"Get up! Let's be off!" he said.
Beside him stood the sleepy master of the hut, and the knapsack of
Promtov was bulging out on all sides. We took our leave and departed.
Promtov was merry. He sang, he whistled, and cast ironical sidelong
glances at me. I was thinking what I should say to him and walked by
his side in silence.
"Well! why don't you crucify me?" he suddenly asked.
"And are you aware of what will follow from all this?" I drily inquired.
"Why, of course! I understand you, and I know that you ought to turn
the jest against me. I'll even tell you how you'll do it. Would you
like to hear? But better far--chuck it! What harm is there in putting
ideas into the heads of these muzhiks? They will be none the wiser for
it. And, besides, I've played my game well Look how they've stuffed my
knapsack for me!"
"But you may bring them under the stick!"
"Scarcely.... And what if I did? What have I to do with other folks'
backs. God grant we may keep our own backs whole, that's all! That's
not moral I know, but what do I care whether a thing is moral or not
moral. You'll agree that that's nobody's business."
"Come," thought I, "the wolf's about right."
"Assume that they do suffer through my fault--I suppose the sky will
still be blue and the sea salt."
"But are you not sorry?"
"Not a bit ... I am a rolling stone, and everything which the wind
casts beneath my feet wounds me in the side."
He was serious and intensely wrathful, and his eyes gleamed
vindictively.
"I always do like that and sometimes worse. Once I recommended a
muzhik to drink constantly olive oil mixed with blackbeetles for a
pain in the stomach, because he was a skin-flint. Not a little evil of
a humorous sort have I wrought during my earthly pilgrimage. How many
stupid superstitions and mystifications have I not introduced into
the spiritual parts of the muzhik?... And in general I am never very
particular. Why should I be? For the sake of a few statutes, eh? Are
there not other laws within myself? This, my confession of faith, has
also the sanction of John Chrysostom, who says: 'the true Shekina--is
man.'"
"But why boast of it?"
"That is wrong, eh?--from your point of view. But I, you see, am no
great lover of gentlemanly points of view ... and I assume that if
people lift a stick to me it is my duty to respond with a stick and not
with an obeisance."
As I listened to him I reflected that it would be well for me to
recollect the first Psalm of King David, and depart from the way of
this sinner. But then I wanted to know his history.
I spent three more days with him, and during these three days I became
convinced of much which I had previously only suspected. Thus, for
example, it became quite clear to me in what manner various useless
and ancient objects found their way into Promtov's knapsack, such as
the lower half of a copper candlestick, a chisel, a bit of lace, and a
necklace. I understood that I was running the risk of a flogging and
perhaps of falling into those places which finally receive collectors
similar to Promtov. I should really have to part from him But then, his
story!
And lo! one day when the wind was howling savagely, knocking us off our
legs, and we found ourselves in a haystack sheltering from the cold,
Promtov told me the story of his life.