book, moved at a walking pace alongside the waggons. When he reached the
hindmost, Yegorushka strained his eyes to get a better look at him.
Varlamov was an elderly man. His face, a simple Russian sunburnt face
with a small grey beard, was red, wet with dew and covered with little
blue veins; it had the same expression of businesslike coldness as Ivan
Ivanitch's face, the same look of fanatical zeal for business. But yet
what a difference could be felt between him and Kuzmitchov! Uncle Ivan
Ivanitch always had on his face, together with his business-like
reserve, a look of anxiety and apprehension that he would not find
Varlamov, that he would be late, that he would miss a good price;
nothing of that sort, so characteristic of small and dependent persons,
could be seen in the face or figure of Varlamov. This man made the price
himself, was not looking for anyone, and did not depend on anyone;
however ordinary his exterior, yet in everything, even in the manner of
holding his whip, there was a sense of power and habitual authority over
the steppe.
As he rode by Yegorushka he did not glance at him. Only the little
stallion deigned to notice Yegorushka; he looked at him with his large
foolish eyes, and even he showed no interest. Panteley bowed to
Varlamov; the latter noticed it, and without taking his eyes off the
sheets of paper, said lisping:
"How are you, old man?"
Varlamov's conversation with the horseman and the way he had brandished
his whip had evidently made an overwhelming impression on the whole
party. Everyone looked grave. The man on horseback, cast down at the
anger of the great man, remained stationary, with his hat off, and the
rein loose by the foremost waggon; he was silent, and seemed unable to
grasp that the day had begun so badly for him.
"He is a harsh old man, . ." muttered Panteley. "It's a pity he is so
harsh! But he is all right, a good man. . . . He doesn't abuse men for
nothing. . . . It's no matter. . . ."
After examining the papers, Varlamov thrust the book into his pocket;
the little stallion, as though he knew what was in his mind, without
waiting for orders, started and dashed along the highroad. VII
On the following night the waggoners had halted and were cooking their
porridge. On this occasion there was a sense of overwhelming oppression
over everyone. It was sultry; they all drank a great deal, but could not
quench their thirst. The moon was intensely crimson and sullen, as
though it were sick. The stars, too, were sullen, the mist was thicker,
the distance more clouded. Nature seemed as though languid and weighed
down by some foreboding.
There was not the same liveliness and talk round the camp fire as there
had been the day before. All were dreary and spoke listlessly and
without interest. Panteley did nothing but sigh and complain of his
feet, and continually alluded to impenitent deathbeds.
Dymov was lying on his stomach, chewing a straw in silence; there was an
expression of disgust on his face as though the straw smelt unpleasant,
a spiteful and exhausted look. . . . Vassya complained that his jaw
ached, and prophesied bad weather; Emelyan was not waving his arms, but
sitting still and looking gloomily at the fire. Yegorushka, too, was
weary. This slow travelling exhausted him, and the sultriness of the day
had given him a headache.
While they were cooking the porridge, Dymov, to relieve his boredom,
began quarrelling with his companions.
"Here he lolls, the lumpy face, and is the first to put his spoon in,"
he said, looking spitefully at Emelyan. "Greedy! always contrives to sit
next the cauldron. He's been a church-singer, so he thinks he is a
gentleman! There are a lot of singers like you begging along the
highroad!"
"What are you pestering me for?" asked Emelyan, looking at him angrily.
"To teach you not to be the first to dip into the cauldron. Don't think
too much of yourself!"
"You are a fool, and that is all about it!" wheezed out Emelyan.
Knowing by experience how such conversations usually ended, Panteley and
Vassya intervened and tried to persuade Dymov not to quarrel about
nothing.
"A church-singer!" The bully would not desist, but laughed
contemptuously. "Anyone can sing like that--sit in the church porch and
sing 'Give me alms, for Christ's sake!' Ugh! you are a nice fellow!"
Emelyan did not speak. His silence had an irritating effect on Dymov. He
looked with still greater hatred at the ex-singer and said:
"I don't care to have anything to do with you, or I would show you what
to think of yourself."
"But why are you pushing me, you Mazeppa?" Emelyan cried, flaring up.
"Am I interfering with you?"
"What did you call me?" asked Dymov, drawing himself up, and his eyes
were suffused with blood. "Eh! I am a Mazeppa? Yes? Take that, then; go
and look for it."
Dymov snatched the spoon out of Emelyan's hand and flung it far away.
Kiruha, Vassya, and Styopka ran to look for it, while Emelyan fixed an
imploring and questioning look on Panteley. His face suddenly became
small and wrinkled; it began twitching, and the ex-singer began to cry
like a child.
Yegorushka, who had long hated Dymov, felt as though the air all at once
were unbearably stifling, as though the fire were scorching his face; he
longed to run quickly to the waggons in the darkness, but the bully's
angry bored eyes drew the boy to him. With a passionate desire to say
something extremely offensive, he took a step towards Dymov and brought
out, gasping for breath:
"You are the worst of the lot; I can't bear you!"
After this he ought to have run to the waggons, but he could not stir
from the spot and went on:
"In the next world you will burn in hell! I'll complain to Ivan
Ivanitch. Don't you dare insult Emelyan!"
"Say this too, please," laughed Dyrnov: "'every little sucking-pig wants
to lay down the law.' Shall I pull your ear?"
Yegorushka felt that he could not breathe; and something which had never
happened to him before--he suddenly began shaking all over, stamping his
feet and crying shrilly:
"Beat him, beat him!"
Tears gushed from his eyes; he felt ashamed, and ran staggering back to
the waggon. The effect produced by his outburst he did not see. Lying on
the bales and twitching his arms and legs, he whispered:
"Mother, mother!"
And these men and the shadows round the camp fire, and the dark bales
and the far-away lightning, which was flashing every minute in the
distance--all struck him now as terrible and unfriendly. He was overcome
with terror and asked himself in despair why and how he had come into
this unknown land in the company of terrible peasants? Where was his
uncle now, where was Father Christopher, where was Deniska? Why were
they so long in coming? Hadn't they forgotten him? At the thought that
he was forgotten and cast out to the mercy of fate, he felt such a cold
chill of dread that he had several times an impulse to jump off the
bales of wool, and run back full speed along the road; but the thought
of the huge dark crosses, which would certainly meet him on the way, and
the lightning flashing in the distance, stopped him. . . . And only when
he whispered, "Mother, mother!" he felt as it were a little better.
The waggoners must have been full of dread, too. After Yegorushka had
run away from the camp fire they sat at first for a long time in
silence, then they began speaking in hollow undertones about something,
saying that it was coming and that they must make haste and get away
from it. . . . They quickly finished supper, put out the fire and began
harnessing the horses in silence. From their fluster and the broken
phrases they uttered it was apparent they foresaw some trouble. Before
they set off on their way, Dymov went up to Panteley and asked softly:
"What's his name?"
"Yegory," answered Panteley.
Dymov put one foot on the wheel, caught hold of the cord which was tied
round the bales and pulled himself up. Yegorushka saw his face and curly
head. The face was pale and looked grave and exhausted, but there was no
expression of spite in it.
"Yera!" he said softly, "here, hit me!"
Yegorushka looked at him in surprise. At that instant there was a flash
of lightning.
"It's all right, hit me," repeated Dymov. And without waiting for
Yegorushka to hit him or to speak to him, he jumped down and said: "How
dreary I am!"
Then, swaying from one leg to the other and moving his shoulder-blades,
he sauntered lazily alongside the string of waggons and repeated in a
voice half weeping, half angry:
"How dreary I am! O Lord! Don't you take offence, Emelyan," he said as
he passed Emelyan. "Ours is a wretched cruel life!"
There was a flash of lightning on the right, and, like a reflection in
the looking-glass, at once a second flash in the distance.
"Yegory, take this," cried Panteley, throwing up something big and dark.
"What is it?" asked Yegorushka.
"A mat. There will be rain, so cover yourself up."
Yegorushka sat up and looked about him. The distance had grown
perceptibly blacker, and now oftener than every minute winked with a
pale light. The blackness was being bent towards the right as though by
its own weight.
"Will there be a storm, Grandfather?" asked Yegorushka.
"Ah, my poor feet, how they ache!" Panteley said in a high-pitched
voice, stamping his feet and not hearing the boy.
On the left someone seemed to strike a match in the sky; a pale
phosphorescent streak gleamed and went out. There was a sound as though
someone very far away were walking over an iron roof, probably barefoot,
for the iron gave a hollow rumble.
"It's set in!" cried Kiruha.
Between the distance and the horizon on the right there was a flash of
lightning so vivid that it lighted up part of the steppe and the spot
where the clear sky met the blackness. A terrible cloud was swooping
down, without haste, a compact mass; big black shreds hung from its
edge; similar shreds pressing one upon another were piling up on the
right and left horizon. The tattered, ragged look of the storm-cloud
gave it a drunken disorderly air. There was a distinct, not smothered,
growl of thunder. Yegorushka crossed himself and began quickly putting
on his great-coat.
"I am dreary!" Dymov's shout floated from the foremost waggon, and it
could be told from his voice that he was beginning to be ill-humoured
again. "I am so dreary!"
All at once there was a squall of wind, so violent that it almost
snatched away Yegorushka's bundle and mat; the mat fluttered in all
directions and flapped on the bale and on Yegorushka's face. The wind
dashed whistling over the steppe, whirled round in disorder and raised
such an uproar from the grass that neither the thunder nor the creaking
of the wheels could be heard; it blew from the black storm-cloud,
carrying with it clouds of dust and the scent of rain and wet earth. The
moonlight grew mistier, as it were dirtier; the stars were even more
overcast; and clouds of dust could be seen hurrying along the edge of
the road, followed by their shadows. By now, most likely, the whirlwind
eddying round and lifting from the earth dust, dry grass and feathers,
was mounting to the very sky; uprooted plants must have been flying by
that very black storm-cloud, and how frightened they must have been! But
through the dust that clogged the eyes nothing could be seen but the
flash of lightning.
Yegorushka, thinking it would pour with rain in a minute, knelt up and
covered himself with the mat.
"Panteley-ey!" someone shouted in the front. "A. . . a. . . va!"
"I can't!" Panteley answered in a loud high voice. "A . . . a . . . va!
Arya . . . a!"
There was an angry clap of thunder, which rolled across the sky from
right to left, then back again, and died away near the foremost waggon.
"Holy, holy, holy, Lord of Sabaoth," whispered Yegorushka, crossing
himself. "Fill heaven and earth with Thy glory."
The blackness in the sky yawned wide and breathed white fire. At once
there was another clap of thunder. It had scarcely ceased when there was
a flash of lightning so broad that Yegorushka suddenly saw through a
slit in the mat the whole highroad to the very horizon, all the
waggoners and even Kiruha's waistcoat. The black shreds had by now moved
upwards from the left, and one of them, a coarse, clumsy monster like a
claw with fingers, stretched to the moon. Yegorushka made up his mind to
shut his eyes tight, to pay no attention to it, and to wait till it was
all over.
The rain was for some reason long in coming. Yegorushka peeped out from
the mat in the hope that perhaps the storm-cloud was passing over. It
was fearfully dark. Yegorushka could see neither Panteley, nor the bale
of wool, nor himself; he looked sideways towards the place where the
moon had lately been, but there was the same black darkness there as
over the waggons. And in the darkness the flashes of lightning seemed
more violent and blinding, so that they hurt his eyes.
"Panteley!" called Yegorushka.
No answer followed. But now a gust of wind for the last time flung up
the mat and hurried away. A quiet regular sound was heard. A big cold
drop fell on Yegorushka's knee, another trickled over his hand. He
noticed that his knees were not covered, and tried to rearrange the mat,
but at that moment something began pattering on the road, then on the
shafts and the bales. It was the rain. As though they understood one
another, the rain and the mat began prattling of something rapidly,
gaily and most annoyingly like two magpies.
Yegorushka knelt up or rather squatted on his boots. While the rain was
pattering on the mat, he leaned forward to screen his knees, which were
suddenly wet. He succeeded in covering his knees, but in less than a
minute was aware of a penetrating, unpleasant dampness behind on his
back and the calves of his legs. He returned to his former position,
exposing his knees to the rain, and wondered what to do to rearrange the
mat which he could not see in the darkness. But his arms were already
wet, the water was trickling up his sleeves and down his collar, and his
shoulder-blades felt chilly. And he made up his mind to do nothing but
sit motionless and wait till it was all over.
"Holy, holy, holy!" he whispered.
Suddenly, exactly over his head, the sky cracked with a fearful
deafening din; he huddled up and held his breath, waiting for the
fragments to fall upon his head and back. He inadvertently opened his
eyes and saw a blinding intense light flare out and flash five times on
his fingers, his wet sleeves, and on the trickles of water running from
the mat upon the bales and down to the ground. There was a fresh peal of
thunder as violent and awful; the sky was not growling and rumbling now,
but uttering short crashing sounds like the crackling of dry wood.
"Trrah! tah! tah! tah!" the thunder rang out distinctly, rolled over the
sky, seemed to stumble, and somewhere by the foremost waggons or far
behind to fall with an abrupt angry "Trrra!"
The flashes of lightning had at first been only terrible, but with such
thunder they seemed sinister and menacing. Their magic light pierced
through closed eyelids and sent a chill all over the body. What could he
do not to see them? Yegorushka made up his mind to turn over on his
face. Cautiously, as though afraid of being watched, he got on all
fours, and his hands slipping on the wet bale, he turned back again.
"Trrah! tah! tah!" floated over his head, rolled under the waggons and
exploded "Kraa!"
Again he inadvertently opened his eyes and saw a new danger: three huge
giants with long pikes were following the waggon! A flash of lightning
gleamed on the points of their pikes and lighted up their figures very
distinctly. They were men of huge proportions, with covered faces, bowed
heads, and heavy footsteps. They seemed gloomy and dispirited and lost
in thought. Perhaps they were not following the waggons with any harmful
intent, and yet there was something awful in their proximity.
Yegorushka turned quickly forward, and trembling all over cried:
"Panteley! Grandfather!"
"Trrah! tah! tah!" the sky answered him.
He opened his eyes to see if the waggoners were there. There were
flashes of lightning in two places, which lighted up the road to the far
distance, the whole string of waggons and all the waggoners. Streams of
water were flowing along the road and bubbles were dancing. Panteley was
walking beside the waggon; his tall hat and his shoulder were covered
with a small mat; his figure expressed neither terror nor uneasiness, as
though he were deafened by the thunder and blinded by the lightning.
"Grandfather, the giants!" Yegorushka shouted to him in tears.
But the old man did not hear. Further away walked Emelyan. He was
covered from head to foot with a big mat and was triangular in shape.
Vassya, without anything over him, was walking with the same wooden step
as usual, lifting his feet high and not bending his knees. In the flash
of lightning it seemed as though the waggons were not moving and the men
were motionless, that Vassya's lifted foot was rigid in the same
position. . . .
Yegorushka called the old man once more. Getting no answer, he sat
motionless, and no longer waited for it all to end. He was convinced
that the thunder would kill him in another minute, that he would
accidentally open his eyes and see the terrible giants, and he left off
crossing himself, calling the old man and thinking of his mother, and
was simply numb with cold and the conviction that the storm would never
end.
But at last there was the sound of voices.
"Yegory, are you asleep?" Panteley cried below. "Get down! Is he deaf,
the silly little thing? . . ."
"Something like a storm!" said an unfamiliar bass voice, and the
stranger cleared his throat as though he had just tossed off a good
glass of vodka.
Yegorushka opened his eyes. Close to the waggon stood Panteley, Emelyan,
looking like a triangle, and the giants. The latter were by now much
shorter, and when Yegorushka looked more closely at them they turned out
to be ordinary peasants, carrying on their shoulders not pikes but
pitchforks. In the space between Panteley and the triangular figure,
gleamed the window of a low-pitched hut. So the waggons were halting in
the village. Yegorushka flung off the mat, took his bundle and made
haste to get off the waggon. Now when close to him there were people
talking and a lighted window he no longer felt afraid, though the
thunder was crashing as before and the whole sky was streaked with
lightning.
"It was a good storm, all right, . . ." Panteley was muttering. "Thank
God, . . . my feet are a little softened by the rain. It was all right.
. . . Have you got down, Yegory? Well, go into the hut; it is all right.
. . ."
"Holy, holy, holy!" wheezed Emelyan, "it must have struck something . .
. . Are you of these parts?" he asked the giants.
"No, from Glinovo. We belong to Glinovo. We are working at the
Platers'."
"Threshing?"
"All sorts. Just now we are getting in the wheat. The lightning, the
lightning! It is long since we have had such a storm. . . ."
Yegorushka went into the hut. He was met by a lean hunchbacked old woman
with a sharp chin. She stood holding a tallow candle in her hands,
screwing up her eyes and heaving prolonged sighs.
"What a storm God has sent us!" she said. "And our lads are out for the
night on the steppe; they'll have a bad time, poor dears! Take off your
things, little sir, take off your things."
Shivering with cold and shrugging squeamishly, Yegorushka pulled off his
drenched overcoat, then stretched out his arms and straddled his legs,
and stood a long time without moving. The slightest movement caused an
unpleasant sensation of cold and wetness. His sleeves and the back of
his shirt were sopped, his trousers stuck to his legs, his head was
dripping.
"What's the use of standing there, with your legs apart, little lad?"
said the old woman. "Come, sit down."
Holding his legs wide apart, Yegorushka went up to the table and sat
down on a bench near somebody's head. The head moved, puffed a stream of
air through its nose, made a chewing sound and subsided. A mound covered
with a sheepskin stretched from the head along the bench; it was a
peasant woman asleep.
The old woman went out sighing, and came back with a big water melon and
a little sweet melon.
"Have something to eat, my dear! I have nothing else to offer you, . .
." she said, yawning. She rummaged in the table and took out a long
sharp knife, very much like the one with which the brigands killed the
merchants in the inn. "Have some, my dear!"
Yegorushka, shivering as though he were in a fever, ate a slice of sweet
melon with black bread and then a slice of water melon, and that made
him feel colder still.
"Our lads are out on the steppe for the night, . . ." sighed the old
woman while he was eating. "The terror of the Lord! I'd light the candle
under the ikon, but I don't know where Stepanida has put it. Have some
more, little sir, have some more. . . ."
The old woman gave a yawn and, putting her right hand behind her,
scratched her left shoulder.
"It must be two o'clock now," she said; "it will soon be time to get up.
Our lads are out on the steppe for the night; they are all wet through
for sure. . . ."
"Granny," said Yegorushka. "I am sleepy."
"Lie down, my dear, lie down," the old woman sighed, yawning. "Lord
Jesus Christ! I was asleep, when I heard a noise as though someone were
knocking. I woke up and looked, and it was the storm God had sent us. .
. . I'd have lighted the candle, but I couldn't find it."
Talking to herself, she pulled some rags, probably her own bed, off the
bench, took two sheepskins off a nail by the stove, and began laying
them out for a bed for Yegorushka. "The storm doesn't grow less," she
muttered. "If only nothing's struck in an unlucky hour. Our lads are out
on the steppe for the night. Lie down and sleep, my dear. . . . Christ
be with you, my child. . . . I won't take away the melon; maybe you'll
have a bit when you get up."
The sighs and yawns of the old woman, the even breathing of the sleeping
woman, the half-darkness of the hut, and the sound of the rain outside,
made one sleepy. Yegorushka was shy of undressing before the old woman.
He only took off his boots, lay down and covered himself with the
sheepskin.
"Is the little lad lying down?" he heard Panteley whisper a little
later.
"Yes," answered the old woman in a whisper. "The terror of the Lord! It
thunders and thunders, and there is no end to it."
"It will soon be over," wheezed Panteley, sitting down; "it's getting
quieter. . . . The lads have gone into the huts, and two have stayed
with the horses. The lads have. . . . They can't; . . . the horses would
be taken away. . . . I'll sit here a bit and then go and take my turn. .
. . We can't leave them; they would be taken. . . ."
Panteley and the old woman sat side by side at Yegorushka's feet,
talking in hissing whispers and interspersing their speech with sighs
and yawns. And Yegorushka could not get warm. The warm heavy sheepskin
lay on him, but he was trembling all over; his arms and legs were
twitching, and his whole inside was shivering. . . . He undressed under
the sheepskin, but that was no good. His shivering grew more and more
acute.
Panteley went out to take his turn with the horses, and afterwards came
back again, and still Yegorushka was shivering all over and could not
get to sleep. Something weighed upon his head and chest and oppressed
him, and he did not know what it was, whether it was the old people
whispering, or the heavy smell of the sheepskin. The melon he had eaten
had left an unpleasant metallic taste in his mouth. Moreover he was
being bitten by fleas.
"Grandfather, I am cold," he said, and did not know his own voice.
"Go to sleep, my child, go to sleep," sighed the old woman.
Tit came up to the bedside on his thin little legs and waved his arms,
then grew up to the ceiling and turned into a windmill. . . . Father
Christopher, not as he was in the chaise, but in his full vestments with
the sprinkler in his hand, walked round the mill, sprinkling it with
holy water, and it left off waving. Yegorushka, knowing this was
delirium, opened his eyes.
"Grandfather," he called, "give me some water."
No one answered. Yegorushka felt it insufferably stifling and
uncomfortable lying down. He got up, dressed, and went out of the hut.
Morning was beginning. The sky was overcast, but it was no longer
raining. Shivering and wrapping himself in his wet overcoat, Yegorushka
walked about the muddy yard and listened to the silence; he caught sight
of a little shed with a half-open door made of reeds. He looked into
this shed, went into it, and sat down in a dark corner on a heap of dry
dung.
There was a tangle of thoughts in his heavy head; his mouth was dry and
unpleasant from the metallic taste. He looked at his hat, straightened
the peacock's feather on it, and thought how he had gone with his mother
to buy the hat. He put his hand into his pocket and took out a lump of
brownish sticky paste. How had that paste come into his pocket? He
thought a minute, smelt it; it smelt of honey. Aha! it was the Jewish
cake! How sopped it was, poor thing!