I
As he went out on the deck of the steamer which was running upstream,
Dmitry Parfentyevich drew a deep breath.
The day was ending and the sun was hanging low above the forest-covered
mountain. The river furnished a majestic and peaceful picture. Somewhere
in the distance a steamboat whistled; a sailboat heavily laden lay on the
river and seemed as immobile as the sleepy wife of a merchant. The rafts
all carried fires,—the men were cooking their dinners. Two small barks,
fastened together and heading obliquely across stream, floated by, hardly
touching the glassy surface of the river, and beneath them, swinging and
swaying, hung their reflection in the blue depths. When the wake of the
steamer, spreading ever wider and wider, touched this image, it suddenly
broke and scattered. It was a sudden shattering of a mirror and the
fragments floated and sparkled for a long time.
“Are you all right, Grunya?” asked Dmitry Parfentyevich, sitting down
beside his daughter.
“Yes,” she answered briefly.
The girl wore a dark dress. A Scythian kerchief on her forehead threw
a shadow over her pale young face; her large eyes were dreamy and
thoughtful.
“The main thing is heavenly blessing and quiet,” moralized Dmitry
Parfentyevich.
His life was moving toward its close and he thought that nothing could be
better than the quiet of a dying day....
Only quiet and prayer after sinful vanity and weakness.... May God grant
no new wishes, but save from every new temptation.
“Grunya?” Dmitry Parfentyevich looked at his daughter and he wished to
ask about her own thoughts.
“Yes,” answered the girl, but her gaze, dreamily running far ahead over
the golden river and the mountains with their quiet veil of bluish mist,
seemed to be seeking something else.
The passengers on the deck were just as quiet. Some were carrying on
private conversations; others were getting ready for tea at the little
tables.
In the stern sat a group of Tatars, returning home from Astrakhan. There
was an old patriarch with three sons. A fourth, the favorite, had been
buried in a strange city. Akhmetzyan had been taken ill with an unknown
disease, lay a week and died.
“All is as Allah wills,” said the stern face of the old man, but he had
still to tell the mother of the death of her beloved son.
Everything breathed of silence and peace and the mountains on the right
bank swam up one after the other and then, receding into the distance,
they seemed to wrap themselves in a blue haze.