brown coat, a cap and high boots with sagging bootlegs and carrying a
whip in his hand. This was not an old man, only about forty. When he
looked round Yegorushka saw a long red face with a scanty goat-beard and
a spongy looking swelling under his right eye. Apart from this very ugly
swelling, there was another peculiar thing about him which caught the
eye at once: in his left hand he carried a whip, while he waved the
right as though he were conducting an unseen choir; from time to time he
put the whip under his arm, and then he conducted with both hands and
hummed something to himself.
The next driver was a long rectilinear figure with extremely sloping
shoulders and a back as flat as a board. He held himself as stiffly
erect as though he were marching or had swallowed a yard measure. His
hands did not swing as he walked, but hung down as if they were straight
sticks, and he strode along in a wooden way, after the manner of toy
soldiers, almost without bending his knees, and trying to take as long
steps as possible. While the old man or the owner of the spongy swelling
were taking two steps he succeeded in taking only one, and so it seemed
as though he were walking more slowly than any of them, and would drop
behind. His face was tied up in a rag, and on his head something stuck
up that looked like a monk's peaked cap; he was dressed in a short
Little Russian coat, with full dark blue trousers and bark shoes.
Yegorushka did not even distinguish those that were farther on. He lay
on his stomach, picked a little hole in the bale, and, having nothing
better to do, began twisting the wool into a thread. The old man
trudging along below him turned out not to be so stern as one might have
supposed from his face. Having begun a conversation, he did not let it
drop.
"Where are you going?" he asked, stamping with his feet.
"To school," answered Yegorushka.
"To school? Aha! . . . Well, may the Queen of Heaven help you. Yes. One
brain is good, but two are better. To one man God gives one brain, to
another two brains, and to another three. . . . To another three, that
is true. . . . One brain you are born with, one you get from learning,
and a third with a good life. So you see, my lad, it is a good thing if
a man has three brains. Living is easier for him, and, what's more,
dying is, too. Dying is, too. . . . And we shall all die for sure."
The old man scratched his forehead, glanced upwards at Yegorushka with
his red eyes, and went on:
"Maxim Nikolaitch, the gentleman from Slavyanoserbsk, brought a little
lad to school, too, last year. I don't know how he is getting on there
in studying the sciences, but he was a nice good little lad. . . . God
give them help, they are nice gentlemen. Yes, he, too, brought his boy
to school. . . . In Slavyanoserbsk there is no establishment, I suppose,
for study. No. . . . But it is a nice town. . . . There's an ordinary
school for simple folks, but for the higher studies there is nothing.
No, that's true. What's your name? . . ."
"Yegorushka."
"Yegory, then. . . . The holy martyr Yegory, the Bearer of Victory,
whose day is the twenty-third of April. And my christian name is
Panteley, . . . Panteley Zaharov Holodov. . . . We are Holodovs . . . .
I am a native of--maybe you've heard of it--Tim in the province of Kursk.
My brothers are artisans and work at trades in the town, but I am a
peasant. . . . I have remained a peasant. Seven years ago I went
there--home, I mean. I went to the village and to the town. . . . To Tim,
I mean. Then, thank God, they were all alive and well; . . . but now I
don't know. . . . Maybe some of them are dead. . . . And it's time they
did die, for some of them are older than I am. Death is all right; it is
good so long, of course, as one does not die without repentance. There
is no worse evil than an impenitent death; an impenitent death is a joy
to the devil. And if you want to die penitent, so that you may not be
forbidden to enter the mansions of the Lord, pray to the holy martyr
Varvara. She is the intercessor. She is, that's the truth. . . . For God
has given her such a place in the heavens that everyone has the right to
pray to her for penitence."
Panteley went on muttering, and apparently did not trouble whether
Yegorushka heard him or not. He talked listlessly, mumbling to himself,
without raising or dropping his voice, but succeeded in telling him a
great deal in a short time. All he said was made up of fragments that
had very little connection with one another, and quite uninteresting for
Yegorushka. Possibly he talked only in order to reckon over his thoughts
aloud after the night spent in silence, in order to see if they were all
there. After talking of repentance, he spoke about a certain Maxim
Nikolaitch from Slavyanoserbsk.
"Yes, he took his little lad; . . . he took him, that's true . . ."
One of the waggoners walking in front darted from his place, ran to one
side and began lashing on the ground with his whip. He was a stalwart,
broad-shouldered man of thirty, with curly flaxen hair and a look of
great health and vigour. Judging from the movements of his shoulders and
the whip, and the eagerness expressed in his attitude, he was beating
something alive. Another waggoner, a short stubby little man with a
bushy black beard, wearing a waistcoat and a shirt outside his trousers,
ran up to him. The latter broke into a deep guffaw of laughter and
coughing and said: "I say, lads, Dymov has killed a snake!"
There are people whose intelligence can be gauged at once by their voice
and laughter. The man with the black beard belonged to that class of
fortunate individuals; impenetrable stupidity could be felt in his voice
and laugh. The flaxen-headed Dymov had finished, and lifting from the
ground with his whip something like a cord, flung it with a laugh into
the cart.
"That's not a viper; it's a grass snake!" shouted someone.
The man with the wooden gait and the bandage round his face strode up
quickly to the dead snake, glanced at it and flung up his stick-like
arms.
"You jail-bird!" he cried in a hollow wailing voice. "What have you
killed a grass snake for? What had he done to you, you damned brute?
Look, he has killed a grass snake; how would you like to be treated so?"
"Grass snakes ought not to be killed, that's true," Panteley muttered
placidly, "they ought not. . . They are not vipers; though it looks like
a snake, it is a gentle, innocent creature. . . . It's friendly to man,
the grass snake is."
Dymov and the man with the black beard were probably ashamed, for they
laughed loudly, and not answering, slouched lazily back to their
waggons. When the hindmost waggon was level with the spot where the dead
snake lay, the man with his face tied up standing over it turned to
Panteley and asked in a tearful voice:
"Grandfather, what did he want to kill the grass snake for?"
His eyes, as Yegorushka saw now, were small and dingy looking; his face
was grey, sickly and looked somehow dingy too while his chin was red and
seemed very much swollen.
"Grandfather, what did he kill it for?" he repeated, striding along
beside Panteley.
"A stupid fellow. His hands itch to kill, and that is why he does it,"
answered the old man; "but he oughtn't to kill a grass snake, that's
true. . . . Dymov is a ruffian, we all know, he kills everything he
comes across, and Kiruha did not interfere. He ought to have taken its
part, but instead of that, he goes off into 'Ha-ha-ha!' and 'Ho-ho-ho!'
. . . But don't be angry, Vassya. . . . Why be angry? They've killed
it--well, never mind them. Dymov is a ruffian and Kiruha acted from
foolishness--never mind. . . . They are foolish people without
understanding--but there, don't mind them. Emelyan here never touches
what he shouldn't; he never does; . . . that is true, . . . because he
is a man of education, while they are stupid. . . . Emelyan, he doesn't
touch things."
The waggoner in the reddish-brown coat and the spongy swelling on his
face, who was conducting an unseen choir, stopped. Hearing his name, and
waiting till Panteley and Vassya came up to him, he walked beside them.
"What are you talking about?" he asked in a husky muffled voice.
"Why, Vassya here is angry," said Panteley. "So I have been saying
things to him to stop his being angry. . . . Oh, how my swollen feet
hurt! Oh, oh! They are more inflamed than ever for Sunday, God's holy
day!"
"It's from walking," observed Vassya.
"No, lad, no. It's not from walking. When I walk it seems easier; when I
lie down and get warm, . . . it's deadly. Walking is easier for me."
Emelyan, in his reddish-brown coat, walked between Panteley and Vassya
and waved his arms, as though they were going to sing. After waving them
a little while he dropped them, and croaked out hopelessly:
"I have no voice. It's a real misfortune. All last night and this
morning I have been haunted by the trio 'Lord, have Mercy' that we sang
at the wedding at Marionovsky's. It's in my head and in my throat. It
seems as though I could sing it, but I can't; I have no voice."
He paused for a minute, thinking, then went on:
"For fifteen years I was in the choir. In all the Lugansky works there
was, maybe, no one with a voice like mine. But, confound it, I bathed
two years ago in the Donets, and I can't get a single note true ever
since. I took cold in my throat. And without a voice I am like a workman
without hands."
"That's true," Panteley agreed.
"I think of myself as a ruined man and nothing more."
At that moment Vassya chanced to catch sight of Yegorushka. His eyes
grew moist and smaller than ever.
"There's a little gentleman driving with us," and he covered his nose
with his sleeve as though he were bashful. "What a grand driver! Stay
with us and you shall drive the waggons and sell wool."
The incongruity of one person being at once a little gentleman and a
waggon driver seemed to strike him as very queer and funny, for he burst
into a loud guffaw, and went on enlarging upon the idea. Emelyan glanced
upwards at Yegorushka, too, but coldly and cursorily. He was absorbed in
his own thoughts, and had it not been for Vassya, would not have noticed
Yegorushka's presence. Before five minutes had passed he was waving his
arms again, then describing to his companions the beauties of the
wedding anthem, "Lord, have Mercy," which he had remembered in the
night. He put the whip under his arm and waved both hands.
A mile from the village the waggons stopped by a well with a crane.
Letting his pail down into the well, black-bearded Kiruha lay on his
stomach on the framework and thrust his shaggy head, his shoulders, and
part of his chest into the black hole, so that Yegorushka could see
nothing but his short legs, which scarcely touched the ground. Seeing
the reflection of his head far down at the bottom of the well, he was
delighted and went off into his deep bass stupid laugh, and the echo
from the well answered him. When he got up his neck and face were as red
as beetroot. The first to run up and drink was Dymov. He drank laughing,
often turning from the pail to tell Kiruha something funny, then he
turned round, and uttered aloud, to be heard all over the steppe, five
very bad words. Yegorushka did not understand the meaning of such words,
but he knew very well they were bad words. He knew the repulsion his
friends and relations silently felt for such words. He himself, without
knowing why, shared that feeling and was accustomed to think that only
drunk and disorderly people enjoy the privilege of uttering such words
aloud. He remembered the murder of the grass snake, listened to Dymov's
laughter, and felt something like hatred for the man. And as ill-luck
would have it, Dymov at that moment caught sight of Yegorushka, who had
climbed down from the waggon and gone up to the well. He laughed aloud
and shouted:
"I say, lads, the old man has been brought to bed of a boy in the
night!"
Kiruha laughed his bass laugh till he coughed. Someone else laughed too,
while Yegorushka crimsoned and made up his mind finally that Dymov was a
very wicked man.
With his curly flaxen head, with his shirt opened on his chest and no
hat on, Dymov looked handsome and exceptionally strong; in every
movement he made one could see the reckless dare-devil and athlete,
knowing his value. He shrugged his shoulders, put his arms akimbo,
talked and laughed louder than any of the rest, and looked as though he
were going to lift up something very heavy with one hand and astonish
the whole world by doing so. His mischievous mocking eyes glided over
the road, the waggons, and the sky without resting on anything, and
seemed looking for someone to kill, just as a pastime, and something to
laugh at. Evidently he was afraid of no one, would stick at nothing, and
most likely was not in the least interested in Yegorushka's opinion of
him. . . . Yegorushka meanwhile hated his flaxen head, his clear face,
and his strength with his whole heart, listened with fear and loathing
to his laughter, and kept thinking what word of abuse he could pay him
out with.
Panteley, too, went up to the pail. He took out of his pocket a little
green glass of an ikon lamp, wiped it with a rag, filled it from the
pail and drank from it, then filled it again, wrapped the little glass
in the rag, and then put it back into his pocket.
"Grandfather, why do you drink out of a lamp?" Yegorushka asked him,
surprised.
"One man drinks out of a pail and another out of a lamp," the old man
answered evasively. "Every man to his own taste. . . . You drink out of
the pail--well, drink, and may it do you good. . . ."
"You darling, you beauty!" Vassya said suddenly, in a caressing,
plaintive voice. "You darling!"
His eyes were fixed on the distance; they were moist and smiling, and
his face wore the same expression as when he had looked at Yegorushka.
"Who is it you are talking to?" asked Kiruha.
"A darling fox, . . . lying on her back, playing like a dog."
Everyone began staring into the distance, looking for the fox, but no
one could see it, only Vassya with his grey muddy-looking eyes, and he
was enchanted by it. His sight was extraordinarily keen, as Yegorushka
learnt afterwards. He was so long-sighted that the brown steppe was for
him always full of life and interest. He had only to look into the
distance to see a fox, a hare, a bustard, or some other animal keeping
at a distance from men. There was nothing strange in seeing a hare
running away or a flying bustard--everyone crossing the steppes could see
them; but it was not vouchsafed to everyone to see wild animals in their
own haunts when they were not running nor hiding, nor looking about them
in alarm. Yet Vassya saw foxes playing, hares washing themselves with
their paws, bustards preening their wings and hammering out their hollow
nests. Thanks to this keenness of sight, Vassya had, besides the world
seen by everyone, another world of his own, accessible to no one else,
and probably a very beautiful one, for when he saw something and was in
raptures over it it was impossible not to envy him.
When the waggons set off again, the church bells were ringing for
service. V
The train of waggons drew up on the bank of a river on one side of a
village. The sun was blazing, as it had been the day before; the air was
stagnant and depressing. There were a few willows on the bank, but the
shade from them did not fall on the earth, but on the water, where it
was wasted; even in the shade under the waggon it was stifling and
wearisome. The water, blue from the reflection of the sky in it, was
alluring.
Styopka, a waggoner whom Yegorushka noticed now for the first time, a
Little Russian lad of eighteen, in a long shirt without a belt, and full
trousers that flapped like flags as he walked, undressed quickly, ran
along the steep bank and plunged into the water. He dived three times,
then swam on his back and shut his eyes in his delight. His face was
smiling and wrinkled up as though he were being tickled, hurt and
amused.
On a hot day when there is nowhere to escape from the sultry, stifling
heat, the splash of water and the loud breathing of a man bathing sounds
like good music to the ear. Dymov and Kiruha, looking at Styopka,
undressed quickly and one after the other, laughing loudly in eager
anticipation of their enjoyment, dropped into the water, and the quiet,
modest little river resounded with snorting and splashing and shouting.
Kiruha coughed, laughed and shouted as though they were trying to drown
him, while Dymov chased him and tried to catch him by the leg.
"Ha-ha-ha!" he shouted. "Catch him! Hold him!"
Kiruha laughed and enjoyed himself, but his expression was the same as
it had been on dry land, stupid, with a look of astonishment on it as
though someone had, unnoticed, stolen up behind him and hit him on the
head with the butt-end of an axe. Yegorushka undressed, too, but did not
let himself down by the bank, but took a run and a flying leap from the
height of about ten feet. Describing an arc in the air, he fell into the
water, sank deep, but did not reach the bottom; some force, cold and
pleasant to the touch, seemed to hold him up and bring him back to the
surface. He popped out and, snorting and blowing bubbles, opened his
eyes; but the sun was reflected in the water quite close to his face. At
first blinding spots of light, then rainbow colours and dark patches,
flitted before his eyes. He made haste to dive again, opened his eyes in
the water and saw something cloudy-green like a sky on a moonlight
night. Again the same force would not let him touch the bottom and stay
in the coolness, but lifted him to the surface. He popped out and heaved
a sigh so deep that he had a feeling of space and freshness, not only in
his chest, but in his stomach. Then, to get from the water everything he
possibly could get, he allowed himself every luxury; he lay on his back
and basked, splashed, frolicked, swam on his face, on his side, on his
back and standing up--just as he pleased till he was exhausted. The other
bank was thickly overgrown with reeds; it was golden in the sun, and the
flowers of the reeds hung drooping to the water in lovely tassels. In
one place the reeds were shaking and nodding, with their flowers
rustling-- Styopka and Kiruha were hunting crayfish.
"A crayfish, look, lads! A crayfish!" Kiruha cried triumphantly and
actually showed a crayfish.
Yegorushka swam up to the reeds, dived, and began fumbling among their
roots. Burrowing in the slimy, liquid mud, he felt something sharp and
unpleasant--perhaps it really was a crayfish. But at that minute someone
seized him by the leg and pulled him to the surface. Spluttering and
coughing, Yegorushka opened his eyes and saw before him the wet grinning
face of the dare-devil Dymov. The impudent fellow was breathing hard,
and from a look in his eyes he seemed inclined for further mischief. He
held Yegorushka tight by the leg, and was lifting his hand to take hold
of his neck. But Yegorushka tore himself away with repulsion and terror,
as though disgusted at being touched and afraid that the bully would
drown him, and said:
"Fool! I'll punch you in the face."
Feeling that this was not sufficient to express his hatred, he thought a
minute and added:
"You blackguard! You son of a bitch!"
But Dymov, as though nothing were the matter, took no further notice of
Yegorushka, but swam off to Kiruha, shouting:
"Ha-ha-ha! Let us catch fish! Mates, let us catch fish."
"To be sure," Kiruha agreed; "there must be a lot of fish here."
"Styopka, run to the village and ask the peasants for a net!
"They won't give it to me."
"They will, you ask them. Tell them that they should give it to us for
Christ's sake, because we are just the same as pilgrims."
"That's true."
Styopka clambered out of the water, dressed quickly, and without a cap
on he ran, his full trousers flapping, to the village. The water lost
all its charm for Yegorushka after his encounter with Dymov. He got out
and began dressing. Panteley and Vassya were sitting on the steep bank,
with their legs hanging down, looking at the bathers. Emelyan was
standing naked, up to his knees in the water, holding on to the grass
with one hand to prevent himself from falling while the other stroked
his body. With his bony shoulder-blades, with the swelling under his
eye, bending down and evidently afraid of the water, he made a ludicrous
figure. His face was grave and severe. He looked angrily at the water,
as though he were just going to upbraid it for having given him cold in
the Donets and robbed him of his voice.
"And why don't you bathe?" Yegorushka asked Vassya.
"Oh, I don't care for it, . . ." answered Vassya.
"How is it your chin is swollen?"
"It's bad. . . . I used to work at the match factory, little sir. . . .
The doctor used to say that it would make my jaw rot. The air is not
healthy there. There were three chaps beside me who had their jaws
swollen, and with one of them it rotted away altogether."
Styopka soon came back with the net. Dymov and Kiruha were already
turning blue and getting hoarse by being so long in the water, but they
set about fishing eagerly. First they went to a deep place beside the
reeds; there Dymov was up to his neck, while the water went over squat
Kiruha's head. The latter spluttered and blew bubbles, while Dymov
stumbling on the prickly roots, fell over and got caught in the net;
both flopped about in the water, and made a noise, and nothing but
mischief came of their fishing.
"It's deep," croaked Kiruha. "You won't catch anything."
"Don't tug, you devil!" shouted Dymov trying to put the net in the
proper position. "Hold it up."
"You won't catch anything here," Panteley shouted from the bank. "You
are only frightening the fish, you stupids! Go more to the left! It's
shallower there!"
Once a big fish gleamed above the net; they all drew a breath, and Dymov
struck the place where it had vanished with his fist, and his face
expressed vexation.
"Ugh!" cried Panteley, and he stamped his foot. "You've let the perch
slip! It's gone!"
Moving more to the left, Dymov and Kiruha picked out a shallower place,
and then fishing began in earnest. They had wandered off some hundred
paces from the waggons; they could be seen silently trying to go as deep
as they could and as near the reeds, moving their legs a little at a
time, drawing out the nets, beating the water with their fists to drive
them towards the nets. From the reeds they got to the further bank; they
drew the net out, then, with a disappointed air, lifting their knees
high as they walked, went back into the reeds. They were talking about
something, but what it was no one could hear. The sun was scorching
their backs, the flies were stinging them, and their bodies had turned
from purple to crimson. Styopka was walking after them with a pail in
his hands; he had tucked his shirt right up under his armpits, and was
holding it up by the hem with his teeth. After every successful catch he
lifted up some fish, and letting it shine in the sun, shouted:
"Look at this perch! We've five like that!"
Every time Dymov, Kiruha and Styopka pulled out the net they could be
seen fumbling about in the mud in it, putting some things into the pail
and throwing other things away; sometimes they passed something that was
in the net from hand to hand, examined it inquisitively, then threw
that, too, away.
"What is it?" they shouted to them from the bank.
Styopka made some answer, but it was hard to make out his words. Then he
climbed out of the water and, holding the pail in both hands, forgetting
to let his shirt drop, ran to the waggons.
"It's full!" he shouted, breathing hard. "Give us another!"
Yegorushka looked into the pail: it was full. A young pike poked its
ugly nose out of the water, and there were swarms of crayfish and little
fish round about it. Yegorushka put his hand down to the bottom and
stirred up the water; the pike vanished under the crayfish and a perch
and a tench swam to the surface instead of it. Vassya, too, looked into
the pail. His eyes grew moist and his face looked as caressing as before
when he saw the fox. He took something out of the pail, put it to his
mouth and began chewing it.
"Mates," said Styopka in amazement, "Vassya is eating a live gudgeon!
Phoo!"
"It's not a gudgeon, but a minnow," Vassya answered calmly, still
munching.
He took a fish's tail out of his mouth, looked at it caressingly, and
put it back again. While he was chewing and crunching with his teeth it
seemed to Yegorushka that he saw before him something not human.
Vassya's swollen chin, his lustreless eyes, his extraordinary sharp
sight, the fish's tail in his mouth, and the caressing friendliness with
which he crunched the gudgeon made him like an animal.