bone buttons, cut in the shape of a frock-coat. At home, being a new and
expensive article, it had not been hung in the hall, but with his
mother's dresses in her bedroom; he was only allowed to wear it on
holidays. Looking at it, Yegorushka felt sorry for it. He thought that
he and the great-coat were both abandoned to the mercy of destiny; he
thought that he would never get back home, and began sobbing so
violently that he almost fell off the heap of dung.
A big white dog with woolly tufts like curl-papers about its face,
sopping from the rain, came into the shed and stared with curiosity at
Yegorushka. It seemed to be hesitating whether to bark or not. Deciding
that there was no need to bark, it went cautiously up to Yegorushka, ate
the sticky plaster and went out again.
"There are Varlamov's men!" someone shouted in the street.
After having his cry out, Yegorushka went out of the shed and, walking
round a big puddle, made his way towards the street. The waggons were
standing exactly opposite the gateway. The drenched waggoners, with
their muddy feet, were sauntering beside them or sitting on the shafts,
as listless and drowsy as flies in autumn. Yegorushka looked at them and
thought: "How dreary and comfortless to be a peasant!" He went up to
Panteley and sat down beside him on the shaft.
"Grandfather, I'm cold," he said, shivering and thrusting his hands up
his sleeves.
"Never mind, we shall soon be there," yawned Panteley. "Never mind, you
will get warm."
It must have been early when the waggons set off, for it was not hot.
Yegorushka lay on the bales of wool and shivered with cold, though the
sun soon came out and dried his clothes, the bales, and the earth. As
soon as he closed his eyes he saw Tit and the windmill again. Feeling a
sickness and heaviness all over, he did his utmost to drive away these
images, but as soon as they vanished the dare-devil Dymov, with red eyes
and lifted fists, rushed at Yegorushka with a roar, or there was the
sound of his complaint: "I am so dreary!" Varlamov rode by on his little
Cossack stallion; happy Konstantin passed, with a smile and the bustard
in his arms. And how tedious these people were, how sickening and
unbearable!
Once--it was towards evening--he raised his head to ask for water. The
waggons were standing on a big bridge across a broad river. There was
black smoke below over the river, and through it could be seen a steamer
with a barge in tow. Ahead of them, beyond the river, was a huge
mountain dotted with houses and churches; at the foot of the mountain an
engine was being shunted along beside some goods trucks.
Yegorushka had never before seen steamers, nor engines, nor broad
rivers. Glancing at them now, he was not alarmed or surprised; there was
not even a look of anything like curiosity in his face. He merely felt
sick, and made haste to turn over to the edge of the bale. He was sick.
Panteley, seeing this, cleared his throat and shook his head.
"Our little lad's taken ill," he said. "He must have got a chill to the
stomach. The little lad must. . . away from home; it's a bad lookout!"
VIII
The waggons stopped at a big inn for merchants, not far from the quay.
As Yegorushka climbed down from the waggon he heard a very familiar
voice. Someone was helping him to get down, and saying:
"We arrived yesterday evening. . . . We have been expecting you all day.
We meant to overtake you yesterday, but it was out of our way; we came
by the other road. I say, how you have crumpled your coat! You'll catch
it from your uncle!"
Yegorushka looked into the speaker's mottled face and remembered that
this was Deniska.
"Your uncle and Father Christopher are in the inn now, drinking tea;
come along!"
And he led Yegorushka to a big two-storied building, dark and gloomy
like the almshouse at N. After going across the entry, up a dark
staircase and through a narrow corridor, Yegorushka and Deniska reached
a little room in which Ivan Ivanitch and Father Christopher were sitting
at the tea-table. Seeing the boy, both the old men showed surprise and
pleasure.
"Aha! Yegor Ni-ko-la-aitch!" chanted Father Christopher. "Mr.
Lomonosov!"
"Ah, our gentleman that is to be," said Kuzmitchov, "pleased to see
you!"
Yegorushka took off his great-coat, kissed his uncle's hand and Father
Christopher's, and sat down to the table.
"Well, how did you like the journey, puer bone?" Father Christopher
pelted him with questions as he poured him out some tea, with his
radiant smile. "Sick of it, I've no doubt? God save us all from having
to travel by waggon or with oxen. You go on and on, God forgive us; you
look ahead and the steppe is always lying stretched out the same as it
was--you can't see the end of it! It's not travelling but regular
torture. Why don't you drink your tea? Drink it up; and in your absence,
while you have been trailing along with the waggons, we have settled all
our business capitally. Thank God we have sold our wool to Tcherepahin,
and no one could wish to have done better. . . . We have made a good
bargain."
At the first sight of his own people Yegorushka felt an overwhelming
desire to complain. He did not listen to Father Christopher, but thought
how to begin and what exactly to complain of. But Father Christopher's
voice, which seemed to him harsh and unpleasant, prevented him from
concentrating his attention and confused his thoughts. He had not sat at
the table five minutes before he got up, went to the sofa and lay down.
"Well, well," said Father Christopher in surprise. "What about your
tea?"
Still thinking what to complain of, Yegorushka leaned his head against
the wall and broke into sobs.
"Well, well!" repeated Father Christopher, getting up and going to the
sofa. "Yegory, what is the matter with you? Why are you crying?"
"I'm . . . I'm ill," Yegorushka brought out.
"Ill?" said Father Christopher in amazement. "That's not the right
thing, my boy. . . . One mustn't be ill on a journey. Aie, aie, what are
you thinking about, boy . . . eh?"
He put his hand to Yegorushka's head, touched his cheek and said:
"Yes, your head's feverish. . . . You must have caught cold or else have
eaten something. . . . Pray to God."
"Should we give him quinine? . . ." said Ivan Ivanitch, troubled.
"No; he ought to have something hot. . . . Yegory, have a little drop of
soup? Eh?"
"I . . . don't want any," said Yegorushka.
"Are you feeling chilly?"
"I was chilly before, but now . . . now I am hot. And I ache all over. .
. ."
Ivan Ivanitch went up to the sofa, touched Yegorushka on the head,
cleared his throat with a perplexed air, and went back to the table.
"I tell you what, you undress and go to bed," said Father Christopher.
"What you want is sleep now."
He helped Yegorushka to undress, gave him a pillow and covered him with
a quilt, and over that Ivan Ivanitch's great-coat. Then he walked away
on tiptoe and sat down to the table. Yegorushka shut his eyes, and at
once it seemed to him that he was not in the hotel room, but on the
highroad beside the camp fire. Emelyan waved his hands, and Dymov with
red eyes lay on his stomach and looked mockingly at Yegorushka.
"Beat him, beat him!" shouted Yegorushka.
"He is delirious," said Father Christopher in an undertone.
"It's a nuisance!" sighed Ivan Ivanitch.
"He must be rubbed with oil and vinegar. Please God, he will be better
to-morrow."
To be rid of bad dreams, Yegorushka opened his eyes and began looking
towards the fire. Father Christopher and Ivan Ivanitch had now finished
their tea and were talking in a whisper. The first was smiling with
delight, and evidently could not forget that he had made a good bargain
over his wool; what delighted him was not so much the actual profit he
had made as the thought that on getting home he would gather round him
his big family, wink slyly and go off into a chuckle; at first he would
deceive them all, and say that he had sold the wool at a price below its
value, then he would give his son-in-law, Mihail, a fat pocket-book and
say: "Well, take it! that's the way to do business!" Kuzmitchov did not
seem pleased; his face expressed, as before, a business-like reserve and
anxiety.
"If I could have known that Tcherepahin would give such a price," he
said in a low voice, "I wouldn't have sold Makarov those five tons at
home. It is vexatious! But who could have told that the price had gone
up here?"
A man in a white shirt cleared away the samovar and lighted the little
lamp before the ikon in the corner. Father Christopher whispered
something in his ear; the man looked, made a serious face like a
conspirator, as though to say, "I understand," went out, and returned a
little while afterwards and put something under the sofa. Ivan Ivanitch
made himself a bed on the floor, yawned several times, said his prayers
lazily, and lay down.
"I think of going to the cathedral to-morrow," said Father Christopher.
"I know the sacristan there. I ought to go and see the bishop after
mass, but they say he is ill."
He yawned and put out the lamp. Now there was no light in the room but
the little lamp before the ikon.
"They say he can't receive visitors," Father Christopher went on,
undressing. "So I shall go away without seeing him."
He took off his full coat, and Yegorushka saw Robinson Crusoe reappear.
Robinson stirred something in a saucer, went up to Yegorushka and
whispered:
"Lomonosov, are you asleep? Sit up; I'm going to rub you with oil and
vinegar. It's a good thing, only you must say a prayer."
Yegorushka roused himself quickly and sat up. Father Christopher pulled
down the boy's shirt, and shrinking and breathing jerkily, as though he
were being tickled himself, began rubbing Yegorushka's chest.
"In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost," he whispered,
"lie with your back upwards--that's it. . . . You'll be all right to-
morrow, but don't do it again. . . . You are as hot as fire. I suppose
you were on the road in the storm."
"Yes."
"You might well fall ill! In the name of the Father, the Son, and the
Holy Ghost, . . . you might well fall ill!"
After rubbing Yegorushka, Father Christopher put on his shirt again,
covered him, made the sign of the cross over him, and walked away. Then
Yegorushka saw him saying his prayers. Probably the old man knew a great
many prayers by heart, for he stood a long time before the ikon
murmuring. After saying his prayers he made the sign of the cross over
the window, the door, Yegorushka, and Ivan Ivanitch, lay down on the
little sofa without a pillow, and covered himself with his full coat. A
clock in the corridor struck ten. Yegorushka thought how long a time it
would be before morning; feeling miserable, he pressed his forehead
against the back of the sofa and left off trying to get rid of the
oppressive misty dreams. But morning came much sooner than he expected.
It seemed to him that he had not been lying long with his head pressed
to the back of the sofa, but when he opened his eyes slanting rays of
sunlight were already shining on the floor through the two windows of
the little hotel room. Father Christopher and Ivan Ivanitch were not in
the room. The room had been tidied; it was bright, snug, and smelt of
Father Christopher, who always smelt of cypress and dried cornflowers
(at home he used to make the holy-water sprinklers and decorations for
the ikonstands out of cornflowers, and so he was saturated with the
smell of them). Yegorushka looked at the pillow, at the slanting
sunbeams, at his boots, which had been cleaned and were standing side by
side near the sofa, and laughed. It seemed strange to him that he was
not on the bales of wool, that everything was dry around him, and that
there was no thunder and lightning on the ceiling.
He jumped off the sofa and began dressing. He felt splendid; nothing was
left of his yesterday's illness but a slight weakness in his legs and
neck. So the vinegar and oil had done good. He remembered the steamer,
the railway engine, and the broad river, which he had dimly seen the day
before, and now he made haste to dress, to run to the quay and have a
look at them. When he had washed and was putting on his red shirt, the
latch of the door clicked, and Father Christopher appeared in the
doorway, wearing his top-hat and a brown silk cassock over his canvas
coat and carrying his staff in his hand. Smiling and radiant (old men
are always radiant when they come back from church), he put a roll of
holy bread and a parcel of some sort on the table, prayed before the
ikon, and said:
"God has sent us blessings--well, how are you?"
"Quite well now," answered Yegorushka, kissing his hand.
"Thank God. . . . I have come from mass. I've been to see a sacristan I
know. He invited me to breakfast with him, but I didn't go. I don't like
visiting people too early, God bless them!"
He took off his cassock, stroked himself on the chest, and without haste
undid the parcel. Yegorushka saw a little tin of caviare, a piece of dry
sturgeon, and a French loaf.
"See; I passed a fish-shop and brought this," said Father Christopher.
"There is no need to indulge in luxuries on an ordinary weekday; but I
thought, I've an invalid at home, so it is excusable. And the caviare is
good, real sturgeon. . . ."
The man in the white shirt brought in the samovar and a tray with tea-
things.
"Eat some," said Father Christopher, spreading the caviare on a slice of
bread and handing it to Yegorushka. "Eat now and enjoy yourself, but the
time will soon come for you to be studying. Mind you study with
attention and application, so that good may come of it. What you have to
learn by heart, learn by heart, but when you have to tell the inner
sense in your own words, without regard to the outer form, then say it
in your own words. And try to master all subjects. One man knows
mathematics excellently, but has never heard of Pyotr Mogila; another
knows about Pyotr Mogila, but cannot explain about the moon. But you
study so as to understand everything. Study Latin, French, German, . . .
geography, of course, history, theology, philosophy, mathematics, . . .
and when you have mastered everything, not with haste but with prayer
and with zeal, then go into the service. When you know everything it
will be easy for you in any line of life. . . . You study and strive for
the divine blessing, and God will show you what to be. Whether a doctor,
a judge or an engineer. . . ."
Father Christopher spread a little caviare on a piece of bread, put it
in his mouth and said:
"The Apostle Paul says: 'Do not apply yourself to strange and diverse
studies.' Of course, if it is black magic, unlawful arts, or calling up
spirits from the other world, like Saul, or studying subjects that can
be of no use to yourself or others, better not learn them. You must
undertake only what God has blessed. Take example . . . the Holy
Apostles spoke in all languages, so you study languages. Basil the Great
studied mathematics and philosophy--so you study them; St. Nestor wrote
history--so you study and write history. Take example from the saints."
Father Christopher sipped the tea from his saucer, wiped his moustaches,
and shook his head.
"Good!" he said. "I was educated in the old-fashioned way; I have
forgotten a great deal by now, but still I live differently from other
people. Indeed, there is no comparison. For instance, in company at a
dinner, or at an assembly, one says something in Latin, or makes some
allusion from history or philosophy, and it pleases people, and it
pleases me myself. . . . Or when the circuit court comes and one has to
take the oath, all the other priests are shy, but I am quite at home
with the judges, the prosecutors, and the lawyers. I talk
intellectually, drink a cup of tea with them, laugh, ask them what I
don't know, . . . and they like it. So that's how it is, my boy.
Learning is light and ignorance is darkness. Study! It's hard, of
course; nowadays study is expensive. . . . Your mother is a widow; she
lives on her pension, but there, of course . . ."
Father Christopher glanced apprehensively towards the door, and went on
in a whisper:
"Ivan Ivanitch will assist. He won't desert you. He has no children of
his own, and he will help you. Don't be uneasy."
He looked grave, and whispered still more softly:
"Only mind, Yegory, don't forget your mother and Ivan Ivanitch, God
preserve you from it. The commandment bids you honour your mother, and
Ivan Ivanitch is your benefactor and takes the place of a father to you.
If you become learned, God forbid you should be impatient and scornful
with people because they are not so clever as you, then woe, woe to
you!"
Father Christopher raised his hand and repeated in a thin voice:
"Woe to you! Woe to you!"
Father Christopher's tongue was loosened, and he was, as they say,
warming to his subject; he would not have finished till dinnertime but
the door opened and Ivan Ivanitch walked in. He said good-morning
hurriedly, sat down to the table, and began rapidly swallowing his tea.
"Well, I have settled all our business," he said. "We might have gone
home to-day, but we have still to think about Yegor. We must arrange for
him. My sister told me that Nastasya Petrovna, a friend of hers, lives
somewhere here, so perhaps she will take him in as a boarder."
He rummaged in his pocket-book, found a crumpled note and read:
"'Little Lower Street: Nastasya Petrovna Toskunov, living in a house of
her own.' We must go at once and try to find her. It's a nuisance!"
Soon after breakfast Ivan Ivanitch and Yegorushka left the inn.
"It's a nuisance," muttered his uncle. "You are sticking to me like a
burr. You and your mother want education and gentlemanly breeding and I
have nothing but worry with you both. . . ."
When they crossed the yard, the waggons and the drivers were not there.
They had all gone off to the quay early in the morning. In a far-off
dark corner of the yard stood the chaise.
"Good-bye, chaise!" thought Yegorushka.
At first they had to go a long way uphill by a broad street, then they
had to cross a big marketplace; here Ivan Ivanitch asked a policeman for
Little Lower Street.
"I say," said the policeman, with a grin, "it's a long way off, out that
way towards the town grazing ground."
They met several cabs but Ivan Ivanitch only permitted himself such a
weakness as taking a cab in exceptional cases and on great holidays.
Yegorushka and he walked for a long while through paved streets, then
along streets where there were only wooden planks at the sides and no
pavements, and in the end got to streets where there were neither planks
nor pavements. When their legs and their tongues had brought them to
Little Lower Street they were both red in the face, and taking off their
hats, wiped away the perspiration.
"Tell me, please," said Ivan Ivanitch, addressing an old man sitting on
a little bench by a gate, "where is Nastasya Petrovna Toskunov's house?"
"There is no one called Toskunov here," said the old man, after
pondering a moment. "Perhaps it's Timoshenko you want."
"No, Toskunov. . . ."
"Excuse me, there's no one called Toskunov. . . ."
Ivan Ivanitch shrugged his shoulders and trudged on farther.
"You needn't look," the old man called after them. "I tell you there
isn't, and there isn't."
"Listen, auntie," said Ivan Ivanitch, addressing an old woman who was
sitting at a corner with a tray of pears and sunflower seeds, "where is
Nastasya Petrovna Toskunov's house?"
The old woman looked at him with surprise and laughed.
"Why, Nastasya Petrovna live in her own house now!" she cried. "Lord! it
is eight years since she married her daughter and gave up the house to
her son-in-law! It's her son-in-law lives there now."
And her eyes expressed: "How is it you didn't know a simple thing like
that, you fools?"
"And where does she live now?" Ivan Ivanitch asked.
"Oh, Lord!" cried the old woman, flinging up her hands in surprise. "She
moved ever so long ago! It's eight years since she gave up her house to
her son-in-law! Upon my word!"
She probably expected Ivan Ivanitch to be surprised, too, and to
exclaim: "You don't say so," but Ivan Ivanitch asked very calmly:
"Where does she live now?"
The old woman tucked up her sleeves and, stretching out her bare arm to
point, shouted in a shrill piercing voice:
"Go straight on, straight on, straight on. You will pass a little red
house, then you will see a little alley on your left. Turn down that
little alley, and it will be the third gate on the right. . . ."
Ivan Ivanitch and Yegorushka reached the little red house, turned to the
left down the little alley, and made for the third gate on the right. On
both sides of this very old grey gate there was a grey fence with big
gaps in it. The first part of the fence was tilting forwards and
threatened to fall, while on the left of the gate it sloped backwards
towards the yard. The gate itself stood upright and seemed to be still
undecided which would suit it best --to fall forwards or backwards. Ivan
Ivanitch opened the little gate at the side, and he and Yegorushka saw a
big yard overgrown with weeds and burdocks. A hundred paces from the
gate stood a little house with a red roof and green shutters. A stout
woman with her sleeves tucked up and her apron held out was standing in
the middle of the yard, scattering something on the ground and shouting
in a voice as shrill as that of the woman selling fruit:
"Chick! . . . Chick! . . . Chick!"
Behind her sat a red dog with pointed ears. Seeing the strangers, he ran
to the little gate and broke into a tenor bark (all red dogs have a
tenor bark).
"Whom do you want?" asked the woman, putting up her hand to shade her
eyes from the sun.
"Good-morning!" Ivan Ivanitch shouted, too, waving off the red dog with
his stick. "Tell me, please, does Nastasya Petrovna Toskunov live here?"
"Yes! But what do you want with her?"
"Perhaps you are Nastasya Petrovna?"
"Well, yes, I am!"
"Very pleased to see you. . . . You see, your old friend Olga Ivanovna
Knyasev sends her love to you. This is her little son. And I, perhaps
you remember, am her brother Ivan Ivanitch. . . . You are one of us from
N. . . . You were born among us and married there. . . ."
A silence followed. The stout woman stared blankly at Ivan Ivanitch, as
though not believing or not understanding him, then she flushed all
over, and flung up her hands; the oats were scattered out of her apron
and tears spurted from her eyes.
"Olga Ivanovna!" she screamed, breathless with excitement. "My own
darling! Ah, holy saints, why am I standing here like a fool? My pretty
little angel. . . ."
She embraced Yegorushka, wetted his face with her tears, and broke down
completely.
"Heavens!" she said, wringing her hands, "Olga's little boy! How
delightful! He is his mother all over! The image of his mother! But why
are you standing in the yard? Come indoors."
Crying, gasping for breath and talking as she went, she hurried towards
the house. Her visitors trudged after her.
"The room has not been done yet," she said, ushering the visitors into a
stuffy little drawing-room adorned with many ikons and pots of flowers.
"Oh, Mother of God! Vassilisa, go and open the shutters anyway! My
little angel! My little beauty! I did not know that Olitchka had a boy
like that!"
When she had calmed down and got over her first surprise Ivan Ivanitch
asked to speak to her alone. Yegorushka went into another room; there
was a sewing-machine; in the window was a cage with a starling in it,
and there were as many ikons and flowers as in the drawing-room. Near
the machine stood a little girl with a sunburnt face and chubby cheeks
like Tit's, and a clean cotton dress. She stared at Yegorushka without
blinking, and apparently felt very awkward. Yegorushka looked at her
and after a pause asked:
"What's your name?"
The little girl moved her lips, looked as if she were going to cry, and
answered softly:
"Atka. . . ."
This meant Katka.
"He will live with you," Ivan Ivanitch was whispering in the drawing-
room, "if you will be so kind, and we will pay ten roubles a month for
his keep. He is not a spoilt boy; he is quiet. . . ."
"I really don't know what to say, Ivan Ivanitch!" Nastasya Petrovna
sighed tearfully. "Ten roubles a month is very good, but it is a
dreadful thing to take another person's child! He may fall ill or
something. . . ."
When Yegorushka was summoned back to the drawing-room Ivan Ivanitch was
standing with his hat in his hands, saying good-bye.