Who was this elusive, mysterious Varlamov of whom people talked so
much, whom Solomon despised, and whom even the beautiful countess
needed? Sitting on the box beside Deniska, Yegorushka, half asleep,
thought about this person. He had never seen him. But he had often
heard of him and pictured him in his imagination. He knew that
Varlamov possessed several tens of thousands of acres of land, about
a hundred thousand sheep, and a great deal of money. Of his manner
of life and occupation Yegorushka knew nothing, except that he was
always "going his rounds in these parts," and he was always being
looked for.
At home Yegorushka had heard a great deal of the Countess Dranitsky,
too. She, too, had some tens of thousands of acres, a great many
sheep, a stud farm and a great deal of money, but she did not "go
rounds," but lived at home in a splendid house and grounds, about
which Ivan Ivanitch, who had been more than once at the countess's
on business, and other acquaintances told many marvellous tales;
thus, for instance, they said that in the countess's drawing-room,
where the portraits of all the kings of Poland hung on the walls,
there was a big table-clock in the form of a rock, on the rock a
gold horse with diamond eyes, rearing, and on the horse the figure
of a rider also of gold, who brandished his sword to right and to
left whenever the clock struck. They said, too, that twice a year
the countess used to give a ball, to which the gentry and officials
of the whole province were invited, and to which even Varlamov used
to come; all the visitors drank tea from silver samovars, ate all
sorts of extraordinary things (they had strawberries and raspberries,
for instance, in winter at Christmas), and danced to a band which
played day and night. . . .
"And how beautiful she is," thought Yegorushka, remembering her
face and smile.
Kuzmitchov, too, was probably thinking about the countess. For when
the chaise had driven a mile and a half he said:
"But doesn't that Kazimir Mihalovitch plunder her right and left!
The year before last when, do you remember, I bought some wool from
her, he made over three thousand from my purchase alone."
"That is just what you would expect from a Pole," said Father
Christopher.
"And little does it trouble her. Young and foolish, as they say,
her head is full of nonsense."
Yegorushka, for some reason, longed to think of nothing but Varlamov
and the countess, particularly the latter. His drowsy brain utterly
refused ordinary thoughts, was in a cloud and retained only fantastic
fairy-tale images, which have the advantage of springing into the
brain of themselves without any effort on the part of the thinker,
and completely vanishing of themselves at a mere shake of the head;
and, indeed, nothing that was around him disposed to ordinary
thoughts. On the right there were the dark hills which seemed to
be screening something unseen and terrible; on the left the whole
sky about the horizon was covered with a crimson glow, and it was
hard to tell whether there was a fire somewhere, or whether it was
the moon about to rise. As by day the distance could be seen, but
its tender lilac tint had gone, quenched by the evening darkness,
in which the whole steppe was hidden like Moisey Moisevitch's
children under the quilt.
Corncrakes and quails do not call in the July nights, the nightingale
does not sing in the woodland marsh, and there is no scent of
flowers, but still the steppe is lovely and full of life. As soon
as the sun goes down and the darkness enfolds the earth, the day's
weariness is forgotten, everything is forgiven, and the steppe
breathes a light sigh from its broad bosom. As though because the
grass cannot see in the dark that it has grown old, a gay youthful
twitter rises up from it, such as is not heard by day; chirruping,
twittering, whistling, scratching, the basses, tenors and sopranos
of the steppe all mingle in an incessant, monotonous roar of sound
in which it is sweet to brood on memories and sorrows. The monotonous
twitter soothes to sleep like a lullaby; you drive and feel you are
falling asleep, but suddenly there comes the abrupt agitated cry
of a wakeful bird, or a vague sound like a voice crying out in
wonder "A-ah, a-ah!" and slumber closes one's eyelids again. Or you
drive by a little creek where there are bushes and hear the bird,
called by the steppe dwellers "the sleeper," call "Asleep, asleep,
asleep!" while another laughs or breaks into trills of hysterical
weeping--that is the owl. For whom do they call and who hears
them on that plain, God only knows, but there is deep sadness and
lamentation in their cry. . . . There is a scent of hay and dry
grass and belated flowers, but the scent is heavy, sweetly mawkish
and soft.
Everything can be seen through the mist, but it is hard to make out
the colours and the outlines of objects. Everything looks different
from what it is. You drive on and suddenly see standing before you
right in the roadway a dark figure like a monk; it stands motionless,
waiting, holding something in its hands. . . . Can it be a robber?
The figure comes closer, grows bigger; now it is on a level with
the chaise, and you see it is not a man, but a solitary bush or a
great stone. Such motionless expectant figures stand on the low
hills, hide behind the old barrows, peep out from the high grass,
and they all look like human beings and arouse suspicion.
And when the moon rises the night becomes pale and dim. The mist
seems to have passed away. The air is transparent, fresh and warm;
one can see well in all directions and even distinguish the separate
stalks of grass by the wayside. Stones and bits of pots can be seen
at a long distance. The suspicious figures like monks look blacker
against the light background of the night, and seem more sinister.
More and more often in the midst of the monotonous chirruping there
comes the sound of the "A-ah, a-ah!" of astonishment troubling the
motionless air, and the cry of a sleepless or delirious bird. Broad
shadows move across the plain like clouds across the sky, and in
the inconceivable distance, if you look long and intently at it,
misty monstrous shapes rise up and huddle one against another. . . .
It is rather uncanny. One glances at the pale green, star-spangled
sky on which there is no cloudlet, no spot, and understands why the
warm air is motionless, why nature is on her guard, afraid to stir:
she is afraid and reluctant to lose one instant of life. Of the
unfathomable depth and infinity of the sky one can only form a
conception at sea and on the steppe by night when the moon is
shining. It is terribly lonely and caressing; it looks down languid
and alluring, and its caressing sweetness makes one giddy.
You drive on for one hour, for a second. . . . You meet upon the
way a silent old barrow or a stone figure put up God knows when and
by whom; a nightbird floats noiselessly over the earth, and little
by little those legends of the steppes, the tales of men you have
met, the stories of some old nurse from the steppe, and all the
things you have managed to see and treasure in your soul, come back
to your mind. And then in the churring of insects, in the sinister
figures, in the ancient barrows, in the blue sky, in the moonlight,
in the flight of the nightbird, in everything you see and hear,
triumphant beauty, youth, the fulness of power, and the passionate
thirst for life begin to be apparent; the soul responds to the call
of her lovely austere fatherland, and longs to fly over the steppes
with the nightbird. And in the triumph of beauty, in the exuberance
of happiness you are conscious of yearning and grief, as though the
steppe knew she was solitary, knew that her wealth and her inspiration
were wasted for the world, not glorified in song, not wanted by
anyone; and through the joyful clamour one hears her mournful,
hopeless call for singers, singers!
"Woa! Good-evening, Panteley! Is everything all right?"
"First-rate, Ivan Ivanitch!
"Haven't you seen Varlamov, lads?"
"No, we haven't."
Yegorushka woke up and opened his eyes. The chaise had stopped. On
the right the train of waggons stretched for a long way ahead on
the road, and men were moving to and fro near them. All the waggons
being loaded up with great bales of wool looked very high and fat,
while the horses looked short-legged and little.
"Well, then, we shall go on to the Molokans'!" Kuzmitchov said
aloud. "The Jew told us that Varlamov was putting up for the night
at the Molokans'. So good-bye, lads! Good luck to you!"
"Good-bye, Ivan Ivanitch," several voices replied.
"I say, lads," Kuzmitchov cried briskly, "you take my little lad
along with you! Why should he go jolting off with us for nothing?
You put him on the bales, Panteley, and let him come on slowly, and
we shall overtake you. Get down, Yegor! Go on; it's all right. . . ."
Yegorushka got down from the box-seat. Several hands caught him,
lifted him high into the air, and he found himself on something
big, soft, and rather wet with dew. It seemed to him now as though
the sky were quite close and the earth far away.
"Hey, take his little coat!" Deniska shouted from somewhere far
below.
His coat and bundle flung up from far below fell close to Yegorushka.
Anxious not to think of anything, he quickly put his bundle under
his head and covered himself with his coat, and stretching his legs
out and shrinking a little from the dew, he laughed with content.
"Sleep, sleep, sleep, . . ." he thought.
"Don't be unkind to him, you devils!" he heard Deniska's voice
below.
"Good-bye, lads; good luck to you," shouted Kuzmitchov. "I rely
upon you!"
"Don't you be uneasy, Ivan Ivanitch!"
Deniska shouted to the horses, the chaise creaked and started, not
along the road, but somewhere off to the side. For two minutes there
was silence, as though the waggons were asleep and there was no
sound except the clanking of the pails tied on at the back of the
chaise as it slowly died away in the distance. Then someone at the
head of the waggons shouted:
"Kiruha! Sta-art!"
The foremost of the waggons creaked, then the second, then the
third. . . . Yegorushka felt the waggon he was on sway and creak
also. The waggons were moving. Yegorushka took a tighter hold of
the cord with which the bales were tied on, laughed again with
content, shifted the cake in his pocket, and fell asleep just as
he did in his bed at home. . . .
When he woke up the sun had risen, it was screened by an ancient
barrow, and, trying to shed its light upon the earth, it scattered
its beams in all directions and flooded the horizon with gold. It
seemed to Yegorushka that it was not in its proper place, as the
day before it had risen behind his back, and now it was much more
to his left. . . . And the whole landscape was different. There
were no hills now, but on all sides, wherever one looked, there
stretched the brown cheerless plain; here and there upon it small
barrows rose up and rooks flew as they had done the day before. The
belfries and huts of some village showed white in the distance
ahead; as it was Sunday the Little Russians were at home baking and
cooking--that could be seen by the smoke which rose from every
chimney and hung, a dark blue transparent veil, over the village.
In between the huts and beyond the church there were blue glimpses
of a river, and beyond the river a misty distance. But nothing was
so different from yesterday as the road. Something extraordinarily
broad, spread out and titanic, stretched over the steppe by way of
a road. It was a grey streak well trodden down and covered with
dust, like all roads. Its width puzzled Yegorushka and brought
thoughts of fairy tales to his mind. Who travelled along that road?
Who needed so much space? It was strange and unintelligible. It
might have been supposed that giants with immense strides, such as
Ilya Muromets and Solovy the Brigand, were still surviving in Russia,
and that their gigantic steeds were still alive. Yegorushka, looking
at the road, imagined some half a dozen high chariots racing along
side by side, like some he used to see in pictures in his Scripture
history; these chariots were each drawn by six wild furious horses,
and their great wheels raised a cloud of dust to the sky, while the
horses were driven by men such as one may see in one's dreams or
in imagination brooding over fairy tales. And if those figures had
existed, how perfectly in keeping with the steppe and the road they
would have been!
Telegraph-poles with two wires on them stretched along the right
side of the road to its furthermost limit. Growing smaller and
smaller they disappeared near the village behind the huts and green
trees, and then again came into sight in the lilac distance in the
form of very small thin sticks that looked like pencils stuck into
the ground. Hawks, falcons, and crows sat on the wires and looked
indifferently at the moving waggons.
Yegorushka was lying in the last of the waggons, and so could see
the whole string. There were about twenty waggons, and there was a
driver to every three waggons. By the last waggon, the one in which
Yegorushka was, there walked an old man with a grey beard, as short
and lean as Father Christopher, but with a sunburnt, stern and
brooding face. It is very possible that the old man was not stern
and not brooding, but his red eyelids and his sharp long nose gave
his face a stern frigid expression such as is common with people
in the habit of continually thinking of serious things in solitude.
Like Father Christopher he was wearing a wide-brimmed top-hat, not
like a gentleman's, but made of brown felt, and in shape more like
a cone with the top cut off than a real top-hat. Probably from a
habit acquired in cold winters, when he must more than once have
been nearly frozen as he trudged beside the waggons, he kept slapping
his thighs and stamping with his feet as he walked. Noticing that
Yegorushka was awake, he looked at him and said, shrugging his
shoulders as though from the cold:
"Ah, you are awake, youngster! So you are the son of Ivan Ivanitch?"
"No; his nephew. . . ."
"Nephew of Ivan Ivanitch? Here I have taken off my boots and am
hopping along barefoot. My feet are bad; they are swollen, and it's
easier without my boots . . . easier, youngster . . . without boots,
I mean. . . . So you are his nephew? He is a good man; no harm in
him. . . . God give him health. . . . No harm in him . . . I mean
Ivan Ivanitch. . . . He has gone to the Molokans'. . . . O Lord,
have mercy upon us!"
The old man talked, too, as though it were very cold, pausing and
not opening his mouth properly; and he mispronounced the labial
consonants, stuttering over them as though his lips were frozen.
As he talked to Yegorushka he did not once smile, and he seemed
stern.
Two waggons ahead of them there walked a man wearing a long
reddish-brown coat, a cap and high boots with sagging bootlegs and
carrying a whip in his hand. This was not an old man, only about
forty. When he looked round Yegorushka saw a long red face with a
scanty goat-beard and a spongy looking swelling under his right
eye. Apart from this very ugly swelling, there was another peculiar
thing about him which caught the eye at once: in his left hand he
carried a whip, while he waved the right as though he were conducting
an unseen choir; from time to time he put the whip under his arm,
and then he conducted with both hands and hummed something to
himself.
The next driver was a long rectilinear figure with extremely sloping
shoulders and a back as flat as a board. He held himself as stiffly
erect as though he were marching or had swallowed a yard measure.
His hands did not swing as he walked, but hung down as if they were
straight sticks, and he strode along in a wooden way, after the
manner of toy soldiers, almost without bending his knees, and trying
to take as long steps as possible. While the old man or the owner
of the spongy swelling were taking two steps he succeeded in taking
only one, and so it seemed as though he were walking more slowly
than any of them, and would drop behind. His face was tied up in a
rag, and on his head something stuck up that looked like a monk's
peaked cap; he was dressed in a short Little Russian coat, with
full dark blue trousers and bark shoes.
Yegorushka did not even distinguish those that were farther on. He
lay on his stomach, picked a little hole in the bale, and, having
nothing better to do, began twisting the wool into a thread. The
old man trudging along below him turned out not to be so stern as
one might have supposed from his face. Having begun a conversation,
he did not let it drop.
"Where are you going?" he asked, stamping with his feet.
"To school," answered Yegorushka.
"To school? Aha! . . . Well, may the Queen of Heaven help you. Yes.
One brain is good, but two are better. To one man God gives one
brain, to another two brains, and to another three. . . . To another
three, that is true. . . . One brain you are born with, one you get
from learning, and a third with a good life. So you see, my lad,
it is a good thing if a man has three brains. Living is easier for
him, and, what's more, dying is, too. Dying is, too. . . . And we
shall all die for sure."
The old man scratched his forehead, glanced upwards at Yegorushka
with his red eyes, and went on:
"Maxim Nikolaitch, the gentleman from Slavyanoserbsk, brought a
little lad to school, too, last year. I don't know how he is getting
on there in studying the sciences, but he was a nice good little
lad. . . . God give them help, they are nice gentlemen. Yes, he,
too, brought his boy to school. . . . In Slavyanoserbsk there is
no establishment, I suppose, for study. No. . . . But it is a nice
town. . . . There's an ordinary school for simple folks, but for
the higher studies there is nothing. No, that's true. What's your
name? . . ."
"Yegorushka."
"Yegory, then. . . . The holy martyr Yegory, the Bearer of Victory,
whose day is the twenty-third of April. And my christian name is
Panteley, . . . Panteley Zaharov Holodov. . . . We are Holodovs
. . . . I am a native of--maybe you've heard of it--Tim in the
province of Kursk. My brothers are artisans and work at trades in
the town, but I am a peasant. . . . I have remained a peasant. Seven
years ago I went there--home, I mean. I went to the village and
to the town. . . . To Tim, I mean. Then, thank God, they were all
alive and well; . . . but now I don't know. . . . Maybe some of
them are dead. . . . And it's time they did die, for some of them
are older than I am. Death is all right; it is good so long, of
course, as one does not die without repentance. There is no worse
evil than an impenitent death; an impenitent death is a joy to the
devil. And if you want to die penitent, so that you may not be
forbidden to enter the mansions of the Lord, pray to the holy martyr
Varvara. She is the intercessor. She is, that's the truth. . . .
For God has given her such a place in the heavens that everyone has
the right to pray to her for penitence."
Panteley went on muttering, and apparently did not trouble whether
Yegorushka heard him or not. He talked listlessly, mumbling to
himself, without raising or dropping his voice, but succeeded in
telling him a great deal in a short time. All he said was made up
of fragments that had very little connection with one another, and
quite uninteresting for Yegorushka. Possibly he talked only in order
to reckon over his thoughts aloud after the night spent in silence,
in order to see if they were all there. After talking of repentance,
he spoke about a certain Maxim Nikolaitch from Slavyanoserbsk.
"Yes, he took his little lad; . . . he took him, that's true . . ."
One of the waggoners walking in front darted from his place, ran
to one side and began lashing on the ground with his whip. He was
a stalwart, broad-shouldered man of thirty, with curly flaxen hair
and a look of great health and vigour. Judging from the movements
of his shoulders and the whip, and the eagerness expressed in his
attitude, he was beating something alive. Another waggoner, a short
stubby little man with a bushy black beard, wearing a waistcoat and
a shirt outside his trousers, ran up to him. The latter broke into
a deep guffaw of laughter and coughing and said: "I say, lads, Dymov
has killed a snake!"
There are people whose intelligence can be gauged at once by their
voice and laughter. The man with the black beard belonged to that
class of fortunate individuals; impenetrable stupidity could be
felt in his voice and laugh. The flaxen-headed Dymov had finished,
and lifting from the ground with his whip something like a cord,
flung it with a laugh into the cart.
"That's not a viper; it's a grass snake!" shouted someone.
The man with the wooden gait and the bandage round his face strode
up quickly to the dead snake, glanced at it and flung up his
stick-like arms.
"You jail-bird!" he cried in a hollow wailing voice. "What have you
killed a grass snake for? What had he done to you, you damned brute?
Look, he has killed a grass snake; how would you like to be treated
so?"
"Grass snakes ought not to be killed, that's true," Panteley muttered
placidly, "they ought not. . . They are not vipers; though it looks
like a snake, it is a gentle, innocent creature. . . . It's friendly
to man, the grass snake is."
Dymov and the man with the black beard were probably ashamed, for
they laughed loudly, and not answering, slouched lazily back to
their waggons. When the hindmost waggon was level with the spot
where the dead snake lay, the man with his face tied up standing
over it turned to Panteley and asked in a tearful voice:
"Grandfather, what did he want to kill the grass snake for?"
His eyes, as Yegorushka saw now, were small and dingy looking; his
face was grey, sickly and looked somehow dingy too while his chin
was red and seemed very much swollen.
"Grandfather, what did he kill it for?" he repeated, striding along
beside Panteley.
"A stupid fellow. His hands itch to kill, and that is why he does
it," answered the old man; "but he oughtn't to kill a grass snake,
that's true. . . . Dymov is a ruffian, we all know, he kills
everything he comes across, and Kiruha did not interfere. He ought
to have taken its part, but instead of that, he goes off into
'Ha-ha-ha!' and 'Ho-ho-ho!' . . . But don't be angry, Vassya. . . .
Why be angry? They've killed it--well, never mind them. Dymov
is a ruffian and Kiruha acted from foolishness--never mind. . . .
They are foolish people without understanding--but there, don't
mind them. Emelyan here never touches what he shouldn't; he never
does; . . . that is true, . . . because he is a man of education,
while they are stupid. . . . Emelyan, he doesn't touch things."
The waggoner in the reddish-brown coat and the spongy swelling on
his face, who was conducting an unseen choir, stopped. Hearing his
name, and waiting till Panteley and Vassya came up to him, he walked
beside them.
"What are you talking about?" he asked in a husky muffled voice.
"Why, Vassya here is angry," said Panteley. "So I have been saying
things to him to stop his being angry. . . . Oh, how my swollen
feet hurt! Oh, oh! They are more inflamed than ever for Sunday,
God's holy day!"
"It's from walking," observed Vassya.
"No, lad, no. It's not from walking. When I walk it seems easier;
when I lie down and get warm, . . . it's deadly. Walking is easier
for me."
Emelyan, in his reddish-brown coat, walked between Panteley and
Vassya and waved his arms, as though they were going to sing. After
waving them a little while he dropped them, and croaked out hopelessly:
"I have no voice. It's a real misfortune. All last night and this
morning I have been haunted by the trio 'Lord, have Mercy' that we
sang at the wedding at Marionovsky's. It's in my head and in my
throat. It seems as though I could sing it, but I can't; I have no
voice."
He paused for a minute, thinking, then went on:
"For fifteen years I was in the choir. In all the Lugansky works
there was, maybe, no one with a voice like mine. But, confound it,
I bathed two years ago in the Donets, and I can't get a single note
true ever since. I took cold in my throat. And without a voice I
am like a workman without hands."
"That's true," Panteley agreed.
"I think of myself as a ruined man and nothing more."
At that moment Vassya chanced to catch sight of Yegorushka. His
eyes grew moist and smaller than ever.
"There's a little gentleman driving with us," and he covered his
nose with his sleeve as though he were bashful. "What a grand driver!
Stay with us and you shall drive the waggons and sell wool."
The incongruity of one person being at once a little gentleman and
a waggon driver seemed to strike him as very queer and funny, for
he burst into a loud guffaw, and went on enlarging upon the idea.
Emelyan glanced upwards at Yegorushka, too, but coldly and cursorily.
He was absorbed in his own thoughts, and had it not been for Vassya,
would not have noticed Yegorushka's presence. Before five minutes
had passed he was waving his arms again, then describing to his
companions the beauties of the wedding anthem, "Lord, have Mercy,"
which he had remembered in the night. He put the whip under his arm
and waved both hands.
A mile from the village the waggons stopped by a well with a crane.
Letting his pail down into the well, black-bearded Kiruha lay on
his stomach on the framework and thrust his shaggy head, his
shoulders, and part of his chest into the black hole, so that
Yegorushka could see nothing but his short legs, which scarcely
touched the ground. Seeing the reflection of his head far down at
the bottom of the well, he was delighted and went off into his deep
bass stupid laugh, and the echo from the well answered him. When
he got up his neck and face were as red as beetroot. The first to
run up and drink was Dymov. He drank laughing, often turning from
the pail to tell Kiruha something funny, then he turned round, and
uttered aloud, to be heard all over the steppe, five very bad words.
Yegorushka did not understand the meaning of such words, but he
knew very well they were bad words. He knew the repulsion his friends
and relations silently felt for such words. He himself, without
knowing why, shared that feeling and was accustomed to think that
only drunk and disorderly people enjoy the privilege of uttering
such words aloud. He remembered the murder of the grass snake,
listened to Dymov's laughter, and felt something like hatred for
the man. And as ill-luck would have it, Dymov at that moment caught
sight of Yegorushka, who had climbed down from the waggon and gone
up to the well. He laughed aloud and shouted:
"I say, lads, the old man has been brought to bed of a boy in the
night!"
Kiruha laughed his bass laugh till he coughed. Someone else laughed
too, while Yegorushka crimsoned and made up his mind finally that
Dymov was a very wicked man.
With his curly flaxen head, with his shirt opened on his chest and
no hat on, Dymov looked handsome and exceptionally strong; in every
movement he made one could see the reckless dare-devil and athlete,
knowing his value. He shrugged his shoulders, put his arms akimbo,
talked and laughed louder than any of the rest, and looked as though
he were going to lift up something very heavy with one hand and
astonish the whole world by doing so. His mischievous mocking eyes
glided over the road, the waggons, and the sky without resting on
anything, and seemed looking for someone to kill, just as a pastime,
and something to laugh at. Evidently he was afraid of no one, would
stick at nothing, and most likely was not in the least interested
in Yegorushka's opinion of him. . . . Yegorushka meanwhile hated
his flaxen head, his clear face, and his strength with his whole
heart, listened with fear and loathing to his laughter, and kept
thinking what word of abuse he could pay him out with.
Panteley, too, went up to the pail. He took out of his pocket a
little green glass of an ikon lamp, wiped it with a rag, filled it
from the pail and drank from it, then filled it again, wrapped the
little glass in the rag, and then put it back into his pocket.
"Grandfather, why do you drink out of a lamp?" Yegorushka asked
him, surprised.
"One man drinks out of a pail and another out of a lamp," the old
man answered evasively. "Every man to his own taste. . . . You drink
out of the pail--well, drink, and may it do you good. . . ."
"You darling, you beauty!" Vassya said suddenly, in a caressing,
plaintive voice. "You darling!"
His eyes were fixed on the distance; they were moist and smiling,
and his face wore the same expression as when he had looked at
Yegorushka.
"Who is it you are talking to?" asked Kiruha.
"A darling fox, . . . lying on her back, playing like a dog."
Everyone began staring into the distance, looking for the fox, but
no one could see it, only Vassya with his grey muddy-looking eyes,
and he was enchanted by it. His sight was extraordinarily keen, as
Yegorushka learnt afterwards. He was so long-sighted that the brown
steppe was for him always full of life and interest. He had only
to look into the distance to see a fox, a hare, a bustard, or some
other animal keeping at a distance from men. There was nothing
strange in seeing a hare running away or a flying bustard--everyone
crossing the steppes could see them; but it was not vouchsafed to
everyone to see wild animals in their own haunts when they were not
running nor hiding, nor looking about them in alarm. Yet Vassya saw
foxes playing, hares washing themselves with their paws, bustards
preening their wings and hammering out their hollow nests. Thanks
to this keenness of sight, Vassya had, besides the world seen by
everyone, another world of his own, accessible to no one else, and
probably a very beautiful one, for when he saw something and was
in raptures over it it was impossible not to envy him.
When the waggons set off again, the church bells were ringing for
service.
V
The train of waggons drew up on the bank of a river on one side of
a village. The sun was blazing, as it had been the day before; the
air was stagnant and depressing. There were a few willows on the
bank, but the shade from them did not fall on the earth, but on the
water, where it was wasted; even in the shade under the waggon it
was stifling and wearisome. The water, blue from the reflection of
the sky in it, was alluring.
Styopka, a waggoner whom Yegorushka noticed now for the first time,
a Little Russian lad of eighteen, in a long shirt without a belt,
and full trousers that flapped like flags as he walked, undressed
quickly, ran along the steep bank and plunged into the water. He
dived three times, then swam on his back and shut his eyes in his
delight. His face was smiling and wrinkled up as though he were
being tickled, hurt and amused.
On a hot day when there is nowhere to escape from the sultry,
stifling heat, the splash of water and the loud breathing of a man
bathing sounds like good music to the ear. Dymov and Kiruha, looking
at Styopka, undressed quickly and one after the other, laughing
loudly in eager anticipation of their enjoyment, dropped into the
water, and the quiet, modest little river resounded with snorting
and splashing and shouting. Kiruha coughed, laughed and shouted as
though they were trying to drown him, while Dymov chased him and
tried to catch him by the leg.
"Ha-ha-ha!" he shouted. "Catch him! Hold him!"
Kiruha laughed and enjoyed himself, but his expression was the same
as it had been on dry land, stupid, with a look of astonishment on
it as though someone had, unnoticed, stolen up behind him and hit
him on the head with the butt-end of an axe. Yegorushka undressed,
too, but did not let himself down by the bank, but took a run and
a flying leap from the height of about ten feet. Describing an arc
in the air, he fell into the water, sank deep, but did not reach
the bottom; some force, cold and pleasant to the touch, seemed to
hold him up and bring him back to the surface. He popped out and,
snorting and blowing bubbles, opened his eyes; but the sun was
reflected in the water quite close to his face. At first blinding
spots of light, then rainbow colours and dark patches, flitted
before his eyes. He made haste to dive again, opened his eyes in
the water and saw something cloudy-green like a sky on a moonlight
night. Again the same force would not let him touch the bottom and
stay in the coolness, but lifted him to the surface. He popped out
and heaved a sigh so deep that he had a feeling of space and
freshness, not only in his chest, but in his stomach. Then, to get
from the water everything he possibly could get, he allowed himself
every luxury; he lay on his back and basked, splashed, frolicked,
swam on his face, on his side, on his back and standing up--just
as he pleased till he was exhausted. The other bank was thickly
overgrown with reeds; it was golden in the sun, and the flowers of
the reeds hung drooping to the water in lovely tassels. In one place
the reeds were shaking and nodding, with their flowers rustling--
Styopka and Kiruha were hunting crayfish.
"A crayfish, look, lads! A crayfish!" Kiruha cried triumphantly and
actually showed a crayfish.
Yegorushka swam up to the reeds, dived, and began fumbling among
their roots. Burrowing in the slimy, liquid mud, he felt something
sharp and unpleasant--perhaps it really was a crayfish. But at
that minute someone seized him by the leg and pulled him to the
surface. Spluttering and coughing, Yegorushka opened his eyes and
saw before him the wet grinning face of the dare-devil Dymov. The
impudent fellow was breathing hard, and from a look in his eyes he
seemed inclined for further mischief. He held Yegorushka tight by
the leg, and was lifting his hand to take hold of his neck. But
Yegorushka tore himself away with repulsion and terror, as though
disgusted at being touched and afraid that the bully would drown
him, and said:
"Fool! I'll punch you in the face."
Feeling that this was not sufficient to express his hatred, he
thought a minute and added:
"You blackguard! You son of a bitch!"
But Dymov, as though nothing were the matter, took no further notice
of Yegorushka, but swam off to Kiruha, shouting:
"Ha-ha-ha! Let us catch fish! Mates, let us catch fish."
"To be sure," Kiruha agreed; "there must be a lot of fish here."
"Styopka, run to the village and ask the peasants for a net!
"They won't give it to me."
"They will, you ask them. Tell them that they should give it to us
for Christ's sake, because we are just the same as pilgrims."
"That's true."
Styopka clambered out of the water, dressed quickly, and without a
cap on he ran, his full trousers flapping, to the village. The water
lost all its charm for Yegorushka after his encounter with Dymov.
He got out and began dressing. Panteley and Vassya were sitting on
the steep bank, with their legs hanging down, looking at the bathers.
Emelyan was standing naked, up to his knees in the water, holding
on to the grass with one hand to prevent himself from falling while
the other stroked his body. With his bony shoulder-blades, with the
swelling under his eye, bending down and evidently afraid of the
water, he made a ludicrous figure. His face was grave and severe.
He looked angrily at the water, as though he were just going to
upbraid it for having given him cold in the Donets and robbed him
of his voice.
"And why don't you bathe?" Yegorushka asked Vassya.
"Oh, I don't care for it, . . ." answered Vassya.
"How is it your chin is swollen?"
"It's bad. . . . I used to work at the match factory, little sir.
. . . The doctor used to say that it would make my jaw rot. The air
is not healthy there. There were three chaps beside me who had their
jaws swollen, and with one of them it rotted away altogether."
Styopka soon came back with the net. Dymov and Kiruha were already
turning blue and getting hoarse by being so long in the water, but
they set about fishing eagerly. First they went to a deep place
beside the reeds; there Dymov was up to his neck, while the water
went over squat Kiruha's head. The latter spluttered and blew
bubbles, while Dymov stumbling on the prickly roots, fell over and
got caught in the net; both flopped about in the water, and made a
noise, and nothing but mischief came of their fishing.
"It's deep," croaked Kiruha. "You won't catch anything."
"Don't tug, you devil!" shouted Dymov trying to put the net in the
proper position. "Hold it up."
"You won't catch anything here," Panteley shouted from the bank.
"You are only frightening the fish, you stupids! Go more to the
left! It's shallower there!"
Once a big fish gleamed above the net; they all drew a breath, and
Dymov struck the place where it had vanished with his fist, and his
face expressed vexation.
"Ugh!" cried Panteley, and he stamped his foot. "You've let the
perch slip! It's gone!"
Moving more to the left, Dymov and Kiruha picked out a shallower
place, and then fishing began in earnest. They had wandered off
some hundred paces from the waggons; they could be seen silently
trying to go as deep as they could and as near the reeds, moving
their legs a little at a time, drawing out the nets, beating the
water with their fists to drive them towards the nets. From the
reeds they got to the further bank; they drew the net out, then,
with a disappointed air, lifting their knees high as they walked,
went back into the reeds. They were talking about something, but
what it was no one could hear. The sun was scorching their backs,
the flies were stinging them, and their bodies had turned from
purple to crimson. Styopka was walking after them with a pail in
his hands; he had tucked his shirt right up under his armpits, and
was holding it up by the hem with his teeth. After every successful
catch he lifted up some fish, and letting it shine in the sun,
shouted:
"Look at this perch! We've five like that!"
Every time Dymov, Kiruha and Styopka pulled out the net they could
be seen fumbling about in the mud in it, putting some things into
the pail and throwing other things away; sometimes they passed
something that was in the net from hand to hand, examined it
inquisitively, then threw that, too, away.
"What is it?" they shouted to them from the bank.
Styopka made some answer, but it was hard to make out his words.
Then he climbed out of the water and, holding the pail in both
hands, forgetting to let his shirt drop, ran to the waggons.
"It's full!" he shouted, breathing hard. "Give us another!"
Yegorushka looked into the pail: it was full. A young pike poked
its ugly nose out of the water, and there were swarms of crayfish
and little fish round about it. Yegorushka put his hand down to the
bottom and stirred up the water; the pike vanished under the crayfish
and a perch and a tench swam to the surface instead of it. Vassya,
too, looked into the pail. His eyes grew moist and his face looked
as caressing as before when he saw the fox. He took something out
of the pail, put it to his mouth and began chewing it.
"Mates," said Styopka in amazement, "Vassya is eating a live gudgeon!
Phoo!"
"It's not a gudgeon, but a minnow," Vassya answered calmly, still
munching.
He took a fish's tail out of his mouth, looked at it caressingly,
and put it back again. While he was chewing and crunching with his
teeth it seemed to Yegorushka that he saw before him something not
human. Vassya's swollen chin, his lustreless eyes, his extraordinary
sharp sight, the fish's tail in his mouth, and the caressing
friendliness with which he crunched the gudgeon made him like an
animal.
Yegorushka felt dreary beside him. And the fishing was over, too.
He walked about beside the waggons, thought a little, and, feeling
bored, strolled off to the village.
Not long afterwards he was standing in the church, and with his
forehead leaning on somebody's back, listened to the singing of the
choir. The service was drawing to a close. Yegorushka did not
understand church singing and did not care for it. He listened a
little, yawned, and began looking at the backs and heads before
him. In one head, red and wet from his recent bathe, he recognized
Emelyan. The back of his head had been cropped in a straight line
higher than is usual; the hair in front had been cut unbecomingly
high, and Emelyan's ears stood out like two dock leaves, and seemed
to feel themselves out of place. Looking at the back of his head
and his ears, Yegorushka, for some reason, thought that Emelyan was
probably very unhappy. He remembered the way he conducted with his
hands, his husky voice, his timid air when he was bathing, and felt
intense pity for him. He longed to say something friendly to him.
"I am here, too," he said, putting out his hand.
People who sing tenor or bass in the choir, especially those who
have at any time in their lives conducted, are accustomed to look
with a stern and unfriendly air at boys. They do not give up this
habit, even when they leave off being in a choir. Turning to
Yegorushka, Emelyan looked at him from under his brows and said:
"Don't play in church!"
Then Yegorushka moved forwards nearer to the ikon-stand. Here he
saw interesting people. On the right side, in front of everyone, a
lady and a gentleman were standing on a carpet. There were chairs
behind them. The gentleman was wearing newly ironed shantung trousers;
he stood as motionless as a soldier saluting, and held high his
bluish shaven chin. There was a very great air of dignity in his
stand-up collar, in his blue chin, in his small bald patch and his
cane. His neck was so strained from excess of dignity, and his chin
was drawn up so tensely, that it looked as though his head were
ready to fly off and soar upwards any minute. The lady, who was
stout and elderly and wore a white silk shawl, held her head on one
side and looked as though she had done someone a favour, and wanted
to say: "Oh, don't trouble yourself to thank me; I don't like it
. . . ." A thick wall of Little Russian heads stood all round the
carpet.
Yegorushka went up to the ikon-stand and began kissing the local
ikons. Before each image he slowly bowed down to the ground, without
getting up, looked round at the congregation, then got up and kissed
the ikon. The contact of his forehead with the cold floor afforded
him great satisfaction. When the beadle came from the altar with a
pair of long snuffers to put out the candles, Yegorushka jumped up
quickly from the floor and ran up to him.
"Have they given out the holy bread?" he asked.
"There is none; there is none," the beadle muttered gruffly. "It
is no use your. . ."
The service was over; Yegorushka walked out of the church in a
leisurely way, and began strolling about the market-place. He had
seen a good many villages, market-places, and peasants in his time,
and everything that met his eyes was entirely without interest for
him. At a loss for something to do, he went into a shop over the
door of which hung a wide strip of red cotton. The shop consisted
of two roomy, badly lighted parts; in one half they sold drapery
and groceries, in the other there were tubs of tar, and there were
horse-collars hanging from the ceiling; from both came the savoury
smell of leather and tar. The floor of the shop had been watered;
the man who watered it must have been a very whimsical and original
person, for it was sprinkled in patterns and mysterious symbols.
The shopkeeper, an overfed-looking man with a broad face and round
beard, apparently a Great Russian, was standing, leaning his person
over the counter. He was nibbling a piece of sugar as he drank his
tea, and heaved a deep sigh at every sip. His face expressed complete
indifference, but each sigh seemed to be saying:
"Just wait a minute; I will give it you."
"Give me a farthing's worth of sunflower seeds," Yegorushka said,
addressing him.
The shopkeeper raised his eyebrows, came out from behind the counter,
and poured a farthing's worth of sunflower seeds into Yegorushka's
pocket, using an empty pomatum pot as a measure. Yegorushka did not
want to go away. He spent a long time in examining the box of cakes,
thought a little and asked, pointing to some little cakes covered
with the mildew of age:
"How much are these cakes?"
"Two for a farthing."
Yegorushka took out of his pocket the cake given him the day before
by the Jewess, and asked him:
"And how much do you charge for cakes like this?"
The shopman took the cake in his hands, looked at it from all sides,
and raised one eyebrow.
"Like that?" he asked.
Then he raised the other eyebrow, thought a minute, and answered:
"Two for three farthings. . . ."
A silence followed.
"Whose boy are you?" the shopman asked, pouring himself out some
tea from a red copper teapot.
"The nephew of Ivan Ivanitch."
"There are all sorts of Ivan Ivanitchs," the shopkeeper sighed. He
looked over Yegorushka's head towards the door, paused a minute and
asked:
"Would you like some tea?"
"Please. . . ." Yegorushka assented not very readily, though he
felt an intense longing for his usual morning tea.
The shopkeeper poured him out a glass and gave him with it a bit
of sugar that looked as though it had been nibbled. Yegorushka sat
down on the folding chair and began drinking it. He wanted to ask
the price of a pound of sugar almonds, and had just broached the
subject when a customer walked in, and the shopkeeper, leaving his
glass of tea, attended to his business. He led the customer into
the other half, where there was a smell of tar, and was there a
long time discussing something with him. The customer, a man
apparently very obstinate and pig-headed, was continually shaking
his head to signify his disapproval, and retreating towards the
door. The shopkeeper tried to persuade him of something and began
pouring some oats into a big sack for him.
"Do you call those oats?" the customer said gloomily. "Those are
not oats, but chaff. It's a mockery to give that to the hens; enough
to make the hens laugh. . . . No, I will go to Bondarenko."
When Yegorushka went back to the river a small camp fire was smoking
on the bank. The waggoners were cooking their dinner. Styopka was
standing in the smoke, stirring the cauldron with a big notched
spoon. A little on one side Kiruha and Vassya, with eyes reddened
from the smoke, were sitting cleaning the fish. Before them lay the
net covered with slime and water weeds, and on it lay gleaming fish
and crawling crayfish.
Emelyan, who had not long been back from the church, was sitting
beside Panteley, waving his arm and humming just audibly in a husky
voice: "To Thee we sing. . . ." Dymov was moving about by the horses.
When they had finished cleaning them, Kiruha and Vassya put the
fish and the living crayfish together in the pail, rinsed them, and
from the pail poured them all into the boiling water.
"Shall I put in some fat?" asked Styopka, skimming off the froth.
"No need. The fish will make its own gravy," answered Kiruha.
Before taking the cauldron off the fire Styopka scattered into the
water three big handfuls of millet and a spoonful of salt; finally
he tried it, smacked his lips, licked the spoon, and gave a
self-satisfied grunt, which meant that the grain was done.
All except Panteley sat down near the cauldron and set to work with
their spoons.
"You there! Give the little lad a spoon!" Panteley observed sternly.
"I dare say he is hungry too!"
"Ours is peasant fare," sighed Kiruha.
"Peasant fare is welcome, too, when one is hungry."
They gave Yegorushka a spoon. He began eating, not sitting, but
standing close to the cauldron and looking down into it as in a
hole. The grain smelt of fish and fish-scales were mixed up with
the millet. The crayfish could not be hooked out with a spoon, and
the men simply picked them out of the cauldron with their hands;
Vassya did so particularly freely, and wetted his sleeves as well
as his hands in the mess. But yet the stew seemed to Yegorushka
very nice, and reminded him of the crayfish soup which his mother
used to make at home on fast-days. Panteley was sitting apart
munching bread.
"Grandfather, why aren't you eating?" Emelyan asked him.
"I don't eat crayfish. . . . Nasty things," the old man said, and
turned away with disgust.
While they were eating they all talked. From this conversation
Yegorushka gathered that all his new acquaintances, in spite of the
differences of their ages and their characters, had one point in
common which made them all alike: they were all people with a
splendid past and a very poor present. Of their past they all--
every one of them--spoke with enthusiasm; their attitude to the
present was almost one of contempt. The Russian loves recalling
life, but he does not love living. Yegorushka did not yet know that,
and before the stew had been all eaten he firmly believed that the
men sitting round the cauldron were the injured victims of fate.
Panteley told them that in the past, before there were railways,
he used to go with trains of waggons to Moscow and to Nizhni, and
used to earn so much that he did not know what to do with his money;
and what merchants there used to be in those days! what fish! how
cheap everything was! Now the roads were shorter, the merchants
were stingier, the peasants were poorer, the bread was dearer,
everything had shrunk and was on a smaller scale. Emelyan told them
that in old days he had been in the choir in the Lugansky works,
and that he had a remarkable voice and read music splendidly, while
now he had become a peasant and lived on the charity of his brother,
who sent him out with his horses and took half his earnings. Vassya
had once worked in a match factory; Kiruha had been a coachman in
a good family, and had been reckoned the smartest driver of a
three-in-hand in the whole district. Dymov, the son of a well-to-do
peasant, lived at ease, enjoyed himself and had known no trouble
till he was twenty, when his stern harsh father, anxious to train
him to work, and afraid he would be spoiled at home, had sent him
to a carrier's to work as a hired labourer. Styopka was the only
one who said nothing, but from his beardless face it was evident
that his life had been a much better one in the past.
Thinking of his father, Dymov frowned and left off eating. Sullenly
from under his brows he looked round at his companions and his eye
rested upon Yegorushka.
"You heathen, take off your cap," he said rudely. "You can't eat
with your cap on, and you a gentleman too!"
Yegorushka took off his hat and did not say a word, but the stew
lost all savour for him, and he did not hear Panteley and Vassya
intervening on his behalf. A feeling of anger with the insulting
fellow was rankling oppressively in his breast, and he made up his
mind that he would do him some injury, whatever it cost him.
After dinner everyone sauntered to the waggons and lay down in the
shade.
"Are we going to start soon, grandfather?" Yegorushka asked Panteley.
"In God's good time we shall set off. There's no starting yet; it
is too hot. . . . O Lord, Thy will be done. Holy Mother. . . Lie
down, little lad."
Soon there was a sound of snoring from under the waggons. Yegorushka
meant to go back to the village, but on consideration, yawned and
lay down by the old man.