MR ADAM
TRAMPS often bring blessings to men. They are very brotherly; they have
given up the causes of quarrels. Perhaps sometimes they are a little
divine. God’s grace comes down upon them.
Certainly one day I met a noble tramp, an Eden tramp. He came upon me at
dawn with a wood smile on his old face. He was one of the society of
tramps; he knew all Russia, its places and peoples, and he called
himself Mr Adam. Why did he adopt that name—why had he thrown away the
other name? These were questions he was not in a hurry to answer. They
involved a story. Such a story! It sounded in my ears like a secret
melody of the world. But first let me say how I met this most jovial
wayfarer.
I had slept one night by the side of the road among nettles and
thistles. My pillow was a stone, my bed soft, dusty earth. I was so near
to the road that the lumbersome, creaking ox-carts, that approached and
passed in the night, seemed within arm’s reach—so near that I felt the
movement in the air as they passed. Horses snorted uneasily now and
then, and once in the early morning a dog came snuffing among the
herbage after me. It was a night of dew and dust. I do not suppose I
slept more than three hours, but it did not seem a long night. The
approach of dawn came as a surprise to me. I was glad to think it was
dawn even if it should turn out to be an illusion. My bed was too cold
and fresh, my eyes seemed clammy and sticky, as if spun together with
gossamer threads, my forehead was heavy as iron, my body seemed long and
ponderous as that of a trold. Everything in me waited for the sun. A
night on the mountains gives its peculiar refreshment; it nurses each
limb in cold, dewy air, and transmits its influence in cold thrills into
the very depths of one.
I sat up and surveyed the scene in the half light, and what was my
surprise to see an apparently monstrous figure of a man coming toward me
along the road. I almost feared him, but I soon saw his peculiar smile
of geniality and my fears gave way. This was Mr Adam. He came up to me
as if he had known me from the cradle. The usual greeting and question
passed, and then he pulled out of his ragged overcoat a chunk of bread
and some hard white cheese, and sat down on a stone with the evident
intention of breakfasting. I bade him wait whilst I filled my kettle.
Whilst I went to get water he lit a fire. We had a very cheery meal. He
cut his bread and cheese with a rusty dagger!
He told me how he came to take the name of Adam, in memory of an old
companion of the road who made a poor woman in Vladikavkaz very happy.
This is the story. There was a man named Peter who died, leaving a widow
and three children. The woman was very young and had a baby at her
breast and was without money. When she had paid for priest and coffin
there was little left her. Her husband had been a writer in a railway
office; he wrote envelopes and copied letters. He only received forty
roubles a month and was very improvident. Though perhaps it was not he,
but Society, that was improvident; for his wife was a good woman and her
children worthy. And when one is young one does not expect to die.
Anna, for such was her name, had to leave the house where Peter had
died. She had to step down in the world. She took one room in a little
cottage, and lived there, and waited to starve. Neighbours helped her,
but they were very poor, and her babes, like young birds in the nest,
all stretched out their mouths to her and cried.
It was a bare room. The family slept upon the floor. There was an old
table that had been lent to them, and a stool and a box. In a corner the
Ikon picture gleamed. The woman was little clothed, and the children
showed their little white bodies. So much had been sold to get a little
money for food that even the samovar was not seen. Neighbours coming in
held up their hands in pity of their poverty.
But their fortune changed a little, for one day a strange chance befell.
Anna had made a fire between some stones in the yard of the cottage, and
was cooking a mixture in a pot when a ragged old man came up and begged
a taste of the soup. She looked at him and thought how strange it was
that anyone should beg of her, and then she refused him, saying, “I am
as poor as you, good man, and my soup is bad, for it is what I have
myself gathered. I took my pot to the market and begged. It is the first
time, and it feels very strange. Everyone knew I did not beg for money,
only for food. Some put in fruit, and some poured in milk; others threw
in biscuits; near the butchers’ line I got a piece of meat, and by the
vegetable stalls I picked up some cabbage leaves and an old cucumber. It
is very well. I shall go every morning and we shall not starve. Only the
soup is for us and it will not be good for others.”
The old man was tall and very hairy; one could scarcely see his face for
hair, and through the rents of his ragged red shirt one saw his brown
hairy chest. His overcoat was of many colours and many cloths; he had
evidently sewn into it whatever cloth he had picked up during many
wanderings, and he had lain in it in many muds and soils, and the stains
remained. His legs were tied up in sacking like trees protected from the
winter, and his boots, which he had made himself without leather, were
little bags of wool and shavings and grasses and dandelion down. He was
not, however, the least self-ashamed.
He did not reply to Anna’s refusal for some minutes, but he stood
watching, fumbling among his rags, and she wished he would go away. But
going away was not part of his intention. He slowly brought out a large
iron spoon and, to the vexation of the woman, knelt down on the ground
and peered into the pot. Then he gave his reply.
“When Christ is near, water becomes wine;” and with that he skimmed the
simmering liquid and lifted a spoonful to his mouth.
“It’s tasty,” said he; “awfully tasty—really amazingly tasty.”
Anna smiled and answered simply, “I’m glad you like it, grandfather.”
Grandfather took another spoonful and smacked his lips. “You know,” said
he, “this is something quite out of the way; it is very original; I knew
it was very good soup, it was speaking so well. I heard its voice far
away. It called to me, it sang. What do you say to it, my dear, if I
dine with you to-night?”
Anna looked up at him appealingly. “No,” said she, “pass by. We are very
poor, and this is all we have to eat; it is too poor for any guest. Dear
old man, go away.”
“Oh, no! I don’t think so. This sort of soup a king would be glad to
eat. It is the sort kings can’t get. You might even make a great fortune
if you sent a sealed tin of this to the Tsar. The Tsar’s cook is a great
friend of mine; if you could get on the right side of him you’d never
want for a piece of meat to throw in the soup. But I advise you, don’t
part with the recipe, it’s worth its weight in gold. And now, what do
you say to having me as a boarder? Yes, surely as God rules over
everything why shouldn’t I stay here? How much shall I pay? Well, never
mind, you make this soup each day and then you can save all the money.”
Anna now felt seriously troubled. An old ragged man could be no help to
her; he could not pay her anything, and she would be poorer than before.
She pinched up her pretty lips into a bunch, and frowned and shook her
head violently; it would never do. “No, grandfather, I couldn’t take
you; we are very poor, and you are even poorer than we are.”
Thereupon the old man laughed exuberantly, and his eyes shone like those
of Santa Claus.
“I know, I know, I know,” said he.
“What do you know, grandfather?”
The old man laughed again, and then pulled out a large volume, old and
rusty-leaved. It was a Bible, and he opened it between the Old Testament
and the New, and there were money notes for seven hundred roubles.
“That’s what,” said he. “My wages for clearing the clouds out of the sky
for the Sultan of Turkey—for you twelve roubles a month, and you needn’t
spend a penny of it, for we shall live on such soup as this.”
Anna meekly bade him welcome, wondering who he might be in disguise.
Some great man, surely, she thought, for he seemed very highly
connected.
“What is your name, grandfather?” said she, as he stumped into her room
and sat down on the box, and took little Foma on one knee and Mania on
the other.
“What is my name?” said he. “Ho, ho, ho,” and he laughed. “That’s a good
joke. It is a long, long while since anyone asked me my name. I’ve heard
so many names; they were so like mine that I got confused long ago, and
it wasn’t worth while remembering. What do you think, little Fomitchka?
And you’ll be asking where I come from. Really, I don’t know. How many
provinces are there in Russia? Thousands surely. One day I slipped out
of my own province and lost myself, and I kept coming to new provinces,
always new names, and the places just looked the same. You know it says
in the Bible Adam was the first man; Mr Adam, then came Mr Cain Adam and
Mr Abel Adam, and Mr Seth Adam. You call me Mr Adam.”
“A-dam, grandpa,” said little Foma.
So the ragged old man with the money and the Bible and the spoon came
and lived with them. They all lived together, slept in the same room,
and ate from the same table. Every morning Anna went to the market with
her pot and collected food, and every evening she boiled soup on the
stones, whilst grandfather dipped his finger or his spoon into the stew
and tasted it approvingly. Every Sunday she received three roubles from
him and put them by. It was strange; they lived as poorly now as they
had done before. So poorly they lived that they only had tea once a
week, and they boiled it in a saucepan and had it without sugar.
Grandfather had produced a partly-used two-ounce packet of tea from his
overcoat. Yet this tea-party was something glorious—a strange weekly
happiness to be anticipated even six days ahead. Anna ceased to feel
anxious, and the children grew rounder and happier, though it was
difficult to see how it had come to be. They were being fed by something
more than soup; perhaps, as they scrambled about grandfather’s knees and
listened to his stories, they were enchanted a little. Anna looked at
them and wondered. Grandfather has tramped through sun and rain, thought
she—how dark and rich his hands are, like the black earth in the spring.
Her little baby, that had done nothing but scream and look unhappy since
it was born, had now begun to smile. It smiled at grandfather like a
little evening gleam of sunshine after wet, wet days.
“Lizetchka,” her mother would exclaim. “Ah, Lizetchka! Little Lizetchka!
My little angel!” Then the neighbours came in and they would have found
fault and gossiped, but grandfather’s cheery way took their hearts by
surprise. And the owner of the cottage, who was responsible, wanted to
turn the old man out because he had no passport, and it was dangerous to
harbour such a man; but he, too, was won over; though he was mean, and
had a wife meaner than himself, he contentedly took the risk. Sometimes
his wife would urge him on against Anna and the old man, and he would go
to them to say stern words; but when he came and saw the children, with
their little fingers tangled in grandfather’s hair, he would forget his
message and laugh and say, “Ah, Mr Adam! Fancy you living here without a
passport! It’s all right living so, eh?”
So time went on, and no one disturbed the little _ménage_ of Anna and
her three children and Mr Adam. Years passed, and the old man ceased to
be a surprise; nothing new happened; no one inquired after him; no one
claimed him. He lived all the while in his rags, and read from his
Bible, and played with the children, and praised the soup, and made
merry with the neighbours. Only once Anna had been sad. That was when
she mended his torn red shirt for him. She had often mended Peter’s
clothes whilst he wore them on his body, and now an irresistible memory
brought back the pathos of her loss. She wept a little and Adam
comforted her, and as she looked through her tears at him she felt
suddenly very grateful, and it seemed to her that perhaps Peter had sent
this man to her to help her. Suddenly the thanks which had been mounting
up in her heart overflowed, and as she finished sewing she put her arms
round his neck and kissed him.
The days of these years were strange days, the strangest of Anna’s life,
and in after years they seemed only a few days, only a short, strange
period of heavenly comfort. For the time came when she had Adam no more.
He fell ill and died.
“Mr Adam’s dead,” said all the neighbours, and they felt very sad. “Mr
Adam is dead,” said the owner’s wife. “Now you’ll see how foolish it is
to have a man without a passport. What will the police say? You’ll have
to put his dead body in a field for men to find, and then it will be
said we murdered him.”
“Grandpa dead,” said all the children and moped.
But Anna felt very troubled. What was she to do with him, a man without
a name, without a family, without a village? A man who had over five
hundred roubles in his Bible! Poor Anna! Had she but had a little
cunning she might have put by those five hundred roubles to be a little
fortune for herself. Grandfather had died very suddenly or he would have
told her to do so. Anna was simple enough to go and tell the police her
story, and an official came, looked at the man, and took away the Bible,
saying he would have it examined. In the Bible lay the precious notes!
Then Anna bought white robes and took off Adam’s rags, and washed his
body, and laid him upon some clean boards, and bought a cheap coffin,
and hired a man to dig a grave, and she went and buried him, and put a
little Ikon on his breast, and held a lighted candle over his tomb, and
sang the thrice-holy hymn, “Holy, holy, holy,” and went home. Adam was
no more; they were poor; the official never returned with the Bible; no
one asked about the missing passport. But what the greedy official had
not guessed, and what Adam had never divulged, was that in his rags, in
one of his many deep pockets, was secreted another sum of money, a
thousand roubles. This Anna found, and was wiser than before, having
learnt from experience. To-day she keeps a little cookshop and is
prosperous, and the peasants say that she, better than any of the wives
of the village, knows how to make good soup.
Such was the story the tramp told me. He liked telling it, and now, as I
have repeated it, I find the same personality in the friend of the woman
and in my acquaintance. Surely Adam did not really die. Adam never
really dies.
One other thing he said to me that remains; there are two Adams—the Adam
before he tasted the fruit and the Adam after he had tasted. Most
Russians retain their Eden happiness, but whenever one of them tastes of
the Tree of Knowledge his old happiness is cursed; the time has come for
him to leave Eden and seek the new happiness. Adam was the first
_modern_ man. The tramps have found the second Eden.
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