In winter even the wolves, who are far better adapted for the struggle
for life than our two friends, even the wolves have a bad time of
it. Empty, ravenous, and fierce, they even run about the high-ways,
and though we kill them we fear them. They have claws and teeth for
self-defence, and--the main thing--their hearts are softened by
nothing. This last point is very important, for, in order to triumph
in the struggle for existence, one ought to have much wisdom, or the
heart of a beast.
In the winter the chums also fared ill. Often in the evening they both
went out into the streets of the town and begged for alms, trying at
the same time to escape the notice of the police. Very rarely did they
succeed in stealing anything; it was inexpedient to go into the country
because it was cold, and they left their traces in the snow; besides,
it was fruitless to visit the villages when everything in them was
closed and covered with snow. The comrades lost much strength in the
winter in their struggle with hunger, and possibly there was nobody who
awaited the spring as eagerly as they did.
And behold!--at last spring arrived. The comrades, sick and extenuated,
emerged from their gully and looked joyously at the fields where the
snow thawed more and more rapidly every day; dark-brown patches began
to appear everywhere, the meadows sparkled like mirrors, and the
streams fell a babbling. The sun poured down his unselfish favours
upon the earth, and the two friends warmed themselves in his rays,
calculating at the same time how soon the earth would get dry, and then
they might go and take pot-shots at luck among the villages. Frequently
Hopeful, who suffered from sleeplessness, would awake his friend in the
early morning with a piece of joyous intelligence:
"Hie! get up! the rooks are flying by!"
"Flying by, eh?"
"Yes, listen to their cawing!"
Emerging from their wretched shanty, they watched the black heralds
of the spring carefully building new nests or repairing old ones, and
filling the air with their hoarse and anxious cawing.
"Now it will be the turn of the larks," said Hopeful, setting about
mending his old and much worn bird-net.
And now the larks also appeared. Then the chums went into the fields,
spread their nets on one of the brown thawed patches, and running about
in the moist and muddy fields, drove into the nets the hungry birds,
who, wearied by their long flight, were seeking their food on the grey
earth which had only just freed itself from the snow. On catching the
birds they sold them at a _pyatachek_[1] or a _grivenik_[2] per head.
Then the nettles appeared, which they gathered and carried to the
bazaar for the market-garden huckster women. Nearly every day of the
spring gave them something fresh to do, some fresh if but trifling
bit of work. They could turn everything to some use: osiers, sorrel,
mushrooms, strawberries, fungi--nothing passed through their hands in
vain. Sometimes the soldiers would come out for firing-practice. After
the practice was over the chums would ferret about the earthworks
and fish up the bullets, which they would sell subsequently at twenty
kopecks the pound. All these occupations certainly prevented the chums
from dying of hunger, but very rarely gave them the opportunity of
eating their fill, rarely gave them the pleasant feeling of a full
stomach working warmly away upon hastily swallowed food.
[1] A silver five kopeck piece.
[2] A ten kopeck piece.