One word would lead to another, and soon they would be quarrelling in
real earnest. Masha was hot tempered and would fly at Ilya to scratch
him, but he readily escaped laughing.
One day, while they were playing cards, he saw her cheat, and in his
rage, called at her:
"You--Jashka's darling!" and followed it with an ugly word, whose
significance he understood already. Jakov, who was present, laughed
at first, then seeing his little friend's face contract with pain at
the insult, and her eyes shine with tears, he became pale and dumb.
Suddenly he sprang from his chair, flung himself on Ilya, struck
him on the nose with his fist, grasped him by the hair and threw
him to the ground. It all happened so quickly that Ilya had no time
to defend himself, then he picked himself up and rushed headlong at
Jakov, blind with wrath and pain. "Wait, my boy, I'll teach you," he
shouted furiously. But he saw Jakov with his elbow on the table, crying
bitterly, and Masha beside him saying to him with a voice choked with
tears:
"Let him alone, the beast--the brute--they're a bad lot, his father's
a convict, and his uncle's a hunchback--and a hump'll grow on you too,
you beast," she cried, attacking Ilya quite furiously.
"You beastly dirt-grabber--rag-picker! Come here--just you come here,
and I'll scratch your face for you--you dare touch me!"
Ilya did not stir. He was much distressed at the sight of Jakov crying,
for he had not meant to hurt him, and he was ashamed to scuffle with
a girl--though she was ready enough he could see. Without a word he
left the cellar and paced the courtyard for a long time, his heart
tortured with bitter feelings. At last he went to the window and
looked carefully in from above. Jakov was playing cards again with his
friend, Masha, the lower part of her face concealed with her cards held
fanwise, seemed to be laughing, while Jakov looked at his cards and
touched first one then the other. Ilya's heart was heavy. He walked up
and down a while longer, then boldly and decidedly went back to the
cellar.
"Let me come in again," he said, going up to the table.
His heart thumped, his face burned and his eyes were downcast. Jakov
and Masha said nothing.
"I'll never insult you so again, by God, I won't any more," he went on,
and looked at them.
"Well, sit down then--you!" said Masha, and Jakov added:
"Silly! You're big enough now to know what you're saying."
"No no, we're all little--just children," Masha put in, and struck the
table with her fist, "and that's why we don't need any low words."
"You gave me a jolly good licking, all the same," said Ilya to Jakov
reproachfully.
"You deserved it, don't complain!" said Masha, sententiously, and with
a darkened face.
"All right--all right I'm not angry, it was my fault," and Ilya smiled
at Petrusha's son. "We'll make it up, shall we?"
"All right, take your cards."
"You wild devil!" said Masha.
And with that peace was made. A moment later, Ilya was deep in the
game, thoughtfully wrinkling his brow. He always arranged to play next
to Masha; he disliked her to lose, and thought of little else all
through the game. But the child played quite cleverly, and generally it
was Jakov who lost.
"Oh you goggle eyes!" Masha would say, pityingly, "You've lost again."
"Devil take the cards!" answered Jakov, "it's jolly dull, nothing but
playing cards. Let's read some more Kamtchadalky."
They got out a torn and dirty book and read the sorrowful history of
the amorous and unfortunate Kamtchadalky.
When Pashka saw the three children amuse themselves so pleasantly, he
used to say in the tone of a world explorer:
"You lead a pleasant life here, you cunning ones."
Then he would look at Jakov and Masha and smile, then add seriously:
"Go on all the same! and later on you can marry Masha, eh Jakov?"
"Silly," Masha would say, laughing, and then they all four laughed
together.
Pashka was generally with them. If they had finished a book or if there
was a pause in the reading, he would relate his experiences, and his
tales were no less interesting than the books.
"When I found, lads, that I couldn't travel easily without a passport,
I had to be very cunning. When I saw a policeman, I used to walk
faster, as if some one had sent me on an errand, or I'd get up
alongside the nearest grown up person, as if he was my master or my
father, or some one; the policeman would look at me and let me go on,
he didn't notice anything.
"It was jolly in the villages. They don't have policemen, only old men,
and old women and children, peasants that work on the fields. If any
one asks me who I am, I say a beggar; whom I do belong to? No one, got
no relations. Where do I come from? From the town. That's all. They'd
give me things to eat and drink--good things. And then you can go where
you like, can run as fast as you like or crawl if you want to. And the
fields and the woods are everywhere, the larks sing, you feel as if you
could fly up with them. When you're full, then you don't want anything
else; feel as if you could go to the end of the world. It's just as
if someone was coaxing you on, like a mother with a child. But lots
of times I've been jolly hungry. Oho! and my stomach wasted inside,
it was so dried up. I could have eaten the dirt, my head was giddy;
but then if I got a bit of bread and got my teeth in it--ah--aah--that
was good--I could have eaten all day and all night. That was something
like! All the same I was glad when I got into prison. At first I was
frightened, but soon I was quite pleased.
"I was always so frightened of the police. I thought when they first
got hold of me and began to cuff me, they'd kill me. But what d'you
think it was like really? He just came softly behind and nipped me by
the collar--snap!--I was looking at the watches in a jeweller's window.
Oh, such a lot. Gold ones and others. All at once--snap! I began to
howl, and he says quite friendly, 'who are you? Where do you come
from?' So I just told him--they found it out, they know everything.
'Where do you want to go?' they ask you then. I said 'I'm wandering
about'--they laughed. Then I went to gaol. They all laughed there, and
then the young gentlemen took me--they were devils if you like--oho!"
Pashka never spoke of the "gentlemen" without interjections--evidently
they had made a deep impression on him, though their aspect had become
vague in his memory like a big, dark spot. Pashka remained a month with
the cobbler, then disappeared again. Later on Perfishka found out that
he had entered a printing works as an apprentice and was living in a
distant quarter of the town. When Ilya heard it he was filled with envy
and said to Jakov with a sigh:
"And we two have got to stay rotting here!"