"That's right, now we know where we are! And now I'll ask you how you
came to fall into these paths. Was it through a weakness for vodka, eh?"
"It was from disgust of life."
"That's possible, too. Do you know that publication of the Senate,
entitled: Judicial Investigations?"
"Yes."
"Is your name also printed there?"
At that time I had had nothing printed about me, and so I told him.
"I also am not in print."
"But have you done anything?"
"Everything is in God's hands."
"But you are a merry fellow, apparently?"
"What's the good of grizzling?"
"Not everyone in your situation would talk like that..." I doubted the
sincerity of his words.
"The situation ... is damp and cold, but then you see it will be quite
different at dawn of day. The sun will come out, and then we shall
creep out of this, have some tea, eat and drink, and warm ourselves.
That won't be bad, eh?"
"Very good!" I admitted.
"So there, you see, every evil has its good side."
"And every good thing its evil side."
"Amen!" exclaimed Promtov with the voice of a deacon.
God knows he was a merry comrade enough. I regretted that I could not
see his face, which, judging from the rich intonation of his voice,
must have shown a very expressive play of feature. We talked about
trifles for a long time, concealing from each other our mutual desire
to be more closely acquainted, and I was inwardly lost in admiration
at the dexterity with which he inveigled me into blabbing about myself
while he kept his own counsel.
While we were quietly conversing the rain ceased, and the darkness
began to melt away; already in the East a rosy strip of dawn was
glowing with a vivid radiance. Simultaneously with the dawn the
freshness of morning made itself felt--that freshness which is so
stimulatingly pleasant when it meets a man dressed in warm and dry
clothes.
"I wonder if we could find anything here for a fire--dry twigs for
instance?" inquired Promtov.
Crawling on the floor we searched and searched, but could find nothing.
Then we decided to drag out one of the boards not very firmly fixed
in its place. We pulled it out and converted it into firewood. After
that Promtov proposed that we should, if possible, bore a hole in the
floor of the magazine in order to get some rye grain--for if rye grain
is boiled it makes a very good dish. I protested, observing that it was
not proper--for thereby we should waste some hundred-weights of grain
for the sake of a pound or two.
"And what business is that of yours?" asked Promtov.
"I have heard that one must respect the property of others."
"That, my dear boy, is only necessary when the property is your own
... and it is only necessary then because your property is not other
people's property...."
I was silent, but I reflected that this man must have extremely
liberal views with regard to property, and that the pleasure of his
acquaintance might, conceivably, have its drawbacks.
Soon the sun appeared, bright and cheerful. Blue patches of sky looked
out from the broken clouds which were sailing slowly and wearily
towards the north. Drops of rain were sparkling everywhere. Promtov and
I crept out of the magazine and entered the fields, amidst the bristles
of the mown corn, towards the green crooked ribbon of a village far
away from us.
"There's a stream," said my acquaintance.
I looked at him, and thought that he must be about forty, and that life
was no joke for him. His dark blue eyes, deeply sunken in their orbits,
glistened calmly and confidently, and whenever he screwed them up a
bit his face assumed a cunning and cruel expression. In his steady and
combative gait, in the leather knapsack adroitly slung across his back,
in his whole figure there could be detected the passion for a vagabond
life, lupine experience and vulpine craft.
"We'll go along together, then," said he; "straight across the stream,
five miles off, is the village of Mauzhelyeya, and from thence the
straight road to New Prague. Around this little place live Stundists,
Baptists, and other mystical muzhiks.... They'll feed us finely if we
set about amusing them properly. But not a word about the Scriptures
with them. They are at home, as it were, in the Scriptures...."
We chose us a place not far from a group of poplars, selected some
stones, numbers of which had been cast upon the shore by the little
stream, all turbid with the rain, and on the stones laid our fire. Two
versts away from us, on rising ground, stood the village, and on the
straw of its roofs shone the rosy glow of dawn. The walls of the white
huts were hidden by the sharp pyramids of the poplars coloured by the
tints of autumn and the rising sun. The poplars were enveloped by the
grey smoke from the chimneys, which darkened the orange and purple hues
of the foliage and the patches of fresh blue sky between it.
"I'm going to bathe," observed Promtov; "that is indispensable after
so wretched a night. I advise you to do the same. And while we are
refreshing ourselves the tea can be boiling. You know we ought to see
to it that our nature should always be clean and fresh."
So saying he began to undress. His body was the body of a gentleman,
beautifully shaped, with well-developed muscles. And when I saw
him--naked, his dirty rags, which he had cast from him, seemed to me
doubly filthy and disgusting--they had never seemed so bad till then.
After ducking in the bubbling water of the stream we leaped upon the
shore all tremulous and blue with cold, and hastily put on our clothes,
which had been warming by the fire. Then we sat down by the fire to
drink our tea.
Promtov had an iron pipkin, he poured scalding tea into it, and
handed it to me first. But the Devil, who is always ready to mock a
man, seized me by one of the lying chords of my heart, and I observed
magnanimously:
"Thank you, you drink first, I'll wait."
I said this with the firm conviction that Promtov would infallibly vie
with me in affability and politeness if I thus offered to surrender
to him the first drink of tea, but he simply said: "Very well, then!"
--and put the pipkin to his mouth.
I turned aside and began to gaze steadily at the desolate steppe,
wishing to convince Promtov that I did not see how venomously his dark
eyes were laughing at me. And he, while he sipped his tea, chewed his
bread deliberately, smacked his lips with gusto, and did it all with a
deliberation that was torture to me. My vitals were already shivering
with cold, and I was ready to pour the boiling water in the kettle down
my throat.
"Well," laughed Promtov, "it's not very profitable to do the polite, is
it now?"
"Alas, no!" I said,
"Well, that's all right! You'll learn to know better in time.... Why
yield to another what is profitable or pleasant to yourself?--that's
what I say. They say all men are brethren, yet nobody has ever
attempted to prove it by any system of measurement...."
"Is that really your opinion?"
"And why pray shouldn't I speak as I think?"
"Well, you know that a man always tries to brag a little bit whatever
he may be..."
"I know not why I should have inspired you with such a distrust of me,"
and this wolf shrugged his shoulders--"I suppose it is because I gave
you some bread and tea? I did this not from any brotherly feeling, but
out of curiosity. I see a man not in his proper place and I want to
know how and by what means he was chucked out of life...."
"And I, too, wanted to know the same thing. Tell me who and what you
are?" I asked.
He looked searchingly at me and said, after a moment's silence: "A man
never knows exactly who he is. One must be always asking him what he
takes himself for."
"Weill, take it like that."
"Well ... I think I am a man who has no room in life. Life is narrow
and I--am broad. Possibly this may not be true. But in this world
there is a peculiar sort of people who must be descendants of the
Wandering Jew. Their peculiarity is that they can never find a place
for themselves in the world to which they can stick fast. Inside them
lives an unruly aching desire for something new. The small fry of this
order of men are never able to work things out to their liking, and
for that reason are always discontented and unhappy, while the big
fish are never satisfied with anything--whether it be women, money, or
honour. Such people are not beloved in this life--they are audacious
and unendurable. You see, the majority of people are sixpences in
current coin, and all the difference between them is the date when they
were struck off. This one is worn out, that one is quite new; but their
value is the same, their substance is of the same sort, and in every
respect they are absolutely similar. Now I am not of these sixpences
... although perhaps I may be a half-sovereign.... That is all."
He said all this smiling sceptically, and it seemed to me that he did
not believe himself. But he excited in me an eager curiosity, and I
resolved to go with him till I discovered who he was. It was plain
that he was a so-called "intelligent person." There are many of them
among the vagabonds, but they are all--dead people, people who have
lost all self-respect, who lack the capacity of esteeming themselves,
and only manage to live by falling lower every day into filth and
nastiness; finally, they dissolve in it and disappear from life.
But there was something substantial and durable about Promtov. And he
did not grumble at life as all the others do.
"Well, shall we go on?" he proposed.
"By all means."
We rose from the ground warmed by tea and sunshine, and descended the
bank to the current of the stream.
"And how do you manage to get food?" I asked Promtov ... "do you work?"
"Wo-o-rk? No, I am no great lover of that."
"But how then do you manage?"
"You shall see."
He was silent. Presently, after walking a few steps, he began whistling
through his teeth some merry song. His eyes keenly and confidently
swept the steppe, and he walked firmly like a man sure of his object.
I looked at him, and the desire to know with whom I had to deal burnt
still more strongly within me.
The steppe surrounded us, desolate and quiet; above us shone the
friendly sun of the south; we breathed with all our lungs the pure
stimulating air, and went along in the direction where fragments of
clouds jostled one another in a chaos of shapes and colours.
When we came to the street of the village--a little dog from somewhere
or other bounded under our very feet, and barking loudly began to
turn round and round us. Every time we looked at her, she bounded to
one side, like a ball, with a terrified yelp, and again fell upon us
barking furiously. Some of her friends then ran out, but they did not
distinguish themselves by equal zeal, for after giving a bark or two
they retired to some hiding-place. Their indifference seemed, however,
to excite still more our little reddish doggie.
"Do you see what a mean nature that dog has?" observed Promtov,
shaking his head at the zealous little dog. "And it is all lies too.
She knows very well that barking is not necessary here, and she is
not spiteful--she is a coward, and only wants to show off before her
master. The little devil is purely human, and without doubt she has
been educated into it.... People spoil their beasts. The time will soon
come when beasts will be as abject and insincere as you and me...."
"Thank you," I said.
"Don't mention it. However, now I must take aim."
His expressive countenance now put on a pitiful mien, his eyes grew
foolish, he became all bent and crooked, and his rags stood up
straight like the fins of a chub.
"We must turn to our neighbour and ask for bread," he said by way of
explaining to me his transformation, and he began to look keenly at the
windows of the cottages. At the window of one of the cottages stood a
woman suckling a child. Promtov did obeisance to her, and said in a
supplicating tone:
"My sister, give bread to pilgrim folk!"
"Be not angry!" replied the woman, measuring us with suspicious eyes.
"May your breasts grow dry, then, daughter of a dog!" was the
valediction my fellow-traveller sourly threw her.
The woman screamed like one who has been stung, and rushed out to us.
"Oh, you, you...." she began.
Promtov, without moving from the spot, looked her straight in the face
with his black eyes, and their expression was savage and malevolent....
The woman grew pale, trembled, and murmuring something, quickly entered
the hut.
"Let us go," I proposed to Promtov.
"No, we'll wait till she brings out the bread."
"She'll bring out the men upon us with pitchforks."
"A lot you know!" observed this wolf with a sceptical smile.
He was right. The woman appeared before us, holding in her hands half
a loaf of bread and a solid bit of fat. Bowing low and silently to
Promtov, she said to him with the tone of a suppliant:
"Pray take it, oh, man of God! be not angry!"
"God deliver thee from the evil eye, from sorcery, and from the ague!"
was the unctuous farewell with which Promtov parted from her, and so we
went on our way.
"Listen now!" said I, when we were already a good way from the cottage,
"what an odd way of begging alms you have--to say no more."
"It's the best way. If you fix your eyes upon the woman for a little,
she takes you for a sorcerer, grows scared, and will not only give you
bread but the whole concern if necessary. Why should I beg and pray and
lower myself before her when I can command? I have always thought that
it is better to take than to beg ... but if you cannot take, you must
beg, I suppose...."
"And has it never happened that instead of bread you sometimes...."
"Got one for myself, eh? No. Trust to me for that! My dear brother, let
me tell you that I have got a magic little bit of paper, and I've only
got to show it to a muzhik,[2] and he is instantly my slave. Would you
like me to show it to you?"
I held in my hands a pretty dirty and crumpled piece of paper, and
perceived that it was a transit certificate issued to Pavel Ignat'ev
Promtov by the administrative authorities of Petersburg, permitting him
to journey from Astrakhan to Nikolaiev. The paper bore the seal of the
Astrakhan police-office, with the corresponding signatures--all quite
regular.
[2] Peasant.
"I don't understand," I said, returning this document into the hands of
its proprietor. "How is it you are starting from Astrakhan, when your
point of departure was St. Petersburg?"
He smiled, his whole face expressed the consciousness of his
superiority over me.
"Look now, it's quite simple. Think it out. They sent me from
Petersburg, and in sending me invited me to choose, for certain
reasons, my place of residence Say I choose Kursk, for example. Well,
I appear at Kursk, and go to the police-station. I have the honour to
present myself there. The Kursk police cannot welcome me amiably--they
have their own little brothers there--and are full up. They assume
that they have before them a sharper, and a clever sharper too; if
they cannot rid themselves of him forcibly with the assistance of the
statutes, they must have recourse to administrative measures in order
to get shot of him. And they are always glad to send me packing--even
if they plunge me into fresh misery. Perceiving their embarrassment I
humanely come to their assistance. Well, well, I say, I had already
chosen my place of residence, but perhaps you would like me to choose
it over again? They are only too glad to get quit of me. I say, too,
that I am ready to withdraw myself from the sphere of their duty,
which is to preserve the inviolability of person and property, but as
a reward for my amiability they must give me some provision for the
road. They give me five roubles or ten, a little more or less, as the
case may be, having regard to my temperament and character--and they
always give gladly. It is always better to lose a fiver than to saddle
themselves with grave inconvenience in my person--isn't it?"
"Possibly," I said.
"It is really so. And they provide me besides with a little piece of
paper in no way resembling a passport. It is in its difference from a
passport that the magic power of this little piece of paper consists.
On it is written, 'ad-min-is-tra-tive-ly sent from Pet-ers-burg!' Oh!
I show this to the starosta[3] who, generally, is as dull as a clod,
and devil a bit of it does he understand. He fears it--there is a seal
upon it. I say to him--on the strength of this bit of paper--you are
bound to give me a night's lodging! He gives it to me. You are bound
to feed me! He feeds me. He cannot do otherwise, for on the paper is
inscribed--from St Petersburg administratively. What's the meaning of
this 'administratively'?--the deuce only knows. It may mean: sent on a
secret mission for investigating the condition of the coast industries,
or inquiring as to the issue of false coin, or preventing illicit
distilling, or carrying out the sale of contraband goods. Or it may
imply an inquiry whether the people properly attend the services of the
Orthodox Church as prescribed. Or possibly it has something to do with
the land. Who can decide what 'administratively from Petersburg' means?
Possibly I may be someone in disguise. The muzhik is stupid, what can
he understand?"
[3] Village elder.
"Yes, he does not understand much," I observed.
"And a very good thing too!" declared Promtov with lively satisfaction.
"Such he is and ought to be, and such as he is, and only so, he is
indispensable to us all like the very air. For what is the muzhik?
The muzhik is for us all the means of nutriment, that is to say, he
is an edible creature. Look at me for instance! Would it be possible
for me to exist upon this earth but for the muzhik? Four things are
indispensable for the existence of man: the sun, water, air, and the
muzhik.
"And the land?"
"Granted the muzhik--and you have the land as well. You have but to
command him. Hie, you there! create the land, and there the land will
be. He cannot disobey."
This merry vagrant loved talking! We had long since passed the village,
left behind us many farms, and once more another village stood before
us, submerged in the orange foliage of autumn. Promtov chattered
on--as merrily as a finch--and I listened to him, and thought about
the muzhik and this new kind of parasite, unknown to me before,
participating in the illusory prosperity of the muzhik.... When will
the muzhik be well repaid for all the evil with which he has been so
liberally requited? Here, alongside of me, marched the product of town
life--a cynical and sensible vagrant, living on the vital juices of
this poor muzhik, a wolf fully conscious of his lupine strength.
"Listen now"--a circumstance had suddenly occurred to me--"we meet
under conditions which induce me strongly to doubt the efficacy of your
bit of paper--how do you explain it?"
"Aye, aye!" laughed Promtov, "very simply. I had already passed through
that place, and it is not always convenient to bring yourself back to
people's recollection as you know."
His candour pleased me. Candour is always a good quality, and it is
a great pity that it is so rarely to be met with among respectable
people. And I listened attentively to the random chatter of my comrade,
trying to make up my mind whether the picture he drew of himself was
the real one.
"Here is a village in front of us! If you like I will show you the
power of my bit of paper--what do you say?" proposed Promtov.
I objected to the experiment, proposing instead that he should tell me
how he had really earned this piece of paper.
"Well, that is a long, long story," said he, waving his hand. "But I'll
tell you--one day. Meantime let us rest and have a snack. We have an
ample store of food, which means that it is not necessary at present to
go into the village and trouble our neighbour."
Quitting the road, we sat down on the ground and began to eat. Then,
made lazy by the warm beams of the sun and the breath of the soft wind
of the steppe, we lay down and slept.... When we awoke, the sun purple
and large was already on the horizon, and on the steppe the mists of
the southern evening were encamping.
"Now you shall see," declared Promtov. "Fate is content that we should
pass the night in that little village."
"Let us go while there is still light," I proposed.
"Don't be afraid. To-night we shall have a roof above our heads."
He was right. At the first hut at which we knocked and asked for a
night's lodging we were hospitably invited to come in.
The "guid man" of the hut, a big, good-natured fellow, had just come
in from the fields where he had been ploughing, his "guid wife" was
making supper ready. Four grimy little children, huddled into a heap
in a corner of the room, peeped out at us from thence with timid,
inquisitive eyes. The buxom housewife bustled about from the hut to
the outhouse swiftly and silently, bringing bread and water-melons
and milk. The master of the house sat down on a bench opposite to
us rubbing his stomach with an air of concentration, and fixing
penetrating glances upon us. Presently the usual question came from him:
"Where are you going?"
"We're going, dear man, from sea to sea, to the city of Kiev," replied
Promtov cheerfully in the words of the old cradle song.
"What is there to be seen at Kiev?" inquired the "guid man"
meditatively.
"The holy relics."
The "guid man" looked at Promtov in silence and spat. Then after a
pause he asked:
"And from whence do you come?"
"I from Petersburg, he from Moscow," answered Promtov.
"All that way?"--the "guid man" raised his brows. "And what's
Petersburg like? Folks say that it is built upon the sea and that it is
often under water."[4]
Here the door opened and two other _khokhli_[5] came in.
"We want a word with you, Michael," said one of them.
"What have you got to say to me?"
"It's this--who are these people?"
[4] The peasant uses the Ruthenian dialect, the effect of which is lost
in a translation.
[5] "Tuft-headed," the name given to the Little Russians by the Great
Russians, from their mode of wearing their hair.
"These?" asked our host, nodding his head at us.
"Yes."
Our host was silent and thoughtful, he scratched his head a bit.
"I should like to know myself," he explained.
"Maybe you are pilgrims?" they inquired of us.
"Yes!" replied Promtov.
A long silence prevailed, in the course of which the three _khokhli_
regarded us doggedly, suspiciously, and inquisitively. At last they
all sat down to table and began, with loud crunching, to consume the
crimson water-melons.
"Maybe one of you is a scholar?" said one of the _khokhli,_ turning
towards Promtov.
"Both!" curtly replied Promtov
"Then perchance you know what a man ought to do when his backbone
smarts and itches to that degree that he cannot sleep o' nights?"
"We do know," replied Promtov.
"What?"
Promtov went on chewing his bread for a long time, dried his hands on
his rags, then pensively regarded the ceiling and, at last, observed
decisively and even severely:
"Break up a loaf and get your old woman at night to rub your spine with
the crummy part, and afterwards anoint it with hemp-oil and fat ...
that's all!"
"What will come of it?" inquired the _khokhol_.[6]
[6] Singular of khokhli.
"Nothing," and Promtov shrugged his shoulders.
"Nothing."
"Why should anything come of it?"
"Yet it's a good remedy?"
"Yes, it's a good remedy."
"I'll try it. Thanks!"
"To your good health!" said Promtov perfectly seriously.
There was a long silence amidst the crunching of the water-melons and
the whispering of the children.
"Hark ye," began the owner of the hut, "maybe you have heard all about
it at Moscow--I mean about Siberia--is it possible to settle there or
not? Our district magistrate said--but no doubt he lies--that it is
quite impossible!"
"Impossible!" observed Promtov with an air of astonishment.
The _khokhli_ glanced at each other, and the master of the house
murmured in his beard: "May a toad crawl into his stomach!"
"Impossible!" repeated Promtov, and suddenly his face glowed with
enthusiasm; "it is impossible, but why go to Siberia at all when there
is so much land everywhere--as much as you please?"
"Well, truly there's enough for the dead and to spare--but it is the
living who stand in need of it," remarked one of the _khokhli_ sadly.
"In Petersburg it has been decided," continued Promtov triumphantly,
"to take all the land belonging to the gentry and the peasantry and
make crown property of it."
The _khokhli_ looked at him with wild wide-open eyes and were silent
Promtov regarded them severely and asked:
"Yes, make crown property of it--and do you know why?"
The silence assumed an intense character, and the poor _khokhli,_
apparently, were almost bursting with anxiety and expectation. I looked
at them, and was scarce able to restrain the anger excited in me by the
practical joke which Promtov was thus malting at the poor creatures'
expense. But to have betrayed his audacious falsehood to them would
have meant a whacking for him, so I held my peace, overwhelmed by this
foolish dilemma.
"Speak out, good man, and tell us!" asked one of the _khokhli_ quietly
and timidly, with a stifled voice.
"They are going to take away the land in order to redistribute it
more fairly among the peasants. It has been decided there"--here
Promtov waved his hand vaguely to one side--"that the true owner of
the land is the peasant, and so it has been ordered that there shall
be no emigration to Siberia, but people are to wait till the land is
divided...."
One of the _khokhli_ let his slice of melon fall out of his mouth in
his excitement. All of them looked intently at Promtov's mouth with
greedy eyes and were silent, being much impressed by the strange
intelligence. And then--a few seconds afterwards--four expressions were
heard almost simultaneously:
"Most holy mother!"--from the woman almost hysterically.
"But ... maybe you are lying!"
"Nay, but tell us more, good man!"
"Ah, that's why we have had such bright dawns and sunsets!" exclaimed
the _khokhol_ whose backbone had ached, with conviction.
"It is only a rumour," said I. "No doubt all this sounds very much like
falsehood...."
Promtov regarded me with genuine amazement and exclaimed fiercely:
"What rumour? What lies? What do you mean?"
And there poured from his lips the melody of a most audacious
falsehood--sweet music for all who were listening to him except
myself. He liked the fun of spinning yarns. The _khokhli,_ whom he
wanted to persuade, were ready to jump into his mouth. But it was
abominable to me to listen to his inspired falsehoods, which might
very well result in bringing down a great misfortune upon the heads
of these simple-minded folks. I left the hut and lay down in the
courtyard thinking how best I could spoil the villainous game of my
travelling-companion. His voice sounded for a long time in my ears, and
then I fell asleep.