and tied up in a many-coloured handkerchief, the other uncovered,
with a cataract in the left eye; over her shoulders appeared a man's
face--wedge-shaped, with little grey side-whiskers and a crest of hair
on the top. This face incessantly blinked and winked in a curious
manner with both eyes, as if saying to Mishka--
"Cut, man! Run!"
Mishka mumbled, trying to explain.
"Such a rare book! says you're all beasts and dogs, you are. So
I thought to myself--it's true, Lord. To tell the truth, we are
godless scoundrels--miserable wretches. And then, too, I thought,
barynia--she's an old lady; perhaps she's got but this one book for a
comfort. Then the clasps--we wouldn't get much for them. But on the
book now, they are a real thing. So I turned it over in my mind, and I
said to myself, 'I'll go give the old lady some pleasure'--bring her
this back. Then too, thanked be the Lord, we earned somewhat yesterday
to buy our bread. Well, good-afternoon to you, ma'am; I'll be going."
"Wait a moment," said the old lady. "Did you understand what I read
yesterday?"
"Did I? Why, no, how can I understand it? I hear it, that's so--and
even then, _how_ do I hear it? As if our ears were fit for the Word of
God? We can't understand it. You hear it with your heart like, but the
ear, it doesn't take it in. Goodbye to you, ma'am."
"So--so!" drawled out the old lady. "No, just wait a minute."
Mishka sighed forlornly, so that you could hear him all over the yard,
and moved his weight from one foot to the other like a bear. Evidently
this explanation was growing very wearisome to him.
"Would you like me to read you some more?"
"M'm! my mates are waiting for me."
"Never mind them. You are a good fellow. You must leave them."
"Very well," assented Mishka in a low voice.
"You will leave them? Yes?"
"I'll leave them."
"That's a sensible fellow. You're quite a child. And look at you--a
great beard, almost to your waist! Are you married?"
"A widower. My wife, she died."
"And why do you drink? You are a drunkard, aren't you?"
"A drunkard, ma'am. I drink."
"Why?"
"Why do I drink? Why, from foolishness. Being a fool, I drink. If a
man had brains, would he go and ruin himself of his own accord?" said
Mishka in a desolate tone.
"You are quite right. Then cultivate wisdom and get better. Go to
church. Hear God's Word. In It is all wisdom."
"That's so, of course," almost groaned Mishka.
"I will read some more to you. Would you like it?"
"Just as you please, ma'am." Mishka was weary to death.
The old lady got her Bible from somewhere behind her, found a place,
and the yard was filled with her quavering voice:
"'Judge not, that ye be not judged, for with what judgment ye judge, ye
shall be judged; and with what measure ye mete, it shall be meted unto
you.'"
Mishka gave his head a shake, and scratched his left shoulder.
"'Dost thou think to escape the judgment of God?'"
"Barynia!" began Mishka in a plaintive tone, "let me go, for God's
sake. I had better come some other time to listen. But now I'm real
hungry, barynia. My stomach aches, even. We've had nothing to eat since
last night."
The barynia shut the door with a bang.
"Go along! Go!" sounded sharply and shortly through the yard.
"Thank you kindly." And he almost ran to the gate.
"Unrepentant souls, hearts of beasts," hissed in the yard behind him.
In half an hour we were sitting in an inn, having tea and kalatch.[10]
[Footnote 10: A circular roll made of hard dough.--TR.]
"It was as though she was driving a gimlet into me," said Mishka,
smiling at me with his good-natured eyes. "I stood there, and thought
to myself, oh my goodness! What on earth did I go for? Went for
martyrdom. She might, like a sensible woman, have taken the clasps
from me and let me go my way; but no, she begins a-talking. What queer
people there are! You want to treat them honest, and they go on, at
their own, all the time. I tell her straight. 'There, barynia,' I said,
'here are your clasps. Don't blame me.' And she says, 'No,' she says,
'wait a bit--you tell me why you brought them back to me,' and went
ahead as if she was pulling the veins out of my body. I broke out into
a sweat, with her talking even--truth I did."
And he still smiled with that infinitely gentle smile of his.
Semka, sulky, ruffled, and moody, said to him gravely when he had ended
his Odyssey--
"You'd better die outright, you precious blockhead, you! Or else
to-morrow, with these fine tricks of yours, the flies or beetles will
eat you up."
"How you do talk! Come, let's have a glass. Drink to the ending of the
affair!"
And we heartily drank to the ending of this queer affair.
End of Project Gutenberg's The Outcasts and Other Stories, by Maxim Gorky