Zhilín and his companion lived thus for a whole month. Their master kept
laughing.
"You, Iván, goot, me, Abdul, goot!"
But he did not feed them well. All he gave them to eat was unsalted
millet bread, baked like pones, or entirely unbaked dough.
Kostylín wrote home a second letter. He was waiting for the money to
come, and felt lonesome. He sat for days at a time in the shed counting
the days before the letter would come, or he slept. But Zhilín knew
that his letter would not reach any one, and so he did not write
another.
"Where," he thought, "is my mother to get so much money? As it is, she
lived mainly by what I sent her. If she should collect five hundred
roubles, she would be ruined in the end. If God grants it, I will manage
to get away from here."
And he watched and thought of how to get away.
He walked through the village and whistled, or he sat down somewhere to
work with his hands, either making a doll from clay, or weaving a fence
from twigs. Zhilín was a great hand at all kinds of such work.
One day he made a doll, with a nose, and hands, and legs, in a Tartar
shirt, and put the doll on the roof. The Tartar maidens were going for
water. His master's daughter, Dina, saw the doll, and she called up the
Tartar girls. They put down their pitchers, and looked, and laughed.
Zhilín took down the doll and gave it to them. They laughed, and did not
dare take it. He left the doll, and went back to the shed to see what
they would do.
Dina ran up, looked around, grasped the doll, and ran away with it.
In the morning, at daybreak, he saw Dina coming out with the doll in
front of the house. The doll was all dressed up in red rags, and she was
rocking the doll and singing to it in her fashion. The old woman came
out. She scolded her, took the doll away from her and broke it, and sent
Dina to work.
Zhilín made another doll, a better one than before, and he gave it to
Dina. One day Dina brought him a small pitcher. She put it down, herself
sat down and looked at him, and laughed, as she pointed to the pitcher.
"What is she so happy about?" thought Zhilín.
He took the pitcher and began to drink. He thought it was water, but,
behold, it was milk. He drank the milk, and said:
"It is good!"
Dina was very happy.
"Good, Iván, good!" and she jumped up, clapped her hands, took away the
pitcher, and ran off.
From that time she brought him milk every day on the sly. The Tartars
make cheese-cakes from goat milk, and dry them on the roofs,--and so she
brought him those cakes also. One day the master killed a sheep, so she
brought him a piece of mutton in her sleeve. She would throw it down and
run away.
One day there was a severe storm, and for an hour the rain fell as
though from a pail. All the streams became turbid. Where there was a
ford, the water was now eight feet deep, and stones were borne down.
Torrents were running everywhere, and there was a roar in the mountains.
When the storm was over, streams were coming down the village in every
direction. Zhilín asked his master to let him have a penknife, and with
it he cut out a small axle and little boards, and made a wheel, and to
each end of the wheel he attached a doll.
The girls brought him pieces of material, and he dressed the dolls: one
a man, the other a woman. He fixed them firmly, and placed the wheel
over a brook. The wheel began to turn, and the dolls to jump.
The whole village gathered around it; boys, girls, women, and men came,
and they clicked with their tongues:
"Ai, Uruss! Ai, Iván!"
Abdul had a Russian watch, but it was broken. He called Zhilín, showed
it to him, and clicked his tongue. Zhilín said:
"Let me have it! I will fix it!"
He took it to pieces with a penknife; then he put it together, and gave
it back to him. The watch was running now.
The master was delighted. He brought his old half-coat,--it was all in
rags,--and made him a present of it. What could he do but take it? He
thought it would be good enough to cover himself with in the night.
After that the rumour went abroad that Zhilín was a great master. They
began to come to him from distant villages: one, to have him fix a
gun-lock or a pistol, another, to set a clock a-going. His master
brought him tools,--pinchers, gimlets, and files.
One day a Tartar became sick: they sent to Zhilín, and said, "Go and
cure him!" Zhilín did not know anything about medicine. He went, took a
look at him, and thought, "Maybe he will get well by himself." He went
to the barn, took some water and sand, and mixed it. In the presence of
the Tartars he said a charm over the water, and gave it to him to drink.
Luckily for him, the Tartar got well.
Zhilín began to understand their language. Some of the Tartars got used
to him. When they needed him, they called, "Iván, Iván!" but others
looked at him awry, as at an animal.
The red Tartar did not like Zhilín. Whenever he saw him, he frowned and
turned away, or called him names. There was also an old man; he did not
live in the village, but came from farther down the mountain. Zhilín saw
him only when he came to the mosque, to pray to God. He was a small man;
his cap was wrapped with a white towel. His beard and moustache were
clipped, and they were as white as down; his face was wrinkled and as
red as a brick. His nose was hooked, like a hawk's beak, and his eyes
were gray and mean-looking; of teeth he had only two tusks. He used to
walk in his turban, leaning on a crutch, and looking around him like a
wolf. Whenever he saw Zhilín, he grunted and turned away.
One day Zhilín went down-hill, to see where the old man was living. He
walked down the road, and saw a little garden, with a stone fence, and
inside the fence were cherry and apricot trees, and stood a hut with a
flat roof. He came closer to it, and he saw beehives woven from straw,
and bees were swarming around and buzzing. The old man was kneeling, and
doing something to a hive. Zhilín got up higher, to get a good look, and
made a noise with his stocks. The old man looked around and shrieked; he
pulled the pistol out from his belt and fired at Zhilín. He had just
time to hide behind a rock.
The old man went to the master to complain about Zhilín. The master
called up Zhilín, and laughed, and asked:
"Why did you go to the old man?"
"I have not done him any harm," he said. "I just wanted to see how he
lives."
The master told the old man that. But the old man was angry, and hissed,
and rattled something off; he showed his teeth and waved his hand
threateningly at Zhilín.
Zhilín did not understand it all; but he understood that the old man was
telling his master to kill all the Russians, and not to keep them in the
village. The old man went away.
Zhilín asked his master what kind of a man that old Tartar was. The
master said:
"He is a big man! He used to be the first dzhigit: he killed a lot of
Russians, and he was rich. He had three wives and eight sons. All of
them lived in the same village. The Russians came, destroyed the
village, and killed seven of his sons. One son was left alive, and he
surrendered himself to the Russians. The old man went and surrendered
himself, too, to the Russians. He stayed with them three months, found
his son there, and killed him, and then he ran away. Since then he has
stopped fighting. He has been to Mecca, to pray to God, and that is why
he wears the turban. He who has been to Mecca is called a Hadji and puts
on a turban. He has no use for you fellows. He tells me to kill you;
but I cannot kill you,--I have paid for you; and then, Iván, I like you.
I not only have no intention of killing you, but I would not let you go
back, if I had not given my word to you." He laughed as he said that,
and added in Russian: "You, Iván, good, me, Abdul, good!"