'Listen, old man,' I said, touching him on the shoulder; 'do me a
kindness, help me.'
'Go on, in God's name! I am tired; I have driven into the town,' he
said, and drew his cloak over his head.
'But pray do me a kindness,' I said. 'I ... I will pay for it.' 'I
don't want your money.'
'But please, old man.'
He half raised himself and sat up, crossing his little legs.
'I could take you perhaps to the clearing. Some merchants have bought
the forest here--God be their judge! They are cutting down the forest,
and they have built a counting-house there--God be their judge! You
might order an axle of them there, or buy one ready made.'
'Splendid!' I cried delighted; 'splendid! let us go.'
'An oak axle, a good one,' he continued, not getting up from his place.
'And is it far to this clearing?'
'Three miles.'
'Come, then! we can drive there in your trap.'
'Oh, no....'
'Come, let us go,' I said; 'let us go, old man! The coachman is waiting
for us in the road.'
The old man rose unwillingly and followed me into the street. We found
my coachman in an irritable frame of mind; he had tried to water his
horses, but the water in the well, it appeared, was scanty in quantity
and bad in taste, and water is the first consideration with
coachmen.... However, he grinned at the sight of the old man, nodded
his head and cried: 'Hallo! Kassyanushka! good health to you!'
'Good health to you, Erofay, upright man!' replied Kassyan in a
dejected voice.
I at once made known his suggestion to the coachman; Erofay expressed
his approval of it and drove into the yard. While he was busy
deliberately unharnessing the horses, the old man stood leaning with
his shoulders against the gate, and looking disconsolately first at him
and then at me. He seemed in some uncertainty of mind; he was not very
pleased, as it seemed to me, at our sudden visit.
'So they have transported you too?' Erofay asked him suddenly, lifting
the wooden arch of the harness.
'Yes.'
'Ugh!' said my coachman between his teeth. 'You know Martin the
carpenter.... Of course, you know Martin of Ryaby?'
'Yes.'
'Well, he is dead. We have just met his coffin.'
Kassyan shuddered.
'Dead?' he said, and his head sank dejectedly.
'Yes, he is dead. Why didn't you cure him, eh? You know they say you
cure folks; you're a doctor.'
My coachman was apparently laughing and jeering at the old man.
'And is this your trap, pray?' he added, with a shrug of his shoulders
in its direction.
'Yes.'
'Well, a trap ... a fine trap!' he repeated, and taking it by the
shafts almost turned it completely upside down. 'A trap!... But what
will you drive in it to the clearing?... You can't harness our horses
in these shafts; our horses are all too big.'
'I don't know,' replied Kassyan, 'what you are going to drive; that
beast perhaps,' he added with a sigh.
'That?' broke in Erofay, and going up to Kassyan's nag, he tapped it
disparagingly on the back with the third finger of his right hand.
'See,' he added contemptuously, 'it's asleep, the scare-crow!'
I asked Erofay to harness it as quickly as he could. I wanted to drive
myself with Kassyan to the clearing; grouse are fond of such places.
When the little cart was quite ready, and I, together with my dog, had
been installed in the warped wicker body of it, and Kassyan huddled up
into a little ball, with still the same dejected expression on his
face, had taken his seat in front, Erofay came up to me and whispered
with an air of mystery:
'You did well, your honour, to drive with him. He is such a queer
fellow; he's cracked, you know, and his nickname is the Flea. I don't
know how you managed to make him out....'
I tried to say to Erofay that so far Kassyan had seemed to me a very
sensible man; but my coachman continued at once in the same voice:
'But you keep a look-out where he is driving you to. And, your honour,
be pleased to choose the axle yourself; be pleased to choose a sound
one.... Well, Flea,' he added aloud, 'could I get a bit of bread in
your house?'
'Look about; you may find some,' answered Kassyan. He pulled the reins
and we rolled away.
His little horse, to my genuine astonishment, did not go badly. Kassyan
preserved an obstinate silence the whole way, and made abrupt and
unwilling answers to my questions. We quickly reached the clearing, and
then made our way to the counting-house, a lofty cottage, standing by
itself over a small gully, which had been dammed up and converted into
a pool. In this counting-house I found two young merchants' clerks,
with snow-white teeth, sweet and soft eyes, sweet and subtle words, and
sweet and wily smiles. I bought an axle of them and returned to the
clearing. I thought that Kassyan would stay with the horse and await my
return; but he suddenly came up to me.
'Are you going to shoot birds, eh?' he said.
'Yes, if I come across any.'
'I will come with you.... Can I?'
'Certainly, certainly.'
So we went together. The land cleared was about a mile in length. I
must confess I watched Kassyan more than my dogs. He had been aptly
called 'Flea.' His little black uncovered head (though his hair,
indeed, was as good a covering as any cap) seemed to flash hither and
thither among the bushes. He walked extraordinarily swiftly, and seemed
always hopping up and down as he moved; he was for ever stooping down
to pick herbs of some kind, thrusting them into his bosom, muttering to
himself, and constantly looking at me and my dog with such a strange
searching gaze. Among low bushes and in clearings there are often
little grey birds which constantly flit from tree to tree, and which
whistle as they dart away. Kassyan mimicked them, answered their calls;
a young quail flew from between his feet, chirruping, and he chirruped
in imitation of him; a lark began to fly down above him, moving his
wings and singing melodiously: Kassyan joined in his song. He did not
speak to me at all....
The weather was glorious, even more so than before; but the heat was no
less. Over the clear sky the high thin clouds were hardly stirred,
yellowish-white, like snow lying late in spring, flat and drawn out
like rolled-up sails. Slowly but perceptibly their fringed edges, soft
and fluffy as cotton-wool, changed at every moment; they were melting
away, even these clouds, and no shadow fell from them. I strolled about
the clearing for a long while with Kassyan. Young shoots, which had not
yet had time to grow more than a yard high, surrounded the low
blackened stumps with their smooth slender stems; and spongy funguses
with grey edges--the same of which they make tinder--clung to these;
strawberry plants flung their rosy tendrils over them; mushrooms
squatted close in groups. The feet were constantly caught and entangled
in the long grass, that was parched in the scorching sun; the eyes were
dazzled on all sides by the glaring metallic glitter on the young
reddish leaves of the trees; on all sides were the variegated blue
clusters of vetch, the golden cups of bloodwort, and the half-lilac,
half-yellow blossoms of the heart's-ease. In some places near the
disused paths, on which the tracks of wheels were marked by streaks on
the fine bright grass, rose piles of wood, blackened by wind and rain,
laid in yard-lengths; there was a faint shadow cast from them in
slanting oblongs; there was no other shade anywhere. A light breeze
rose, then sank again; suddenly it would blow straight in the face and
seem to be rising; everything would begin to rustle merrily, to nod, to
shake around one; the supple tops of the ferns bow down gracefully, and
one rejoices in it, but at once it dies away again, and all is at rest
once more. Only the grasshoppers chirrup in chorus with frenzied
energy, and wearisome is this unceasing, sharp dry sound. It is in
keeping with the persistent heat of mid-day; it seems akin to it, as
though evoked by it out of the glowing earth.
Without having started one single covey we at last reached another
clearing. There the aspen-trees had only lately been felled, and lay
stretched mournfully on the ground, crushing the grass and small
undergrowth below them: on some the leaves were still green, though
they were already dead, and hung limply from the motionless branches;
on others they were crumpled and dried up. Fresh golden-white chips lay
in heaps round the stumps that were covered with bright drops; a
peculiar, very pleasant, pungent odour rose from them. Farther away,
nearer the wood, sounded the dull blows of the axe, and from time to
time, bowing and spreading wide its arms, a bushy tree fell slowly and
majestically to the ground.
For a long time I did not come upon a single bird; at last a corncrake
flew out of a thick clump of young oak across the wormwood springing up
round it. I fired; it turned over in the air and fell. At the sound of
the shot, Kassyan quickly covered his eyes with his hand, and he did
not stir till I had reloaded the gun and picked up the bird. When I had
moved farther on, he went up to the place where the wounded bird had
fallen, bent down to the grass, on which some drops of blood were
sprinkled, shook his head, and looked in dismay at me.... I heard him
afterwards whispering: 'A sin!... Ah, yes, it's a sin!'
The heat forced us at last to go into the wood. I flung myself down
under a high nut-bush, over which a slender young maple gracefully
stretched its light branches. Kassyan sat down on the thick trunk of a
felled birch-tree. I looked at him. The leaves faintly stirred
overhead, and their thin greenish shadows crept softly to and fro over
his feeble body, muffled in a dark coat, and over his little face. He
did not lift his head. Bored by his silence, I lay on my back and began
to admire the tranquil play of the tangled foliage on the background of
the bright, far away sky. A marvellously sweet occupation it is to lie
on one's back in a wood and gaze upwards! You may fancy you are looking
into a bottomless sea; that it stretches wide below you; that the trees
are not rising out of the earth, but, like the roots of gigantic weeds,
are dropping--falling straight down into those glassy, limpid depths;
the leaves on the trees are at one moment transparent as emeralds, the
next, they condense into golden, almost black green. Somewhere, afar
off, at the end of a slender twig, a single leaf hangs motionless
against the blue patch of transparent sky, and beside it another
trembles with the motion of a fish on the line, as though moving of its
own will, not shaken by the wind. Round white clouds float calmly
across, and calmly pass away like submarine islands; and suddenly, all
this ocean, this shining ether, these branches and leaves steeped in
sunlight--all is rippling, quivering in fleeting brilliance, and a
fresh trembling whisper awakens like the tiny, incessant plash of
suddenly stirred eddies. One does not move--one looks, and no word can
tell what peace, what joy, what sweetness reigns in the heart. One
looks: the deep, pure blue stirs on one's lips a smile, innocent as
itself; like the clouds over the sky, and, as it were, with them, happy
memories pass in slow procession over the soul, and still one fancies
one's gaze goes deeper and deeper, and draws one with it up into that
peaceful, shining immensity, and that one cannot be brought back from
that height, that depth....
'Master, master!' cried Kassyan suddenly in his musical voice.
I raised myself in surprise: up till then he had scarcely replied to my
questions, and now he suddenly addressed me of himself.
'What is it?' I asked.
'What did you kill the bird for?' he began, looking me straight in the
face.
'What for? Corncrake is game; one can eat it.'
'That was not what you killed it for, master, as though you were going
to eat it! You killed it for amusement.'
'Well, you yourself, I suppose, eat geese or chickens?'
'Those birds are provided by God for man, but the corncrake is a wild
bird of the woods: and not he alone; many they are, the wild things of
the woods and the fields, and the wild things of the rivers and marshes
and moors, flying on high or creeping below; and a sin it is to slay
them: let them live their allotted life upon the earth. But for man
another food has been provided; his food is other, and other his
sustenance: bread, the good gift of God, and the water of heaven, and
the tame beasts that have come down to us from our fathers of old.'
I looked in astonishment at Kassyan. His words flowed freely; he did
not hesitate for a word; he spoke with quiet inspiration and gentle
dignity, sometimes closing his eyes.
'So is it sinful, then, to kill fish, according to you?' I asked.
'Fishes have cold blood,' he replied with conviction. 'The fish is a
dumb creature; it knows neither fear nor rejoicing. The fish is a
voiceless creature. The fish does not feel; the blood in it is not
living.... Blood,' he continued, after a pause, 'blood is a holy thing!
God's sun does not look upon blood; it is hidden away from the light
... it is a great sin to bring blood into the light of day; a great sin
and horror.... Ah, a great sin!'
He sighed, and his head drooped forward. I looked, I confess, in
absolute amazement at the strange old man. His language did not sound
like the language of a peasant; the common people do not speak like
that, nor those who aim at fine speaking. His speech was meditative,
grave, and curious.... I had never heard anything like it.
'Tell me, please, Kassyan,' I began, without taking my eyes off his
slightly flushed face, 'what is your occupation?'
He did not answer my question at once. His eyes strayed uneasily for an
instant.
'I live as the Lord commands,' he brought out at last; 'and as for
occupation--no, I have no occupation. I've never been very clever from
a child: I work when I can: I'm not much of a workman--how should I be?
I have no health; my hands are awkward. In the spring I catch
nightingales.'
'You catch nightingales?... But didn't you tell me that we must not
touch any of the wild things of the woods and the fields, and so on?'
'We must not kill them, of a certainty; death will take its own without
that. Look at Martin the carpenter; Martin lived, and his life was not
long, but he died; his wife now grieves for her husband, for her little
children.... Neither for man nor beast is there any charm against
death. Death does not hasten, nor is there any escaping it; but we must
not aid death.... And I do not kill nightingales--God forbid! I do not
catch them to harm them, to spoil their lives, but for the pleasure of
men, for their comfort and delight.'
'Do you go to Kursk to catch them?'
'Yes, I go to Kursk, and farther too, at times. I pass nights in the
marshes, or at the edge of the forests; I am alone at night in the
fields, in the thickets; there the curlews call and the hares squeak
and the wild ducks lift up their voices.... I note them at evening; at
morning I give ear to them; at daybreak I cast my net over the
bushes.... There are nightingales that sing so pitifully sweet ... yea,
pitifully.'
'And do you sell them?'
'I give them to good people.'
'And what are you doing now?'
'What am I doing?'
'Yes, how are you employed?'
The old man was silent for a little.
'I am not employed at all.... I am a poor workman. But I can read and
write.'
'You can read?'
'Yes, I can read and write. I learnt, by the help of God and good
people.'
'Have you a family?'
'No, not a family.'
'How so?... Are they dead, then?'
'No, but ... I have never been lucky in life. But all that is in God's
hands; we are all in God's hands; and a man should be righteous--that
is all! Upright before God, that is it.'
'And you have no kindred?'
'Yes ... well....'
The old man was confused.
'Tell me, please,' I began: 'I heard my coachman ask you why you did
not cure Martin? You cure disease?'
'Your coachman is a righteous man,' Kassyan answered thoughtfully. 'I
too am not without sin. They call me a doctor.... Me a doctor, indeed!
And who can heal the sick? That is all a gift from God. But there are
... yes, there are herbs, and there are flowers; they are of use, of a
certainty. There is plantain, for instance, a herb good for man; there
is bud-marigold too; it is not sinful to speak of them: they are holy
herbs of God. Then there are others not so; and they may be of use, but
it's a sin; and to speak of them is a sin. Still, with prayer, may
be.... And doubtless there are such words.... But who has faith, shall
be saved,' he added, dropping his voice.
'You did not give Martin anything?' I asked.
'I heard of it too late,' replied the old man. 'But what of it! Each
man's destiny is written from his birth. The carpenter Martin was not
to live; he was not to live upon the earth: that was what it was. No,
when a man is not to live on the earth, him the sunshine does not warm
like another, and him the bread does not nourish and make strong; it is
as though something is drawing him away.... Yes: God rest his soul!'
'Have you been settled long amongst us?' I asked him after a short
pause.
Kassyan started.
'No, not long; four years. In the old master's time we always lived in
our old houses, but the trustees transported us. Our old master was a
kind heart, a man of peace--the Kingdom of Heaven be his! The trustees
doubtless judged righteously.'
'And where did you live before?'
'At Fair Springs.'
'Is it far from here?'
'A hundred miles.'
'Well, were you better off there?'
'Yes ... yes, there there was open country, with rivers; it was our
home: here we are cramped and parched up.... Here we are strangers.
There at home, at Fair Springs, you could get up on to a hill--and ah,
my God, what a sight you could see! Streams and plains and forests, and
there was a church, and then came plains beyond. You could see far,
very far. Yes, how far you could look--you could look and look, ah,
yes! Here, doubtless, the soil is better; it is clay--good fat clay, as
the peasants say; for me the corn grows well enough everywhere.'
'Confess then, old man; you would like to visit your birth-place again?'
'Yes, I should like to see it. Still, all places are good. I am a man
without kin, without neighbours. And, after all, do you gain much,
pray, by staying at home? But, behold! as you walk, and as you walk,'
he went on, raising his voice, 'the heart grows lighter, of a truth.
And the sun shines upon you, and you are in the sight of God, and the
singing comes more tunefully. Here, you look--what herb is growing; you
look on it--you pick it. Here water runs, perhaps--spring water, a
source of pure holy water; so you drink of it--you look on it too. The
birds of heaven sing.... And beyond Kursk come the steppes, that
steppes-country: ah, what a marvel, what a delight for man! what
freedom, what a blessing of God! And they go on, folks tell, even to
the warm seas where dwells the sweet-voiced bird, the Hamayune, and
from the trees the leaves fall not, neither in autumn nor in winter,
and apples grow of gold, on silver branches, and every man lives in
uprightness and content. And I would go even there.... Have I journeyed
so little already! I have been to Romyon and to Simbirsk the fair city,
and even to Moscow of the golden domes; I have been to Oka the good
nurse, and to Tsna the dove, and to our mother Volga, and many folks,
good Christians have I seen, and noble cities I have visited.... Well,
I would go thither ... yes ... and more too ... and I am not the only
one, I a poor sinner ... many other Christians go in bast-shoes,
roaming over the world, seeking truth, yea!... For what is there at
home? No righteousness in man--it's that.'
These last words Kassyan uttered quickly, almost unintelligibly; then
he said something more which I could not catch at all, and such a
strange expression passed over his face that I involuntarily recalled
the epithet 'cracked.' He looked down, cleared his throat, and seemed
to come to himself again. 'What sunshine!' he murmured in a low voice.
'It is a blessing, oh, Lord! What warmth in the woods!'
He gave a movement of the shoulders and fell into silence. With a vague
look round him he began softly to sing. I could not catch all the words
of his slow chant; I heard the following:
'They call me Kassyan,
But my nickname's the Flea.'
'Oh!' I thought, 'so he improvises.' Suddenly he started and ceased
singing, looking intently at a thick part of the wood. I turned and saw
a little peasant girl, about seven years old, in a blue frock, with a
checked handkerchief over her head, and a woven bark-basket in her
little bare sunburnt hand. She had certainly not expected to meet us;
she had, as they say, 'stumbled upon' us, and she stood motionless in a
shady recess among the thick foliage of the nut-trees, looking dismayed
at me with her black eyes. I had scarcely time to catch a glimpse of
her; she dived behind a tree.
'Annushka! Annushka! come here, don't be afraid!' cried the old man
caressingly.
'I'm afraid,' came her shrill voice.
'Don't be afraid, don't be afraid; come to me.'
Annushka left her hiding place in silence, walked softly round--her
little childish feet scarcely sounded on the thick grass--and came out
of the bushes near the old man. She was not a child of seven, as I had
fancied at first, from her diminutive stature, but a girl of thirteen
or fourteen. Her whole person was small and thin, but very neat and
graceful, and her pretty little face was strikingly like Kassyan's own,
though he was certainly not handsome. There were the same thin
features, and the same strange expression, shy and confiding,
melancholy and shrewd, and her gestures were the same.... Kassyan kept
his eyes fixed on her; she took her stand at his side.
'Well, have you picked any mushrooms?' he asked.
'Yes,' she answered with a shy smile.
'Did you find many?'
'Yes.' (She stole a swift look at him and smiled again.)
'Are they white ones?'
'Yes.'
'Show me, show me.... (She slipped the basket off her arm and
half-lifted the big burdock leaf which covered up the mushrooms.) 'Ah!'
said Kassyan, bending down over the basket; 'what splendid ones! Well
done, Annushka!'
'She's your daughter, Kassyan, isn't she?' I asked. (Annushka's face
flushed faintly.)
'No, well, a relative,' replied Kassyan with affected indifference.
'Come, Annushka, run along,' he added at once, 'run along, and God be
with you! And take care.'
'But why should she go on foot?' I interrupted. 'We could take her with
us.'
Annushka blushed like a poppy, grasped the handle of her basket with
both hands, and looked in trepidation at the old man.
'No, she will get there all right,' he answered in the same languid and
indifferent voice. 'Why not?... She will get there.... Run along.'
Annushka went rapidly away into the forest. Kassyan looked after her,
then looked down and smiled to himself. In this prolonged smile, in the
few words he had spoken to Annushka, and in the very sound of his voice
when he spoke to her, there was an intense, indescribable love and
tenderness. He looked again in the direction she had gone, again smiled
to himself, and, passing his hand across his face, he nodded his head
several times.
'Why did you send her away so soon?' I asked him. 'I would have bought
her mushrooms.'
'Well, you can buy them there at home just the same, sir, if you like,'
he answered, for the first time using the formal 'sir' in addressing me.
'She's very pretty, your girl.'
'No ... only so-so,' he answered, with seeming reluctance, and from
that instant he relapsed into the same uncommunicative mood as at first.
Seeing that all my efforts to make him talk again were fruitless, I
went off into the clearing. Meantime the heat had somewhat abated; but
my ill-success, or, as they say among us, my 'ill-luck,' continued, and
I returned to the settlement with nothing but one corncrake and the new
axle. Just as we were driving into the yard, Kassyan suddenly turned to
me.
'Master, master,' he began, 'do you know I have done you a wrong; it
was I cast a spell to keep all the game off.'
'How so?'
'Oh, I can do that. Here you have a well-trained dog and a good one,
but he could do nothing. When you think of it, what are men? what are
they? Here's a beast; what have they made of him?'
It would have been useless for me to try to convince Kassyan of the
impossibility of 'casting a spell' on game, and so I made him no reply.
Meantime we had turned into the yard.
Annushka was not in the hut: she had had time to get there before us,
and to leave her basket of mushrooms. Erofay fitted in the new axle,
first exposing it to a severe and most unjust criticism; and an hour
later I set off, leaving a small sum of money with Kassyan, which at
first he was unwilling to accept, but afterwards, after a moment's
thought, holding it in his hand, he put it in his bosom. In the course
of this hour he had scarcely uttered a single word; he stood as before,
leaning against the gate. He made no reply to the reproaches of my
coachman, and took leave very coldly of me.
Directly I turned round, I could see that my worthy Erofay was in a
gloomy frame of mind.... To be sure, he had found nothing to eat in the
country; the only water for his horses was bad. We drove off. With
dissatisfaction expressed even in the back of his head, he sat on the
box, burning to begin to talk to me. While waiting for me to begin by
some question, he confined himself to a low muttering in an undertone,
and some rather caustic instructions to the horses. 'A village,' he
muttered; 'call that a village? You ask for a drop of kvas--not a drop
of kvas even.... Ah, Lord!... And the water--simply filth!' (He spat
loudly.) 'Not a cucumber, nor kvas, nor nothing.... Now, then!' he
added aloud, turning to the right trace-horse; 'I know you, you
humbug.' (And he gave him a cut with the whip.) 'That horse has learnt
to shirk his work entirely, and yet he was a willing beast once. Now,
then--look alive!'
'Tell me, please, Erofay,' I began, 'what sort of a man is Kassyan?'
Erofay did not answer me at once: he was, in general, a reflective and
deliberate fellow; but I could see directly that my question was
soothing and cheering to him.
'The Flea?' he said at last, gathering up the reins; 'he's a queer
fellow; yes, a crazy chap; such a queer fellow, you wouldn't find
another like him in a hurry. You know, for example, he's for all the
world like our roan horse here; he gets out of everything--out of work,
that's to say. But, then, what sort of workman could he be?... He's
hardly body enough to keep his soul in ... but still, of course....
He's been like that from a child up, you know. At first he followed his
uncle's business as a carrier--there were three of them in the
business; but then he got tired of it, you know--he threw it up. He
began to live at home, but he could not keep at home long; he's so
restless--a regular flea, in fact. He happened, by good luck, to have a
good master--he didn't worry him. Well, so ever since he has been
wandering about like a lost sheep. And then, he's so strange; there's
no understanding him. Sometimes he'll be as silent as a post, and then
he'll begin talking, and God knows what he'll say! Is that good
manners, pray? He's an absurd fellow, that he is. But he sings well,
for all that.'
'And does he cure people, really?'
'Cure people!... Well, how should he? A fine sort of doctor! Though he
did cure me of the king's evil, I must own.... But how can he? He's a
stupid fellow, that's what he is,' he added, after a moment's pause.
'Have you known him long?'
'A long while. I was his neighbour at Sitchovka up at Fair Springs.'
'And what of that girl--who met us in the wood, Annushka--what relation
is she to him?'
Erofay looked at me over his shoulder, and grinned all over his face.
'He, he!... yes, they are relations. She is an orphan; she has no
mother, and it's not even known who her mother was. But she must be a
relation; she's too much like him.... Anyway, she lives with him. She's
a smart girl, there's no denying; a good girl; and as for the old man,
she's simply the apple of his eye; she's a good girl. And, do you know,
you wouldn't believe it, but do you know, he's managed to teach
Annushka to read? Well, well! that's quite like him; he's such an
extraordinary fellow, such a changeable fellow; there's no reckoning on
him, really.... Eh! eh! eh!' My coachman suddenly interrupted himself,
and stopping the horses, he bent over on one side and began sniffing.
'Isn't there a smell of burning? Yes! Why, that new axle, I do
declare!... I thought I'd greased it.... We must get on to some water;
why, here is a puddle, just right.'
And Erofay slowly got off his seat, untied the pail, went to the pool,
and coming back, listened with a certain satisfaction to the hissing of
the box of the wheel as the water suddenly touched it.... Six times
during some eight miles he had to pour water on the smouldering axle,
and it was quite evening when we got home at last.
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