mutual slandering of each other in Russian in which both parties to the
argument call names of an import so evil as to chill the marrows of
respectable listeners. “And you! You look like a gentleman. From what
place have you come?”
“From the place I go back to. Have you been in Chita long, little
grandfather?”
“I?” asked the old man, stroking his whiskers. “Yes. What does it
matter? I shall be here all time. See the hills outside? My bones shall
build them higher,” and he broke out into a cackling laugh as if the
joke were one that he used often and still liked its flavor.
“You were here in the old days?” pressed Peter.
The old one gave Peter a keen look, and sat down on the end of the
bench, hiding the precious ten-ruble notes away somewhere under his
arms.
“I? Why not?”
“You were here when the prison was full of unfortunates?”
“I was here when it was emptied, too,” and he laughed again and bent to
poke the fire with an old cane. But he was getting cautious again, as if
he suspected that there might be more behind the twenty rubles than he
had bargained for.
“What happened when the prison was emptied? It must have been a joyful
time.”
Graybeard made a noise in his throat which might have been a chuckle,
and turning from the fire stood up and straightened his back, to gaze
frankly at Peter as if to ask why so many questions were being asked. It
was plain that he disapproved of giving gossip extra with what he sold.
“You should have been here if you wanted to know,” he said.
“I suppose they killed the soldiers,” went on Peter.
“No, the unfortunates did not kill the soldiers—except, perhaps, the bad
soldiers who had been cruel. Were not the soldiers made free also by
revolution? As well as the unfortunates?”
“True,” assented Peter. “But the officers? Many of the officers were
killed, eh?”
“The square down there by the station,” and graybeard threw out his arm
and his eyes took on a reminiscent look, “the square is full of dead
folks—old and young, officers and all, rich and poor, high and low,
witches and holy men. But the unfortunates did not harm me. I am Rimsky
and the friend of all, though many were drunk and did not know who were
friends. But I got into a potato-cellar till the worst was over, though
I was stiff in the legs a good month after. But I was out in time to see
them all go off to Petersburg to kill the Little Father, the fools!”
“Would you have the Czar back? Is that what you mean?” asked Peter.
“I? Why do you ask me that? Is it not enough to know that in the old
days there was peace—and that I would have peace in which to die. Should
not a man have peace in which to meet the dead? That is all I ask you.”
“But are not the new times better than the old?” asked Peter. “Would you
have the old times back—and the prison on the hill full of people?”
Rimsky lighted the fragment of an old cigarette and smoked a minute
before he replied, pulling at his whiskers.
“New times, new troubles,” he said with tired voice. “We knew in the old
times what to do to be happy, and likewise what not to do. It was all
put down plain in the laws and the rules of the governors. Those who
wanted better government did not know that bad government is better than
none. Now it is all fighting, and no man trusts another. But I am not
afraid, for my life is behind me. Now, when the railroad came here, it
was said that everybody would be rich and happy. Before then we had only
the mail-sledges, with their bells and horses. The people were happy
enough, but for these educated fools always talking about what should be
done with government and getting themselves and poor people into
trouble. Now what do we have? All night an accursed ringing of railroad
bells and screeching whistles till a man wakes in his bed, thinking the
devil is calling. And people and cows get killed by the railroad—and mad
soldiers come to kill and burn honest people. Is that good? Who is made
rich thereby, and who is made happy?”
“Then you think you would be happier if the Czar were back,” suggested
Peter.
“Is that what you have come to ask me?” demanded Rimsky, giving Peter a
shrewd look. “Is it that you are counting those who want the Czar back?”
“No, no,” said Peter. “I have nothing to do with the government. I will
not say to any one what you say.”
“I cannot be too sure of that,” said Rimsky, and blew the smoke from his
cigarette upward. “But when the Czar ruled, I had a watch.”
“Do you want a Czar back?” asked Peter.
“_Tchuk!_” cried Rimsky. “The Czar is in a well, they tell me. But how
do I know what to believe? First it is one lie, and then another, till
our heads whirl and we get drunk to forget so much talk about nothing.
How do I know but that the Czar is on his throne and eating fish-pie for
his dinner?”
“But suppose a new Czar should come to the throne?”
“Ah, now you are trying to have me talk politics and get into prison. It
does not matter. I want only a fire, my tea, a good soup with meat and
bones in it, and a pair of boots—and men who can be trusted, even if
they be Czar’s governors and cruel. Who is a man to appeal to now if he
is robbed, as was I last month? In the old days robbers were hanged, and
it taught them something, too.”
“But you are speaking of Chita, of course. You had no complaint here,
for you had a good Governor.”
Rimsky went to the samovar and took off the little teapot, shook it with
a circular motion, filled it with hot water and poured a glass made from
the bottom of a bottle full of tea for Peter.
“You talk too much for a stranger,” said Rimsky. “What do you know about
our Governor? Is this the first time you have been in Siberia, young
man?”
“Of course,” said Peter, taking the tea. “But I have heard about Chita
before.”
“You may know more than you want to know about it before you get out,”
warned Rimsky. “Are you going to stay long—and buy more of my
cigarettes?”
“I’ll be here a few weeks, I suppose. I came to see if I could buy some
furs.”
“Oh, but you are a soldier,” said Rimsky. “And you will find no furs
that are good. Everybody is hunting men these days,” and he broke out
again in his cackling laugh, as he drew himself some tea in a little
yellow bowl.
“Did the unfortunates kill the Governor who was here when they got out
of the prison and freedom came to the people?”
“Did they?” asked Rimsky. “You tell me.”
“But you were here, and you know. I was not here,” said Peter.
Rimsky shrugged his shoulders and sucked his tea from the bowl.
“The _provodnik_ on the train told me that the soldiers killed the
Governor here. What was the name? Kir—— well, I can’t remember.”
“Those fellows on the trains do a lot of talking,” said Rimsky. “They
are know-it-alls, and all they do is take grease from people who want to
have food sent up to us.”
“I’m afraid they don’t tell the truth,” said Peter.
“So they told you the soldiers killed Kirsakoff, did they? But Kirsakoff
was not the Governor. You see that they lied.”
“Perhaps they did not say he was Governor when he was killed. But they
said he had been a Governor in the old days.”
“If Kirsakoff had been killed, I would know it,” said Rimsky.
“True,” agreed Peter. “I thought the _provodnik_ was talking to make
wind and a big man of himself. I knew he was lying.”
“How did you know that?”
“I guessed it. Now that you say Kirsakoff was not killed, I know it was
a lie. Just big talk.”
“Why should anybody kill Kirsakoff?” demanded Rimsky.
“That is what I should like to know. Everybody said he was a good man,
but perhaps some people did not like him—people in the prison, of
course, who were against the government.”
“General Kirsakoff had been retired when the troubles came,” said
Rimsky. “More than seven years ago he was retired. I remembered well the
time—I had a sore foot.”
“Was he gone from Chita when the troubles came?”
“No, he was here,” said Rimsky, looking straight at Peter.
“Ah!” said Peter. “So the _provodnik_ lied when he said Kirsakoff was
dead. He is still here.”
“What does it matter where he is?” asked Rimsky.
“It does not matter,” said Peter, and set the glass on the table,
buttoning his coat about his neck in preparation for leaving.
“I hear much gossip in this place,” said Rimsky. “Where do you live in
the city?”
“Thank you for the tea,” said Peter. “It is cold outside. I may want
some more cigarettes—at twenty rubles a box.”
“I hear many matters spoken of here,” hinted Rimsky with confidential
air. “About where governors are and such talk.”
“Is Zorogoff a good man?” asked Peter.
“It is a very cold day outside, true,” said Rimsky. “But this is a good
place to hear gossip.”
“I care nothing for gossip. But I can see that you live on it, as an old
gander lives on snails,” said Peter laughingly. “I am going to the
Dauria—I am an American officer. But see that you do not gossip about
me, old fellow.”
Rimsky wagged his old head and cackled wisely.
“A tight lip fools the devil,” warned Peter. “If you talk I’ll tell
Zorogoff you charged me double for cigarettes. But I’ll come in and see
you some day, and bring a bottle of vodka.”
“Then God guard you till you return!” cried Rimsky, and Peter went out
through the door of the hut.
Rimsky sat chuckling into his beard after Peter had departed. And more
than once the old cigarette-seller told himself, “The sturgeon does not
become a sterlet because he leaves the river for the lake, and the
Russian does not become a foreigner by changing his coat.” That was a
saying of wise men.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
VII
OLD RIMSKY THINKS
OLD Rimsky had a wise head. Many people were afraid of him and said that
he talked with witches and had charms against evil—and he did sell
charms against sickness, bad luck and poor crops. Besides, he had the
reputation of knowing many things before they happened. But he was
merely a wise old owl with the keen perception of human motives which is
sometimes given to the unlettered man, though he could read well enough
to get the meanings out of newspapers if there were not too many words
in the articles invented by aristocrats to fool the poor people.
He spent the remainder of the day thinking about the Russian in the
American coat who paid double for cigarettes and took a profit in
getting answers to questions. He had watched Peter closely, and turned
the whole matter over mentally, sitting by his fire and drinking tea.
Rimsky decided that he had not been clever enough with the stranger. It
was plain enough now that the stranger had come to learn something about
Michael Alexandrovitch Kirsakoff who had been Governor. And the stranger
did not know where Michael was to be found. In some way the business
could be turned to profit and over many glasses of smoky tea Rimsky
evolved a plan by which he could put money in his purse.
There was an old pig-killing _moujik_ named Ilya Andreitch who slept in
the basement of a bakery on a street up near the bazaar. Ilya had worked
for Kirsakoff years before, and should know where the general lived if
anybody did. As for that, Rimsky now remembered that Ilya had once
boasted that he knew where Kirsakoff lived since the troubles came and
all the rich people were in hiding.
But there might be little in the boast, for Ilya was an old fool who was
always pretending to know things. But for all his outward stupidity,
Ilya was a sly rascal. His father had been sent into exile for taking
money from revolutionists in Moscow by pretending to have knowledge of
what the secret police were going to do—who was going to be arrested,
and so on.
It happened that Rimsky had Ilya pretty much under the thumb, as the
saying is. For Ilya had once fed the pigs of a watch-fixer in the city,
and had stolen from his employer a whole handful of silver holy medals.
Rimsky had bought them from Ilya for a tenth of their value. Out of
appreciation for buying them, Ilya had spent all the money he got on
vodka with Rimsky. The vodka had been stolen by a waiter in a restaurant
owned by a Greek, and at half price sold it to Ilya, which was quite all
right, for everybody stole from foreigners if they could. The thing for
the foreigners to do is to stay at home and not go about selling food
and drink at prices too high.
Rimsky knew that he might be able to induce Ilya to tell where Kirsakoff
was living. That might mean double money for Rimsky. Kirsakoff would no
doubt pay well to know that an American was seeking him, and the
American would probably pay well to know where Kirsakoff might be found.
It was only a matter of handling them properly.
And by delaying the information sought by both Kirsakoff and the man who
called himself an American, a pretty penny might be realized. It was by
such smart methods, Rimsky felt sure, that rich folks got rich. And by
getting rich, they made poor folks poorer. Being rich was all simple
enough, for there was only so much money in the world, and the trick was
to get a lot of it by being smarter than other folks. There being many
fools, the problem was easy enough. Rimsky knew that the Jews got rich
by being able to figure interest on money, and by selling only when
people wanted to buy and buying only when people wanted to sell.
So he contrived a plan by which Ilya was to supply the information for
little or nothing, and Rimsky was to sell it for a bundle of rubles. It
would not do to tell Ilya what was wanted. It would be best to loosen
his tongue with vodka, and then accuse him of having lied when he had
said he knew where Kirsakoff was living. That method would get Ilya to
boasting and he would pop it all out. It could all be passed off as
drinking talk, and if Ilya insisted on keeping his secret, it would be
easy enough to turn the talk to holy medals. That would make Ilya see
the honey pot, as the saying is; then he would get Ilya so drunk that he
would forget all that had been said.
So when the lights began to appear in the shops across the Sofistkaya,
Rimsky put up his own shutters over the window and wandered toward the
bazaar to look in at the bakery where Ilya might be found.
It was quite dark when Rimsky reached the courtyard in rear of the
building of the bakery. There was a shaft of flickering light dancing
out from a partly open door, and the yard was filled with the comforting
odor of burning dough. Rimsky planned to ask the bakers first for a man
who once hauled wood for them—a peasant dead several months before. That
would be excuse enough for coming, and talk could be made till it was
time to ask casually for Ilya. That would throw sand in Ilya’s eyes as
to why Rimsky appeared at the bakery.
The old cigarette-seller prowled in through the door and stumbled over
loose wood in the hall till he came to the great room where the bakers
were working. A big man, bare to the waist, was drawing huge loaves from
the stone stove with a wooden shovel. His damp skin shone in the dancing
light. A group of men and women was sitting on benches in the dark side
of the room about a samovar. A ball of dough was smoking on an iron
sheet laid on the shoulder of the stove.
There had been the murmur of voices till Rimsky stood framed in the
doorway of the room, looking in. When he appeared there was a sudden
hush and silence, except for the grating of the wooden shovel as it drew
out the steaming loaves and the cracking of the fire in the fire-pit.
“God’s blessing on those who labor for us,” said Rimsky, crossing
himself.
Some one gave a muttered reply. The man drawing the loaves turned and
peered at Rimsky and then went on deftly pulling out the bread,
puckering his face against the heat.
A man came clumping down the hall and fell over the wood. Rimsky stood
aside from the door, and the light from the fire revealed the man with a
face shrouded by long and unkempt whiskers, and on his head a sheepskin
cap black with dirt. He wore a ragged old coat with a rope turned round
his middle several times as a belt.
“So this is my old friend, Ilya Andreitch!” exclaimed Rimsky. “It is
long since I have seen you. Perhaps you can tell me of the friend I am
looking for.”
Ilya ogled him suspiciously.
“What has gone wrong that you should be here?” he growled. He had a
healthy fear of Rimsky and wanted to forget the business of the holy
medals.
“Can you tell me where I can find Vanusha?”
“You are chasing ghosts,” grumbled Ilya, crossing himself at mention of
a dead man. “That man is dead. Or is it that you are looking for souls
for the devil?”
“Dead!” exclaimed Rimsky. “Now that is a pity. I came to get a drinking
friend, but now I shall have to go and have a glass of vodka by myself
in his memory. He owed me two rubles but he was a good man, I can say
that for him.”
“Better than I can say for you,” Ilya called out into the dark yard
after Rimsky, who had retreated abruptly from the hall. “He never drank
his vodka alone, for one thing, like others I know, and they not far
off. He was civil to his friends, I can say that—and when you are dead
you had better take care that folks say the same of you.”
“Then you didn’t learn your manners from him,” retorted Rimsky, stopping
in the court. “You swing your tongue too much for an honest man—or to
have it wet with vodka. When I drink I wish to be merry.”
“You are an old wolf with the fleas!” called Ilya.
Rimsky laughed at him.
“May you die blind!” bawled Ilya.
“Oh, come and warm your belly with a sup of vodka,” said Rimsky, “unless
you think that if you turned good-natured you would come down with a
distemper.”
Ilya ran after him and the pair walked down to the little restaurant
kept by a one-eared gypsy from Bessarabia where in the old days the
thieves gathered to dispose of their loot to Chinese.
There were but a few people inside the place. A Buriat, who had probably
sold some cattle, was lying across a table in a drunken stupor, his
purple conical cap on the floor under his feet. A crippled beggar was
drinking soup from a bowl with a wooden ladle, and a Chinese peddler of
charms was gambling in a corner with a Mongol holy man.
Rimsky led the way to a table distant from the others and called for the
serving girl. He was in good humor and ordered a whole bottle of vodka,
swearing that he would take only the best and would break the tax seal
with his own fingers.
“Something has turned your way, you old shark!” said Ilya. “Or perhaps
this is your name day.”
“No, it is that I am getting old and may as well spend my money before
it falls into the hands of robbers,” said Rimsky. “Soon I shall go to
meet the dead. I pick up a few rubles a day. What is the use of keeping
them these days? I want to spend them with my friends, and you are a
good fellow and a great joker, Ilya Andreitch.”
“True, I can make jokes if I have the wine,” said Ilya, and hastened to
take a swig from the first glass poured.
They proceeded to talk of nothings, and finished the bottle.
“Fetch another!” Rimsky called to the girl, “and I’ll drink a health to
the rings in your ears, my damsel. When you were—what am I saying?—when
I was younger you would not have escaped without a kiss.”
“You had better be putting your grandchildren to bed,” retorted the
girl, but she brought the bottle.
Ilya was suddenly filled with a desire to be modest in his drinking. He
felt it would not be wise to abuse such a show of hospitality on the
part of Rimsky. And the _moujik’s_ crafty brain suspected that there was
a purpose behind Rimsky’s unlimited generosity. Folks were not so
free-handed without having good cause, he reasoned. So for every full
glass that Rimsky drank, Ilya managed to dispose of but half a glass. He
had a notion that if he could get Rimsky drunk there might be part of a
bottle left which could be made away with and the joyous occasion could
be carried on alone into the night and perhaps the following day. Also,
he took good care that Rimsky always paid in advance by making a joke
with the gypsy girl that Rimsky had no more money. Rimsky’s generosity
made Ilya suspicious.
“Pooh! Money!” said Rimsky, when the third bottle was brought. “I have
enough money to buy all the vodka in the city.”
“That’s the vodka talking,” sneered Ilya. “I feel as if I could buy a
farm, but it would be another matter for me to find the money. That is
the way with you.”
“Don’t go on so with big talk,” warned Rimsky, “or I will begin to talk
of the holy medals.”
“Talk and the devil take you!” cried Ilya, thumping the bottle down on
the table angrily. “If you do I’ll go my way and wish a curse on you!”
“Sit still!” commanded Rimsky. “I’ve money enough, I tell you. If not, I
can go and borrow from my rich friends.”
Ilya laughed so loudly at this that he disturbed the drunken Buriat, who
lifted his black head from the table and glared about the room. He
looked like a mandarin, with his long thin drooping mustaches.
“But I tell you I have rich friends,” insisted Rimsky. “I could go now
and get a hundred rubles if I needed them—yes, twenty and a hundred and
no interest. Kirsakoff would let me have them, and no questions asked,
and nothing about when they should be paid back.”
“What!” exclaimed Ilya, staring at Rimsky. “You say the old Governor
would lend you twenty and a hundred rubles! _Tfu!_ That’s crazy talk!”
“Yes! You think I don’t know the old Governor, eh! Well, Kirsakoff is a
friend of mine, you had better know that.”
“Pooh!” snorted Ilya. “You are an old mud-head! You don’t even know
where the old Governor lives in the city, and you sit there telling to
me that he is your friend! Oh, ho, ho!”
“Perhaps you think you are the only one who knows where Kirsakoff lives?
You are a fool who thinks he is wise, and that’s the worst fool of all.”
Ilya was cautious at once. He gave Rimsky a careful look, but Rimsky
paid no attention to the look.
“Who told you I said I knew where Kirsakoff lived?” demanded Ilya.
“You said it yourself. I heard you say it last Butter Week in the
bazaar. You were drunk and you went boasting about to the old man from
Pischenko with the red boots. I heard you say it, Ilya Andreitch.”
Ilya ruffled his brow and tried to remember when he had been talking to
a man with red boots from Pischenko. He knew no one in that town who had
red boots—unless it was the butcher’s assistant who married the
cake-maker.
“True,” said Ilya. “I might have known then where Kirsakoff lived. I
don’t deny it. Perhaps I was drunk Butter Week. It wasn’t my fault if I
was sober. But that was a long time ago as time runs now—and I don’t
know where Kirsakoff lives now. And if I did, I wouldn’t tell you.”
Rimsky laughed good-naturedly. “Let us have another drink. You are a
good fellow. Of course you do not know where Michael Alexandrovitch
lives. If you did, you could have money, as I have. It is worth money to
know where the old Governor lives.”
Ilya saw that Rimsky was getting very drunk and seeking an argument.
“If you knew where Kirsakoff lived, who would pay?” asked Ilya, becoming
greedy at the mention of money.
“Who? There are many. That is something I do not want to talk about,
Ilya. Hold your tongue,” and Rimsky picked up his glass and filled it
again.
Ilya drank with sad mien, turning over in his mind Rimsky’s statement
that it was worth money to know where Kirsakoff lived. If that were
true, Ilya argued to himself, he should have the money, for he knew
where Kirsakoff lived with his daughter in an old log house in the
outskirts of the city.
“I don’t intend to hold my tongue,” Ilya announced. “What I want to know
is who would pay money to know where Kirsakoff lives!”
Rimsky was startled by the suddenness and vigor with which Ilya had put
the matter before him. And Ilya leaned across the table, with a big and
dirty fist thrust forward.
“Who?” asked Rimsky. “Why do you ask me that? What is there to fight
over? We are good friends—we are—you are friend to me, or——”
Rimsky swayed in his chair and could not finish. He made an effort to
rally his drugged brain, but slipped deeper into the chair and his eyes
closed on him despite all he could do to keep them open. His right arm
flopped across the table limply, as useless as a dead seal’s flipper.
“Everybody knows where Michael Kirsakoff lives,” went on Ilya. “Why
should any one pay money for what every one knows. That knowledge is not
worth a beggar’s kopeck.” Ilya lied, but he sought to learn all he could
before Rimsky got too deep into drunken slumber.
“True,” muttered the befuddled Rimsky. “You talk true talk, Ilya
Andreitch. But why do you fight with me when I can’t see? What did I
say?”
“You talked about there being money in knowing where Kirsakoff lived,”
accused Ilya.