walked about beside the waggons, thought a little, and, feeling bored,
strolled off to the village.
Not long afterwards he was standing in the church, and with his forehead
leaning on somebody's back, listened to the singing of the choir. The
service was drawing to a close. Yegorushka did not understand church
singing and did not care for it. He listened a little, yawned, and began
looking at the backs and heads before him. In one head, red and wet from
his recent bathe, he recognized Emelyan. The back of his head had been
cropped in a straight line higher than is usual; the hair in front had
been cut unbecomingly high, and Emelyan's ears stood out like two dock
leaves, and seemed to feel themselves out of place. Looking at the back
of his head and his ears, Yegorushka, for some reason, thought that
Emelyan was probably very unhappy. He remembered the way he conducted
with his hands, his husky voice, his timid air when he was bathing, and
felt intense pity for him. He longed to say something friendly to him.
"I am here, too," he said, putting out his hand.
People who sing tenor or bass in the choir, especially those who have at
any time in their lives conducted, are accustomed to look with a stern
and unfriendly air at boys. They do not give up this habit, even when
they leave off being in a choir. Turning to Yegorushka, Emelyan looked
at him from under his brows and said:
"Don't play in church!"
Then Yegorushka moved forwards nearer to the ikon-stand. Here he saw
interesting people. On the right side, in front of everyone, a lady and
a gentleman were standing on a carpet. There were chairs behind them.
The gentleman was wearing newly ironed shantung trousers; he stood as
motionless as a soldier saluting, and held high his bluish shaven chin.
There was a very great air of dignity in his stand-up collar, in his
blue chin, in his small bald patch and his cane. His neck was so
strained from excess of dignity, and his chin was drawn up so tensely,
that it looked as though his head were ready to fly off and soar upwards
any minute. The lady, who was stout and elderly and wore a white silk
shawl, held her head on one side and looked as though she had done
someone a favour, and wanted to say: "Oh, don't trouble yourself to
thank me; I don't like it . . . ." A thick wall of Little Russian heads
stood all round the carpet.
Yegorushka went up to the ikon-stand and began kissing the local ikons.
Before each image he slowly bowed down to the ground, without getting
up, looked round at the congregation, then got up and kissed the ikon.
The contact of his forehead with the cold floor afforded him great
satisfaction. When the beadle came from the altar with a pair of long
snuffers to put out the candles, Yegorushka jumped up quickly from the
floor and ran up to him.
"Have they given out the holy bread?" he asked.
"There is none; there is none," the beadle muttered gruffly. "It is no
use your. . ."
The service was over; Yegorushka walked out of the church in a leisurely
way, and began strolling about the market-place. He had seen a good many
villages, market-places, and peasants in his time, and everything that
met his eyes was entirely without interest for him. At a loss for
something to do, he went into a shop over the door of which hung a wide
strip of red cotton. The shop consisted of two roomy, badly lighted
parts; in one half they sold drapery and groceries, in the other there
were tubs of tar, and there were horse-collars hanging from the ceiling;
from both came the savoury smell of leather and tar. The floor of the
shop had been watered; the man who watered it must have been a very
whimsical and original person, for it was sprinkled in patterns and
mysterious symbols. The shopkeeper, an overfed-looking man with a broad
face and round beard, apparently a Great Russian, was standing, leaning
his person over the counter. He was nibbling a piece of sugar as he
drank his tea, and heaved a deep sigh at every sip. His face expressed
complete indifference, but each sigh seemed to be saying:
"Just wait a minute; I will give it you."
"Give me a farthing's worth of sunflower seeds," Yegorushka said,
addressing him.
The shopkeeper raised his eyebrows, came out from behind the counter,
and poured a farthing's worth of sunflower seeds into Yegorushka's
pocket, using an empty pomatum pot as a measure. Yegorushka did not want
to go away. He spent a long time in examining the box of cakes, thought
a little and asked, pointing to some little cakes covered with the
mildew of age:
"How much are these cakes?"
"Two for a farthing."
Yegorushka took out of his pocket the cake given him the day before by
the Jewess, and asked him:
"And how much do you charge for cakes like this?"
The shopman took the cake in his hands, looked at it from all sides, and
raised one eyebrow.
"Like that?" he asked.
Then he raised the other eyebrow, thought a minute, and answered:
"Two for three farthings. . . ."
A silence followed.
"Whose boy are you?" the shopman asked, pouring himself out some tea
from a red copper teapot.
"The nephew of Ivan Ivanitch."
"There are all sorts of Ivan Ivanitchs," the shopkeeper sighed. He
looked over Yegorushka's head towards the door, paused a minute and
asked:
"Would you like some tea?"
"Please. . . ." Yegorushka assented not very readily, though he felt an
intense longing for his usual morning tea.
The shopkeeper poured him out a glass and gave him with it a bit of
sugar that looked as though it had been nibbled. Yegorushka sat down on
the folding chair and began drinking it. He wanted to ask the price of a
pound of sugar almonds, and had just broached the subject when a
customer walked in, and the shopkeeper, leaving his glass of tea,
attended to his business. He led the customer into the other half, where
there was a smell of tar, and was there a long time discussing something
with him. The customer, a man apparently very obstinate and pig-headed,
was continually shaking his head to signify his disapproval, and
retreating towards the door. The shopkeeper tried to persuade him of
something and began pouring some oats into a big sack for him.
"Do you call those oats?" the customer said gloomily. "Those are not
oats, but chaff. It's a mockery to give that to the hens; enough to make
the hens laugh. . . . No, I will go to Bondarenko."
When Yegorushka went back to the river a small camp fire was smoking on
the bank. The waggoners were cooking their dinner. Styopka was standing
in the smoke, stirring the cauldron with a big notched spoon. A little
on one side Kiruha and Vassya, with eyes reddened from the smoke, were
sitting cleaning the fish. Before them lay the net covered with slime
and water weeds, and on it lay gleaming fish and crawling crayfish.
Emelyan, who had not long been back from the church, was sitting beside
Panteley, waving his arm and humming just audibly in a husky voice: "To
Thee we sing. . . ." Dymov was moving about by the horses.
When they had finished cleaning them, Kiruha and Vassya put the fish and
the living crayfish together in the pail, rinsed them, and from the pail
poured them all into the boiling water.
"Shall I put in some fat?" asked Styopka, skimming off the froth.
"No need. The fish will make its own gravy," answered Kiruha.
Before taking the cauldron off the fire Styopka scattered into the water
three big handfuls of millet and a spoonful of salt; finally he tried
it, smacked his lips, licked the spoon, and gave a self-satisfied grunt,
which meant that the grain was done.
All except Panteley sat down near the cauldron and set to work with
their spoons.
"You there! Give the little lad a spoon!" Panteley observed sternly. "I
dare say he is hungry too!"
"Ours is peasant fare," sighed Kiruha.
"Peasant fare is welcome, too, when one is hungry."
They gave Yegorushka a spoon. He began eating, not sitting, but standing
close to the cauldron and looking down into it as in a hole. The grain
smelt of fish and fish-scales were mixed up with the millet. The
crayfish could not be hooked out with a spoon, and the men simply picked
them out of the cauldron with their hands; Vassya did so particularly
freely, and wetted his sleeves as well as his hands in the mess. But yet
the stew seemed to Yegorushka very nice, and reminded him of the
crayfish soup which his mother used to make at home on fast-days.
Panteley was sitting apart munching bread.
"Grandfather, why aren't you eating?" Emelyan asked him.
"I don't eat crayfish. . . . Nasty things," the old man said, and turned
away with disgust.
While they were eating they all talked. From this conversation
Yegorushka gathered that all his new acquaintances, in spite of the
differences of their ages and their characters, had one point in common
which made them all alike: they were all people with a splendid past and
a very poor present. Of their past they all-- every one of them--spoke
with enthusiasm; their attitude to the present was almost one of
contempt. The Russian loves recalling life, but he does not love living.
Yegorushka did not yet know that, and before the stew had been all eaten
he firmly believed that the men sitting round the cauldron were the
injured victims of fate. Panteley told them that in the past, before
there were railways, he used to go with trains of waggons to Moscow and
to Nizhni, and used to earn so much that he did not know what to do with
his money; and what merchants there used to be in those days! what fish!
how cheap everything was! Now the roads were shorter, the merchants were
stingier, the peasants were poorer, the bread was dearer, everything had
shrunk and was on a smaller scale. Emelyan told them that in old days he
had been in the choir in the Lugansky works, and that he had a
remarkable voice and read music splendidly, while now he had become a
peasant and lived on the charity of his brother, who sent him out with
his horses and took half his earnings. Vassya had once worked in a match
factory; Kiruha had been a coachman in a good family, and had been
reckoned the smartest driver of a three-in-hand in the whole district.
Dymov, the son of a well-to-do peasant, lived at ease, enjoyed himself
and had known no trouble till he was twenty, when his stern harsh
father, anxious to train him to work, and afraid he would be spoiled at
home, had sent him to a carrier's to work as a hired labourer. Styopka
was the only one who said nothing, but from his beardless face it was
evident that his life had been a much better one in the past.
Thinking of his father, Dymov frowned and left off eating. Sullenly from
under his brows he looked round at his companions and his eye rested
upon Yegorushka.
"You heathen, take off your cap," he said rudely. "You can't eat with
your cap on, and you a gentleman too!"
Yegorushka took off his hat and did not say a word, but the stew lost
all savour for him, and he did not hear Panteley and Vassya intervening
on his behalf. A feeling of anger with the insulting fellow was rankling
oppressively in his breast, and he made up his mind that he would do him
some injury, whatever it cost him.
After dinner everyone sauntered to the waggons and lay down in the
shade.
"Are we going to start soon, grandfather?" Yegorushka asked Panteley.
"In God's good time we shall set off. There's no starting yet; it is too
hot. . . . O Lord, Thy will be done. Holy Mother. . . Lie down, little
lad."
Soon there was a sound of snoring from under the waggons. Yegorushka
meant to go back to the village, but on consideration, yawned and lay
down by the old man. VI
The waggons remained by the river the whole day, and set off again when
the sun was setting.
Yegorushka was lying on the bales again; the waggon creaked softly and
swayed from side to side. Panteley walked below, stamping his feet,
slapping himself on his thighs and muttering. The air was full of the
churring music of the steppes, as it had been the day before.
Yegorushka lay on his back, and, putting his hands under his head, gazed
upwards at the sky. He watched the glow of sunset kindle, then fade
away; guardian angels covering the horizon with their gold wings
disposed themselves to slumber. The day had passed peacefully; the quiet
peaceful night had come, and they could stay tranquilly at home in
heaven. . . . Yegorushka saw the sky by degrees grow dark and the mist
fall over the earth--saw the stars light up, one after the other. . . .
When you gaze a long while fixedly at the deep sky thoughts and feelings
for some reason merge in a sense of loneliness. One begins to feel
hopelessly solitary, and everything one used to look upon as near and
akin becomes infinitely remote and valueless; the stars that have looked
down from the sky thousands of years already, the mists and the
incomprehensible sky itself, indifferent to the brief life of man,
oppress the soul with their silence when one is left face to face with
them and tries to grasp their significance. One is reminded of the
solitude awaiting each one of us in the grave, and the reality of life
seems awful . . . full of despair. . . .
Yegorushka thought of his grandmother, who was sleeping now under the
cherry-trees in the cemetery. He remembered how she lay in her coffin
with pennies on her eyes, how afterwards she was shut in and let down
into the grave; he even recalled the hollow sound of the clods of earth
on the coffin lid. . . . He pictured his granny in the dark and narrow
coffin, helpless and deserted by everyone. His imagination pictured his
granny suddenly awakening, not understanding where she was, knocking
upon the lid and calling for help, and in the end swooning with horror
and dying again. He imagined his mother dead, Father Christopher,
Countess Dranitsky, Solomon. But however much he tried to imagine
himself in the dark tomb, far from home, outcast, helpless and dead, he
could not succeed; for himself personally he could not admit the
possibility of death, and felt that he would never die. . . .
Panteley, for whom death could not be far away, walked below and went on
reckoning up his thoughts.
"All right. . . . Nice gentlefolk, . . ." he muttered. "Took his little
lad to school--but how he is doing now I haven't heard say --in
Slavyanoserbsk. I say there is no establishment for teaching them to be
very clever. . . . No, that's true--a nice little lad, no harm in him. .
. . He'll grow up and be a help to his father . . . . You, Yegory, are
little now, but you'll grow big and will keep your father and mother. .
. . So it is ordained of God, 'Honour your father and your mother.' . .
. I had children myself, but they were burnt. . . . My wife was burnt
and my children, . . . that's true. . . . The hut caught fire on the
night of Epiphany. . . . I was not at home, I was driving in Oryol. In
Oryol. . . . Marya dashed out into the street, but remembering that the
children were asleep in the hut, ran back and was burnt with her
children. . . . Next day they found nothing but bones."
About midnight Yegorushka and the waggoners were again sitting round a
small camp fire. While the dry twigs and stems were burning up, Kiruha
and Vassya went off somewhere to get water from a creek; they vanished
into the darkness, but could be heard all the time talking and clinking
their pails; so the creek was not far away. The light from the fire lay
a great flickering patch on the earth; though the moon was bright, yet
everything seemed impenetrably black beyond that red patch. The light
was in the waggoners' eyes, and they saw only part of the great road;
almost unseen in the darkness the waggons with the bales and the horses
looked like a mountain of undefined shape. Twenty paces from the camp
fire at the edge of the road stood a wooden cross that had fallen
aslant. Before the camp fire had been lighted, when he could still see
things at a distance, Yegorushka had noticed that there was a similar
old slanting cross on the other side of the great road.
Coming back with the water, Kiruha and Vassya filled the cauldron and
fixed it over the fire. Styopka, with the notched spoon in his hand,
took his place in the smoke by the cauldron, gazing dreamily into the
water for the scum to rise. Panteley and Emelyan were sitting side by
side in silence, brooding over something. Dymov was lying on his
stomach, with his head propped on his fists, looking into the fire. . .
. Styopka's shadow was dancing over him, so that his handsome face was
at one minute covered with darkness, at the next lighted up. . . .
Kiruha and Vassya were wandering about at a little distance gathering
dry grass and bark for the fire. Yegorushka, with his hands in his
pockets, was standing by Panteley, watching how the fire devoured the
grass.
All were resting, musing on something, and they glanced cursorily at the
cross over which patches of red light were dancing. There is something
melancholy, pensive, and extremely poetical about a solitary tomb; one
feels its silence, and the silence gives one the sense of the presence
of the soul of the unknown man who lies under the cross. Is that soul at
peace on the steppe? Does it grieve in the moonlight? Near the tomb the
steppe seems melancholy, dreary and mournful; the grass seems more
sorrowful, and one fancies the grasshoppers chirrup less freely, and
there is no passer-by who would not remember that lonely soul and keep
looking back at the tomb, till it was left far behind and hidden in the
mists. . . .
"Grandfather, what is that cross for?" asked Yegorushka.
Panteley looked at the cross and then at Dymov and asked:
"Nikola, isn't this the place where the mowers killed the merchants?"
Dymov not very readily raised himself on his elbow, looked at the road
and said:
"Yes, it is. . . ."
A silence followed. Kiruha broke up some dry stalks, crushed them up
together and thrust them under the cauldron. The fire flared up
brightly; Styopka was enveloped in black smoke, and the shadow cast by
the cross danced along the road in the dusk beside the waggons.
"Yes, they were killed," Dymov said reluctantly. "Two merchants, father
and son, were travelling, selling holy images. They put up in the inn
not far from here that is now kept by Ignat Fomin. The old man had a
drop too much, and began boasting that he had a lot of money with him.
We all know merchants are a boastful set, God preserve us. . . . They
can't resist showing off before the likes of us. And at the time some
mowers were staying the night at the inn. So they overheard what the
merchants said and took note of it."
"O Lord! . . . Holy Mother!" sighed Panteley.
"Next day, as soon as it was light," Dymov went on, "the merchants were
preparing to set off and the mowers tried to join them. 'Let us go
together, your worships. It will be more cheerful and there will be less
danger, for this is an out-of-the-way place. . . .' The merchants had to
travel at a walking pace to avoid breaking the images, and that just
suited the mowers. . . ."
Dymov rose into a kneeling position and stretched.
"Yes," he went on, yawning. "Everything went all right till they reached
this spot, and then the mowers let fly at them with their scythes. The
son, he was a fine young fellow, snatched the scythe from one of them,
and he used it, too. . . . Well, of course, they got the best of it
because there were eight of them. They hacked at the merchants so that
there was not a sound place left on their bodies; when they had finished
they dragged both of them off the road, the father to one side and the
son to the other. Opposite that cross there is another cross on this
side. . . . Whether it is still standing, I don't know. . . . I can't
see from here. . . ."
"It is," said Kiruha.
"They say they did not find much money afterwards."
"No," Panteley confirmed; "they only found a hundred roubles."
"And three of them died afterwards, for the merchant had cut them badly
with the scythe, too. They died from loss of blood. One had his hand cut
off, so that they say he ran three miles without his hand, and they
found him on a mound close to Kurikovo. He was squatting on his heels,
with his head on his knees, as though he were lost in thought, but when
they looked at him there was no life in him and he was dead. . . ."
"They found him by the track of blood," said Panteley.
Everyone looked at the cross, and again there was a hush. From
somewhere, most likely from the creek, floated the mournful cry of the
bird: "Sleep! sleep! sleep!"
"There are a great many wicked people in the world," said Emelyan.
"A great many," assented Panteley, and he moved up closer to the fire as
though he were frightened. "A great many," he went on in a low voice.
"I've seen lots and lots of them. . . . Wicked people! . . . I have seen
a great many holy and just, too. . . . Queen of Heaven, save us and have
mercy on us. I remember once thirty years ago, or maybe more, I was
driving a merchant from Morshansk. The merchant was a jolly handsome
fellow, with money, too . . . the merchant was . . . a nice man, no harm
in him. . . . So we put up for the night at an inn. And in Russia the
inns are not what they are in these parts. There the yards are roofed in
and look like the ground floor, or let us say like barns in good farms.
Only a barn would be a bit higher. So we put up there and were all
right. My merchant was in a room, while I was with the horses, and
everything was as it should be. So, lads, I said my prayers before going
to sleep and began walking about the yard. And it was a dark night, I
couldn't see anything; it was no good trying. So I walked about a bit up
to the waggons, or nearly, when I saw a light gleaming. What could it
mean? I thought the people of the inn had gone to bed long ago, and
besides the merchant and me there were no other guests in the inn. . . .
Where could the light have come from? I felt suspicious. . . . I went
closer . . . towards the light. . . . The Lord have mercy upon me! and
save me, Queen of Heaven! I looked and there was a little window with a
grating, . . . close to the ground, in the house. . . I lay down on the
ground and looked in; as soon as I looked in a cold chill ran all down
me. . . ."
Kiruha, trying not to make a noise, thrust a handful of twigs into the
fire. After waiting for it to leave off crackling and hissing, the old
man went on:
"I looked in and there was a big cellar, black and dark. . . . There was
a lighted lantern on a tub. In the middle of the cellar were about a
dozen men in red shirts with their sleeves turned up, sharpening long
knives. . . . Ugh! So we had fallen into a nest of robbers. . . . What's
to be done? I ran to the merchant, waked him up quietly, and said:
'Don't be frightened, merchant,' said I, 'but we are in a bad way. We
have fallen into a nest of robbers,' I said. He turned pale and asked:
'What are we to do now, Panteley? I have a lot of money that belongs to
orphans. As for my life,' he said, 'that's in God's hands. I am not
afraid to die, but it's dreadful to lose the orphans' money,' said he. .
. . What were we to do? The gates were locked; there was no getting out.
If there had been a fence one could have climbed over it, but with the
yard shut up! . . . 'Come, don't be frightened, merchant,' said I; 'but
pray to God. Maybe the Lord will not let the orphans suffer. Stay
still.' said I, 'and make no sign, and meanwhile, maybe, I shall think
of something. . . .' Right! . . . I prayed to God and the Lord put the
thought into my mind. . . . I clambered up on my chaise and softly, . .
. softly so that no one should hear, began pulling out the straw in the
thatch, made a hole and crept out, crept out. . . . Then I jumped off
the roof and ran along the road as fast as I could. I ran and ran till I
was nearly dead. . . . I ran maybe four miles without taking breath, if
not more. Thank God I saw a village. I ran up to a hut and began tapping
at a window. 'Good Christian people,' I said, and told them all about
it, 'do not let a Christian soul perish. . . .' I waked them all up. . .
. The peasants gathered together and went with me, . . one with a cord,
one with an oakstick, others with pitchforks. . . . We broke in the
gates of the inn-yard and went straight to the cellar. . . . And the
robbers had just finished sharpening their knives and were going to kill
the merchant. The peasants took them, every one of them, bound them and
carried them to the police. The merchant gave them three hundred roubles
in his joy, and gave me five gold pieces and put my name down. They said
that they found human bones in the cellar afterwards, heaps and heaps of
them. . . . Bones! . . . So they robbed people and then buried them, so
that there should be no traces. . . . Well, afterwards they were
punished at Morshansk."