And him the Morduine +supported by saying in a sullen undertone: +</P> + +<P> +"It was you, mate. By God it was. It would seem that you have +forgotten." +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, you started all this business," the old soldier corroborated, in +dour, ponderous accents. +</P> + +<P> +"Forgotten, indeed? HE?" was Boev's heated exclamation. +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +To this Ossip made no reply, but gazed frowningly at his dripping, +half-clad men. +</P> + +<P> +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: +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, it IS true. If it please you, it was I that contrived the idea." +</P> + +<P> +"Of COURSE it was!" the old soldier cried triumphantly. +</P> + +<P> +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: +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +"Aha!" exclaimed Boev. "But, had I been drowned, what should you have +said THEN?" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +And as I watched him I thought to myself: +</P> + +<P> +"Where now is the leader of men who could draw his fellows in his train +with so much care and skill and authority?" +</P> + +<P> +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: +</P> + +<P> +"Soon you will be all right again." +</P> + +<P> +With a sideways glance he muttered in reply, as he combed his beard: +</P> + +<P> +"Well, you saw what happened just now. Always do things so happen." +</P> + +<P> +While for the benefit of the men he added: +</P> + +<P> +"That was a good jest of mine, eh?" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +And still there continued to come from the town the melancholy, +distance-softened, sweet-toned song of the bells. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh Lord!" groaned Ossip as he rubbed his knee. +</P> + +<P> +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: +</P> + +<P> +"So here you are, you rascals!" +</P> + +<P> +Ossip prised himself up from the ground with his elbow, and said +hurriedly: +</P> + +<P> +"It was I that contrived the idea of the thing, your Excellency; but, +pray let me off in honour of the festival." +</P> + +<P> +"What do you say, you—?" the sergeant began, but his bluster was lost +amid the swift flow of Ossip's further conciliatory words. +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +"Yes," ejaculated the sergeant grimly. "But if you had been drowned, +what then?" +</P> + +<P> +Ossip sighed wearily. +</P> + +<P> +"What then, do you say, your Excellency? Why, then, nothing, with your +permission." +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"That's all about it, thank God!" he exclaimed. +</P> + +<P> +"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?" +</P> + +<P> +"Ah! So you wish that it HAD been injured, eh?" +</P> + +<P> +"The rascal of a Petrushka!" the other exclaimed. +</P> + +<P> +"Now," commanded Ossip, "do all of you be off, mates." And with that he +pulled his wet cap on to his head. +</P> + +<P> +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: +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +Yet as I listened to his speech, while supporting his steps, I could +make little of it. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +And as we proceeded, and the bells echoed and re-echoed, I thought to +myself with a spasm of joy: +</P> + +<P> +"Ah, many times may I thus walk to greet the spring!" +</P> + +<P> +While Ossip said with a sigh: +</P> + +<P> +"The human soul is a winged thing. Even in sleep it flies." +</P> + +<HR ALIGN="center" WIDTH="60%"> + +<P> +A winged thing? Yes, and a thing of wonder. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="gubin"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +GUBIN +</H3> + +<P> +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: +</P> + +<P> +"How should you NOT know the truth about us, seeing that you do nothing +but slander us?" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"To whom are you of any use?" one of the tradesmen at length inquired. +</P> + +<P> +"Not a man of us but may be of use." +</P> + +<P> +"To whom, then?"... +</P> + +<P> +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.... +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"To whom are YOU of use?" +</P> + +<P> +"To himself every man can be useful." +</P> + +<P> +"But what good can one do oneself?"... +</P> + +<P> +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: +</P> + +<P> +"Surely, never were the sky and the stars meant to look down upon a +life like this, a life like this?" +</P> + +<P> +Suddenly someone said with the subdued assurance of a person reading +aloud from a written document: +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +For a moment the dispute died down. Then, as it were cleaving the +silence, a voice said stutteringly: +</P> + +<P> +"Who cares about the significance of the word 'truth'?" +</P> + +<P> +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: +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + The gods did give men water<BR> + To wash in, and to drink;<BR> + Yet man has made it but a pool<BR> + In which his woes to sink.<BR> +</P> + +<P> +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." +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"It was for men like THOSE that this fair earth of ours was bestowed +upon us!" I thought to myself. +</P> + +<P> +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: +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, I'LL pay you out! I'LL skin you, you damned...!" +</P> + +<P> +Whereafter two figures that also appeared in the doorway said as they +stood talking to one another: +</P> + +<P> +"You heard him threaten to fire the place, did you not?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, I did. But why should he want to fire it?" +</P> + +<P> +"Because he is a dangerous rascal." +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +Suddenly from the darkness there emerged, to recoil again, a man's tall +figure. +</P> + +<P> +"Who is that? Who is it?" asked the hoarse, nervous voice of Gubin in +dissipation of the deathlike stillness. +</P> + +<P> +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: +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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: +</P> + +<P> +"I will sleep with my head towards the door, for the atmosphere here is +a trifle confined." +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"Are you asleep?" at length he inquired. +</P> + +<P> +"No, I am not. Why do you shave your beard?" +</P> + +<P> +"Why do you ask?" +</P> + +<P> +"Because, if you will pardon me, I think your face would look better +bearded." +</P> + +<P> +With a short laugh he exclaimed: +</P> + +<P> +"Bearded? Ah, sloven! Bearded, indeed!" +</P> + +<P> +To which he added more gravely: +</P> + +<P> +"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?" +</P> + +<P> +"No." +</P> + +<P> +"And from the same source, from the beard, arose also the Great Schism." +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +"But what about women?" +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"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.'" +</P> + +<P> +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: +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +"What in life is 'not lived wholly as it should be'?" +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +"This woman—who was she?" +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +"How, in your opinion, ought life to be lived?" +</P> + +<P> +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: +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +Hence, as I listened to Gubin, there recurred to me more than one +instance of his type. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, I have succeeded in observing life throughout," he muttered +drowsily as his head sank slowly upon his breast. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"Get up now," he said. "It is time that we were off." +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"Five days now has the forest been on fire," observed Gubin. "Yet the +fools cannot succeed in putting it out." +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +For awhile his lips moved as in an incantation. Then he frowned, +glanced shrewdly at the structures in question, and continued softly: +</P> + +<P> +"I may say in passing that the place is MINE." +</P> + +<P> +"YOURS?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, mine. At all events, so it used to be." +</P> + +<P> +And he pulled a grimace as though he had got the toothache before +adding with an air of command: +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +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: +</P> + +<P> +"Fine masters these—masters who grudge one a groat, and squander a +rouble! What if a fire WERE to break out? Oh, the blockheads!" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"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: +</P> + +<P> +"Who is this young man?" +</P> + +<P> +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: +</P> + +<P> +"Have you noticed that the water-butts are rotted? Oh, that fine +Yakinika! He ought long ago to have been dismissed." +</P> + +<P> +"Who is that young man over there?" Jonah repeated with an air of +asperity. +</P> + +<P> +"The son of his father and mother," Gubin replied quietly, and without +so much as a glance at the brothers. +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +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: +</P> + +<P> +"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?" +</P> + +<P> +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: +</P> + +<P> +"Good day, Yakov Vasilitch." +</P> + +<P> +With a good-humoured glance in response, and his mouth open, Gubin +waved a hand in greeting: +</P> + +<P> +"Good day to YOU, Nadezhda Ivanovna," he replied. "How are you this +morning?" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"How is Natalia Vasilievna?" continued Gubin. +</P> + +<P> +"Much as usual," the woman answered softly. +</P> + +<P> +Whereafter hesitantly, and with downcast eyes, she essayed to cross the +courtyard. As she passed me I caught a whiff of raspberries and +currants. +</P> + +<P> +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: +</P> + +<P> +"Oh my little darlings! Oh my little darlings!" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"Ah, little things!" again she murmured. "Ah, little children of mine!" +</P> + +<P> +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: +</P> + +<P> +"Nadezhda Ivanovna, you ought indeed to have had some children—six at +the least!" +</P> + +<P> +Yet no reply came, nor did the woman even look at him. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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!" +</P> + +<P> +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."... +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh Jesus our Lord!" he gasped. "Tell me what that is, tell me what +that is!" +</P> + +<P> +"Keep quiet, you," I urged. +</P> + +<P> +Instead, lurching in my direction, he nudged me with his arm, +</P> + +<P> +"Is it Nadezhda, think you?" he whispered. +</P> + +<P> +"It is." +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +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: +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +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: +</P> + +<P> +"Oh my darlings! Oh my darlings!" +</P> + +<P> +Beside me the uncouth, broken-down Gubin went on in hoarse accents: +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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: +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +Then he, Gubin, kept silent awhile, and merely breathed heavily, and +twisted his body about. But suddenly, he resumed in a strange whisper: +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +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: +</P> + +<P> +"Life is all falsity. Husbands, wives, fathers, children—all of them +practise deceit." +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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: +</P> + +<P> +"Do not forget. You MUST come." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, I shall be only too glad!" +</P> + +<P> +"Very well. In the morning the lame woman shall call upon you. Do you +hear?" +</P> + +<P> +And as the woman disappeared from view the other person sauntered +across the garden, and scaled the fence with a clatter. +</P> + +<P> +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"! +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"Why spoil those apples?" I queried +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +Then, turning upon me a keen, good-humoured eye, and chuckling, he +added: +</P> + +<P> +"What about that Nadezhda? Ah, she is a clever woman indeed! Yet I have +a surprise in store for her and her lover." +</P> + +<P> +"Why should you have?" +</P> + +<P> +"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!'" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +And throughout there kept descending to me from above the latter's +inarticulate, as it were damp-sodden, observations. +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +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! +</P> + +<P> +"Let us exchange places," I cried at length. +</P> + +<P> +"What is wrong?" inquired Gubin in response +</P> + +<P> +"Down here it is cold—I can't stand it any longer." +</P> + +<P> +"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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"The infernal skinflints!" I heard my companion exclaim. +</P> + +<P> +"Hullo, here is something! A dog or a baby, eh? The damned old +barbarians!" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"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. +</P> + +<P> +"That must be Peter Birkin's mother-in-law," was my unspoken reflection. +</P> + +<P> +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: +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"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?" +</P> + +<P> +From the well, at this point, there issued the words: +</P> + +<P> +"Who is that speaking?" +</P> + +<P> +"It is the mistress," I replied. +</P> + +<P> +"What? Nadezhda? With her I have a bone to pick." +</P> + +<P> +"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: +</P> + +<P> +"I must tell you that last night he saw you walking in the garden here." +</P> + +<P> +"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: +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +Suddenly she shrugged her shoulders, straightened her form, put away +from her the expression of terror, and said quietly, but incisively: +</P> + +<P> +"You will not need to say anything about this. Allow me." +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"Haul away, you!" shouted Gubin. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"What have you been thinking of all this time?" he vociferated. "Why, +for ever so long I shouted and shouted to you!" +</P> + +<P> +"I have been telling Nadezhda that last night you saw her walking in +the garden." +</P> + +<P> +He sprang towards me with a vicious scowl. +</P> + +<P> +"Who gave you leave to do so?" he exclaimed. +</P> + +<P> +"Wait a moment. I said that it was only in a dream, that you saw her +crossing the garden to the washhouse." +</P> + +<P> +"Indeed? And why did you do that?" +</P> + +<P> +Somehow, as, barelegged and dripping with mud, he stood blinking his +eyes at me with a most disagreeable expression, he looked extremely +comical. +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +"Why?" cried Gubin, now almost beside himself. Presently, however, he +recovered sufficient self-possession to grin and ask in an undertone: +</P> + +<P> +"HOW MUCH DID SHE GIVE YOU?" +</P> + +<P> +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: +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +Then once more he relapsed into fury, and muttered as he scurried round +and round the well: +</P> + +<P> +"How DARED you poke your nose into other people's affairs? Who are YOU +in this establishment?" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"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—" +</P> + +<P> +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: +</P> + +<P> +"YOUR timber too has caught alight!" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"Men, harness up as quickly as possible!" the latter cried, his voice +charged with a plaintive note. +</P> + +<P> +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: +</P> + +<P> +"Do you first go in and dress yourself!" +</P> + +<P> +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: +</P> + +<P> +"It is caught in two places—at the Savelkin clearing and near the +cemetery!" +</P> + +<P> +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: +</P> + +<P> +"That is how those wretched folk ALWAYS defer things until too late." +</P> + +<P> +The next person to present herself at the entrance gates was a +beggar-woman. Screwing up her eyes in a furtive manner, she droned: +</P> + +<P> +"For the sake of Lord Je-e-esus!" +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +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: +</P> + +<P> +"See the visitation with which God has tried us, you men of faint +hearts and indolent hands!" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"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?" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"That again is the mother-in-law," was my inward reflection. +</P> + +<P> +Gubin finished the harnessing—then said to Jonah in the tone of a +superior addressing a servant: +</P> + +<P> +"Go in and dress yourself, you object!" +</P> + +<P> +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: +</P> + +<P> +"I presume that I can now take in hand the little affair of which you +know." +</P> + +<P> +"Yakov!" at this juncture someone shouted from the house. +</P> + +<P> +Gubin straightened himself a la militaire. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, I am coming," he replied. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"What has Yakov said to you?" she inquired +</P> + +<P> +"He has been reproaching me." +</P> + +<P> +"Reproaching you for what?" +</P> + +<P> +"For having spoken to you." +</P> + +<P> +She heaved a sigh. +</P> + +<P> +"Ah, the mischief-maker!" she exclaimed. "And what is it that he wants?" +</P> + +<P> +As she pouted her displeasure her round and vacant face looked almost +childlike. +</P> + +<P> +"Good Lord!" she added. "What DO such men as he want?" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"It is my mother that is speaking," Nadezhda explained softly. "She'll +give it him! Yes, SHE will protect me!" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"Enough, enough!" said the voice. "Only through lack of occupation have +you joined the company of the righteous." +</P> + +<P> +Upon this I made a move to approach closer to the window; whereupon +Nadezhda whispered: +</P> + +<P> +"Whither are you going? You must not listen." +</P> + +<P> +While she was yet speaking I heard come from the window: +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +Here Nadezhda plucked at my sleeve, and tried to pull me away, but I +remarked: +</P> + +<P> +"I MUST learn what Gubin has got to say in answer." +</P> + +<P> +This made Nadezhda smile, and then whisper with a confiding glance at +my face: +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +Next, Gubin was heard saying within the room: +</P> + +<P> +"Whensoever an offence is done against the law I..." +</P> + +<P> +At once a stream of impressive words from the other drowned his +utterance: +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +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: +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +"No; there is no need for that." +</P> + +<P> +"Thereafter, I ceased to be able to bear the contemplation of myself; I +ceased to consider myself as of any value." +</P> + +<P> +"Let the past remain the past. That which must be is not to be avoided." +</P> + +<P> +"Through you, I say, I lost my peace of mind." +</P> + +<P> +Nadezhda nudged me, and whispered with gay malice: +</P> + +<P> +"That is probably true, for they say that once he was one of her +lovers." +</P> + +<P> +Then she recollected herself and, clapping her hands to her face, cried +through her fingers: +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +"It was through you that I lost everything. It was you that stripped me +bare." +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, a bone—that is what I am." +</P> + +<P> +"Why should you say that? You are still a man." +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, a man, but a man useful for what?" +</P> + +<P> +"Useful, even though the use may not yet be fully apparent." +</P> + +<P> +To this, after a pause, the speaker added: +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +"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—" +</P> + +<P> +"Is what, Oh friend of mine?" +</P> + +<P> +"Nothing; save that of all souls in this world you are, without +exception, the best." +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +"No. Rather must farewell be said." +</P> + +<P> +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!" +</P> + +<P> +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: +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +At the same moment the dim face, with its great blue eyes, showed +itself at the window, and the stem voice inquired: +</P> + +<P> +"What does the noise mean?" +</P> + +<P> +"What does it mean? It means that I do not intend—" +</P> + +<P> +"You must not, if you wish to create a disturbance, do it anywhere but +in the street. It must not be created here." +</P> + +<P> +"What is all this?" Nadezhda put in with a stamp of her foot. "What—" +</P> + +<P> +At this point, the cook rushed out with a toasting-fork and militantly +ranged herself by Nadezhda's side, exclaiming: +</P> + +<P> +"See what comes of not having a single muzhik in the house!" +</P> + +<P> +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: +</P> + +<P> +"It is a head that must be made of iron." +</P> + +<P> +By this time Gubin had penitently subsided, and was exchanging harmless +remarks with the cook, while carefully avoiding my glance. +</P> + +<P> +"Good day to you, madame," at length I said as I passed the window. +</P> + +<P> +Not at once did she reply, but when she did so she said kindly: +</P> + +<P> +"And good day to YOU, my friend. Yes, I wish you good day." +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="nilushka"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +NILUSHKA +</H3> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<HR ALIGN="center" WIDTH="60%"> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +On the other hand, he never loses his temper, and he never grows +excited. +</P> + +<P> +"Neither of those things suits me," he will say, "for my heart is +dilated, and might at any moment fail." +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"No need for hurry," is his customary remark. "Always, in time, does +one win to one's pitch in the marketplace." +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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: +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +At intervals I hear the evening stillness broken by questions put in a +tone which implies always an expectation of a precise answer. +</P> + +<P> +"Where is Darika?" +</P> + +<P> +"He has gone to the spring for water." The answer is given whiningly, +and in a thin voice. +</P> + +<P> +"And how is your sister? +</P> + +<P> +"Still in pain." +</P> + +<P> +"Yes? Well, you can go now." +</P> + +<P> +Giving a slight cough to clear his throat, the old man begins to sing +in a quavering falsetto: +</P> + +<P> + Once a bullet smote my breast,<BR> + And scarce the pang I felt.<BR> + But ne'er the pang could be express'd<BR> + Which love's flame since hath dealt!<BR> +</P> + +<P> +As the samovar hisses and bubbles, heavy footsteps resound in the +street, and an indistinct voice says: +</P> + +<P> +"He thinks that because he is a Town Councillor he is also clever." +</P> + +<P> +"Yes; such folk are apt to grow very proud." +</P> + +<P> +"Why, all his brains put together wouldn't grease one of my boots!" +</P> + +<P> +And as the voices die away the old man's falsetto trickles forth anew, +humming: +</P> + +<P> +"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?" +</P> + +<P> +"No, sober, for he is taking nothing but kvas and cabbage soup." +</P> + +<P> +"And what is he doing for a living?" +</P> + +<P> +"Sitting at the table, and thinking." +</P> + +<P> +"And has your mother been beating him again?" +</P> + +<P> +"No—not again." +</P> + +<P> +"And she—how is she?" +</P> + +<P> +"Obliged to keep indoors." +</P> + +<P> +"Well, run along with you." +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +For instance, once I overheard Vologonov reproach her for not leading a +more becoming life: +</P> + +<P> +"You ought to have more self-restraint," said he, "seeing that you are +a lady, and also your own mistress." +</P> + +<P> +"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.'" +</P> + +<P> +"It makes one feel ashamed to hear such talk," said Vologonov with a +sigh. In response she burst out laughing. +</P> + +<P> +"What a virtuous man!" was her comment upon his remark. +</P> + +<P> +Until now Antipa had spoken cautiously, and in an undertone, whereas +the woman had replied in loud accents of challenge. +</P> + +<P> +"Will you come in and have some tea?" he said next as he leant out of +the window. +</P> + +<P> +"No, I thank you. In passing, what a thing I have heard about you!" +</P> + +<P> +"Do not shout so loud. Of what are you speaking?" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, of SUCH a thing!" +</P> + +<P> +"Of NOTHING, I imagine." +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, of EVERYTHING." +</P> + +<P> +"God, who created all things, alone knows everything." +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"Into that Eve's ears be there poured the poison of the asp!... Yet +pardon me, Oh God! Yea, pardon me!" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<HR ALIGN="center" WIDTH="60%"> + +<P> +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: +</P> + +<P> +"Lodger, would you care to join me in a pot of tea?" +</P> + +<P> +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: +</P> + +<P> +"Have you ever read Paradise Lost and Destroyed?" +</P> + +<P> +"No," I replied. "Only Paradise Regained." +</P> + +<P> +This led him to wag his parti-coloured beard in token that 'he +disagreed with my choice', and to observe: +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +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." +</P> + +<P> +Similarly did women constitute our most usual subject of conversation. +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +Vologonov stirs his strong, stewed tea with a battered old teaspoon, +and says with a sigh as he sips a little: +</P> + +<P> +"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.'" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"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.'" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"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.'" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"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..." +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"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—" +</P> + +<P> +Here Vologonov lowers his voice, and continues with something of the +growl of an angry dog: +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +Once I asked him: +</P> + +<P> +"What in particular ought men to wait for?" +</P> + +<P> +For a while he sat clasping his beard, and, with contracted eyes, +gazing as at something behind me. Then he said quietly and didactically: +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<HR ALIGN="center" WIDTH="60%"> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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: +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + Oh Lo-ord, pardon me!<BR> + Wo-olves run,<BR> + And do-ogs run,<BR> + And the hunters wait<BR> + To kill the wolves.<BR> + Oh Lo-ord, pardon me!<BR> +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +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: +</P> + +<P> +"Hi, Nilushka! Fire! Fire!" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +Only then would the person who had given him the fright repent, and say +with a laugh: +</P> + +<P> +"God in heaven, what a stupid lad this is!" +</P> + +<P> +And, should that person have been asked why he had thus terrified the +boy, he would probably have replied: +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +As for the omniscient Antipa Vologonov, the following was his frequent +comment on Nilushka: +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +Hence Vologonov, like the rest, bestowed much attention upon Nilushka, +and frequently held conversations with him. +</P> + +<P> +"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. +</P> + +<P> +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: +</P> + +<P> +"Our Father in Heaven—" +</P> + +<P> +"WHICH ART in Heaven." +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, in the Heaven of Heavens." +</P> + +<P> +"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.] +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +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: +</P> + +<P> +"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]. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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: +</P> + +<P> +"But what about the other one?" +</P> + +<P> +What "the other one" meant I could never divine. Nor could Antipa. +Once, drawing the idiot to him, he said: +</P> + +<P> +"Why do you always say 'What about the other one'?" +</P> + +<P> +Troubled and nervous, Nilushka merely muttered some unintelligible +reply as his fingers turned and turned about the circular object which +he was holding. +</P> + +<P> +"Nothing," at length he replied. +</P> + +<P> +"Nothing of what? +</P> + +<P> +"Nothing here." +</P> + +<P> +"Ah, he is too foolish to understand," said Vologonov with a sigh as +his eyes darkened in meditative fashion. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, though it may seem foolish to say so," he added, "some people +would envy him." +</P> + +<P> +"Why should they?" +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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: +</P> + +<P> +"He is so, damn him!" +</P> + +<P> +"Then who is he?" +</P> + +<P> +Felitzata, as usual, licked her faded, but still comely, lips with the +tip of her tongue before she replied: +</P> + +<P> +"A monk." +</P> + +<P> +"Ah!" Vologonov exclaimed with unexpected animation. "That, then, +explains things. At all events, we have in it an intelligible THEORY of +things." +</P> + +<P> +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: +</P> + +<P> +"Why did you never tell us this before? It was exceedingly negligent of +you." +</P> + +<P> +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: +</P> + +<P> +"Ah, I was good-looking then, and desired of all. In those days I had +both a good heart and a happy nature." +</P> + +<P> +"But the monk may prove to have been an important factor in the +question," was Antipa's thoughtful remark. +</P> + +<P> +"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: +</P> + +<P> +"Do you come into my room, for I have business to transact with you." +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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: +</P> + +<P> +"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—" +</P> + +<P> +"You say a meaning?" +</P> + +<P> +"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—" +</P> + +<P> +"What a croaking, to be sure!" +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +"A-a-ah!" the woman drawled with an air of being about to say something +more. +</P> + +<P> +"Come, fool!" +</P> + +<P> +"You see—" +</P> + +<P> +"Have I, this time, abused you?" +</P> + +<P> +"No, but—" +</P> + +<P> +"I have an idea that the man of God will be holding a crook." +</P> + +<P> +"Of course," assented Felitzata. +</P> + +<P> +Similarly, on another occasion, did I hear Antipa mutter confidentially +to his companion: +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +"Why so?" queried Felitzata. +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +"But I know no such words." +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +"Certainly that would be the better plan." +</P> + +<P> +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: +</P> + +<P> +"Say this after me. 'Do not hasten, Oh ye people.' Try if you can say +that." +</P> + +<P> +"'A lantern,'" began Nilushka civilly. +</P> + +<P> +"'A lantern?' Yes. Well, go on, and say, 'I am a lantern unto thee—" +</P> + +<P> +"I want to sing, it." +</P> + +<P> +"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—" +</P> + +<P> +"O Lo-ord, have mercy!" came in a quiet, thoughtful chant from the +idiot. Whereafter he added in the coaxing tone of a child: +</P> + +<P> +"We shall all of us have to die." +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +"Dogs run-" +</P> + +<P> +"Dogs? Now, enough, little fellow." +</P> + +<P> +"Dogs run like chickens. They run here, in the ravine," continued +Nilushka in the murmuring accents of a child of three. +</P> + +<P> +"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.'" +</P> + +<P> +"No, I want to SING something." +</P> + +<P> +With a splutter Vologonov said: +</P> + +<P> +"Truly you are a difficult subject to deal with!" +</P> + +<P> +And with that he fell to pacing the floor with long, thoughtful strides +as the idiot's voice cried in quavering accents: +</P> + +<P> +"O Lo-ord, have me-ercy upon us!" +</P> + +<HR ALIGN="center" WIDTH="60%"> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"Whither, Nilushka?" said I. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"A bukan," he observed. +</P> + +<P> +"It is so. And whither are you going to take it?" +</P> + +<P> +"We shall all of us die. I was going to take and bury it." +</P> + +<P> +"But it is alive; and one does not bury things before they are dead." +</P> + +<P> +Nilushka closed and opened his eyes once or twice. +</P> + +<P> +"I should like to sing something," he remarked. +</P> + +<P> +"Rather, do you SAY something." +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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! +</P> + +<HR ALIGN="center" WIDTH="60%"> + +<P> +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: +</P> + +<P> +"Mother, please lay out my bed on the chest, for I think that I am +going to lie down for the last time." +</P> + +<P> +Yet the words in no way surprised Felitzata, for he had often before +remarked, before retiring to rest: +</P> + +<P> +"Some day we shall all of us have to die." +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"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?'" +</P> + +<P> +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: +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + Oh, gone is my dove, my radiant moon!<BR> + O star of mine eyes, thou hast set too soon!<BR> + In darksome depths thy light lies drown'd,<BR> + And time must yet complete its round,<BR> + And the trump of the Second Advent sound,<BR> + Ere ever my—<BR> +</P> + +<P> +"Here, you! Hold your tongue!" grunted Vologonov irritably. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +Only Vologonov was nudging Felitzata, and saying to her in a loud, +authoritative tone: +</P> + +<P> +"Very ready are you to weep, but I should like first to hear the exact +circumstances of the lad's death." +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +Abruptly, sternly, the old man inquired: +</P> + +<P> +"Did the lad ever complain of ill-health?" +</P> + +<P> +"No, never," Felitzata replied. "Never once did he speak of it—never +once." +</P> + +<P> +"And he had not been beaten?" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, how can you ask me such a thing, and especially seeing that, +that—?" +</P> + +<P> +"I did not say beaten by YOU." +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +Someone here murmured: +</P> + +<P> +"She DID use to beat him." +</P> + +<P> +"What?" +</P> + +<P> +"At all events she used to lose her temper with him." +</P> + +<P> +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: +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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: +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + With my bosom pressed to the warm, grey earth,<BR> + To thee, grey earth, to thee, Oh my mother of old,<BR> + I beseech thee, I who am a mother like thee,<BR> + And a mother in pain, to enfold in thy arms<BR> + This my son, this my dead son, this my ruby,<BR> + This my drop of my heart's blood, this my—<BR> +</P> + +<P> +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: +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +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: +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +Said I to him at that moment: +</P> + +<P> +"What is it that you have been wanting of him? Why is it that you have +been trying to teach him strange words?" +</P> + +<P> +Straightening himself, and glancing at me with dim eyes, Antipa +repeated: +</P> + +<P> +"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: +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +With a short laugh, he indicated the corpse with his eyes, and +continued more firmly: +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +"But you yourself were the person who suggested that? You yourself +wished it?" +</P> + +<P> +"I?" +</P> + +<P> +Presently, thrusting his hands up his sleeves, he added dully and +brokenly: +</P> + +<P> +"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]. +</P> + +<P> +All the evening sky was now aflame. Upon the ear there fell the +mournful lament: +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +Vologonov listened for a moment. Then he said firmly: +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +As I stepped out into the dark, narrow vestibule, Antipa, who was +following me, muttered: +</P> + +<P> +"Such a lament as hers could come only of genuine grief." +</P> + +<P> +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: +</P> + +<P> +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! +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="cemetery"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +THE CEMETERY +</H3> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"What have you got there?" I inquired. +</P> + +<P> +"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. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, it is only a grassworm," I said vexedly. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"I thank you," I called out; whereupon, he replied without looking +behind him: +</P> + +<P> +"If the thing really WAS a grassworm, of course there was no danger." +</P> + +<P> +Then he disappeared among the tombstones. +</P> + +<P> +Looking at the sky, I perceived the time to be about five o'clock. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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." +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +One evening I overheard a dialogue to the following effect. +</P> + +<P> +"Dikanka, pray come and scratch my back. Yes, between the +shoulder-blades. O-o-oh, that is it. My word, how strong you are!" +</P> + +<P> +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: +</P> + +<P> +"Holy Father Nicholas, pray for us unto God! Is the supper kvas ready, +Dikanka?" +</P> + +<P> +And softly the pair had departed to the kitchen—there to grunt and +squeal once more like a couple of pigs.... +</P> + +<P> +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." +</P> + +<P> +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." +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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: +</P> + +<P> +"The Councillor, the Councillor! Who was it that fell in love with +Madame Sukhinikh, and then fell into the pond?" +</P> + +<P> +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: +</P> + +<P> +"I'll tell your fathers! Oh, I'll tell your mothers!" +</P> + +<P> +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: +</P> + +<P> +"Give something for Christ's sake! Give in memory of your kinsfolk +there!" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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.... +</P> + +<P> +Suddenly the old man halted before me on the path, and, sternly +extending a hand towards a white stone monument near us, read aloud: +</P> + +<P> +"'Under this cross there lies buried the body of the respected citizen +and servant of God, Diomid Petrovitch Ussov,'" etc., etc. +</P> + +<P> +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: +</P> + +<P> +"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'?" +</P> + +<P> +"Possibly he was an ascetic," was my hazarded conjecture; whereupon the +old man rejoined with a stamp of his foot: +</P> + +<P> +"Then in such case one ought to write—" +</P> + +<P> +"To write what?" +</P> + +<P> +"To write EVERYTHING, in fullest possible detail." +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +With a hand taken from one of his pockets, he traced a large circle in +the air. +</P> + +<P> +"Do you know the meaning of that?" he inquired. +</P> + +<P> +"Its meaning is death," was my diffident reply, made with a shrug of +the shoulders. +</P> + +<P> +A shake of his head disclosed to me a keen, agreeable, finely cut face +as he pronounced the following Slavonic words: +</P> + +<P> +"'Smertu smert vsekonechnie pogublena bwist.'" [Death hath been for +ever overthrown by death."] +</P> + +<P> +"Do you know that passage?" he added presently. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +Then, after a pause, he added: +</P> + +<P> +"Vice-Governor Khorvat of Tambov is my brother—a younger brother; he +being fifty-five, and I sixty-one, si-i-ixty one." +</P> + +<P> +His speech was rapid, but as precise as though no mistake was +permissible in its delivery. +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +Here he brandished his fist in the air, and described a large arc over +the crosses. +</P> + +<P> +"Let us sit down," he said, "and I will explain things." +</P> + +<P> +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: +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +Next, distending his ruddy cheeks, twitching his moustache, and +regarding me covertly out of boylike eyes, the Lieutenant resumed: +</P> + +<P> +"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?" +</P> + +<P> +"Not altogether," I rejoined. +</P> + +<P> +He heaved a very audible sigh. +</P> + +<P> +"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?" +</P> + +<P> +I nodded. +</P> + +<P> +"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: +</P> + +<P> +"What is this cemetery? It is merely a place of show." +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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: +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +Upon this Virubov had remarked with a sigh, and in sluggish, +sententious tones: +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +Then, bending forward, and infusing into each softly uttered word a +perfect lusciousness of falsity, Virubov had added to his neighbour: +</P> + +<P> +"Take, for example, the working-woman who stands free of every tie." +</P> + +<P> +"How do I stand free of anything?" the neighbour had retorted, in +complete readiness for a quarrel. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, I am not speaking in your despite, Pavlushka, but to your credit," +hastily Virubov had protested. +</P> + +<P> +"Then keep your blandishments for that heifer, your 'niece,'" had been +Madame Ezhov's response. +</P> + +<P> +Upon this Virubov had risen heavily, and remarked as he moved away +towards the courtyard: +</P> + +<P> +"All folk need to be supervised by an autocratic eye." +</P> + +<P> +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: +</P> + +<P> +"It is my opinion, it is my opinion, that—" +</P> + +<P> +"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.... +</P> + +<P> +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: +</P> + +<P> +"Of what are you thinking, if I might inquire?" +</P> + +<P> +"I am trying to understand you." +</P> + +<P> +"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?" +</P> + +<P> +His eyes had grown once more young and clear, and, seizing my hand in +his strong and agreeably warm fingers, he continued: +</P> + +<P> +"Why so? For the very simple reason that I cannot respect myself when I +can learn nothing, simply nothing, about my fellows." +</P> + +<P> +Moving nearer to me, he added in a mysterious undertone: +</P> + +<P> +"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?" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"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—" +</P> + +<P> +"N-n-o-u, n-n-o-u!" the bell of the monastery tolled over the tombs in +languid, chilly accents. +</P> + +<P> +"—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." +</P> + +<P> +Here the Lieutenant stretched out his hand again in the direction of +the tombs. +</P> + +<P> +"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?" +</P> + +<P> +In silence I nodded; whereupon he cried triumphantly: +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +Further, pointing to a grey headstone with a worn inscription, he +shouted (or almost did so): +</P> + +<P> +"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?" +</P> + +<P> +"Most certainly." +</P> + +<P> +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: +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +To which, with his face wrinkled with disgust, he added in a tone like +a shot from a pistol: +</P> + +<P> +"Machines are we! Yes, machines, and nothing else!" +</P> + +<P> +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!" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"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?" +</P> + +<P> +"I do," I replied. "Yes, I do." +</P> + +<P> +"Good!" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +Still smoking, he looked me in the eyes with a self-diffident frown, +and muttered: +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"Your wife or your daughter?" I queried. +</P> + +<P> +"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. +</P> + +<P> +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." +</P> + +<P> +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: +</P> + +<P> +"E-e-ternal me-e—" +</P> + +<P> +"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?" +</P> + +<P> +And again the Lieutenant's face wreathed itself in solid rings of +pungent tobacco smoke. +</P> + +<P> +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: +</P> + +<P> +"To the left, I say." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, what is to be done, Tanechka?" +</P> + +<P> +Expelling a fresh cloud of tobacco smoke in cylindrical form, the old +man muttered: +</P> + +<P> +"It would seem that those women have forgotten the precise spot where +their relative or friend happens to lie buried." +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +Went on the Lieutenant: +</P> + +<P> +"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'?" +</P> + +<P> +Pointing to the tombs with a gesture as though he were swimming, he +paused for a moment or two. +</P> + +<P> +"You are a good man," I said, "and a man who must have lived a good and +interesting life." +</P> + +<P> +He did not look at me, but answered quietly and thoughtfully: +</P> + +<P> +"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—" +</P> + +<P> +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: +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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: +</P> + +<P> +"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—" +</P> + +<P> +"A book is lying in my breeches pocket," I interposed. +</P> + +<P> +"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—" +</P> + +<P> +He stopped to wink at me with another outburst of soft, good-humoured +laughter. Then he continued. +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +He sighed and paused, for evidently he was becoming lost in thought. +</P> + +<P> +"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—" +</P> + +<P> +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: +</P> + +<P> +"Now I must be going." +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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: +</P> + +<P> +"What have you done? What have you done?" +</P> + +<P> +And the other responded carelessly: +</P> + +<P> +"Hold your tongue, now! Pray hold your tongue!" +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="steamer"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +ON A RIVER STEAMER +</H3> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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: +</P> + +<P> +"Se-em, se-em, shest!" +</P> + +<P> +["Seven, seven, six!" (the depth of water, reckoned in sazheni or +fathoms)] +</P> + +<P> +It was as though he were wailing: +</P> + +<P> +"Seyem, seyem, a yest-NISHEVO" +</P> + +<P> +[Let us eat, let us eat, but to eat there is—nothing] +</P> + +<P> +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: +</P> + +<P> +"About, there!" +</P> + +<P> +Under the stem of the barge a wave ran which, divided into a pair of +white wings, serpentined away towards either bank. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +To the right, the bank of the river towered up into lofty, precipitous, +clayey slopes intersected with ravines wherein aspens and birches found +shelter. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<HR ALIGN="center" WIDTH="60%"> + +<P> +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: +</P> + +<P> +Six! Six! Six-and-a-half! +</P> + +<P> +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: +</P> + +<P> +"Whither in such a hurry?" +</P> + +<P> +"To pick a bone with Mitka." +</P> + +<P> +"Good!" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +Through lack of diversion the boatswain began to feel inclined to +hector somebody, so cried sternly to the man in question: +</P> + +<P> +"Hi there, chawbacon!" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"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?" +</P> + +<P> +Rising, the passenger inspected not the notice, but the locker. Then he +replied: +</P> + +<P> +"Read? Yes, I CAN read." +</P> + +<P> +"Then why sit there where you oughtn't to?" +</P> + +<P> +"I cannot see any notice." +</P> + +<P> +"Well, it's hot there anyway, and the smell of oil comes up from the +engines.... Whence have you come?" +</P> + +<P> +"From Kashira." +</P> + +<P> +"Long from home?" +</P> + +<P> +"Three weeks, about." +</P> + +<P> +"Any rain at your place?" +</P> + +<P> +"No. But why?" +</P> + +<P> +"How come your boots are so muddy?" +</P> + +<P> +The passenger lowered his head, extended cautiously first one foot, and +then the other, scrutinised them both, and replied: +</P> + +<P> +"You see, they are not my boots." +</P> + +<P> +With a roar of laughter that caused his brilliant beard to project from +his chin, the boatswain retorted: +</P> + +<P> +"I think you must drink a bit." +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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: +</P> + +<P> +"Did you happen to notice the gait of that little man there in the +light pea-jacket and dirty boots?" +</P> + +<P> +"I did." +</P> + +<P> +"Then see here. Do keep an eye upon him." +</P> + +<P> +"But why? Is he a bad lot?" +</P> + +<P> +"Something like it, I think." +</P> + +<P> +"I will then." +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +The boatswain winked in his direction, and remarked: +</P> + +<P> +"Half-seas over, HE is." +</P> + +<P> +"'Tis his way," a pockmarked, eyebrow-less sailor responded. +</P> + +<P> +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: +</P> + +<P> +"Why, he regularly sneezes flies, eh?" +</P> + +<HR ALIGN="center" WIDTH="60%"> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +From behind the firewood near me a thick, rasping voice said in +deliberate tones: +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +Another voice, loud and gruff, replied: +</P> + +<P> +"Aha! Avoid the ladies, or one is bound to go amiss." +</P> + +<P> +"The saying has it that always a fish makes for deeper water." +</P> + +<P> +"Besides, he is a fool, and that is worse still. By the way, he is a +relative of yours, isn't he?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes. He is my brother." +</P> + +<P> +"Indeed? Then pray forgive me." +</P> + +<P> +"Certainly; but, to speak plainly, he is a fool." +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"Hi!" I shouted to him. "What are you doing there?" +</P> + +<P> +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: +</P> + +<P> +"How is that your business? Get away with you!" +</P> + +<P> +Upon this I approached him, for I was astonished and amused at his +impudence. +</P> + +<P> +"For what you have done the sailors will make you pay right enough," I +remarked. +</P> + +<P> +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: +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +"But," I remarked in amazement, "my belief is that you WILLFULLY untied +the mop, to throw it overboard!" +</P> + +<P> +"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?" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"Ah, good sir," a gruff, sarcastic voice began at my side—but +instantly a yet gruffer voice intervened with: +</P> + +<P> +"Well?" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, nothing, except that to ask a question is easy, and to answer it +may be difficult." +</P> + +<P> +"True." +</P> + +<P> +From the ravines a mist was spreading over the river. +</P> + +<HR ALIGN="center" WIDTH="60%"> + +<P> +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: +</P> + +<P> +"I said to him—yes, I said: 'Yasha, you must not, you shall not, do +this.'" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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." +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +I leapt up, seized the man by the collar, and shook him soundly. +</P> + +<P> +"What are you at?" I exclaimed. +</P> + +<P> +Turning in my grasp he whispered with a scarcely audible, but +exceedingly repulsive, giggle: +</P> + +<P> +"Haven't I given her a good fright, eh?" +</P> + +<P> +Then he added: +</P> + +<P> +"Now, let me go! Let go, I say!" +</P> + +<P> +"Have you lost your wits?" I retorted with a gasp. +</P> + +<P> +For a moment or two his blinking eyes continued to glance at something +over my shoulder. Then they returned to me, while he whispered: +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +As I thrust him away his short legs, legs which might almost have been +amputated, staggered under him. Meanwhile I reflected: +</P> + +<P> +"No, I was NOT wrong. He DID of set purpose throw the mop overboard. +What a fellow!" +</P> + +<P> +A bell sounded from the engine-room. +</P> + +<P> +"Slow!" someone shouted with a cheerful hail. +</P> + +<P> +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: +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, holy Mother of God!" +</P> + +<P> +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!"] +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +Somehow I found contemplation of the scene depressing. +</P> + +<P> +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: +</P> + +<P> +"Fool, you must be asleep! The winch, you say? Why, the winch is at the +stern, damn you!" +</P> + +<P> +"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: +</P> + +<P> +"It's time we WERE off!" +</P> + +<P> +Said a hoarse voice: +</P> + +<P> +"Look here, young fellow. What was it he shouted?" +</P> + +<P> +Hastily and inarticulately, with a great deal of smacking of the lips +and stuttering, someone replied: +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +"What were you afraid of?" a brusque voice interrupted. +</P> + +<P> +"What was I afraid of?" +</P> + +<P> +"At all events, you joined your uncle in killing your father, didn't +you?" +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +"But if this young fellow is speaking the truth, he had a BUSINESS +reason—though, properly speaking, even property ought not to provoke +quarrels." +</P> + +<P> +"Similarly one ought not to kill just when one chooses. Folk who commit +such crimes should have justice meted out to them." +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +"'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!" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +"But you KNEW that they had agreed to kill him?" +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +The gruffer of the two voices pulled up the speaker. +</P> + +<P> +"To think," it said, "that you can actually talk about it all!" +</P> + +<P> +"Why shouldn't I? My father brought tears to the eyes of many an +innocent person." +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +At length, in a trumpet-like voice (though he seemed to do his best to +soften it) the peasant asked: +</P> + +<P> +"Your uncle is on that barge, I suppose?" +</P> + +<P> +"He is. And so is my brother." +</P> + +<P> +"Yet you are here! How strange!" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"Why are you travelling?" +</P> + +<P> +"Because I wish to have a word with him." +</P> + +<P> +"With your uncle?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes." +</P> + +<P> +"About the property?" +</P> + +<P> +"What else?" +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +"But the property?" the young fellow asked with a lift of his head. +</P> + +<P> +"Let it go," the peasant vouchsafed as he closed his eyes. +</P> + +<P> +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: +</P> + +<P> +"What are you looking at? And why do you keep following me about?" +</P> + +<P> +Here the big peasant opened his eyes, and, with a glance first at the +man, and then at myself, growled: +</P> + +<P> +"Less noise there, you mitten-face!" +</P> + +<HR ALIGN="center" WIDTH="60%"> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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: +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +Stupefied with astonishment, I inquired in an undertone. +</P> + +<P> +"It was you, then, that hit me?" +</P> + +<P> +"It was so, but where are your witnesses?" +</P> + +<P> +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: +</P> + +<P> +"Where, I say, are your witnesses? You can go to the devil!" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<HR ALIGN="center" WIDTH="60%"> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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: +</P> + +<P> +"Avast heaving lifebelts! By now the fool will have got one! Damn you, +calm the passengers!" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"A muzhik, is it, or a woman? A muzhik, eh?" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +Suddenly there broke into the painful hubbub on the steamer's deck a +faint, heartrending cry of "A-a-ah!" +</P> + +<P> +In answer to it a sharp-nosed, black-bearded, well-dressed peasant +muttered with a smack of his lips: +</P> + +<P> +"Ah! That is him shouting. What a madman he must have been! And an ugly +customer too, wasn't he?" +</P> + +<P> +The peasant with the curly beard rejoined in a tone of conviction +engulfing all other utterances: +</P> + +<P> +"It is his conscience that is catching him. Think what you like, but +never can conscience be suppressed." +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +The bearded peasant continued: +</P> + +<P> +"As soon as it was seen that he was but running after the soldier's +wife." +</P> + +<P> +"Besides," the other peasant interrupted, "the property was not to be +divided after the death of the father." +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"Every man is drawn most in the direction whither he finds it easiest +to go." +</P> + +<P> +"Then it will be the Devil that will be drawing him, since the +direction of Hell is always the easiest." +</P> + +<P> +"Well, YOU will not be going that way, I suppose? You don't altogether +fancy it?" +</P> + +<P> +"Why should I?" +</P> + +<P> +"Because you have declared it to be the easiest way." +</P> + +<P> +"Well, I am not a saint." +</P> + +<P> +"No, ha-ha! you are not." +</P> + +<P> +"And you mean that—?" +</P> + +<P> +"I mean nothing. If a dog's chain be short, he is not to be blamed." +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"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?" +</P> + +<P> +"If the Devil be one's master, God doesn't come into the matter." +</P> + +<P> +"Liar! For who was the first who raised his hand against his fellow?" +</P> + +<P> +"Cain." +</P> + +<P> +"And the first man who repented of a sin?" +</P> + +<P> +"Adam." +</P> + +<P> +"Ah! You see!" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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: +</P> + +<P> +"Put her over! Put her o-o-ove-r!" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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: +</P> + +<P> +"Have they also recovered my cap?" +</P> + +<P> +Someone among the throng around him exclaimed reprovingly: +</P> + +<P> +"It is not about your cap that you ought to be thinking, but about your +soul." +</P> + +<P> +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: +</P> + +<P> +"Let me be taken elsewhere." +</P> + +<P> +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: +</P> + +<P> +"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?" +</P> + +<P> +The crowd however, was not to be suppressed, but indulged in comments. +</P> + +<P> +"He murdered his father, didn't he?" +</P> + +<P> +"What? THAT wretched creature?" +</P> + +<P> +As for the boatswain, he squatted upon his heels, and proceeded to +subject the rescued man to a course of strict interrogation. +</P> + +<P> +"What is the destination marked on your ticket?" +</P> + +<P> +"Perm." +</P> + +<P> +"Then you ought to leave the boat at Kazan. And what is your name?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yakov." +</P> + +<P> +"And your surname?" +</P> + +<P> +"Bashkin—though we are known also as the Bukolov family." +</P> + +<P> +"Your family has a DOUBLE surname, then?" +</P> + +<P> +With the full power of his trumpet-like lungs the bearded peasant +(evidently he had lost his temper) broke in: +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +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." +</P> + +<P> +To this someone added with a drawl: +</P> + +<P> +"Why is a doctor needed? Surely the man is a fellow of no particular +importance?" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +For instance, a gaunt gentleman in a grey frock-coat said to a lady in +a yellow straw hat adorned with a pink ribbon: +</P> + +<P> +"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?" +</P> + +<P> +"An abnormal case indeed!" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +Presently two sailors appeared. One of them bent over the young fellow, +touched him on the shoulder, and said: +</P> + +<P> +"Hi! You are to get up." +</P> + +<P> +Whereupon the young fellow rose, and was removed elsewhither. +</P> + +<HR ALIGN="center" WIDTH="60%"> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"Would you mind telling us how it all happened?" he began. +</P> + +<P> +"Why should I do so?" retorted the young fellow without moving. +</P> + +<P> +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: +</P> + +<P> +"Why, you say? For the reason that the occasion is one when all ought +to know the tru—" +</P> + +<P> +Lurching forward, the bearded peasant interposed with a rasp: +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, do you tell us all about it, and things will become easier for +you. For a sin always needs to be made known." +</P> + +<P> +While, like an echo, a voice said in bold and sarcastic accents: +</P> + +<P> +"It would be better to seize him and tie him up." +</P> + +<P> +Upon this the young fellow raised his brows a little, and retorted in +an undertone: +</P> + +<P> +"Let me bide." +</P> + +<P> +"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: +</P> + +<P> +"Possibly it is not merely out of idle curiosity that folk are making +this request." +</P> + +<P> +"Go and be damned to you!" the young fellow exclaimed with a grim snap. +Whereupon the big peasant bellowed out in a blustering fashion: +</P> + +<P> +"What? Then you will not tell us at least your destination?" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +At length the crowd grew similarly excited, and took to encouraging the +speaker with cries of "True! That is so!" +</P> + +<P> +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: +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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: +</P> + +<P> +"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—" +</P> + +<P> +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: +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +"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: +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +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!" +</P> + +<P> +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: +</P> + +<P> +"Good brother, we are not your judges." +</P> + +<P> +To which someone else added with an equal measure of gentleness: +</P> + +<P> +"Indeed, we may be no better than you." +</P> + +<P> +"We pity you, but we must not judge you. Only pity is permitted." +</P> + +<P> +As for the well-dressed peasant, his loud, triumphant utterance was: +</P> + +<P> +"Let God judge him, but men suffer him. Of judging of one another there +has been enough." +</P> + +<P> +And a fifth man remarked to a friend as he walked away: +</P> + +<P> +"What are we to make of this? To judge by the book, the young fellow is +at once guilty and not guilty." +</P> + +<P> +"Bygones ought to be bygones. Of all courses that is the best." +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, for we are too quick. What good can that do?" +</P> + +<P> +"Aye, what?" +</P> + +<P> +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: +</P> + +<P> +"Do all of you go away." +</P> + +<P> +Whereupon the crowd began to depart, the big peasant saying as he went: +</P> + +<P> +"There! Just as I foretold has the matter turned out. Conscience HAS +asserted itself." +</P> + +<P> +Yet the words were spoken without self-complacency, rather, +thoughtfully, and with a sense of awe. +</P> + +<P> +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: +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +The lover of proverbs, for his part, unbuttoned his jacket, thrust his +hands under his coat-tails, and said in a loud voice: +</P> + +<P> +"There is a saying that you can trust any wild beast, such as a fox or +a hedgehog or a toad, but not—" +</P> + +<P> +"Quite so, dear sir. The common folk are exceedingly degenerate." +</P> + +<P> +"Well, they are not developing as they ought to do." +</P> + +<P> +"No, they are over-cramped," was the big peasant's rasped-out comment. +"They have no room for GROWTH." +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, they DO grow, but only as regards beard and moustache, as a tree +grows to branch and sap." +</P> + +<P> +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: +</P> + +<P> +"My friend, you are of a sort calculated to last." +</P> + +<P> +In answer the peasant nodded. +</P> + +<P> +"SOME day," he remarked, "we shall get what we want." +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +Here one and all were due to disembark. +</P> + +<P> +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: +</P> + +<P> +"Presently we will have a cup of tea, and then keep together as far as +Christopol." +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"I have been trodden upon," he said. +</P> + +<P> +"Trodden upon by whom?" +</P> + +<P> +"By all. And I am afraid of them." +</P> + +<P> +"Why so?" +</P> + +<P> +"Because I am." +</P> + +<P> +Breathing upon a morsel of the scone, the woman offered it him with the +quiet words: +</P> + +<P> +"You have had much to bear. Now, shall I tell you my history, or shall +we first have tea?" +</P> + +<HR ALIGN="center" WIDTH="60%"> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +It was a scene like a scene beheld in a vision. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="woman"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +A WOMAN +</H3> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"Tsob, tsobe!" such fellows shout to their teams. This year they are +reaping a splendid harvest. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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: +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +And with a certain quiet reflectiveness, he loves also to recount a +marvellous example of unlooked-for enrichment. He will say to you: +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +Again, should a Cossack pass him without returning his salute, he will +mutter as he follows the man with his eyes: +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +A fat-faced youth with high cheek-bones and the small eyes of a Mongol +here nudged her, and said carelessly: +</P> + +<P> +"You mean, rather, that your own man has cast you off. Probably he was +the only man you ever saw." +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +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: +</P> + +<P> +"Do not listen to those rascals!" +</P> + +<HR ALIGN="center" WIDTH="60%"> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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.... +</P> + +<P> +Closing his eyes, and picking his words with difficulty, a tall, fair +peasant drawls in thick, gluelike tones: +</P> + +<P> +"'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.'" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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: +</P> + +<P> +"Should you care to hit me?" +</P> + +<P> +"No, you can hit yourself. Hit yourself over the head. Then, perhaps, +you'll grow wiser." +</P> + +<P> +Stolidly the young fellow looks at Konev, and inquires: +</P> + +<P> +"How do you know me to be a fool?" +</P> + +<P> +"Because your personality tells me so." +</P> + +<P> +"Eh?" cries the young fellow truculently as he raises himself to a +kneeling posture. "How know you what I am?" +</P> + +<P> +"I have been told what you are by the Governor of your province." +</P> + +<P> +The young fellow opens his mouth, and stares at Konev. Then he asks: +</P> + +<P> +"To what province do I belong?" +</P> + +<P> +"If you yourself have forgotten to what province you belong, you had +better try and loosen your wits." +</P> + +<P> +"Look here. If I were to hit you, I—" +</P> + +<P> +The woman who has been sewing drops her work to shrug one rounded +shoulder as though she were cold, and ask conciliatorily: +</P> + +<P> +"Well, WHAT province do you belong to?" +</P> + +<P> +"I?" the young fellow re-echoes as he subsides on to his heels. "I +belong to Penza. Why do you ask?" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh never mind why." +</P> + +<P> +Presently, with a strangely youthful laugh, the woman adds in a murmur: +</P> + +<P> +"I ask because I too belong to that province." +</P> + +<P> +"And to which canton?" +</P> + +<P> +"To that of Penza." In the woman's tone is a touch of pride. +</P> + +<P> +The young fellow squats down before her, as before a wood fire, +stretches out his hands, and says in an ingratiating voice: +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +"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: +</P> + +<P> +"In those stone houses." +</P> + +<P> +Here the woman drops her sewing a second time to inquire: "Is there a +convent there?" +</P> + +<P> +"A convent?" +</P> + +<P> +And the young fellow pauses uncouthly to scratch his neck. Only after a +while does he answer: +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +"Well, well!" gasps Konev, as he rises and takes his departure. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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! +</P> + +<P> +"You ask about that woman, eh?" queries Konev, whom I find leaning +against one of the poplar trunks, and embracing it with an arm. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes. From where does she hail?" +</P> + +<P> +"From Riazan, she says. Another story of hers is that her name is +Tatiana." +</P> + +<P> +"Has she been with you long?" +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +"But once you told me that you had a wife already?" +</P> + +<P> +Darting at me an angry glance, he turns away with a mutter of: +</P> + +<P> +"AM I to carry my wife about with me in my wallet?" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +Subsiding a little, the breeze takes, as it were, to whispering. +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +Presently, as the Cossack and the boy draw level with us, the former, +fingering his moustache, inquires thickly: +</P> + +<P> +"Whence are you come?" +</P> + +<P> +"From Russia." +</P> + +<P> +"All such folk come from there." +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"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?" +</P> + +<P> +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!" +</P> + +<P> +"Five!" the fair-headed peasant counts. +</P> + +<P> +"Why are you doing this?" the prostrate man protests. +</P> + +<P> +"Six!" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh dear!" ejaculates Konev, dancing with nervousness. "Oh dear, oh +dear!" +</P> + +<P> +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: +</P> + +<P> +"Stop it, pray stop it, or we shall be arrested for creating a +disturbance!" +</P> + +<P> +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: +</P> + +<P> +"THAT'S how we do it in Tambov!" +</P> + +<P> +"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. +</P> + +<P> +Konev, pecking up to her, says with an air of advice: +</P> + +<P> +"You had better take him away, and give him some water." +</P> + +<P> +Upon this the fair-headed muzhik, rising to his knees, stretches a fist +towards the man from Tambov, and exclaims: +</P> + +<P> +"Why should he have gone and bragged of his strength, pray?" +</P> + +<P> +"Was that a good reason for thrashing him?" +</P> + +<P> +"And who are you?" +</P> + +<P> +"Who am I?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, who are YOU?" +</P> + +<P> +"Never mind. See that I don't give you another swipe!" +</P> + +<P> +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: +</P> + +<P> +"DON'T make so much noise about it! Remember that we are in a strange +land, and that the folk hereabouts are strict." +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"What does all this mean?" he inquires not uncivilly. +</P> + +<P> +"They have been beating a man," the woman from Riazan replies. As she +does so she looks comely in spite of her wrath. +</P> + +<P> +The Cossack glances at her—then smiles. +</P> + +<P> +"And where is the party going to sleep?" he inquires of the crowd. +</P> + +<P> +"Here," someone ventures. +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +"It is a matter of no consequence," Konev remarks as he paces beside +me. "Yet—" +</P> + +<P> +"They seem to be taking us for robbers," is my interruption. +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +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: +</P> + +<P> +"You are too young to associate with such brutes." +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +In a resonant, girlish voice there meets our ears: +</P> + +<P> +"Ma-am! Ma-amka! Where is the key of the green box? I want my ribands!" +</P> + +<P> +While in answer to the bell's summons, the oxen low a deep echo. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<HR ALIGN="center" WIDTH="60%"> + +<P> +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: +</P> + +<P> +"What a surprising thing, to be sure!" +</P> + +<P> +"What is?" +</P> + +<P> +"A passport. Surely a decent, peaceable man ought to be able to travel +WITHOUT a passport? So long as he be harmless, let him—" +</P> + +<P> +"You are not harmless," with angry emphasis the woman from Riazan +interposes. +</P> + +<P> +Konev closes his eyes with a smile, and says nothing more. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"No going out will be permitted," says the Cossack who has conducted us +thither. "Else you will be arrested." +</P> + +<P> +"Then give us a morsel of bread," Konev says with a stammer. "Have you +done any work here?" the Cossack inquires. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes—a little." +</P> + +<P> +"For me?" +</P> + +<P> +"No. It did not so happen." +</P> + +<P> +"When it does so happen I will give you some bread." +</P> + +<P> +And like a water-butt the fat kindly-looking man goes rolling out of +the yard. +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"See the resourcefulness of that fellow from Penza!" comments Konev +enviously. "Hi, you women! There is, it would seem, some straw about." +</P> + +<P> +To this comes from the women's corner the acid reply: +</P> + +<P> +"Then go and fetch some." +</P> + +<P> +"For you?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, for us." +</P> + +<P> +"Then I must, I suppose." +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +With which he slips out quietly into the street, and disappears from +view. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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: +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + To our land we all are born<BR> + In happiness to dwell.<BR> + The sun has bred us to this land<BR> + Its fairness to excel.<BR> + In the temple of the sun<BR> + We high priests are, divine.<BR> + Then each of us should claim his life,<BR> + And cry, "This life is mine!"<BR> +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +The woman from Riazan mutters firmly, and with assurance: +</P> + +<P> +"Never ought you to show that it hurts you." +</P> + +<P> +And with a sniff, in a tone of dubious acquiescence, her companion +replies: +</P> + +<P> +"Ye-es-so long as one can bear it." +</P> + +<P> +"Ah, but never mind. PRETEND. That is to say, when he beats you, make +light of it, and treat it as a joke." +</P> + +<P> +"But what if he beats me very much indeed?" +</P> + +<P> +"Continue still to make light of it, still to smile at him kindly." +</P> + +<P> +"Well, YOU can never have been beaten, for you do not seem to know what +it is like." +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +"Mother of God!" +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +"Indeed?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes. And see if that will not come to be your opinion as much as mine." +</P> + +<P> +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: +</P> + +<P> +"Have you ever read 'The Vision of the Mother of God'?" +</P> + +<P> +"N-no, I have not." +</P> + +<P> +"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?" +</P> + +<P> +"No, I cannot. But tell me, yourself, what the vision was?" +</P> + +<P> +"Listen, and I will do so." +</P> + +<P> +From outside the window Konev's voice softly inquires: +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +With which, handing me a large watermelon, he clambers through the +window with a great clattering and disturbance. +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +There follows no answer. +</P> + +<P> +"I believe those daughters of whores must be asleep," he comments. "Hi, +women!" +</P> + +<P> +"What is it?" drily inquires the woman from Riazan. +</P> + +<P> +"Should you like a taste of water-melon?" +</P> + +<P> +"I should, thank you." +</P> + +<P> +Thereupon, Konev begins to make his way towards the voice. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, bread, soft wheaten bread such as you—" +</P> + +<P> +Here the other woman whines in beggar fashion: +</P> + +<P> +"And give ME a taste, too." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, yes, I will. But where the devil are you?" +</P> + +<P> +"And a taste of melon as well?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, certainly. Hullo! Who is this?" +</P> + +<P> +From the woman from Riazan comes a cry of pain. +</P> + +<P> +"Mind how you step, wretch!" she exclaims. +</P> + +<P> +"All right, but you needn't make so much noise about it. You see how +dark it is, and I—" +</P> + +<P> +"You ought to have struck a match, then." +</P> + +<P> +"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?" +</P> + +<P> +"What business is that of yours?" +</P> + +<P> +"None; only, I am curious to know. Surely a woman like you—" +</P> + +<P> +"See here. Do not dare to touch me, or I—" +</P> + +<P> +"Or you what?" +</P> + +<P> +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: +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, you coward of a man, take that!" +</P> + +<P> +Whereupon follows a scrimmage amid which I can distinguish slappings, +gross chuckles from Konev, and a muffled cry from the younger woman of: +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, do not so behave, you wretch!" +</P> + +<P> +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: +</P> + +<P> +"When folk wish merely to have a game with you, you ought not to let +yourself lose your temper. Fie, fie!" +</P> + +<P> +"Are you hurt?" the woman inquires quietly. +</P> + +<P> +"What do you suppose? You have cut my lip, but that is the worst +damage." +</P> + +<P> +"Then if you come here again I will lay the whole of your face open." +</P> + +<P> +"Vixen! What bumpkinish stupidity!" +</P> + +<P> +Konev turns to myself. +</P> + +<P> +"And as for you, you go catching at the first thing you find, and have +torn my coat." +</P> + +<P> +"Then do not insult people." +</P> + +<P> +"INSULT people, fool? The idea of anyone insulting a woman like THAT!" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"The impudent rascal!" comments the woman from Penza sleepily. +</P> + +<P> +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: +</P> + +<P> +"I intend to leave here tomorrow, and go home. I do not care WHAT +becomes of me." +</P> + +<P> +With which he subsides on to the floor as though exhausted. +</P> + +<P> +"The blockhead!" is Konev's remark. +</P> + +<P> +Amid the darkness a black shape rises. It does so as soundlessly as a +fish in a pond, glides to the door, and disappears. +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +"Then follow her, and make another attempt." +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +And he renews his wearisome boastings of his conquests; until suddenly, +he stops as though he has swallowed his tongue. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +It is the hour of midnight. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +The young fellow who has been so soundly thrashed replies in a dull +voice: +</P> + +<P> +"I know nothing of you." +</P> + +<P> +"More softly, more softly!" urges the woman. +</P> + +<P> +"What is it you want?" +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +"But come whither?" +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +"Liar!" +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +Rudely, roughly the young fellow replies: +</P> + +<P> +"Then don't run after me. A woman who runs after a man, and plays the +whore with him, is—" +</P> + +<P> +"Less noise, please—less noise, I beg of you, or we shall be heard, +and I shall be put to shame!" +</P> + +<P> +"Doesn't it put you to shame to be offering yourself to me like this?" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"Perhaps," says the voice, "you have guessed that I am seeking a +husband? Yes, I AM seeking one—a good, steady muzhik." +</P> + +<P> +"But I am NOT a good, steady muzhik." +</P> + +<P> +"Fie, fie!" +</P> + +<P> +"What?" he sniggers. "A husband for you? The impudence of you! A +'husband'! Go along!" +</P> + +<P> +"Listen to me. I am tired of tramping." +</P> + +<P> +"Then go home." +</P> + +<P> +This time there ensues a long pause. Then the woman says very softly: +</P> + +<P> +"I have neither home nor kindred." +</P> + +<P> +"A lie!" ejaculates the young fellow. +</P> + +<P> +"No, by God it is not a lie! The Mother of God forget me if it is." +</P> + +<P> +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!" +</P> + +<P> +After a while the sounds of a new struggle between the pair are heard. +</P> + +<P> +"Don't put me off like that!" growls the young fellow. +</P> + +<P> +"And don't you make any attempt upon me! I am not the sort of woman to +be forced." +</P> + +<P> +The next moment there arises a cry of pain and astonishment. +</P> + +<P> +"What was that for? What was that for?" the woman wails. +</P> + +<P> +With an answering exclamation I spring to my feet, for my feelings have +become those of a wild beast. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +"Beast!" pants someone in the vicinity. +</P> + +<P> +"Hold your tongue, bitch!" is the fellow's retort. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +Yet I feel angry, somehow, and remain standing before her without +speaking—until at length I ask: +</P> + +<P> +"Are you mad?" +</P> + +<P> +"Go away," is, after a pause, her only reply. +</P> + +<P> +"I heard all that you said to that young fellow." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, did you? Then what business is it of yours? Are you my brother?" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +I seat myself by her side. +</P> + +<P> +"Should you remain much longer in that position," I remark, "you will +have a headache." +</P> + +<P> +There follows no reply. +</P> + +<P> +"Am I disturbing you?" I continue. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh no; not at all." And, lowering her hands, she looks at me. "Whence +do you come?" +</P> + +<P> +"From Nizhni Novgorod." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, from a long way off!" +</P> + +<P> +"Do you care for that young fellow?" +</P> + +<P> +Not for a moment or two does she answer; and when she does so she +answers as though the words have been rehearsed. +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +On the bell of the church there strikes the hour of two. Without +interrupting herself, the woman crosses her breast at each stroke. +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +"Then you are not sorry FOR YOURSELF?" +</P> + +<P> +"Not for myself? Oh yes, for myself as well." +</P> + +<P> +"Then why flaunt yourself before this booby, as you have been doing?" +</P> + +<P> +"Because I might reform him. Do you not think so? Ah, you do not know +me." +</P> + +<P> +A sigh escapes her. +</P> + +<P> +"He hit you, I think?" I venture. +</P> + +<P> +"No, he did not. And in any case you are not to touch him." +</P> + +<P> +"Yet you cried out?" +</P> + +<P> +Suddenly she leans towards me, and says: +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"There he is!" whispers the woman. +</P> + +<P> +"Then had I not best send him about his business?" +</P> + +<P> +"No, no!" she exclaims, catching at my knees. "No need is there for +that, no need is there for that!" +</P> + +<P> +Then with a low moan she adds: +</P> + +<P> +"Oh Lord, how I pity our folk and their lives! Oh God our Father!" +</P> + +<P> +Her shoulders heave, and presently she bursts into tears, with a +whisper, between the pitiful sobs, of: +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +That feeling I can understand as well as she, for all too often has it +seemed to crush my soul with voiceless longing. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +"Your quest of happiness is not following an easy road!" +</P> + +<P> +"It is following the road that it best can." +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +Glancing at the woman's dark eyes, I perceive them to be shining as +pensively, innocently as the eyes of a young maiden. +</P> + +<P> +"You are indeed a curious woman!" I remark. +</P> + +<P> +"Perhaps I am," she replies as she moistens her lips with a slender, +almost feline tongue. +</P> + +<P> +"What are you really seeking?" +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +Her words are now firmer, more assured. +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +Her gentle face and eyes peer into the waning night as though they +aspire to caress everything upon which they may light. +</P> + +<P> +And all the while I am feeling sorry for her—sorry almost to tears. To +conceal the fact I murmur: +</P> + +<P> +"Should I myself suit you?" +</P> + +<P> +She gives a faint laugh. +</P> + +<P> +"No." +</P> + +<P> +"Why not?" +</P> + +<P> +"Because the ideas in your mind are different from mine." +</P> + +<P> +"How do you know what my ideas are?" +</P> + +<P> +She edges away from me a little, then says drily: +</P> + +<P> +"Because I can see them in your eyes. To be plain, I could never +consent." +</P> + +<P> +With a finger tapping upon the mouldy, gnarled old oaken stump on which +we are sitting, she adds: +</P> + +<P> +"The Cossacks, for instance, live comfortably enough; yet I do not like +them." +</P> + +<P> +"What in them is it that displeases you?" +</P> + +<P> +"Somehow they repel me. True, much of everything is theirs; yet also +they have ways which alienate me." +</P> + +<P> +Unable any longer to conceal from her my pity, I say gently: +</P> + +<P> +"Never, I fear, will you discover what you are seeking." +</P> + +<P> +She shakes her head protestingly. +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"What are you yourself seeking?" she asks suddenly as again she edges +towards me. +</P> + +<P> +"Simply nothing. My one desire is to observe how folk live." +</P> + +<P> +"And are you travelling alone?" +</P> + +<P> +"I am." +</P> + +<P> +"Even as am I. Oh God, how many lonely people there are in the world!" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"What sort of lives do the majority of folk lead?" +</P> + +<P> +"Sorry lives." +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, that is what I too have found." +</P> + +<P> +A pause follows. Then the woman says quietly: +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +"Many folk live unworthy lives. They live them amid discord, abasement, +and wrongs innumerable, wrongs born of want and stupidity." +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"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?" +</P> + +<P> +She lays a hand upon my shoulder, and looks straight into my eyes as +she parts her comely lips. +</P> + +<P> +"True," she rejoins—"But, dear friend, it is also true that goodness +never bargains." +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"You have been oh, so good!" she whispers softly. As she speaks, the +earth seems to be sinking under my feet. +</P> + +<P> +Then she tears herself away, glances around the courtyard, and darts to +a corner where, under a fence, a clump of herbage is sprouting. +</P> + +<P> +"Go now," she adds in a whisper. "Yes, go." +</P> + +<P> +Then, with a confused smile, as, crouching among the herbage as though +it had been a small cave, she rearranges her hair, she adds: +</P> + +<P> +"It has befallen so. Ah, me! May God grant unto me His pardon!" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"Amid a great sorrow," she adds, "even a small joy becomes a great +felicity." +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +Presently, in a tone almost of self-excuse, and one wherein the words +sound a little sadly, she continues: +</P> + +<P> +"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?" +</P> + +<P> +"YOUR face, rather, is like a child's," I remark. +</P> + +<P> +"What? Is it so stupid?" +</P> + +<P> +"Something like that." +</P> + +<P> +As she fastens up her bodice she continues: +</P> + +<P> +"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?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes—as soon, that is to say, as I have received back my passport." +</P> + +<P> +"And for what destination?" +</P> + +<P> +"For Alatyr. And you?" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +Upon that she extends to me a pair of strong, capable arms, and +proposes with a blush: +</P> + +<P> +"Shall we kiss once more before we part?" +</P> + +<P> +She clasps me with the one arm, and with the other makes the sign of +the cross, adding: +</P> + +<P> +"Good-bye, dear friend, and may Christ requite you for all your words, +for all your sympathy!" +</P> + +<P> +"Then shall we travel together?" +</P> + +<P> +At the words she frees herself, and says firmly, nay, sternly: +</P> + +<P> +"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?" +</P> + +<P> +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? +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +Him a flaxen-haired youth from Orel joins with a similar youth in +accosting. +</P> + +<P> +"Why are YOU tramping?" inquires the former. +</P> + +<P> +"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. +</P> + +<P> +"We are travelling in search of work, and therefore living as we have +been commanded to live." +</P> + +<P> +"By WHOM commanded?" +</P> + +<P> +"By God. Have you forgotten?" +</P> + +<P> +Carelessly, but succinctly, the old man retorts: +</P> + +<P> +"Take heed lest upon you, some day, God vomit all the dust and litter +which you are raising by tramping His earth!" +</P> + +<P> +"How?" cries one of the youths, a long-eared stripling. +</P> + +<P> +"Were not Christ and His Apostles also tramps?" +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +At this moment, however, Konev makes his appearance. His mien is +dejected, and his body perspiring, while his eyes keep blinking rapidly. +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +"No, HE is here," I remark. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, he is, is he? Well, as what has the company registered itself? As +a set of ikon-painters, I should think!" +</P> + +<P> +Again he begins to look anxiously about him. +</P> + +<P> +"Where can she have got to?" he queries. +</P> + +<P> +"To Mass, maybe." +</P> + +<P> +"Of course! Well, I am greatly smitten with her. Yes, my word I am!" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"Then she IS gone," says Konev ruefully. "But I'll find her yet! I'LL +come up with her!" +</P> + +<P> +That this will happen I do not feel confident. Nor do I desire that it +should. +</P> + +<HR ALIGN="center" WIDTH="60%"> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"NO ONE," he said, "has given you permission to feel, or not to feel, +like doing things." +</P> + +<P> +To which the warder, a man as dark as a chimney-sweep, with large blue +"whites" to his eyes, added stutteringly: +</P> + +<P> +"To no one here has permission been given to feel, or not to feel, like +doing things. You hear that?" +</P> + +<P> +So to exercise I went. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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: +</P> + +<P> +"Hi, you! Why do you keep tramping up and down like an old hen? Hold up +your head!" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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.... +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"That must be Konev," I say to myself aloud. +</P> + +<P> +Konev it is—Konev of the well-remembered eyes. Even at this moment +they are regarding me with puckered attention. +</P> + +<P> +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!" +</P> + +<P> +I move towards the wall. +</P> + +<P> +"Is that you, Konev?" is my inquiry. +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +"What are you here for?" +</P> + +<P> +"For a matter of base coin, though, to be truthful, I am here +accidentally, without genuine cause." +</P> + +<P> +The warder rouses himself, and, with his keys jingling like a set of +fetters, utters drowsily the command: +</P> + +<P> +"Do not stand still. Also, move further from the wall. To approach it +is forbidden." +</P> + +<P> +"But it is so hot in the middle of the yard, sir!" +</P> + +<P> +"Everywhere it is hot," retorts the man reprovingly, and his head +subsides again. From above comes the whispered query: +</P> + +<P> +"Who ARE you?" +</P> + +<P> +"Well, do you remember Tatiana, the woman from Riazan?" +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +"Together with HER? Was she too sentenced for the passing of base coin?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes. Why should she not have been? She was merely the victim of an +accident, even as I was." +</P> + +<P> +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." +</P> + +<P> +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: +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +"And she?" +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +"And Tatiana, has she any children?" +</P> + +<P> +"How could she have while living such a rough life as this? Of course +not! Besides, the priest's son is a consumptive." +</P> + +<P> +"Indeed sorry for her am I!" +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +"Was it then that you found her again?" +</P> + +<P> +"When?" +</P> + +<P> +"On that Feast of the Assumption?" +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"You see, she had money, and, but for her restlessness, might have +lived a comfortable life enough. As it was, her restlessness—" +</P> + +<P> +"Time for exercise is up!" shouts the warder. +</P> + +<P> +"Who are you?" adds Konev hastily. "Somehow I seem to remember your +face; but I cannot place it." +</P> + +<P> +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: +</P> + +<P> +"Goodbye, mate, and give her my greeting." +</P> + +<P> +"What are you bawling for?" blusters the warder.... +</P> + +<P> +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: +</P> + +<P> +"In with you, ten-years man!" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="mountain"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +IN A MOUNTAIN DEFILE +</H3> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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: +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + Oh God our Father, bound hast Thou<BR> + A crown of thorns upon my brow!<BR> + Listen to my humble prayer!<BR> + Lighten the burden which I bear!<BR> +</P> + +<P> +"What on earth can be in the man's mind?" once remarked the ex-soldier, +with a frowning glance at the singer. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<HR ALIGN="center" WIDTH="60%"> + +<P> +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: +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + "Some shall to the left be sent,<BR> + And in the pit of Hell lie pent.<BR> + While others, holding palm in hand,<BR> + Shall on God's right take up their stand."<BR> +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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: +</P> + +<P> +"I suppose the Lord God made the country." +</P> + +<P> +"You do not like it, then? How should I? Good for nothing is what I +call it." +</P> + +<P> +Then, with a further glance at me, and a twist of his sinewy neck, he +added: +</P> + +<P> +"However, not bad altogether are its forests." +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +Here, knitting his brows, the ex-soldier went on in more serious vein: +</P> + +<P> +"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—" +</P> + +<P> +"Things must have been indeed terrible on that expedition!" I +interposed. +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +Unwieldily and unhealthily stout, he always conveyed to me the +impression of being charged with a vague discontent, a sort of captious +inertia. +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +Nevertheless, for the past eight years had he been roaming this "too +hot" country, as though fascinated! +</P> + +<P> +"Why not return to Riazan?" I suggested. +</P> + +<P> +"Nothing would there be there for me to do," he replied through his +teeth, and with an odd division of his words. +</P> + +<P> +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: +</P> + +<P> +"I'll tear the flesh from your bones!" +</P> + +<P> +Meanwhile the two lean, withered, ragged, identically similar denizens +of Hellas had been baring their sharp white teeth at intervals, and +saying apologetically: +</P> + +<P> +"What has angered you, sir?" +</P> + +<P> +Finally, regardless of the Greeks' words, the ex-soldier had beat his +breast like a drum, and shouted in accents of increased venom: +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +And, lastly, he had approached a fat, grey-headed, bemedalled gendarme, +and complained to him: +</P> + +<P> +"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?" +</P> + +<HR ALIGN="center" WIDTH="60%"> + +<P> +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: +</P> + +<P> +"Do you come from Russia?" +</P> + +<P> +"Whence else, I should like to know?" snapped the ex-soldier gruffly. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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: +</P> + +<P> +"Look at the matchmaker!" +</P> + +<P> +The ex-soldier hoisted his bleached eyebrows, and gazed around him for +a moment in bewilderment. Then he whispered: +</P> + +<P> +"The fool!" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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!] +</P> + +<P> +The ex-soldier, who was engaged in ridding himself of his knapsack, +straightened himself, and asked with his arms set akimbo: +</P> + +<P> +"WHAT is it that is so splendid?" +</P> + +<P> +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: +</P> + +<P> +"Cannot you see for yourself? Take that mountain there, and that cleft +in the mountain—are they not good to look at?" +</P> + +<P> +And as he moved away, the ex-soldier gaped after him with a repeated +whisper of: +</P> + +<P> +"The fool!" +</P> + +<P> +To which presently he added in a louder, as well as a mysterious, tone: +</P> + +<P> +"I have heard that occasionally they send fever patients hither for +their health." +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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: +</P> + +<P> +"You too should collect some firewood, for in these parts the nights +are dark and chilly." +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +Meanwhile the carpenters, disposed in two circles around the barraque +(a circle to each woman), partook of a silent supper. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +The ex-soldier squatted down before the little blaze, and rearranged +some fuel under the kettle. +</P> + +<P> +"Where is the other man?" said he. "Go and fetch him." +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"A great work is it indeed!" +</P> + +<P> +Whereafter I heard the two women fall to drawling in low, hungry +accents: +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + "With the flesh I'll conquer pain;<BR> + The spirit shall my lust restrain;<BR> + All-supreme the soul shall reign;<BR> + And carnal vices lure in vain."<BR> +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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: +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +The same words he repeated on our approaching the ex-soldier; much as +though he took a pleasure in their phraseology. +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +"Whom do you mean by 'ourselves'?" +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +"Or Molokans, rather?" the other man suggested as he seated himself in +front of the fire. +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +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: +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +"Where do you yourself come from?" The ex-soldier's tone was severe. +</P> + +<P> +"From Kursk, we might say." +</P> + +<P> +"From Russia, then?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, I suppose so. But I have no great opinion even of myself." +</P> + +<P> +The ex-soldier glanced distrustfully at the newcomer. Then he remarked: +</P> + +<P> +"What you say is cant, sheer Jesuitism. It is fellows like THOSE, +rather, that ought to have a poor opinion of themselves." +</P> + +<P> +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: +</P> + +<P> +"You seem to me to be a native of the Don country?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, I have lived on the Don as well." +</P> + +<P> +"And also served in the army?" +</P> + +<P> +"No. I was an only son." +</P> + +<P> +"Of a miestchanin?" [A member of the small commercial class.] +</P> + +<P> +"No, of a merchant." +</P> + +<P> +"And your name—?" +</P> + +<P> +"Is Vasili." +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + "Sing ye!<BR> + Sing glory unto Christ, thou Angel of Holiness!<BR> + Sing ye!<BR> + Our singing will we add unto Thine,<BR> + Thou Angel of Holiness!"<BR> +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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: +</P> + +<P> +"The Mother of God be blessed for all this goodly world of ours!" +</P> + +<P> +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.... +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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: +</P> + +<P> +"They are filled full, and have started bleating. Always folk like them +seek to be on the right side of the Almighty." +</P> + +<P> +"Does that hurt you in any way?" Vasili asked with a smile. +</P> + +<P> +"No, but I do not respect them—they are less saints than humbugs, than +prevaricators whose first word is God, and second word rouble." +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +"Quite so," the ex-soldier agreed as, taking up a square of scantling, +he examined it attentively. +</P> + +<P> +"Whom DO you respect?" Vasili continued after a pause. +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +"And why?" +</P> + +<P> +"Because here they could earn a living." +</P> + +<P> +"Then is not that possible in Russia?" +</P> + +<P> +"Well, why are you yourself here?" +</P> + +<P> +"Because I am a man lacking ties." +</P> + +<P> +"And why are you lacking ties?" +</P> + +<P> +"Because it has been so ordered—it is, so to speak, my lot." +</P> + +<P> +"Then had you not better consider WHY it is your lot?" +</P> + +<P> +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: +</P> + +<P> +"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?" +</P> + +<P> +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: +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +"The dislike of whom?" gruffly queried the ex-soldier. +</P> + +<P> +"The dislike of everyone, as you yourself have said!" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"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?" +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +To which, with a whimsical wink, he added a sigh. +</P> + +<P> +"Tell me how it happened," said Vasili softly. Then he flung up his +arms, and stretched himself with a despondent cry of: +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +The ex-soldier, who had listened with mouth agape and eyebrows raised +even higher than usual, responded to this: +</P> + +<P> +"It is the same with me. If one could only—What did you say?" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"You say that she had a squint?" presently I heard Vasili continue in +an undertone, and the ex-soldier slowly reply: +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +"You did right," Vasili remarked softly after a pause. +</P> + +<P> +"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?" +</P> + +<P> +Emitting a cloud of grey smoke, the ex-soldier replied thoughtfully: +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, I know I did right; but that right was done only at a great cost." +</P> + +<P> +"And always that too is the case," Vasili agreed. Then he added: +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +"To whom are you referring? To you and myself?" +</P> + +<P> +"To our Russian folk in general." +</P> + +<P> +"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. +</P> + +<P> +The other, however, did not reply; and after a few moments the +ex-soldier softly concluded: +</P> + +<P> +"So now you have heard my story." +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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." +</P> + +<P> +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: +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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!" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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: +</P> + +<P> +"May the devil fly away with you, you shameless hussy! Why lie +sprawling about the deck like this? See, too, how exposed you are!" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +Whereafter, raising both his hands, the young fellow had softly let +them sink again upon the woman's bosom as he added triumphantly: +</P> + +<P> +"These breasts could feed all Russia!" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<HR ALIGN="center" WIDTH="60%"> + +<P> +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! +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +All the earth seemed to be sleeping as ever the waning stars seemed to +draw nearer and nearer.... +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +At sunset, when we were engaged in drinking tea by the fire, the +ex-soldier remarked: +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +Then, as carefully he withdrew his pipe from his lips, and sighed, he +added: +</P> + +<P> +"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.'" +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +"Ah, but never have you worked hard," grunted the ex-soldier. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +The ex-soldier gazed at him resentfully, then said with an oath: +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +Whereafter, as he lit his pipe and squinted in the direction of the +carpenters, he added with stifled wrath: +</P> + +<P> +"The airs that the 'elect' give themselves—the sons of bitches!" +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +"Why is it that you always say 'With us,' and 'Among us,' and so on?" +</P> + +<P> +"Among us Russians, then, if you like it better." +</P> + +<P> +"I do like it better. For you are not a German, are you, nor a Tartar?" +</P> + +<P> +"No. It is merely that I can see the faults in our Russian folk." +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +"To what?" +</P> + +<P> +"To the term 'Russians.'" +</P> + +<P> +"What should you prefer?" +</P> + +<P> +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: +</P> + +<P> +"There are not very many churches in these parts." +</P> + +<P> +Whereafter he threw a glance across the river, and added venomously: +</P> + +<P> +"Those devils THERE don't cross themselves, the accursed Serbs!" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"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.'" +</P> + +<P> +"That bird sings in the heart of EVERY man," the ex-soldier growled +sulkily. +</P> + +<P> +With a glance at us both, Vasili laughed a subdued laugh. +</P> + +<P> +"'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!" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"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?" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"Hist!" was his exclamation. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"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. +</P> + +<P> +"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. +</P> + +<P> +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: +</P> + +<P> +"I say no! Fiddlesticks! Not a man is there who could drink more than a +vedro of 'blood-and-sweat' in a day." +</P> + +<P> +"A man could drink a lake of it." +</P> + +<P> +"No, a vedro and a half. That is the proper reckoning." +</P> + +<P> +"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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"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?" +</P> + +<P> +"No," I replied. +</P> + +<P> +"Thank God for that! If one does not drink one will never really get +into trouble." +</P> + +<P> +For a moment he gazed gloomily in the direction of the newcomers. Then +he said without moving, without even looking at me: +</P> + +<P> +"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?" +</P> + +<P> +I answered, but, after scanning me perplexedly, he shook his head. +</P> + +<P> +"No," he remarked. "I have never visited that part of the country, or +indeed, been so far from home." +</P> + +<P> +"But this place is further still?" +</P> + +<P> +"Further still?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes—from Kursk." +</P> + +<P> +He laughed. +</P> + +<P> +"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)." +</P> + +<P> +"And why are you on your travels?" +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<HR ALIGN="center" WIDTH="60%"> + +<P> +"Silence!" a threatening voice near the barraque broke in. "I am the +foreman here." +</P> + +<P> +The voice of the ex-soldier replied: +</P> + +<P> +"What workmen are these of yours? They are mere sectarians, fellows who +are for ever singing hymns." +</P> + +<P> +To which someone else added: +</P> + +<P> +"Besides, old devil that you are, aren't you bound to finish all +building work before the beginning of a Sunday?" +</P> + +<P> +"Let us throw their tools into the stream." +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, and start a riot," was Silantiev's comment as he squatted before +the embers of the fire. +</P> + +<P> +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: +</P> + +<P> +"Hold on there! I'LL soon put things to rights! Carpenters, just hand +over the saw!" +</P> + +<P> +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: +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +"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?" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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: +</P> + +<P> +"Come over here, you! Don't be backward! Come over here, I say!" +</P> + +<P> +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: +</P> + +<P> +"These fellows needed to be taught a lesson!" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"I think that someone has given him a blow," hazarded Silantiev sotto +voce. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"Peace to this gathering!" he said gravely as, pressing his left hand +to his stomach, he bowed. +</P> + +<P> +"And we pray your indulgence," was Silantiev's response, though he did +not raise his eyes as he spoke. "Pray be seated." +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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: +</P> + +<P> +"How cold the water of the rivulet is! It is absolutely icy." +</P> + +<P> +With a glance from under his brows Silantiev inquired: +</P> + +<P> +"Are you very badly hurt?" +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +As the man spoke he glanced across the rivulet. On the opposite bank +two men were staggering along, and drunkenly bawling the tipsy refrain: +</P> + +<P> +"In the du-u-uok let me die, In the au-autumn time!" +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +Here his small, grey face contracted into wrinkles, and, closing his +eyes, he sobbed a dry, grating sob. +</P> + +<P> +Silantiev fidgeted—then sighed. Presently the old man looked at him, +blew his nose, wiped his hand upon his trousers, and said quietly: +</P> + +<P> +"Somewhere, I think, I have seen you before." +</P> + +<P> +"That is so. You saw me one evening when I visited your settlement for +the mending of a thresher." +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, yes. That is where I DID see you. It was you, was it not? Well, +do you still disagree with me?" +</P> + +<P> +To which the old man added with a nod and a smile: +</P> + +<P> +"See how well I remember your words! You are, I imagine, still of the +same opinion?" +</P> + +<P> +"How should I not be?" responded Silantiev dourly. +</P> + +<P> +"Ah, well! Ah, well!" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +The ex-soldier shouted across the river: +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +The old man paid no heed, but said to Silantiev—said to him with an +austere, derisive smile: +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +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: +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +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: +</P> + +<P> +"He is proud, but that will not last for long." +</P> + +<P> +"Why not?" +</P> + +<P> +"Because I know in advance that—" +</P> + +<P> +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: +</P> + +<P> +"Oh? I, you say? A-a-ah! Then take that!" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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: +</P> + +<P> +"There is no need for that." +</P> + +<P> +"Why is there not?" +</P> + +<P> +"Because that would cause the fire to be seen, and bring some of those +men over here." +</P> + +<P> +Again, as he kicked away some boughs which I had just broken up, he +repeated: +</P> + +<P> +"There is no need for that, I tell you." +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"Are all the rest of our men gone?" inquired the foreman of the +newcomers. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes," replied one of them, a tall man with a drooping moustache and no +beard. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, 'shun evil, and good will result.'" +</P> + +<P> +"Aye, and we likewise wish to depart." +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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: +</P> + +<P> +"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?" +</P> + +<P> +"A tavern," the foreman commented quietly; whereafter, turning to me, +he added more loudly: +</P> + +<P> +"I say this of such fellows—that a tavern... But what a noise those +roisterers are making, to be sure!" +</P> + +<P> +The young fellow in the red shirt had just shouted: +</P> + +<P> +"Hi, there, soldier! Seize him by the throat! Seize him, seize him!" +</P> + +<P> +While from Silantiev had come the gruff retort: +</P> + +<P> +"What? Do you suppose that you are hunting a pack of hounds?" +</P> + +<P> +"Here, answer me!" was the next shouted utterance—it came from the +ex-soldier—whereupon the old man remarked to me in an undertone: +</P> + +<P> +"It would seem that a fight is brewing." +</P> + +<P> +Rising, I moved in the direction of the uproar. As I did so, I heard +the old man say softly to his companions: +</P> + +<P> +"He too is gone, thank God!" +</P> + +<P> +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!" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"That's right!" was the comment of someone. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"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. +</P> + +<P> +Upon this someone exclaimed in a faltering, sobered tone: +</P> + +<P> +"Surely not?" +</P> + +<P> +As for the young fellow in the red shirt, he passed me by with a +braggart, resentful shout of: +</P> + +<P> +"Well? He had no right to insult me. Why should he have said that I was +a nuisance to the whole country?" +</P> + +<P> +And someone else shouted: +</P> + +<P> +"Where is the ex-soldier? Who is the watchman here?" +</P> + +<P> +"Bring a light," was the cry of a third. +</P> + +<P> +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: +</P> + +<P> +"You have killed him. He is dead." +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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: +</P> + +<P> +"Who was it first struck him?" +</P> + +<P> +"This will lose us our jobs." +</P> + +<P> +"It was the soldier that first started the racket." +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, that is true." +</P> + +<P> +"Let us go and denounce him." +</P> + +<P> +As for the young fellow in the red shirt, he cried: +</P> + +<P> +"I swear on my honour, mates, that the affair was only a quarrel." +</P> + +<P> +"To hit a man with a bludgeon is more than a quarrel." +</P> + +<P> +"It was a stone that was used, not a bludgeon." +</P> + +<P> +"The soldier ought to—" +</P> + +<P> +A woman's high-pitched voice broke in with a plaintive cry of: +</P> + +<P> +"Good Lord! Always something happens to us!" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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: +</P> + +<P> +"You can see for yourselves who the man is." +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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: +</P> + +<P> +"Do you go to the barraque, and tell them that a man has been done to +death." +</P> + +<P> +"No; I should be afraid to go alone." +</P> + +<P> +"Come, come! Nothing is there to be afraid of. Go, I tell you." +</P> + +<P> +"But I would much rather not." +</P> + +<P> +"Don't be such a fool!" +</P> + +<P> +Suddenly there sounded over my head the quiet voice of the foreman. +</P> + +<P> +"I will accompany you," he said. Then he added disgustedly as he +scraped his foot against a stone: +</P> + +<P> +"How horrible the blood smells! It would seem that my very foot is +smeared with it." +</P> + +<P> +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: +</P> + +<P> +"All the mischief has come of vodka and tobacco, the devil's drugs." +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"Let us go, brother," the foreman said. "Go we with the Holy Spirit." +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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: +</P> + +<P> +"This is the sixth murder which I have seen one thing and another +commit." +</P> + +<P> +"One thing and another commit?" I queried. +</P> + +<P> +The reply came only after a pause; when the little muzhik asked: "What +did you say? I did not quite catch it." +</P> + +<P> +I explained that human beings, not inanimate entities, murdered human +beings. +</P> + +<P> +"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—" +</P> + +<P> +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." +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +Presently, with a nod towards Silantiev, he continued: +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +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: +</P> + +<P> +"Look sharp there, and deal! Clubs will be the winners." +</P> + +<P> +"Ah! Here is a trump!" +</P> + +<P> +"Indeed? What luck, damn it!" +</P> + +<P> +The fair-headed muzhik blew the ashes from his cigarette, and observed: +</P> + +<P> +"No such thing is there at cards as luck—only skill." +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, mate?" the fair-headed muzhik inquired. +</P> + +<P> +"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. +</P> + +<P> +"Certainly. Here is a cigarette." +</P> + +<P> +"Christ reward you! Today my wife forgot to bring my tobacco, and my +grandfather has strict ideas on the subject of smoking." +</P> + +<P> +"Was it he who departed just now? It was." +</P> + +<P> +As the carpenter inhaled a whiff he continued: +</P> + +<P> +"I suppose that man was beaten to death?" +</P> + +<P> +"He was—to death." +</P> + +<P> +For a while the pair smoked in silence. The hour was past midnight. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +Quieter and quieter was everything growing; more and more was +everything becoming part of the night.... +</P> + +<P> +One might have thought that nothing particular had happened. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="kalinin"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +KALININ +</H3> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"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. +</P> + +<P> +"WHO do you say is abroad?" I queried. +</P> + +<P> +"King Zmiulan." +</P> + +<P> +Never having heard of the monarch, I made no reply. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +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: +</P> + +<P> +"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?" +</P> + +<P> +No answer followed. Only someone muttered to himself: +</P> + +<P> +"What? Again?": until the first speaker, the speaker seated near the +corner of the table, launched into the oppressive lull the unhesitating +reply: +</P> + +<P> +"That of which you speak may be taken to have been a punishment by God +for sin." +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +"No. What I mean is that in that accident you see a punishment for sins +committed by the child's father and mother." +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +Presently the gloomy recital was once more roughly, unceremoniously +broken in upon by the cheerful voice of the Christ-loving pilgrim. +</P> + +<P> +"It is not right, brother," the voice said, "to blame God for untoward +accidents, or for mistakes and follies committed by ourselves." +</P> + +<P> +"But if God be God, He is responsible for all things." +</P> + +<P> +"Not so. Concede to yourself the faculty of reason." +</P> + +<P> +"Pah! What avails reason if it cannot make me understand?" +</P> + +<P> +"Cannot make you understand WHAT?" +</P> + +<P> +"The main point, the point why MY wife had to be burnt rather than my +neighbour's?" +</P> + +<P> +Somewhere an old woman commented in spitefully distinct tones: +</P> + +<P> +"Oh ho, ho! This man comes to a monastery, and starts railing as soon +as he gets there!" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"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. +</P> + +<P> +With a disapproving air someone else remarked: +</P> + +<P> +"That fellow's one thought is to enlarge and to enlarge upon his tale." +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +Presently I followed the pair into the forecourt, and near the +entrance-gates heard a voice say quietly: +</P> + +<P> +"Do not disturb yourself, good father." +</P> + +<P> +"Nevertheless" (the second voice was that of the porter of the +monastery, Father Seraphim, a strapping Vetlugan) "a spectre walks here +nightly." +</P> + +<P> +"Never mind if it does. As regards myself, no spectre would touch me." +</P> + +<P> +Here I moved in the direction of the gates. +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +With which he laughed and chuckled like a bear. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"Whence, comrade?" was my inquiry. +</P> + +<P> +"From Voronezh. And you?" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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?" +</P> + +<P> +"What may be your name?" next I inquired of the figure on the bench. +</P> + +<P> +"A name of absolute simplicity—the name of Alexei Kalinin." +</P> + +<P> +"You are a namesake of mine, then." +</P> + +<P> +"Indeed? Is that so?" +</P> + +<P> +With which, tapping me on the knee, the figure added: +</P> + +<P> +"Come, then, namesake. 'I have mortar, and you have water, so together +let us paint the town.'" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +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: +</P> + +<P> +"Aphon or aphonia means loss of speech to the extent of, to the extent +of—oh, to WHAT extent, most learned Vera Vasilievna?" +</P> + +<P> +"To the extent of total loss of power of articulation," replied a voice +feminine and youthful of timbre. +</P> + +<P> +Just at that moment we saw two dark, blurred figures, with a paler +figure between them, come gliding into view. +</P> + +<P> +"Strange indeed is it that, that—" +</P> + +<P> +"That what?" +</P> + +<P> +"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.] +</P> + +<P> +"For my part, I always fail to remember the name of Simon the +Canaanite. Constantly I find myself calling him 'the Cainite.'" +</P> + +<P> +"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?'" +</P> + +<P> +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: +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + Oh, if into a single word<BR> + I could pour my inmost thoughts!<BR> +</P> + +<P> +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: +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +"To what point are you referring?" +</P> + +<P> +My companion paused a moment before he replied. Then he said: +</P> + +<P> +"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 '?" +</P> + +<P> +Whereafter, bending forward, and peering at me as a blind man would do, +Kalinin added in a half-whisper: +</P> + +<P> +"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?'" +</P> + +<P> +"By the way, what were you talking to those people about?" +</P> + +<P> +"Which people do you mean?" +</P> + +<P> +"The bearded man and the rest, the company in the guest-chamber?" +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +Suddenly the speaker rose to his feet, a tall, lean figure. +</P> + +<P> +"Now I must seek my bed," he remarked. "You see, I shall have to leave +here very early tomorrow." +</P> + +<P> +"And for what point?" +</P> + +<P> +"For Novorossisk." +</P> + +<P> +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: +</P> + +<P> +"I too shall be leaving here tomorrow." +</P> + +<P> +"Then let us travel together." +</P> + +<HR ALIGN="center" WIDTH="60%"> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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!" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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... +. +</P> + +<P> +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: +</P> + +<P> +"Hymen, Demon, Igamon, and Zmiulan. Good devils are these, not bad." +</P> + +<P> +"How does Christ get on with them?" I asked. +</P> + +<P> +"Christ? He does not enter into the matter." +</P> + +<P> +"Is He hostile to them?" +</P> + +<P> +"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" .............................. . . . . . +</P> + +<P> +[In the Russian this hiatus occurs as marked.] +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +Kalinin's discourse proved instructive as with his stick he from time +to time knocked the track clear of clinging tendrils. +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"Tell me more about those devils," I said at length. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, if you wish. But what exactly am I to tell you about them?" +</P> + +<P> +"All that you may happen to know." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, I know EVERYTHING about them." +</P> + +<P> +To this my companion added a wink. Then he continued: +</P> + +<P> +"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)—" +</P> + +<P> +Here Kalinin halted, and, driving his stick into the ground, glanced +back along the path before resuming his way with firm, lengthy strides. +</P> + +<P> +"I may tell you that the General had a niece named Valentina +Ignatievna. And she too was a most remarkable woman." +</P> + +<P> +"Remarkable for what?" +</P> + +<P> +"Remarkable for EVERYTHING." +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"Pray continue," I said to my fellow traveller. +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, but what of the devils?" +</P> + +<P> +"You must wait a minute or two." +</P> + +<P> +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!" +</P> + +<P> +If anything, however, my companion slackened his pace as in measured, +sing-song accents he continued: +</P> + +<P> +"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. +</P> + +<P> +"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. +</P> + +<P> + .............................. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .<BR> +. . . . . . . +</P> + +<P> +[In the original Russian this hiatus occurs as given.] +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +"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: +</P> + +<P> +"'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!' +</P> + +<P> +"'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.' +</P> + +<P> +"'Oh Lord,' replied Hymen, 'I do love but to laugh.' +</P> + +<P> +"And the Saviour replied: +</P> + +<P> +"'Then cause thou folk to laugh. Only, mark thou, see to it that they +laugh not IN CHURCH.' +</P> + +<P> +"'Yet even in church would I laugh, Oh Lord,' the devil objected. +</P> + +<P> +"'Jesus Christ Himself laughed. +</P> + +<P> +"'God go with you!' at length He said. 'Then let folk laugh even in +church—but QUIETLY.' +</P> + +<P> +"In such wise did Christ convert those four evil devils into devils of +goodness." +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"Did you find that story of mine a good one?" my companion inquired. +</P> + +<P> +"I did, for Christ was so good in it." +</P> + +<P> +"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?" +</P> + +<P> +"I do not." +</P> + +<P> +Halting, my strange traveller chanted in a feignedly senile and +tremulous voice, as he beat time with his foot: +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + In the heavens a flow'r doth blow,<BR> + It is the Son of God.<BR> + From it all our joys do flow,<BR> + It is the Son of God.<BR> + In the sun's red rays He dwells<BR> + He, the Son of God.<BR> + His light our every ill dispels.<BR> + Praised be the Son of God!<BR> +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +Whereafter, turning a small and terrified face in my direction, and +blinking his bright eyes, he added with hurried diction: +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh Holy One! Oh Holy One! Oh Holy One!" screamed Kalinin as he dived +into the bushes. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +Suddenly Kalinin shouted: "Stop! Look!" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"U-oh! U-oh!" hooted a grey mountain owl just over our heads. +</P> + +<P> +"Why, surely it believes the time to be night!" Kalinin commented in a +whisper. +</P> + +<P> +"U-oh! U-u-u-oh!" hooted the bird again, and in response my companion +shouted: +</P> + +<P> +"You have made a mistake, my brother!" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +Kalinin fidgeted, nudged me, and muttered: +</P> + +<P> +"I find this place too close for me. Always I have hated confinement." +</P> + +<P> +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: +</P> + +<P> +"Yes; despite the rain and cold and everything else, I consider life to +be not quite intolerable." +</P> + +<P> +"Not quite intolerable in what?" +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +"Then you have no great love for your own species?" +</P> + +<P> +"One loves one's neighbour as the dog loves the stick." To which, after +a pause, the speaker added: +</P> + +<P> +"For WHY should I love him?" +</P> + +<P> +It puzzled me to cite a reason off-hand, but, fortunately, Kalinin did +not wait for an answer—rather, he went on to ask: +</P> + +<P> +"Have you ever been a footman?" +</P> + +<P> +"No," I replied. +</P> + +<P> +"Then let me tell you that it is peculiarly difficult for a footman to +love his neighbour." +</P> + +<P> +"Wherefore?" +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"How come you to be travelling the Caucasus?" I asked at length. +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +"Why so?" +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +"And what of the country's people?" +</P> + +<P> +"What of the country's people? Oh, so long as you keep yourself to +yourself they will not interfere with you." +</P> + +<P> +"And why will they not?" +</P> + +<P> +Kalinin paused, stared at me, smiled condescendingly, and, finally, +said: +</P> + +<P> +"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?" +</P> + +<P> +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: +</P> + +<P> +"'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." +</P> + +<P> +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: +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +Lastly, clasping his head as though he were about to fall asleep, he +sank his chin between his knees, and relapsed into silence. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +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: +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + Oh Valentina, wondrous maid,<BR> + More comely thou than e'er a flow'r!<BR> + The nurse's son doth pine for thee,<BR> + And yearn to serve thee every hour!<BR> +</P> + +<P> +"What does that ditty mean?" I inquired. +</P> + +<P> +Kalinin straightened himself, gave a wriggle to a form that was as +lithe as a lizard's, and passed one hand over his face. +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +"And who was Valentina?" +</P> + +<P> +"My one-time mistress," Kalinin spoke unwillingly. +</P> + +<P> +"And he, the clerk—was he in love with her?" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh dear no!" +</P> + +<P> +Evidently Kalinin had no particular wish to discuss the subject, for he +hugged himself together, buried his face in his hands, and muttered: +</P> + +<P> +"I should like to kindle a fire, were it not that everything in the +place is too damp for the purpose." +</P> + +<P> +The wind shook the trees, and whistled despondently, while the fine, +persistent rain still whipped the earth. +</P> + +<P> +"I but humble am, and poor, Nor fated to be otherwise," +</P> + +<P> +sang Kalinin softly as, flinging up his head with an unexpected +movement, he added meaningly: +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +And Kalinin's eyes flashed into a smile as he added: +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"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: +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + "Not for me the spring will dawn!<BR> + Not for me the Bug will spate!<BR> + Not for me love's smile will wait!<BR> + Not for me, ah, not for me!<BR> +</P> + +<P> +"Constantly would she warble this. +</P> + +<P> +"Also, once she flashed an appeal at me with her eyes, and said: +</P> + +<P> +"'Alexei, please never touch anything in my room, for my things are too +fragile.' +</P> + +<P> +"Sure enough, in HER presence ANYTHING might have fallen from my hands! +</P> + +<P> +"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. +</P> + +<P> +"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.' +</P> + +<P> +"These, mind you, were the words of a man in whom the heart was +absolutely single, absolutely dispassionate." +</P> + +<P> +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— +</P> + +<P> +"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?" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"Continue," I said. +</P> + +<P> +Kalinin laughed. +</P> + +<P> +"Then you find the story an interesting one," he remarked. +</P> + +<P> +Presently he resumed: +</P> + +<P> +"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. +</P> + +<P> +"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: +</P> + +<P> +"'Alexei, did YOU write these?' +</P> + +<P> +"'Yes,' was my reply. 'And for Christ's sake pardon me for the same.' +</P> + +<P> +"'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.' +</P> + +<P> +"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.' +</P> + +<P> +"Nay, even the General could, at times, make sport of the fellow, and +say as he shook with merriment: +</P> + +<P> +"'A doctor-comedian is the sort of man that you are.' +</P> + +<P> +"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. +</P> + +<P> +"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. +</P> + +<P> +"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.' +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +And, with a thoughtful shake of his bead, Kalinin raised his boyish +eyes towards the blue patches in the rain-washed sky. +</P> + +<P> +"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. +</P> + +<P> +"'What are we to do about it all?' she inquired. +</P> + +<P> +"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. +</P> + +<P> +"'What are we to do about it all?' she repeated. +</P> + +<P> +"'What am I to say about it, at length I replied, 'save that I feel as +though I were not really existing on earth?' +</P> + +<P> +"'Are you one who can hold your tongue?' was her next question. +</P> + +<P> +"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: +</P> + +<P> +"'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!' +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +Here Kalinin shuddered—then glanced at me with drawn features and +chattering teeth, and stirred uneasily. +</P> + +<P> +"Suppose we light a fire?" he ventured. "I am growing shivery all over. +But first we must move outside." +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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: +</P> + +<P> +"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: +</P> + +<P> +"Why is your face so yellow? What is the matter with you?' +</P> + +<P> +"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. +</P> + +<P> +"'I am not in very good health,' I replied. 'I, I—' +</P> + +<P> +"'Come, come!' was his interjection. 'After dinner I must look you +over, and in the meanwhile, do keep up your spirits.' +</P> + +<P> +"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. +</P> + +<P> +"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?" +</P> + +<P> +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: +</P> + +<P> +"This is where we ought to have been sitting whilst the rain was coming +down." +</P> + +<P> +"And so say I," I rejoined. "But pray continue your story." +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, when you have put a match to the fire." +</P> + +<P> +Whereafter, further withdrawing his spare frame under the stone, so +that he might stretch himself at full length, Kalinin continued: +</P> + +<P> +"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: +</P> + +<P> +"'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.] +</P> + +<P> +"To this my beloved one retorted: +</P> + +<P> +"'Oh, uncle, uncle! Is it only a piatak that I am worth? +</P> + +<P> +And then I heard the doctor put in: +</P> + +<P> +"'What was it you gave him?' +</P> + +<P> +"'Merely some soda and tartaric acid. To think of the fun that we shall +have!'" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"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: +</P> + +<P> +"'Forgive me, but what soup is this?' +</P> + +<P> +"'Ah!' I inwardly reflected. 'Soon, good gentlefolk, you will see how +your jest has miscarried.' +</P> + +<P> +"Aloud I replied—replied with complete boldness: +</P> + +<P> +"'Do not fear, sir. I have taken the powder myself.' +</P> + +<P> +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: +</P> + +<P> +"'Did you KNOW that the stuff was harmless?' +</P> + +<P> +"'I did not,' I replied. 'At least, not at the moment of my drinking +it.' +</P> + +<P> +"Whereafter falling headlong to the floor, I lost consciousness." +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"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: +</P> + +<P> +"'I presume your intention was to poison yourself, you foolish fellow?' +</P> + +<P> +"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: +</P> + +<P> +"'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.'" +</P> + +<P> +Kalinin rubbed his hands over the fire (slender, non-workmanlike hands +they were), and winked and smiled. +</P> + +<P> +"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.'" +</P> + +<P> +With a triumphant uplift of tone, Kalinin continued: +</P> + +<P> +"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.'" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"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.' +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +At this point the speaker's tone reverted to one of querulous anxiety. +</P> + +<P> +"Look how low the sun has sunk!" he exclaimed. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"Soon nightfall will be overtaking us," continued Kalinin as he fumbled +in his kaftan. "And in these parts jackals howl when darkness is come." +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +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?" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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": +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +"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!'" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"I presume we are going to pass the night here?" Kalinin at length +queried. +</P> + +<P> +"No, for my intention is, rather, to continue my journey." +</P> + +<P> +"Then let us make an immediate start." +</P> + +<P> +"But my direction will not be the same as yours, I think?" +</P> + +<P> +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: +</P> + +<P> +"Why did you come with me at all?" +</P> + +<P> +"Because I wanted to have a talk with you—I had found you an +interesting character." +</P> + +<P> +"Yes. At least I am THAT; many like me do not exist." +</P> + +<P> +"Pardon me; I have met several." +</P> + +<P> +"Perhaps you have." After which utterance, doubtfully drawled, the +speaker added more sticks to the fire. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"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: +</P> + +<P> +"I wish I were going with you!" +</P> + +<P> +"Well, come with me as far as Gudaout." +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, I will." +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="deadman"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +THE DEAD MAN +</H3> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<HR ALIGN="center" WIDTH="60%"> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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... +. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"Good evening," I said to the fellow. +</P> + +<P> +"I wish you the same," he replied. "Whither are you bound?" +</P> + +<P> +"First of all, what is the name of this river?" +</P> + +<P> +"What is its name? Why, it is the Sagaidak, of course." +</P> + +<P> +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: +</P> + +<P> +"Have you matches?" +</P> + +<P> +I replied in the affirmative. +</P> + +<P> +"And some tobacco?" +</P> + +<P> +For awhile he continued to contemplate the sun where that luminary hung +suspended above a cloud-bank before finally declining. Then he remarked: +</P> + +<P> +"Give me a pinch of the tobacco. As for matches, I have some." +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"Muscovite tobacco is it?" he inquired. +</P> + +<P> +"No—Roman, Italian." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh!" And as the wrinkles of his nose straightened themselves again he +added: "Then of course it is good tobacco." +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"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?" +</P> + +<P> +Turning aside, he spat into the rivulet. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"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: +</P> + +<P> +"THERE'S lungs for you!" +</P> + +<P> +Whereafter, he fell to twitching the toes of a chafed and blackened +foot, and to gazing at their nails. His next question was: +</P> + +<P> +"Are you, maybe, a scholar?" +</P> + +<P> +"Why do you ask?" +</P> + +<P> +"Because, if you are, you might like to read the Book over a corpse." +</P> + +<P> +And so proud, apparently, was he of the proposal that a faint smile +crossed his flaccid countenance. +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +"And should also be given some supper, I suppose?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes—and should also be given some supper." +</P> + +<P> +"Where is the corpse lying?" +</P> + +<P> +"In my own hut. Shall we go there?" +</P> + +<P> +Off we set. En route we heard once more a strident shout of: +</P> + +<P> +"Ufi-i-im!" +</P> + +<P> +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: +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +Next there popped up from somewhere or another a barefooted young +woman. Clapping her hands, she bawled: +</P> + +<P> +"Here, you Ufim, how I have been calling for you, and calling for you!" +</P> + +<P> +"Eh? Well, I never heard you." +</P> + +<P> +"Where were you, then?" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"One day all of us must die," remarked Ufim, with empressement as he +tapped the bowl of his pipe against a wall. +</P> + +<P> +The next moment the barefooted, red-cheeked young woman showed herself +at the gate, and asked in tones rather less vehement than recently: +</P> + +<P> +"Are you coming, or are you not?" +</P> + +<P> +"Presently," replied Ufim. "One thing at a time." +</P> + +<P> +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?" +</P> + +<P> +Next, like an eventide breeze among withered herbage, there floated +across the forecourt the hoarse voice of the crook-backed old woman. +</P> + +<P> +"Let us pray," she said. "Oh God, take away from us all sorrow, and +receive therefore requitement in twofold measure!" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +Upon this the smaller of the old crones whispered: +</P> + +<P> +"But the Mother of God will recompense them. She recompenses everyone." +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"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.'" +</P> + +<P> +"That is what Vasil too used to say. He used to say: 'Let theirs be +theirs, and ours ours.'" +</P> + +<P> +"Aye, never a good word dies, but, wheresoever it be uttered, flies +thence through the world like a swallow." +</P> + +<P> +Ufim corroborated this with a nod. +</P> + +<P> +"True indeed!" he remarked. "Though also it has been said that a good +word is Christ's, and a bad word the priest's." +</P> + +<P> +One of the old women shook her head vigorously at this, and croaked: +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +Presently Ufim's wife reappeared, and, waving her hands as though she +were brandishing a sieve, began to vent renewed volleys of virulent +abuse. +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +"NOW she's started!" Ufim drawled. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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: +</P> + +<P> +"There will be no rain tonight." +</P> + +<P> +"Do you keep such a thing as a Psalter here?" I inquired. +</P> + +<P> +"Such a thing as a what?" +</P> + +<P> +"As a Psalter—a book?" +</P> + +<P> +No answer followed. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"Maybe Panek has one of those things?" hazarded Ufim after a long +pause. "At any rate he has dealings with the Molokans." +</P> + +<P> +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: +</P> + +<P> +"You may come and look at him if you wish." +</P> + +<P> +Small and gentle looked the woman's meekly lowered head as, folding her +hands across her breast, she added in a whisper: +</P> + +<P> +"Oh purest Mother of God! Oh Thou of spotless chastity!" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +At length there recurred, somehow, to my mind the words which, +impressive though they be, never can assuage sorrow—the words: +</P> + +<P> +"Weep not for me, Martha, nor gaze into the tomb, for, lo, I am risen!" +</P> + +<P> +Nay, and never would THIS man rise again.... +</P> + +<P> +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? +</P> + +<P> +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."] +</P> + +<P> +"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. +</P> + +<P> +"My man has lived his life," she said with a sob, "and now he cannot +even be given proper burial!" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +Nevertheless she did, at last, take her departure. +</P> + +<HR ALIGN="center" WIDTH="60%"> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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: +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +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." +</P> + +<P> +"Sins wilful and of ignorance," I continued. "Sins known and unknown. +Sins committed through imprudence and evil example. Sins committed +through forwardness and sloth." +</P> + +<P> +"Though to YOU, brother," mentally I added to the corpse, "none of +this, of course, applies." +</P> + +<P> +Again, glancing at the blue stars, where they hung glittering in the +fathomless obscurity of the sky, I reflected: +</P> + +<P> +"Who in this house is looking at them save myself?" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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." +</P> + +<P> +And next, to escape falling asleep, I fell to reciting the kondak [Hymn +for the end of the day] which begins: +</P> + +<P> +"Oh Lord, refresh my soul thus grievously made feeble with wrong doing." +</P> + +<P> +Still engaged in this manner, suddenly I heard something rustle outside +the door. Then a dry whisper articulated: +</P> + +<P> +"Oh God of Mercy, receive unto Thyself also my soul!" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +And then the Mother of God would say to Her Son: +</P> + +<P> +"Son, pray see the fearfulness of Thy people on earth, and their +estrangement from joy! Oh Son, is that well?" +</P> + +<P> +And He would make answer to Her— +</P> + +<P> +He would make answer to Her, and say I know not what. +</P> + +<HR ALIGN="center" WIDTH="60%"> + +<P> +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: +</P> + +<P> +"Nay, it CANNOT be so!" +</P> + +<P> +"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. +</P> + +<P> +Presently a deep, hoarse, rasping voice vociferated in the forecourt: +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +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: +</P> + +<P> +"How now, Vasil?" +</P> + +<P> +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: +</P> + +<P> +"Pray give HIM the book, Father Demid." +</P> + +<P> +"No indeed! Why should I? I intend to do the reading myself." +</P> + +<P> +And a heavy hand laid itself upon my shoulder, while a great hairy face +bent over mine, and inquired: +</P> + +<P> +"A young man, are you not? A member of the clergy, too, I suppose?" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"Father Demid!" again essayed the old woman with an imploring wail, but +he cut her short with the menacing admonition: +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +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: +</P> + +<P> +"Should you care to have a dram of gorielka? [Another name for vodka.] +</P> + +<P> +"No," I replied. "At all events, not here." +</P> + +<P> +"Indeed?" the deacon cried, unabashed. "But come, a bottle of the stuff +is here, in my very pocket." +</P> + +<P> +"This is no place in which to be drinking." +</P> + +<P> +For a moment the deacon said nothing. Then he muttered: +</P> + +<P> +"True, true. So let us adjourn to the forecourt.... Yes, what you +say is no more than the truth." +</P> + +<P> +"Had you not better remain seated where you are, and begin the reading?" +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +And, thrusting the book into my stomach, he sank his head upon his +breast, and fell to swaying it ponderously up and down. +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +"I see that your book is not a Psalter," here I interposed after an +inspection of the volume. +</P> + +<P> +"You are wrong." +</P> + +<P> +"Then look for yourself." +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +This took him aback completely. +</P> + +<P> +"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—" +</P> + +<P> +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: +</P> + +<P> +"Pardon me, Vasil, but what is to be done?" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"Well?" I said. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, I intend to go to bed—my idea is to drink and enjoy myself +awhile." +</P> + +<P> +"Go, then." +</P> + +<P> +"And what of the reading?" +</P> + +<P> +"Who would wish you to mumble words which you would not be +comprehending as you uttered them?" +</P> + +<P> +The deacon reseated himself upon the bench, leaned forward, buried his +face in his hands and remained silent. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"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?" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"Good-bye, friend of mine!" he said. Then to myself he added with +unlooked-for clarity and vigour: +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +"Have you known much sorrow?" +</P> + +<P> +The deacon did not reply at once. When he did so he said dully: +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +And he added as he tripped over his own feet, and lurched heavily +against me: +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +With which he buzzed into my ear: +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + "To whom shall I sing of my grief?<BR> + To whom resort for relief?<BR> + To the One in whose ha-a-and—"<BR> +</P> + +<P> +At this point the sharp bristles of his beard so tickled my neck as to +cause me to edge further away. +</P> + +<P> +"You do not like me?" he queried. "Then go to sleep, and to the devil +too!" +</P> + +<P> +"It was your beard that was tickling me." +</P> + +<P> +"Indeed? Ought I to have shaved for your benefit before I came?" +</P> + +<P> +He reflected awhile—then subsided on to the floor with a sniff and an +angry exclamation of: +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +With which he fell asleep. Opening the book at random, I read the words: +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +"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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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..... +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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! +</P> + +<P> +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! +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"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. +</P> + +<P> +"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.'" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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: +</P> + +<P> +"Let not the servants of the Gods lament but, rather, rejoice, in that +weeping and lamentation grieve both the Gods and mankind." +</P> + +<P> +Thereafter, I muttered confusedly: +</P> + +<P> +"It is time that I was going." +</P> + +<P> +"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. +</P> + +<P> +"No, I have no need of money," I interposed. "Only, if you should be so +willing, give me a piece of bread." +</P> + +<P> +"You have no need of money?" she re-echoed dubiously. +</P> + +<P> +"No, none. For that matter, of what use could it be to me?" +</P> + +<P> +"Well, well!" she said after a thoughtful pause. "Then be it as you +wish, and—and I thank you." +</P> + +<HR ALIGN="center" WIDTH="60%"> + +<P> +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: +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + Oh Thou of intangible substance,<BR> + Reveal now that substance to me!<BR> + Enwrap me within the great vestment<BR> + Of light which encompasseth Thee!<BR> + That with Thy uprising, my substance<BR> + May Come all-prevailing to be!<BR> +</P> + +<HR ALIGN="center" WIDTH="60%"> + +<P> +"Let us live our lives unto ourselves. Let theirs be theirs, and ours, +ours." +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR><BR> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Through Russia, by Maxim Gorky + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THROUGH RUSSIA *** + +***** This file should be named 2288-h.htm or 2288-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/2/2/8/2288/ + +Produced by Martin Adamson. HTML version by Al Haines. + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project +Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you +charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you +do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the +rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose +such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and +research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do +practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is +subject to the trademark license, especially commercial +redistribution. + + + +*** START: FULL LICENSE *** + +THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE +PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK + +To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free +distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work +(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project +Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project +Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at +https://gutenberg.org/license). + + +Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works + +1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to +and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property +(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all +the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy +all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession. +If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the +terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or +entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8. + +1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be +used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who +agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few +things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works +even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See +paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement +and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. See paragraph 1.E below. + +1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation" +or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the +collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an +individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are +located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from +copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative +works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg +are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project +Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by +freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of +this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with +the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by +keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project +Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others. + +1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern +what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in +a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check +the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement +before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or +creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project +Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning +the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United +States. + +1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: + +1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate +access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently +whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the +phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project +Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, +copied or distributed: + +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 + +1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived +from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is +posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied +and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees +or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work +with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the +work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 +through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the +Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or +1.E.9. + +1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted +with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution +must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional +terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked +to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the +permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work. + +1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this +work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. + +1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this +electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without +prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with +active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project +Gutenberg-tm License. + +1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, +compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any +word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or +distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than +"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version +posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org), +you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a +copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon +request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other +form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. + +1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, +performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works +unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. + +1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing +access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided +that + +- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from + the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method + you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is + owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he + has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the + Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments + must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you + prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax + returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and + sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the + address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to + the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation." + +- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies + you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he + does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm + License. You must require such a user to return or + destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium + and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of + Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any + money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the + electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days + of receipt of the work. + +- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free + distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set +forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from +both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael +Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the +Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. + +1.F. + +1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable +effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread +public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm +collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain +"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual +property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a +computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by +your equipment. + +1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right +of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project +Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all +liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal +fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT +LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE +PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE +TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE +LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR +INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH +DAMAGE. + +1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a +defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can +receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a +written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you +received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with +your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with +the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a +refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity +providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to +receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy +is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further +opportunities to fix the problem. + +1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth +in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO +WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. + +1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied +warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages. +If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the +law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be +interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by +the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any +provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions. + +1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the +trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone +providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance +with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production, +promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works, +harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees, +that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do +or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm +work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any +Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause. + + +Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm + +Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of +electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers +including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists +because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from +people in all walks of life. + +Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the +assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's +goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will +remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure +and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations. +To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 +and the Foundation web page at https://www.pglaf.org. + + +Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive +Foundation + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit +501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the +state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal +Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification +number is 64-6221541. Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at +https://pglaf.org/fundraising. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent +permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. + +The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S. +Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered +throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at +809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email +business@pglaf.org. Email contact links and up to date contact +information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official +page at https://pglaf.org + +For additional contact information: + Dr. Gregory B. Newby + Chief Executive and Director + gbnewby@pglaf.org + + +Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation + +Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide +spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of +increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be +freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest +array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations +($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt +status with the IRS. + +The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating +charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United +States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a +considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up +with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations +where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To +SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any +particular state visit https://pglaf.org + +While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we +have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition +against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who +approach us with offers to donate. + +International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make +any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from +outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. + +Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation +methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other +ways including including checks, online payments and credit card +donations. To donate, please visit: https://pglaf.org/donate + + +Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. + +Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm +concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared +with anyone. For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project +Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support. + + +Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S. +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + https://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. + + +</pre> + +</BODY> + +</HTML> + + diff --git a/2288.txt b/2288.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..a9950e9 --- /dev/null +++ b/2288.txt @@ -0,0 +1,12918 @@ +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 *** + +***** This file should be named 2288.txt or 2288.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/2/2/8/2288/ + +Produced by Martin Adamson. HTML version by Al Haines. + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project +Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you +charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you +do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the +rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose +such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and +research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do +practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is +subject to the trademark license, especially commercial +redistribution. + + + +*** START: FULL LICENSE *** + +THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE +PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK + +To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free +distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work +(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project +Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project +Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at +https://gutenberg.org/license). + + +Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works + +1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to +and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property +(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all +the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy +all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession. +If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the +terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or +entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8. + +1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be +used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who +agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few +things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works +even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See +paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement +and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. See paragraph 1.E below. + +1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation" +or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the +collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an +individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are +located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from +copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative +works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg +are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project +Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by +freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of +this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with +the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by +keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project +Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others. + +1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern +what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in +a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check +the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement +before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or +creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project +Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning +the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United +States. + +1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: + +1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate +access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently +whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the +phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project +Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, +copied or distributed: + +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 + +1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived +from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is +posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied +and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees +or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work +with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the +work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 +through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the +Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or +1.E.9. + +1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted +with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution +must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional +terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked +to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the +permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work. + +1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this +work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. + +1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this +electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without +prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with +active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project +Gutenberg-tm License. + +1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, +compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any +word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or +distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than +"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version +posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org), +you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a +copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon +request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other +form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. + +1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, +performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works +unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. + +1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing +access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided +that + +- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from + the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method + you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is + owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he + has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the + Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments + must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you + prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax + returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and + sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the + address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to + the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation." + +- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies + you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he + does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm + License. You must require such a user to return or + destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium + and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of + Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any + money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the + electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days + of receipt of the work. + +- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free + distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set +forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from +both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael +Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the +Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. + +1.F. + +1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable +effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread +public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm +collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain +"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual +property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a +computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by +your equipment. + +1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right +of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project +Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all +liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal +fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT +LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE +PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE +TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE +LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR +INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH +DAMAGE. + +1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a +defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can +receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a +written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you +received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with +your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with +the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a +refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity +providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to +receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy +is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further +opportunities to fix the problem. + +1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth +in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO +WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. + +1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied +warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages. +If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the +law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be +interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by +the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any +provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions. + +1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the +trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone +providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance +with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production, +promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works, +harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees, +that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do +or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm +work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any +Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause. + + +Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm + +Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of +electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers +including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists +because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from +people in all walks of life. + +Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the +assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's +goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will +remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure +and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations. +To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 +and the Foundation web page at https://www.pglaf.org. + + +Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive +Foundation + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit +501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the +state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal +Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification +number is 64-6221541. Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at +https://pglaf.org/fundraising. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent +permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. + +The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S. +Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered +throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at +809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email +business@pglaf.org. Email contact links and up to date contact +information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official +page at https://pglaf.org + +For additional contact information: + Dr. Gregory B. Newby + Chief Executive and Director + gbnewby@pglaf.org + + +Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation + +Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide +spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of +increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be +freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest +array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations +($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt +status with the IRS. + +The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating +charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United +States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a +considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up +with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations +where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To +SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any +particular state visit https://pglaf.org + +While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we +have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition +against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who +approach us with offers to donate. + +International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make +any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from +outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. + +Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation +methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other +ways including including checks, online payments and credit card +donations. To donate, please visit: https://pglaf.org/donate + + +Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. + +Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm +concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared +with anyone. For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project +Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support. + + +Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S. +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + https://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. diff --git a/2288.zip b/2288.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..bf43cf3 --- /dev/null +++ b/2288.zip diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..1c1d7bd --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #2288 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/2288) diff --git a/old/truss10.txt b/old/truss10.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d86174d --- /dev/null +++ b/old/truss10.txt @@ -0,0 +1,13636 @@ +*The Project Gutenberg Etext of Through Russia, by Maxim Gorky* +#2 in our series by Maxim Gorky + + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world, be sure to check +the copyright laws for your country before posting these files!! + +Please take a look at the important information in this header. +We encourage you to keep this file on your own disk, keeping an +electronic path open for the next readers. Do not remove this. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**Etexts Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*These Etexts Prepared By Hundreds of Volunteers and Donations* + +Information on contacting Project Gutenberg to get Etexts, and +further information is included below. We need your donations. + + +Through Russia + +by Maxim Gorky + +August, 2000 [Etext #2288] + + +*The Project Gutenberg Etext of Through Russia, by Maxim Gorky* +******This file should be named truss10.txt or truss10.zip****** + +Corrected EDITIONS of our etexts get a new NUMBER, truss11.txt +VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, truss10a.txt + +E-text prepared by Martin Adamson - martin@grassmarket.freeserve.co.uk + +Project Gutenberg Etexts are usually created from multiple editions, +all of which are in the Public Domain in the United States, unless a +copyright notice is included. Therefore, we usually do NOT keep any +of these books in compliance with any particular paper edition. + + +We are now trying to release all our books one month in advance +of the official release dates, leaving time for better editing. + +Please note: neither this list nor its contents are final till +midnight of the last day of the month of any such announcement. +The official release date of all Project Gutenberg Etexts is at +Midnight, Central Time, of the last day of the stated month. A +preliminary version may often be posted for suggestion, comment +and editing by those who wish to do so. To be sure you have an +up to date first edition [xxxxx10x.xxx] please check file sizes +in the first week of the next month. Since our ftp program has +a bug in it that scrambles the date [tried to fix and failed] a +look at the file size will have to do, but we will try to see a +new copy has at least one byte more or less. + + +Information about Project Gutenberg (one page) + +We produce about two million dollars for each hour we work. The +time it takes us, a rather conservative estimate, is fifty hours +to get any etext selected, entered, proofread, edited, copyright +searched and analyzed, the copyright letters written, etc. This +projected audience is one hundred million readers. If our value +per text is nominally estimated at one dollar then we produce $2 +million dollars per hour this year as we release thirty-six text +files per month, or 432 more Etexts in 1999 for a total of 2000+ +If these reach just 10% of the computerized population, then the +total should reach over 200 billion Etexts given away this year. + +The Goal of Project Gutenberg is to Give Away One Trillion Etext +Files by December 31, 2001. [10,000 x 100,000,000 = 1 Trillion] +This is ten thousand titles each to one hundred million readers, +which is only ~5% of the present number of computer users. + +At our revised rates of production, we will reach only one-third +of that goal by the end of 2001, or about 3,333 Etexts unless we +manage to get some real funding; currently our funding is mostly +from Michael Hart's salary at Carnegie-Mellon University, and an +assortment of sporadic gifts; this salary is only good for a few +more years, so we are looking for something to replace it, as we +don't want Project Gutenberg to be so dependent on one person. + +We need your donations more than ever! + + +All donations should be made to "Project Gutenberg/CMU": and are +tax deductible to the extent allowable by law. (CMU = Carnegie- +Mellon University). + +For these and other matters, please mail to: + +Project Gutenberg +P. O. Box 2782 +Champaign, IL 61825 + +When all other email fails. . .try our Executive Director: +Michael S. Hart <hart@pobox.com> +hart@pobox.com forwards to hart@prairienet.org and archive.org +if your mail bounces from archive.org, I will still see it, if +it bounces from prairienet.org, better resend later on. . . . + +We would prefer to send you this information by email. + +****** + +To access Project Gutenberg etexts, use any Web browser +to view http://promo.net/pg. This site lists Etexts by +author and by title, and includes information about how +to get involved with Project Gutenberg. You could also +download our past Newsletters, or subscribe here. This +is one of our major sites, please email hart@pobox.com, +for a more complete list of our various sites. + +To go directly to the etext collections, use FTP or any +Web browser to visit a Project Gutenberg mirror (mirror +sites are available on 7 continents; mirrors are listed +at http://promo.net/pg). + +Mac users, do NOT point and click, typing works better. + +Example FTP session: + +ftp sunsite.unc.edu +login: anonymous +password: your@login +cd pub/docs/books/gutenberg +cd etext90 through etext99 +dir [to see files] +get or mget [to get files. . .set bin for zip files] +GET GUTINDEX.?? [to get a year's listing of books, e.g., GUTINDEX.99] +GET GUTINDEX.ALL [to get a listing of ALL books] + +*** + +**Information prepared by the Project Gutenberg legal advisor** + +(Three Pages) + + +***START**THE SMALL PRINT!**FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS**START*** +Why is this "Small Print!" statement here? You know: lawyers. +They tell us you might sue us if there is something wrong with +your copy of this etext, even if you got it for free from +someone other than us, and even if what's wrong is not our +fault. So, among other things, this "Small Print!" statement +disclaims most of our liability to you. It also tells you how +you can distribute copies of this etext if you want to. + +*BEFORE!* YOU USE OR READ THIS ETEXT +By using or reading any part of this PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm +etext, you indicate that you understand, agree to and accept +this "Small Print!" statement. If you do not, you can receive +a refund of the money (if any) you paid for this etext by +sending a request within 30 days of receiving it to the person +you got it from. If you received this etext on a physical +medium (such as a disk), you must return it with your request. + +ABOUT PROJECT GUTENBERG-TM ETEXTS +This PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm etext, like most PROJECT GUTENBERG- +tm etexts, is a "public domain" work distributed by Professor +Michael S. Hart through the Project Gutenberg Association at +Carnegie-Mellon University (the "Project"). Among other +things, this means that no one owns a United States copyright +on or for this work, so the Project (and you!) can copy and +distribute it in the United States without permission and +without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, set forth +below, apply if you wish to copy and distribute this etext +under the Project's "PROJECT GUTENBERG" trademark. + +To create these etexts, the Project expends considerable +efforts to identify, transcribe and proofread public domain +works. Despite these efforts, the Project's etexts and any +medium they may be on may contain "Defects". Among other +things, Defects may take the form of incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other +intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged +disk or other etext medium, a computer virus, or computer +codes that damage or cannot be read by your equipment. + +LIMITED WARRANTY; DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES +But for the "Right of Replacement or Refund" described below, +[1] the Project (and any other party you may receive this +etext from as a PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm etext) disclaims all +liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including +legal fees, and [2] YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE OR +UNDER STRICT LIABILITY, OR FOR BREACH OF WARRANTY OR CONTRACT, +INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE +OR INCIDENTAL DAMAGES, EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE +POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES. + +If you discover a Defect in this etext within 90 days of +receiving it, you can receive a refund of the money (if any) +you paid for it by sending an explanatory note within that +time to the person you received it from. If you received it +on a physical medium, you must return it with your note, and +such person may choose to alternatively give you a replacement +copy. If you received it electronically, such person may +choose to alternatively give you a second opportunity to +receive it electronically. + +THIS ETEXT IS OTHERWISE PROVIDED TO YOU "AS-IS". NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, ARE MADE TO YOU AS +TO THE ETEXT OR ANY MEDIUM IT MAY BE ON, INCLUDING BUT NOT +LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A +PARTICULAR PURPOSE. + +Some states do not allow disclaimers of implied warranties or +the exclusion or limitation of consequential damages, so the +above disclaimers and exclusions may not apply to you, and you +may have other legal rights. + +INDEMNITY +You will indemnify and hold the Project, its directors, +officers, members and agents harmless from all liability, cost +and expense, including legal fees, that arise directly or +indirectly from any of the following that you do or cause: +[1] distribution of this etext, [2] alteration, modification, +or addition to the etext, or [3] any Defect. + +DISTRIBUTION UNDER "PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm" +You may distribute copies of this etext electronically, or by +disk, book or any other medium if you either delete this +"Small Print!" and all other references to Project Gutenberg, +or: + +[1] Only give exact copies of it. Among other things, this + requires that you do not remove, alter or modify the + etext or this "small print!" statement. You may however, + if you wish, distribute this etext in machine readable + binary, compressed, mark-up, or proprietary form, + including any form resulting from conversion by word pro- + cessing or hypertext software, but only so long as + *EITHER*: + + [*] The etext, when displayed, is clearly readable, and + does *not* contain characters other than those + intended by the author of the work, although tilde + (~), asterisk (*) and underline (_) characters may + be used to convey punctuation intended by the + author, and additional characters may be used to + indicate hypertext links; OR + + [*] The etext may be readily converted by the reader at + no expense into plain ASCII, EBCDIC or equivalent + form by the program that displays the etext (as is + the case, for instance, with most word processors); + OR + + [*] You provide, or agree to also provide on request at + no additional cost, fee or expense, a copy of the + etext in its original plain ASCII form (or in EBCDIC + or other equivalent proprietary form). + +[2] Honor the etext refund and replacement provisions of this + "Small Print!" statement. + +[3] Pay a trademark license fee to the Project of 20% of the + net profits you derive calculated using the method you + already use to calculate your applicable taxes. If you + don't derive profits, no royalty is due. Royalties are + payable to "Project Gutenberg Association/Carnegie-Mellon + University" within the 60 days following each + date you prepare (or were legally required to prepare) + your annual (or equivalent periodic) tax return. + +WHAT IF YOU *WANT* TO SEND MONEY EVEN IF YOU DON'T HAVE TO? +The Project gratefully accepts contributions in money, time, +scanning machines, OCR software, public domain etexts, royalty +free copyright licenses, and every other sort of contribution +you can think of. Money should be paid to "Project Gutenberg +Association / Carnegie-Mellon University". + +*END*THE SMALL PRINT! FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.04.29.93*END* + + + + + +E-text prepared by Martin Adamson - martin@grassmarket.freeserve.co.uk + + + + + +Translated by CJ 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: + +"0 God, 0 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, '0h 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. + +"0h 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: + +"0h my little darlings! 0h 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: + +"0h my darlings! 0h 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, 0h 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, "0h 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, 0h 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 'be +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: + +0h Lo-ord, pardon me! +Wo-olves run, +And do-ogs run, +And the hunters wait +To kill the wolves. +0h 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--" + +"0 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: '0h my darling, whither +art thou fled? 0h 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! +0 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, 0h 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: + +0h 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 +iilimitable 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 he 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." + +"0F 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 1 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: + +"'0h 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.' + + "'0h 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, 0h 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. + +"0h dread God, 0h beneficent God, 0h 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. + +"0h Holy One! 0h Holy One! 0h 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: + +"'0h 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: + +0h 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: + +0h 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 Etext of Through Russia, by Maxim Gorky + diff --git a/old/truss10.zip b/old/truss10.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..19157da --- /dev/null +++ b/old/truss10.zip |