Through Russia

by

Maxim Gorky

Translated by C. J. Hogarth

CONTENTS

 THE BIRTH OF A MAN THE ICEBREAKER GUBIN NILUSHKA THE CEMETERY ON A RIVER STEAMER A WOMAN IN A MOUNTAIN DEFILE KALININ THE DEAD MAN

THE BIRTH OF A MAN

The year was the year '92--the year of leanness--the scene a spotbetween Sukhum and Otchenchiri, on the river Kodor, a spot so near tothe sea that amid the joyous babble of a sparkling rivulet the ocean'sdeep-voiced thunder was plainly distinguishable. 

Also, the season being autumn, leaves of wild laurel were glisteningand gyrating on the white foam of the Kodor like a quantity ofmercurial salmon fry. And as I sat on some rocks overlooking the riverthere occurred to me the thought that, as likely as not, the cause ofthe gulls' and cormorants' fretful cries where the surf lay moaningbehind a belt of trees to the right was that, like myself, they keptmistaking the leaves for fish, and as often finding themselvesdisappointed. 

Over my head hung chestnut trees decked with gold; at my feet lay amass of chestnut leaves which resembled the amputated palms of humanhands; on the opposite bank, where there waved, tanglewise, thestripped branches of a hornbeam, an orange-tinted woodpecker wasdarting to and fro, as though caught in the mesh of foliage, and, incompany with a troupe of nimble titmice and blue tree-creepers(visitors from the far-distant North), tapping the bark of the stemwith a black beak, and hunting for insects. 

To the left, the tops of the mountains hung fringed with dense, fleecyclouds of the kind which presages rain; and these clouds were sendingtheir shadows gliding over slopes green and overgrown with boxwood andthat peculiar species of hollow beech-stump which once came near toeffecting the downfall of Pompey's host, through depriving hisiron-built legions of the use of their legs as they revelled in theintoxicating sweetness of the "mead" or honey which wild bees make fromthe blossoms of the laurel and the azalea, and travellers still gatherfrom those hollow stems to knead into lavashi or thin cakes of milletflour. 

On the present occasion I too (after suffering sundry stings frominfuriated bees) was thus engaged as I sat on the rocks beneath thechestnuts. Dipping morsels of bread into a potful of honey, I wasmunching them for breakfast, and enjoying, at the same time, theindolent beams of the moribund autumn sun. 

In the fall of the year the Caucasus resembles a gorgeous cathedralbuilt by great craftsmen (always great craftsmen are great sinners) toconceal their past from the prying eyes of conscience. Which cathedralis a sort of intangible edifice of gold and turquoise and emerald, andhas thrown over its hills rare carpets silk-embroidered by Turcomanweavers of Shemi and Samarkand, and contains, heaped everywhere, plunder brought from all the quarters of the world for the delectationof the sun. Yes, it is as though men sought to say to the Sun God: "Allthings here are thine. They have been brought hither for thee by thypeople. "

Yes, mentally I see long-bearded, grey-headed supermen, beingspossessed of the rounded eyes of happy children, descending from thehills, and decking the earth, and sowing it with sheerly kaleidoscopictreasures, and coating the tops of the mountains with massive layers ofsilver, and the lower edges with a living web of trees. Yes, I seethose beings decorating and fashioning the scene until, thanks to theirlabours, this gracious morsel of the earth has become fair beyond allconception. 

And what a privilege it is to be human! How much that is wonderfulleaps to the eye-how the presence of beauty causes. The heart to throbwith a voluptuous rapture that is almost pain!

And though there are occasions when life seems hard, and the breastfeels filled with fiery rancour, and melancholy dries and rendersathirst the heart's blood, this is not a mood sent us in perpetuity. For at times even the sun may feel sad as he contemplates men, and seesthat, despite all that he has done for them, they have done so littlein return. .. . 

No, it is not that good folk are lacking. It is that they need to berounded off--better still, to be made anew. 

 * * * * *

Suddenly there came into view over the bushes to my left a file of darkheads, while through the surging of the waves and the babble of thestream I caught the sound of human voices, a sound emanating from aparty of "famine people" or folk who were journeying from Sukhum toOtchenchiri to obtain work on a local road then in process ofconstruction. 

The owners of the voices I knew to be immigrants from the province ofOrlov. I knew them to be so for the reason that I myself had latelybeen working in company with the male members of the party, and hadtaken leave of them only yesterday in order that I might set outearlier than they, and, after walking through the night, greet the sunwhen he should arise above the sea. 

The members of the party comprised four men and a woman--the latter ayoung female with high cheek-bones, a figure swollen with manifestpregnancy, and a pair of greyish-blue eyes that had fixed in them astare of apprehension. At the present moment her head and yellow scarfwere just showing over the tops of the bushes; and while I noted thatnow it was swaying from side to side like a sunflower shaken by thewind, I recalled the fact that she was a woman whose husband had beencarried off at Sukhum by a surfeit of fruit--this fact being known tome through the circumstance that in the workmen's barraque where we hadshared quarters these folk had observed the good old Russian custom ofconfiding to a stranger the whole of their troubles, and had done so intones of such amplitude and penetration that the querulous words musthave been audible for five versts around. 

And as I had talked to these forlorn people, these human beings who laycrushed beneath the misfortune which had uprooted them from theirbarren and exhausted lands, and blown them, like autumn leaves, towardsthe Caucasus where nature's luxuriant, but unfamiliar, aspect hadblinded and bewildered them, and with its onerous conditions of labourquenched their last spark of courage; as I had talked to these poorpeople I had seen them glancing about with dull, troubled, despondenteyes, and heard them say to one another softly, and with pitiful smiles:

"What a country!"

"Aye, --that it is!--a country to make one sweat!"

"As hard as a stone it is!"

"Aye, an evil country!"

After which they had gone on to speak of their native haunts, whereevery handful of soil had represented to them the dust of theirancestors, and every grain of that soil had been watered with the sweatof their brows, and become charged with dear and intimate recollections. 

Previously there had joined the party a woman who, tall and straight, had had breasts as flat as a board, and jawbones like the jawbones of ahorse, and a glance in her dull, sidelong black eyes like a gleaming, smouldering fire. 

And every evening this woman had been wont to step outside the barraquewith the woman in the yellow scarf and to seat herself on a rubbishheap, and, resting her cheeks on the palms of her hands, and incliningher head sideways, to sing in a high and shrewish voice:

 Behind the graveyard wall, Where fair green bushes stand. I'll spread me on the sand A shroud as white as snow. And not long will it be Before my heart's adored, My master and my lord, Shall answer my curtsey low. 

Usually her companion, the woman in the yellow scarf, had, with headbent forward and eyes fixed upon her stomach, remained silent; but onrare, unexpected occasions she had, in the hoarse, sluggish voice of apeasant, sung a song with the sobbing refrain:

 Ah, my beloved, sweetheart of mine, Never again will these eyes seek thine!

Nor amid the stifling blackness of the southern night had these voicesever failed to bring back to my memory the snowy wastes of the North, and the icy, wailing storm-wind, and the distant howling of unseenwolves. 

In time, the squint-eyed woman had been taken ill of a fever, andremoved to the town in a tilted ambulance; and as she had lainquivering and moaning on the stretcher she had seemed still to besinging her little ditty about the graveyard and the sand. 

The head with the yellow scarf rose, dipped, and disappeared. 

After I had finished my breakfast I thatched the honey-pot with someleaves, fastened down the lid, and indolently resumed my way in thewake of the party, my blackthorn staff tiptapping against the hardtread of the track as I proceeded. 

The track loomed--a grey, narrow strip--before me, while on my rightthe restless, dark blue sea had the air of being ceaselessly planed bythousands of invisible carpenters; so regularly did the stress of awind as moist and sweet and warm as the breath of a healthy woman causeever-rustling curls of foam to drift towards the beach. Also, careeningon to its port quarter under a full set of bellying sails, a Turkishfelucca was gliding towards Sukhum; and, as it held on its course, itput me in mind of a certain pompous engineer of the town who had beenwont to inflate his fat cheeks and say: "Be quiet, you, or I will haveyou locked up!" This man had, for some reason or another, anextraordinary weakness for causing arrests to be made; and, exceedinglydo I rejoice to think that by now the worms of the graveyard must haveconsumed him down to the very marrow of his bones. Would that certainother acquaintances of mine were similarly receiving beneficentattention!

Walking proved an easy enough task, for I seemed to be borne on air, while a chorus of pleasant thoughts, of many-coloured recollections, kept singing gently in my breast--a chorus resembling, indeed, thewhite-maned billows in the regularity with which now it rose, and nowit fell, to reveal in, as it were, soft, peaceful depths the bright, supple hopes of youth, like so many silver fish cradled in the bosom ofthe ocean. 

Suddenly, as it trended seawards, the road executed a half-turn, andskirted a strip of the sandy margin to which the waves kept rolling insuch haste. And in that spot even the bushes seemed to have a mind tolook the waves in the eyes--so strenuously did they lean across theriband-like path, and nod in the direction of the blue, watery waste, while from the hills a wind was blowing that presaged rain. 

 * * * * *

But hark! From some point among the bushes a low moan arose--the soundwhich never fails to thrill the soul and move it to responsive quivers!

Thrusting aside the foliage, I beheld before me the woman in the yellowscarf. Seated with her back resting against the stem of a hazel-bush, she had her head sunken deeply between her shoulders, her mouthhideously agape, her eyes staring vaguely before her, her hands pressedto her swollen stomach, her breath issuing with unnatural vehemence, and her abdomen convulsively, spasmodically rising and falling. Meanwhile from her throat were issuing moans which at times caused heryellow teeth to show bare like those of a wolf. 

"What is the matter?" I said as I bent over her. "Has anyone assaultedyou?"

The only result was that, shuffling bare feet in the sand like a fly, she shook her nerveless hand, and gasped:

"Away, villain! Away with you!"

Then I understood what was the matter, for I had seen a similar casebefore. Yet for the moment a certain feeling of shyness made me edgeaway from her a little; and as I did so, she uttered a prolonged moan, and her almost bursting eyeballs vented hot, murky tears which trickleddown her tense and livid features. 

Thereupon I turned to her again, and, throwing down cooking-pot, teapot, and wallet, laid her on her back, and strove to bend her kneesupwards in the direction of her body. Meanwhile she sought to repel mewith blows on face and breast, and at length rolled on to her stomach. Then, raising herself on all fours, she, sobbing, gasping, and cursingin a breath, crawled away like a bear into a remoter portion of thethicket. 

"Beast!" she panted. "Oh, you devil!"

Yet, even as the words escaped her lips, her arms gave way beneath her, and she collapsed upon her face, with legs stretched out, and her lipsemitting a fresh series of convulsive moans. 

Excited now to fever pitch, I hurriedly recalled my small store ofknowledge of such cases and finally decided to turn her on her back, and, as before, to strive to bend her knees upwards in the direction ofher body. Already signs of imminent parturition were not wanting. 

"Lie still, " I said, "and if you do that it will not be long before youare delivered of the child. "

Whereafter, running down to the sea, I pulled up my sleeves, and, onreturning, embarked upon my role, of accoucheur. 

Scoring the earth with her fingers, uprooting tufts of withered grass, and struggling to thrust them into her mouth, scattering soil over herterrible, inhuman face and bloodshot eyes, the woman writhed like astrip of birch bark in a wood fire. Indeed, by this time a little headwas coming into view, and it needed all my efforts to quell thetwitchings of her legs, to help the child to issue, and to prevent itsmother from thrusting grass down her distorted, moaning throat. Meanwhile we cursed one another--she through her teeth, and I in anundertone; she, I should surmise, out of pain and shame, and I, I feelcertain, out of nervousness, mingled with a perfect agony of compassion. 

"O Lord!" she gasped with blue lips flecked with foam as her eyes(suddenly bereft of their colour in the sunlight) shed tears born ofthe intolerable anguish of the maternal function, and her body writhedand twisted as though her frame had been severed in the middle. 

"Away, you brute!" was her oft-repeated cry as with her weak hands, hands seemingly dislocated at the wrists, she strove to thrust me to adistance. Yet all the time I kept saying persuasively: "You fool! Bringforth as quickly as you can!" and, as a matter of fact, was feeling sosorry for her that tears continued to spurt from my eyes as much asfrom hers, and my very heart contracted with pity. Also, never did Icease to feel that I ought to keep saying something; wherefore, Irepeated, and again repeated: "Now then! Bring forth as quickly as everyou can!"

And at last my hands did indeed hold a human creature in all itspristine beauty. Nor could even the mist of tears prevent me fromseeing that that human creature was red in the face, and that to judgefrom the manner in which it kept kicking and resisting and utteringhoarse wails (while still bound to its mother by the ligament), it wasfeeling dissatisfied in advance with the world. Yes, blue-eyed, andwith a nose absurdly sunken between a pair of scarlet, rumpled cheeksand lips which ceaselessly quivered and contracted, it kept bawling:"A-aah! A-a-ah!"

Moreover, so slippery was it that, as I knelt and looked at it andlaughed with relief at the fact that it had arrived safely, I came nearto letting it fall upon the ground: wherefore I entirely forgot whatnext I ought to have done. 

"Cut it!" at length whispered the mother with eyes closed, and featuressuddenly swollen and resembling those of a corpse. 

"A knife!" again she whispered with her livid lips. "Cut it!"

My pocket-knife I had had stolen from me in the workmen's barraque; butwith my teeth I severed the caul, and then the child gave renewedtongue in true Orlovian fashion, while the mother smiled. Also, insome curious fashion, the mother's unfathomable eyes regained theircolour, and became filled as with blue fire as, plunging a hand intoher bodice and feeling for the pocket, she contrived to articulate withraw and blood-flecked lips:

"I have not a single piece of string or riband to bind the caul with. "

Upon that I set to, and managed to produce a piece of riband, and tofasten it in the required position. 

Thereafter she smiled more brightly than ever. So radiantly did shesmile that my eyes came near to being blinded with the spectacle. 

"And now rearrange yourself, " I said, "and in the meanwhile I will goand wash the baby. "

"Yes, yes, " she murmured uneasily. "But be very careful with him--bevery gentle. "

Yet it was little enough care that the rosy little homunculus seemed torequire, so strenuously did he clench his fists, and bawl as though hewere minded to challenge the whole world to combat. 

"Come, now!" at length I said. "You must have done, or your very headwill drop off. "

Yet no sooner did he feel the touch of the ocean spray, and begin to besprinkled With its joyous caresses, than he lamented more loudly andvigorously than ever, and so continued throughout the process of beingslapped on the back and breast as, frowning and struggling, he ventedsquall after squall while the waves laved his tiny limbs. 

"Shout, young Orlovian!" said I encouragingly. "Let fly with all thepower of your lungs!"

And with that, I took him back to his mother. I found her with eyesclosed and lips drawn between her teeth as she writhed in the tormentof expelling the after-birth. But presently I detected through thesighs and groans a whispered:

"Give him to me! Give him to me!"

"You had better wait a little, " I urged. 

"Oh no! Give him to me now!"

And with tremulous, unsteady hands she unhooked the bosom of herbodice, and, freeing (with my assistance) the breast which nature hadprepared for at least a dozen children, applied the mutinous youngOrlovian to the nipple. As for him, he at once understood the matter, and ceased to send forth further lamentation. 

"O pure and holy Mother of God!" she gasped in a long-drawn, quiveringsigh as she bent a dishevelled head over the little one, and, betweenintervals of silence, fell to uttering soft, abrupt exclamations. Then, opening her ineffably beautiful blue eyes, the hallowed eyes of amother, she raised them towards the azure heavens, while in theirdepths there was coming and going a flame of joy and gratitude. Lastly, lifting a languid hand, she with a slow movement made the sign of thecross over both herself and her babe. 

"Thanks to thee O purest Mother of God!" she murmured. "Thanks indeedto thee!"

Then her eyes grew dim and vague again, and after a pause (during whichshe seemed to be scarcely breathing) she said in a hard andmatter-of-fact tone:

"Young fellow, unfasten my satchel. "

And whilst I was so engaged she continued to regard me with a steadygaze; but, when the task was completed she smiled shamefacedly, and onher sunken cheeks and sweat-flecked temples there dawned the ghost of ablush. 

"Now, " said she, "do you, for the present, go away. "

"And if I do so, see that in the meanwhile you do not move about toomuch. "

"No, I will not. But please go away. "

So I withdrew a little. In my breast a sort of weariness was lurking, but also in my breast there was echoing a soft and glorious chorus ofbirds, a chorus so exquisitely in accord with the never-ceasing splashof the sea that for ever could I have listened to it, and to theneighbouring brook as it purled on its way like a maiden engaged inrelating confidences about her lover. 

Presently, the woman's yellow-scarfed head (the scarf now tidilyrearranged) reappeared over the bushes. 

"Come, come, good woman!" was my exclamation. "I tell you that you mustnot move about so soon. "

And certainly her attitude now was one of utter languor, and she hadperforce to grasp the stem of a bush with one hand to support herself. Yet while the blood was gone from her face, there had formed in thehollows where her eyes had been two lakes of blue. 

"See how he is sleeping!" she murmured. 

And, true enough, the child was sound asleep, though to my eyes helooked much as any other baby might have done, save that the couch ofautumn leaves on which he was ensconced consisted of leaves of a kindwhich could not have been discovered in the faraway forests of Orlov. 

"Now, do you yourself lie down awhile, " was my advice. 

"Oh, no, " she replied with a shake of her head on its sinuous neck;"for I must be collecting my things before I move on towards--"

"Towards Otchenchiri"

"Yes. By now my folk will have gone many a verst in that direction. "

"And can you walk so far?"

"The Holy Mother will help me. "

Yes, she was to journey in the company of the Mother of God. So no moreon the point required to be said. 

Glancing again at the tiny, inchoate face under the bushes, her eyesdiffused rays of warm and kindly light as, licking her lips, she, witha slow movement, smoothed the breast of the little one. 

Then I arranged sticks for a fire, and also adjusted stones to supportthe kettle. 

"Soon I will have tea ready for you, " I remarked. 

"And thankful indeed I shall be, " she responded, "for my breasts aredried up. "

"Why have your companions deserted you?" I said next. 

"They have not deserted me. It was I that left them of my own accord. How could I have exposed myself in their presence?"

And with a glance at me she raised a hand to her face as, spitting agout of blood, she smiled a sort of bashful smile. 

"This is your first child, I take it?"

"It is. .. . And who are you?"

"A man. "

"Yes, a man, of course; but, are you a MARRIED man?"

"No, I have never been able to marry. "

"That cannot be true. "

"Why not?"

With lowered eyes she sat awhile in thought. 

"Because, if so, how do you come to know so much about women's affairs?"

This time I DID lie, for I replied:

"Because they have been my study. In fact, I am a medical student. "

"Ah! Our priest's son also was a student, but a student for the Church. "

"Very well. Then you know what I am. Now I will go and fetch somewater. "

Upon this she inclined her head towards her little son and listened fora moment to his breathing. Then she said with a glance towards the sea:

"I too should like to have a wash, but I do not know what the water islike. What is it? Brackish or salt?"

"No; quite good water--fit for you to wash in. "

"Is it really?"

"Yes, really. Moreover, it is warmer than the water of the streamshereabouts, which is as cold as ice. "

"Ah! Well, you know best. "

Here a shaggy-eared pony, all skin and bone, was seen approaching us ata foot's pace. Trembling, and drooping its head, it scanned us, as itdrew level, with a round black eye, and snorted. Upon that, its riderpushed back a ragged fur cap, glanced warily in our direction, andagain sank his head. 

"The folk of these parts are ugly to look at, " softly commented thewoman from Orlov. 

Then I departed in quest of water. After I had washed my face and handsI filled the kettle from a stream bright and lively as quicksilver (astream presenting, as the autumn leaves tossed in the eddies which wentleaping and singing over the stones, a truly enchanting spectacle), and, returning, and peeping through the bushes, perceived the woman tobe crawling on hands and knees over the stones, and anxiously peeringabout, as though in search of something. 

"What is it?" I inquired, and thereupon, turning grey in the face withconfusion she hastened to conceal some article under her person, although I had already guessed the nature of the article. 

"Give it to me, " was my only remark. "I will go and bury it. "

"How so? For, as a matter of fact, it ought to be buried under thefloor in front of some stove. "

"Are we to build a stove HERE? Build it in five minutes?" I retorted. 

"Ah, I was jesting. But really, I would rather not have it buried here, lest some wild beast should come and devour it. .. Yet it ought to becommitted only to the earth. "

That said, she, with averted eyes, handed me a moist and heavy bundle;and as she did so she said under her breath, with an air of confusion:

"I beg of you for Christ's sake to bury it as well, as deeply, as youcan. Out of pity for my son do as I bid you. "

I did as she had requested; and, just as the task had been completed, Iperceived her returning from the margin of the sea with unsteady gait, and an arm stretched out before her, and a petticoat soaked to themiddle with the sea water. Yet all her face was alight with inwardfire, and as I helped her to regain the spot where I had prepared somesticks I could not help reflecting with some astonishment:

"How strong indeed she is!"

Next, as we drank a mixture of tea and honey, she inquired:

"Have you now ceased to be a student?"

"Yes. "

"And why so? Through too much drink?"

"Even so, good mother. "

"Dear me! Well, your face is familiar to me. Yes, I remember that Inoticed you in Sukhum when once you were arguing with the barraquesuperintendent over the question of rations. As I did so the thoughtoccurred to me: 'Surely that bold young fellow must have gone and spenthis means on drink? Yes, that is how it must be. '"

Then, as from her swollen lips she licked a drop of honey, she againbent her blue eyes in the direction of the bush under which theslumbering, newly-arrived Orlovian was couched. 

"How will he live?" thoughtfully she said with a sigh--then added:

"You have helped me, and I thank you. Yes, my thanks are yours, thoughI cannot tell whether or not your assistance will have helped HIM. "

And, drinking the rest of her tea, she ate a morsel of bread, then madethe sign of the cross. And subsequently, as I was putting up my things, she continued to rock herself to and fro, to give little starts andcries, and to gaze thoughtfully at the ground with eyes which had nowregained their original colour. At last she rose to her feet. 

"You are not going yet?" I queried protestingly. 

"Yes, I must. "

"But--"

"The Blessed Virgin will go with me. So please hand me over the child. "

"No, I will carry him. "

And, after a contest for the honour, she yielded, and we walked awayside by side. 

"I only wish I were a little steadier on my feet, " she remarked with anapologetic smile as she laid a hand upon my shoulder. 

Meanwhile, the new citizen of Russia, the little human being of anunknown future, was snoring soundly in my arms as the sea plashed andmurmured, and threw off its white shavings, and the bushes whisperedtogether, and the sun (now arrived at the meridian) shone brightly uponus all. 

In calm content it was that we walked; save that now and then themother would halt, draw a deep breath, raise her head, scan the sea andthe forest and the hills, and peer into her son's face. And as she didso, even the mist begotten of tears of suffering could not dim thewonderful brilliancy and clearness of her eyes. For with the sombrefire of inexhaustible love were those eyes aflame. 

Once, as she halted, she exclaimed:

"O God, O Mother of God, how good it all is! Would that for ever Icould walk thus, yes, walk and walk unto the very end of the world! Allthat I should need would be that thou, my son, my darling son, shouldst, borne upon thy mother's breast, grow and wax strong!"

And the sea murmured and murmured. 

THE ICEBREAKER

On a frozen river near a certain Russian town, a gang of sevencarpenters were hastily repairing an icebreaker which the townsfolk hadstripped for firewood. 

That year spring happened to be late in arriving, and youthful Marchlooked more like October, and only at noon, and that not on every day, did the pale, wintry sun show himself in the overcast heavens, or, glimmering in blue spaces between clouds, contemplate the earth with asquinting, malevolent eye. 

The day in question was the Friday in Holy Week, and, as night drew on, drippings were becoming congealed into icicles half an arshin long, andin the snow-stripped ice of the river only the dun hue of the wintryclouds was reflected. 

As the carpenters worked there kept mournfully, insistently echoingfrom the town the coppery note of bells; and at intervals heads wouldraise themselves, and blue eyes would gleam thoughtfully through thesame grey fog in which the town lay enveloped, and an axe upliftedwould hover a moment in the air as though fearing with its descent tocleave the luscious flood of sound. 

Scattered over the spacious river-track were dark pine branches, projecting obliquely from the ice, to mark paths, open spaces, andcracks on the surface; and where they reared themselves aloft, thesebranches looked like the cramped, distorted arms of drowning men. 

From the river came a whiff of gloom and depression. Covered over withsodden slush, it stretched with irksome rigidity towards the mistyquarter whence blew a languid, sluggish, damp, cold wind. 

Suddenly the foreman, one Ossip, a cleanly built, upright littlepeasant with a neatly curling, silvery beard, ruddy cheeks, and aflexible neck, a man everywhere and always in evidence, shouted:

"Look alive there, my hearties!"

Presently he turned his attention to myself, and smiled insinuatingly. 

"Inspector, " he said, "what are you trying to poke out of the sky withthat squat nose of yours? And why are you here at all? You come fromthe contractor, you say?--from Vasili Sergeitch? Well, well! Then yourjob is to hurry us up, to keep barking out, 'Mind what you are doing, such-and-such gang!' Yet there you stand-blinking over your task likean object dried stiff! It's not to blink that you're here, but to playthe watchdog upon us, and to keep an eye open, and your tongue on thewag. So issue your commands, young cockerel. "

Then he shouted to the workmen:

"Now, then! No shirking! Is the job going to be finished tonight, oris it not?"

As a matter of fact, he himself was the worst shirker in the artel[Workman's union]. True, he was also a first-rate hand at his trade, and a man who could work quickly and well and with skill andconcentration; but, unfortunately, he hated putting himself out, andpreferred to spend his time spinning arresting yarns. For instance, onthe present occasion he chose the moment when work was proceeding witha swing, when everyone was busily and silently and wholeheartedlylabouring with the object of running the job through to the end, tobegin in his musical voice:

"Look here, lads. Once upon a time--"

And though for the first two or three minutes the men appeared not tohear him, and continued their planing and chopping as before, themoment came when the soft tenor accents caught and held the men'sattention, as they trickled and burbled forth. Then, screwing up hisbright eyes with a humorous air, and twisting his curly beard betweenhis fingers, Ossip gave a complacent click of his tongue, and continuedmeasuredly, and with deliberation:

"So he seized hold of the tench, and thrust it back into the cave. Andas he turned to proceed through the forest he thought to himself: 'NowI must keep my eyes about me. ' And suddenly, from somewhere (no onecould have said where), a woman's voice shrieked: 'Elesi-a-ah!Elesia-ah!'"

Here a tall, lanky Morduine named Leuka, with, as surname, Narodetz, ayoung fellow whose small eyes wore always an expression ofastonishment, laid aside his axe, and stood gaping. 

"And from the cave a deep bass voice replied: 'Elesi-a-ah!' while atthe same moment the tench sprang from the cave, and, champing its jaws, wriggled and wriggled back to the slough. "

Here an old soldier named Saniavin, a morose man, a tippler, and asufferer from asthma and an inexplicable grudge against life ingeneral, croaked out:

"How could your tench have wriggled across dry land if it was a fish?"

"Can, for that matter, a fish speak?" was Ossip's good-humoured retort. 

All of which inspired Mokei Budirin, a grey-headed muzhik of a cast ofcountenance canine in the prominence of his jaws and the recession ofhis forehead, and taciturn withal, though not otherwise remarkable, togive slow, nasal utterance to his favourite formula. 

"That is true enough, " he said. 

For never could anything be spoken of that was grim or marvellous orlewd or malicious, but Budirin at once re-echoed softly, but in a toneof unshakable conviction: "That is true enough. "

Thereafter he would tap me on the breast with his hard and ponderousfist. 

Presently work again underwent an interruption through the fact thatYakov Boev, a man who possessed both a stammer and a squint, becamesimilarly filled with a desire to tell us something about a fish. Yetfrom the moment that he began his narrative everyone declined tobelieve it, and laughed at his broken verbiage as, frequently invokingthe Deity, and cursing, and brandishing his awl, and viciouslyswallowing spittle, he shouted amid general ridicule:

"Once-once upon a time there lived a man. Yes, other folk before YOUhave believed my tale. Indeed, it is no more than the truth that I'mgoing to tell you. Very well! Cackle away, and be damned!"

Here everyone without exception dropped his work to shout withmerriment and clap his hands: with the result that, doffing his cap, and thereby disclosing a silvered, symmetrically shaped head with onebald spot amid its one dark portion, Ossip was forced to shout severely:

"Hi, you Budirin! You've had your say, and given us some fun, and theremust be no more of it. "

"But I had only just begun what I want to say, " the old soldiergrumbled, spitting upon the palms of his hands. 

Next, Ossip turned to myself. 

"Inspector, " he began. .. 

It is my opinion that in thus hindering the men from work through histale-telling, Ossip had some definite end in view. I could not sayprecisely what that end was, but it must have been the object either ofcloaking his own laziness or of giving the men a rest. On the otherhand, whenever the contractor was present he, Ossip, bore himself withhumble obsequiousness, and continued to assume a guise of simplicitywhich none the less did not prevent him, on the advent of eachSaturday, from inducing his employer to bestow a pourboire upon theartel. 

And though this same Ossip was an artelui, and a director of the artel, his senior co-members bore him no affection, but, rather, looked uponhim as a wag or trifler, and treated him as of no importance. And, similarly, the younger members of the artel liked well enough to listento his tales, but declined to take him seriously, and, in some cases, regarded him with ill-concealed, or openly expressed, distrust. 

Once the Morduine, a man of education with whom, on occasions, I helddiscussions on intimate subjects, replied to a question of mine on thesubject of Ossip:

"I scarcely know. Goodness alone knows! No, I do not know anythingabout him. "

To which, after a pause, he added:

"Once a fellow named Mikhailo, a clever fellow who is now dead, insulted Ossip by saying to him: 'Do you call yourself a man? Why, regarded as a workman, you're as lifeless as a doornail, while, seeingthat you weren't born to be a master, you'll all your life continuechattering in corners, like a plummet swinging at the end of a string!'Yes, and that was true enough. "

Lastly, after another pause the Morduine concluded:

"No matter. He is not such a bad sort. "

My own position among these men was a position of some awkwardness, for, a young fellow of only fifteen, I had been appointed by thecontractor, a distant relative of mine, to the task of superintendingthe expenditure of material. That is to say, I had to see to it thatthe carpenters did not make away with nails, or dispose of planks inreturn for drink. Yet all the time my presence was practically useless, seeing that the men stole nails as though I were not even in existenceand strove to show me that among them I was a person too many, a sheerincubus, and seized every opportunity of giving me covert jogs with abeam, and similarly affronting me. 

This, of course, made my relations with them highly difficult, embarrassing, and irksome; and though moments occurred when I longed tosay something that might ingratiate me, and endeavoured to effect anadvance in that direction, the words always failed me at the necessaryjuncture, and I found myself lying crushed as before under a burdensomesense of the superfluity of my existence. 

Again, if ever I tried to make an entry as to some material which hadbeen used, Ossip would approach me, and, for instance, say:

"Is it jotted down, eh? Then let me look at it. "

And, eyeing the notebook with a frown, he would add vaguely:

"What a nice hand you write!" (He himself could write only in printingfashion, in the large scriptory characters of the EcclesiasticalRubric, not in those of the ordinary kind. )

"For example, that scoop there--what does IT say?"

"It is the word 'Good. '"

"'Good'? But what a slip-knot of a thing! And what are those wordsTHERE, on THAT line?"

"They say, 'Planks, 1 vershok by 9 arshini, 5. '"

"No, six was the number used. "

"No, five. "

"Five? Why, the soldier broke one, didn't he?"

"Yes, but never mind--at least it wasn't a plank that was wanted. "

"Oh! Well, I may tell you that he took the two pieces to the tavern toget drink with. "

Then, glancing into my face with his cornflower-blue eyes and quiet, quizzical smile, he would say without the least confusion as he twistedthe ringlets of his beard:

"Put down '6. ' And see here, young cockerel. The weather has turned wetand cold, and the work is hard, and sometimes folk need to have theirspirits cheered and raised with a drop of liquor. So don't you be toohard upon us, for God won't think the more of you for being strict. "

And as he thus talked to me in his slow and kindly, but semi-affected, fashion--bespattering me, as it were, with wordy sawdust--I wouldsuddenly grow blind of an eye and silently show him the correctedfigure. 

"That's it--that's right. And how fine the figure looks now, as itsquats there like a merchant's buxom, comely dame!"

Then he would be seen triumphantly telling his mates of his success;then, I would find myself feeling acutely conscious of the fact thateveryone was despising me for my complacence Yes, grown sick beyondendurance with a yearning for some thing which it could not descry, myfifteen-year-old heart would dissolve in a flood of mortified tears, and there would pass through my brain the despondent, aching thought:

"Oh, what a sad, uncomfortable world is this! How should Ossip haveknown so well that I should not re-correct the 6 into a 5, or that Ishould not tell the contractor that the men have bartered a plank forliquor?"

Again, there befell an occasion when the men stole two pounds' weightof five vershok mandrels and bolts. 

"Look here, " I said to Ossip warningly. "I am going to report this. "

"All right, " he agreed with a twitch of his grey eyebrows. "Though whatsuch a trifle can matter I fail to see. Yes, go and report everymother's son of them. "

And to the men themselves he shouted:

"Hi, boobies! Each of you now stands docked for some mandrels andbolts. "

"Why?" was the old soldier's grim inquiry. 

"Because you DO so stand, " carelessly retorted the other. 

With snarls thereafter, the men eyed me covertly, until I began to feelthat very likely I should not do as I had threatened, and even that soto do might not be expedient. 

"But look here, " said I to Ossip. "I am going to give the contractornotice, and let all of you go to the devil. For if I were to remainwith you much longer I too should become a thief. "

Ossip stroked his beard awhile, and pondered. Then he seated himselfbeside me, and said in an undertone:

"That is true. "

"Well?"

"But things are always so. The truth is that it's time you departed. What sort of a watchman, of a checker, are you? In jobs of this kindwhat a man needs to know is the meaning of property. He needs to havein him the spirit of a dog, so that he shall look after his master'sstuff as he would look after the skin which his mother has put on tohis own body. But you, you young puppy, haven't the slightest notion ofwhat property means. In fact, were anyone to go and tell VasiliSergeitch about the way in which you keep letting us off, he'd give ityou in the neck. Yes, you're no good to him at all, but just anexpense: whereas when a man serves a master he ought, do youunderstand, to be PROFITABLE to that master. "

He rolled and handed me a cigarette. 

"Smoke this, " said he, "and perhaps it'll make your brain work easier. If only you had been of a less awkward, uncomfortable nature, I shouldhave said to you, 'Go and join the priests; but, as things are, youaren't the right sort for that--you're too stiff and unbending, andwould never make headway even with an abbot. No, you're not the sort toplay cards with. A monk is like a jackdaw--he chatters without knowingwhat he is chattering about, and pays no heed to the root of things, sobusy is he with stuffing himself full with the grain. I say this to youwith absolute earnestness, for I perceive you to be strange to ourways--a cuckoo that has blundered into the wrong nest. "

And, doffing his cap, a gesture which he never failed to execute whenhe had something particularly important to say, he added humbly andsonorously as he glanced at the grey firmament:

"In the sight of the Lord our ways are the ways of thieves, and such aswill never gain of Him salvation. "

"And that is true enough, " responded Mokei Budirin after the fashion ofa clarionet. 

From that time forth, Ossip of the curly, silvered head, bright eyes, and shadowy soul became an object of agreeable interest for me. Indeed, there grew up between us a species of friendship, even though I couldsee that a civil bearing towards me in public was a thing that it hurthim to maintain. At all events, in the presence of others he avoided myglance, and his eyes, clear, unsullied, and fight blue in tint, waveredunsteadily, and his lips twitched and assumed an artificiallyunpleasant expression, while he uttered some such speech as:

"Hi, you Makarei, see that you keep your eyes open, and cam your pay, or that pig of a soldier will be making away with more nails!"

But at other times, when we were alone together, he would speak to mekindly and instructively, while his eyes would dance and gleam with afaint, grave, knowing smile, and dart blue rays direct into mine, whilefor my part, as I listened to his words, I took every one of them to beabsolutely true and balanced, despite their strange delivery. 

"A man's duty consists in being good, " I remarked on one occasion. 

"Yes, of course, " assented Ossip, though the next moment he veiled hiseyes with a smile, and added in an undertone: "But what do youunderstand by the term 'good'? In my opinion, unless virtue be to theiradvantage, folk spit upon that 'goodness, ' that 'honourableness, ' ofyours. Hence, the better plan is to pay folk court, and be civil tothem, and flatter and cajole every mother's son of them. Yes, do that, and your 'goodness' will have a chance of bringing you in some return. Not that I do not say that to be 'good, ' to be able to look your ownugly jowl in the face in a mirror, is pleasant enough; but, as I seethe matter, it is all one to other people whether you be a cardsharperor a priest so long as you're polite, and let down your neighbourslightly. That's what they want. "

For my part I never, at that period, grew weary of watching my fellows, for it was my constant idea that some day one of them would be able toraise me to a higher level, and to bring me to an understanding of thisunintelligible and complicated existence of ours. Hence I kept askingmyself the restless, the importunate question:

"What precisely is the human soul?"

Certain souls, I thought, existed which seemed like balls of copper, for, solid and immovable, they reflected things from their own point ofview alone, in a dull and irregular and distorted fashion. And souls, Ithought, existed which seemed as flat as mirrors, and, for all intentsand purposes, had no existence at all. 

And in every case the human soul seemed formless, like a cloud, and asmurkily mutable as an imitation opal, a thing which altered accordingto the colour of what adjoined it. 

Only as regarded the soul of the intelligent Ossip was I absolutely ata loss, absolutely unable to reach a conclusion. 

Pondering these and similar matters in my mind, I, on the day of whichI speak, stood gazing at the river, and at the town under the hill, asI listened to the bells. Rearing themselves aloft like the organ pipesin my favourite Polish-Roman Catholic church, the steeples of the townhad their crosses dimly sparkling as though the latter had been starsimprisoned in a murky sky. Yet it was as though those stars hopedeventually to ascend into the purer firmament above the wind-tornclouds that they sparkled; and as I stood watching the clouds glideonward, and momentarily efface with their shadows, the town'smultifarious hues, I marked the fact that although, whenever dark-bluecavities in their substance permitted the beams of the sun toilluminate the buildings below, those buildings' roofs assumed tints ofincreased cheerfulness. The clouds seemed to glide the faster to veilthe beams, while the humid shadows grew more opaque--and the scenedarkened as though only for a moment had it assumed a semblance of joy. 

The buildings of the town (looking like heaps of muddy snow), theblack, naked earth around those buildings, the trees in the gardens, the hummocks of piled-up soil, the dull grey glimmer of the windowpanes of the houses--all these things reminded me of winter, eventhough the misty breath of the northern spring was beginning to stealover the whole. 

Presently a young fellow with flaxen hair, a pendent underlip, and atall, ungainly figure, by name Mishuk Diatlov, essayed to troll thestanza:

 "That morn to him the maiden came, To find his soul had fled. "

Whereupon the old soldier shouted:

"Hi, you! Have you forgotten the day?"

And even Boev saw fit to take umbrage at the singing, and, threateningDiatlov with his fist, to rap out:

"Ah, sobatchnia dusha!" ["Soul of a dog. "]

"What a rude, rough, primitive lot we Russians are!" commented Ossip, seating himself atop of the icebreaker, and screwing up his eyes tomeasure its fall. "To speak plainly, we Russians are sheer barbarians. Once upon a time, I may tell you, an anchorite happened to be on histravels; and as the people came pressing around him, and kneeling tohim, and tearfully beseeching him with the words, 'Oh holy father, intercede for us with the wolves which are devouring our substance!' hereplied: 'Ha! Are you, or are you not, Orthodox Christians? See that Iassign you not to condign perdition!' Yes, angry, in very truth he was. Nay, he even spat in the people's faces. Yet in reality he was a kindlyold man, for his eyes kept shedding tears equally with theirs. "

Twenty sazheni below the icebreaker was a gang of barefooted sailors, engaged in hacking out the floes from under their barges; and as theyshattered the brittle, greyish-blue crust on the river, the mattocksrang out, and the sharp blades of the icecutters gleamed as they thrustthe broken fragments under the surface. Meanwhile, there could be hearda bubbling of water, and the sound of rivulets trickling down to thesandy margin of the river. And similarly among our own gang was thereaudible a scraping of planes, and a screeching of saws, and aclattering of iron braces as they were driven into the smooth yellowwood, while through all the web of these sounds there ran the ceaselesssong of the bells, a song so softened by distance as to thrill thesoul, much as though dingy, burdensome labour were holding revel inhonour of spring, and calling upon the latter to spread itself over thestarved, naked surface of the gradually thawing ground. 

At this point someone shouted hoarsely:

"Go and fetch the German. We have not got hands enough. "

And from the bank someone bawled in reply:

"Where IS he?"

"In the tavern. That is where you must go and look for him. "

And as they made themselves heard, the voices floated up turgidly intothe sodden air, spread themselves over the river's mournful void, anddied away. 

Meanwhile our men worked with industry and speed, but not without afault or two, for their thoughts were fixed upon the town and itswashhouses and churches. And particularly restless was Sashok Diatlov, a man whose hair, as flaxen as that of his brother, seemed to have beenboiled in lye. At intervals, glancing up-river, this well-built, sturdyyoung fellow would say softly to his brother:

"It's cracking now, eh?"

And, certainly, the ice had "moved" two nights ago, so that sinceyesterday morning the river watchmen had refused to permit horsedvehicles to cross, and only a few beadlike pedestrians now were makingtheir way along the marked-out ice paths, while, as they proceeded, onecould hear the water slapping against the planks as the latter bentunder the travellers' weight. 

"Yes, it IS cracking, " at length Mishuk replied with a hoist of hisginger eyebrows. 

Ossip too scanned the river from under his hand. Then he said to Mishuk:

"Pah! It is the dry squeak of the planes in your own hand that you keephearing, so go on with your work, you son of a beldame. And as for you, Inspector, do you help me to speed up the men instead of burying yournose in your notebook. "

By this time there remained only two more hours for work, and the archof the icebreaker had been wholly sheathed in butter-tinted scantlings, and nothing required to be added to it save the great iron braces. Unfortunately, Boev and Saniavin, the men who had been engaged upon thetask of cutting out the sockets for the braces, had worked so amiss, and run their lines so straight, that, when it came to the point, thearms of the braces refused to sink properly into the wood. 

"Oh, you cock-eyed fool of a Morduine!" shouted Ossip, smiting his fistagainst the side of his cap. "Do you call THAT sort of thing work?"

At this juncture there came from somewhere on the bank a seeminglyexultant shout of:

"Ah! NOW it's giving way!"

And almost at the same moment, there stole over the river a sort ofrustle, a sort of quiet crunching which made the projecting pinebranches quiver as though they were trying to catch at something, while, shouldering their mattocks, the barefooted sailors noisilyhastened aboard their barges with the aid of rope ladders. 

And then curious indeed was it to see how many people suddenly cameinto view on the river--to see how they appeared to issue from belowthe very ice itself, and, hurrying to and fro like jackdaws startled bythe shot of a gun, to dart hither and thither, and to seize up planksand boathooks, and to throw them down again, and once more to seizethem up. 

"Put the tools together, " Ossip shouted. "And look alive there, andmake for the bank. "

"Aye, and a fine Easter Day it will be for us on THAT bank!" growledSashok. 

Meanwhile, it was the river rather than the town that seemed to bemotionless--the latter had begun, as it were, to quiver and reel, and, with the hill above it, to appear to be gliding slowly up stream, evenas the grey, sandy bank some ten sazheni from us was beginning to growtremulous, and to recede. 

"Run, all of you!" shouted Ossip, giving me a violent push as he didso. Then to myself in particular he added: "Why stand gaping there?"

This caused a keen sense of danger to strike home in my heart, and tomake my feet feel as though already the ice was escaping their tread. So, automatically picking themselves up, those feet started to bear mybody in the direction of a spot on the sandy bank where thewinter-stripped branches of a willow tree were writhing, and whitherthere were betaking themselves also Boev, the old soldier, Budirin, andthe brothers Diatlov. Meanwhile the Morduine ran by my side, cursingvigorously as he did so, and Ossip followed us, walking backwards. 

"No, no, Narodetz, " he said. 

"But, my good Ossip--"

"Never mind. What has to be, has to be. "

"But, as likely as not, we may remain stuck here for two days!"

"Never mind even if we DO remain stuck here. "

"But what of the festival?"

"It will have, for this year at least, to be kept without you. "

Seating himself on the sand, the old soldier lit his pipe and growled:

"What cowards you all are! The bank was only fifteen sazheni from us, yet you ran as though possessed!"

"With you yourself as leader, " put in Mokei. 

The old soldier took no notice, but added:

"What were you all afraid of? Once upon a time Christ Himself, OurLittle Father, died. "

"And rose again, " muttered the Morduine with a tinge of resentment. Which led Boev to exclaim:

"Puppy, hold your tongue! What right have you to air your opinions?"

"Besides, this is Good Friday, not Easter Day, " the old soldierconcluded with severe, didactical mien. 

In a gap of blue between the clouds there was shining the March sun, and everywhere the ice was sparkling as though in derision ofourselves. Shading his eyes, Ossip gazed at the dissolving river, andsaid:

"Yes, it IS rising--but that will not last for long. "

"No, but long enough to make us miss the festival, " grumbled Sashok. 

Upon this the smooth, beardless face of the youthful Morduine, a facedark and angular like the skin of an unpeeled potato, assumed aresentful frown, and, blinking his eyes, he muttered:

"Yes, here we may have to sit--here where there's neither food normoney! Other folk will be enjoying themselves, but we shall have toremain hugging our hungry stomachs like a pack of dogs!"

Meanwhile Ossip's eyes had remained fixed upon the river, for evidentlyhis thoughts were far away, and it was in absentminded fashion that hereplied:

"Hunger cannot be considered where necessity impels. By the way, whatuse are our damned icebreakers? For the protection of barges and such?Why, the ice hasn't the sense to care. It just goes sliding over abarge, and farewell is the word to THAT bit of property!"

"Damn it, but none of us have a barge for property, have we?

"You had better go and talk to a fool. "

"The truth is that the icebreaker ought to have been taken in handsooner. "

Finally, the old soldier made a queer grimace, and ejaculated:

"Blockhead!"

From a barge a knot of sailors shouted something, and at the samemoment the river sent forth a sort of whiff of cruel chilliness andbrooding calm. The disposition of the pine boughs now had changed. Nay, everything in sight was beginning to assume a different air, as thougheverything were charged with tense expectancy. 

One of the younger men asked diffidently, beneath his breath:

"Mate Ossip, what are we going to do?"

"What do you say?" Ossip queried absent-mindedly. 

"I say, what are we going to do? Just to sit here?"

To this Boev responded, with loud, nasal derision in his tone:

"Yes, my lad, for the Lord has seen fit to prevent you fromparticipating in His most holy festival. "

And the old soldier, in support of his mate, extended his pipe towardsthe river, and muttered with a grin:

"You want to cross to the town, do you? Well, be off with you, andthough the ice may give way beneath your feet and drown you, at leastyou'll be taken to the police station, and so get to your festival. Forthat's what you want, I suppose?"

"True enough, " Mokei re-echoed. 

Then the sun went in, and the river grew darker, while the town stoodout more clearly. Ceaselessly, the younger men gazed towards the townwith wistful, gloomy eyes, though silently they remained where theywere. 

Similarly, I myself was beginning to find things irksome anduncomfortable, as always happens when a number of companions arethinking different thoughts, and contain in themselves none of thatunity of will which alone can join men into a direct, uniform force. Rather, I felt as though I could gladly leave my companions and startout upon the ice alone. 

Suddenly Ossip recovered his faculties. Rising, then doffing his capand making the sign of the cross in the direction of the town, he saidwith a quiet, simple, yet somehow authoritative, air:

"Very well, my mates. Go in peace, and may the Lord go with you!"

"But whither?" asked Sashok, leaping to his feet. "To the town?"

"Whither else?"

The old soldier was the only one not to rise, and with conviction heremarked:

"It will result but in our getting drowned. "

"Then stay where you are. "

Ossip glanced around the party. Then he continued:

"Bestir yourselves! Look alive!"

Upon which all crowded together, and Boev, thrusting the tools into ahole in the bank, groaned:

"The order 'go' has been given, so go we MUST, well though a man inreceipt of such an order might ask himself, 'How is it going to bedone?'"

Ossip seemed, in some way, to have grown younger and more active, whilethe habitually shy, though good-humoured, expression of his countenancewas gone from his ruddy features, and his darkened eyes had assumed anair of stern activity. Nay, even his indolent, rolling gait haddisappeared, and in his step there was more firmness, more assurance, than had ever before been the case. 

"Let every man take a plank, " he said, "and hold it in front of him. Then, should anyone fall in (which God forbid!), the plank-ends willcatch upon the ice to either side of him, and hold him up. Also, everyman must avoid cracks in the ice. Yes, and is there a rope handy? Here, Narodetz! Reach me that spirit-level. Is everyone ready? I will walkfirst, and next there must come--well, which is the heaviest?--you, soldier, and then Mokei, and then the Morduine, and then Boev, and thenMishuk, and then Sashok, and then Makarei, the lightest of all. And doyou all take off your caps before starting, and say a prayer to theMother of God. Ha! Here is Old Father Sun coming out to greet us. "

Readily did the men bare their tousled grey or flaxen heads asmomentarily the sun glanced through a bank of thin white vapour beforeagain concealing himself, as though averse to arousing any false hopes. 

"Now!" sharply commanded Ossip in his new-found voice. "And may God gowith us! Watch my feet, and don't crowd too much upon one another, butkeep each at a sazhen's distance or more--in fact, the more the better. Yes, come, mates!"

With which, stuffing his cap into his bosom, and grasping thespirit-level in his hands, Ossip set foot upon the ice with a sliding, cautious, shuffling gait. At the same moment, there came from the bankbehind us a startled cry of:

"Where are you off to, you fools?"

"Never mind, " said Ossip to ourselves. "Come along with you, and don'tstand staring. "

"You blockheads!" the voice repeated. "You had far better return. "

"No, no! come on!" was Ossip's counter-command. "And as you move thinkof God, or you'll never find yourselves among the invited guests at Hisholy festival of Eastertide. "

Next Ossip sounded a police whistle, which act led the old soldier toexclaim:

"Oh, that's the way, mate! Good! Yes, you know what to do. Now noticewill have been given to the police on the further bank, and, if we'renot drowned, we shall find ourselves clapped in gaol when we get there. However, I'm not responsible. "

In spite of this remonstrance, Ossip's sturdy voice drew his companionsafter him as though they had been tied to a rope. 

"Watch your feet carefully, " once more he cried. 

Our line of march was directed obliquely, and in the opposite directionto the current. Also, I, as the rearmost of the party, found itpleasant to note how the wary little Ossip of the silvery head wentlooping over the ice with the deftness of a hare, and practically noraising of the feet, while behind him there trailed, in wild-goosefashion, and as though tied to a single invisible string, six dark andundulating figures the shadows of which kept making themselves visibleon the ice, from those figures' feet to points indefinitely remote. Andas we proceeded, all of us kept our heads lowered as though we had beendescending from a mountain in momentary fear of a false step. 

Also, though the shouting in our rear kept growing in volume, and wecould tell that by this time a crowd had gathered, not a word could wedistinguish, but only a sort of ugly din. 

In time our cautious march became for me a mere, mechanical, wearisometask, for on ordinary occasions it was my custom to maintain a pace ofgreater rapidity. Thus, eventually I sank into the semiconsciouscondition amid which the soul turns to vacuity, and one no longerthinks of oneself, but, on the contrary issues from one's personality, and begins to see objects with unwonted clarity, and to hear soundswith unwonted precision. Under my feet the seams in the blue-grey, leaden ice lay full of water, while as for the ice itself, it wasblinding in its expansive glitter, even though in places it had come tobe either cracked or bulbous, or had ground itself into powder with itsown movement, or had become heaped into slushy hummocks of pumice-likesponginess and the consistency of broken glass. And everywhere aroundme I could discern the chilly, gaping smile of blue crevices whichcaught at my feet, and rendered the tread of my boot-soles unstable. And ever, as we marched, could the voices of Boev and the old soldierbe heard speaking in antiphony, like two pipes being fluted by one andthe same pair of lips. 

"I won't be responsible, " said the one voice. 

"Nor I, " responded the other. 

"The only reason why I have come is that I was told to do so. That'sall about it. "

"Yes, and the same with me. "

"One man gives an order, and another man, perhaps a man a thousandtimes more sensible than he, is forced to obey it. "

"Is any man, in these days, sensible, seeing what a racket we have tolive among?"

By this time Ossip had tucked the skirts of his greatcoat into hisbelt, while beneath those skirts his legs (clad in grey cloth gaitersof a military pattern) were shuffling along as lightly and easily assprings, and in a manner that suggested that there was turning andtwisting in front of him some person whom, though desirous of barringto him the direct course, the shortest route, Ossip successfullyopposed and evaded by dint of dodges and deviations to right and left, and occasional turns about, and the execution of dance steps and loopsand semicircles. Meanwhile in the tones of Ossip's voice there was asoft, musical ring that struck agreeably upon the ear, and harmonisedto admiration with the song of the bells just when we were approachingthe middle of the river's breadth of four hundred sazheni. Thereresounded over the surface of the ice a vicious rustle while a piece ofice slid from under my feet. Stumbling, and powerless to retain myfooting, I blundered down upon my knees in helpless astonishment; andthen, as I glanced upstream, fear gripped at my throat, deprived me ofspeech, and darkened all my vision. For the whole substance of the greyice-core had come to life and begun to heave itself upwards! Yes, thehitherto level surface was thrusting forth sharp angular ridges, andthe air seemed full of a strange sound like the trampling of some heavybeing over broken glass. 

With a quiet trickle there came a swirl of water around me, while anadjacent pine bough cracked and squeaked as though it too had come tolife. My companions shouted, and collected into a knot; whereupon, atonce dominating and quelling the tense, painful hubbub of sounds, thererang forth the voice of Ossip. 

"Mother of God!" he shouted. "Scatter, lads! Get away from one another, and keep each to himself! Now! Courage!"

With that, springing towards us as though wasps had been after him, andgrasping the spirit-level as though it had been a weapon, he jabbed itto every side, as though fighting invisible foes, while, just as thequivering town began, seemingly, to glide past us, and the ice at myfeet gave a screech and crumbled to fragments beneath me, so that waterbubbled to my knees. I leapt up from where I was, and rushed blindly inOssip's direction. 

"Where are you coming to, fool?" was his shout as he brandished thespirit-level. "Stand still where you are!"

Indeed, Ossip seemed no longer to be Ossip at all, but a personcuriously younger, a person in whom all that had been familiar in Ossiphad become effaced. Yes, the once blue eyes had turned to grey, and thefigure added half an arshin to its stature as, standing as erect as anewly made nail, and pressing both feet together, the foreman stretchedhimself to his full height, and shouted with his mouth open to itswidest extent:

"Don't shuffle about, nor crowd upon one another, or I'll break yourheads!"

Whereafter, of myself in particular, he inquired as he raised thespirit-level:

"What is the matter with YOU, pray?"

"I am feeling frightened, " I muttered in response. 

"Feeling frightened of WHAT, indeed?"

"Of being drowned. "

"Pooh! Just you hold your tongue. "

Yet the next moment he glanced at me, and added in a gentler, quietertone:

"None but a fool gets drowned. Pick yourself up and come along. "

Then once more he shouted full-throated words of encouragement to hismen; and as he did so, his chest swelled and his head rocked with theeffort. 

Yet, crackling and cracking, the ice was breaking up; and soon it beganslowly to bear us past the town. 'Twas as though some unknown forceashore had awakened, and was striving to tear the banks of the river intwo, so much did the portion of the landscape downstream seem to bestanding still while the portion level with us seemed to be receding inthe opposite direction, and thus causing a break to take place in themiddle of the picture. 

And soon this movement, a movement agonisingly slow, deprived me of mysense of being connected with the rest of the world, until, as thewhole receded, despair again gripped my heart and unnerved my limbs. Roseate clouds were gliding across the sky and causing stray fragmentsof the ice, which, seemingly, yearned to engulf me, to assume reflectedtints of a similar hue. Yes, it was as though the birth of spring hadreawakened the universe, and was causing it to stretch itself, and toemit deep, hurried, broken pants that cracked its bones as the river, embedded in the earth's stout framework, revivified the whole withthick, turbulent, ebullient blood. 

And this sense of littleness, of impotence amid the calm, assuredmovement of the earth's vast bulk, weighed upon my soul, and evoked, and momentarily fanned to flame in me, the shameless human question:"What if I should stretch forth my hand and lay it upon the hill andthe banks of the river, and say, 'Halt until I come to you!'?"

Meanwhile the bells continued the mournful moaning of their resonant, coppery notes; and that moaning led me to reflect that within two days(on the night of the morrow) they would be pealing a joyous welcome tothe Resurrection Feast. 

"Oh that all of us may live to hear that sound!" was my unspokenthought. 

Before my vision there kept quavering seven dark figures--figuresshuffling over the ice, and brandishing planks like oars. And, wriggling like a lamprey in front of them was a little old fellow, anold fellow resembling Saint Nicholas the Wonder-Worker, an old fellowwho kept crying softly, but authoritatively:

"Do not stare about you!"

And ever the river was growing rougher and ruder; ever its backbone wasbeginning to puiver and flounder like a whale underfoot, with itsliquescent body of cold, grey, murky water bursting with increasingfrequency from its shell of ice, and lapping hungrily at our feet. 

Yes, we were human beings traversing, as it were, a slender pole over abottomless abyss; and as we walked, the water's soft, cantabile splashset me in mind of the depths below, of the infinite time during which abody would continue sinking through dense, chilly bulk until sightfaded and the heart stopped beating. Yes, before my mind's eye therearose men drowned and devoured by crayfish, men with crumbling skullsand swollen features, and glassy, bulging eyes and puffy hands andoutstretched fingers and palms of which the skin had rotted off withthe damp. 

The first to fall in was Mokei Budirin. He had been walking next aheadof the Morduine, and, as a man habitually silent and absorbed, proceeding on his way more quietly than the rest. Suddenly somethinghad seemed to catch at his legs, and he had disappeared until only hishead and his hands, as the latter clutched at his plank, had been leftabove-level. 

"Run and help him, somebody!" was Ossip's instant cry. "Yes, but notall of you--just one or two. Help him I say!"

The spluttering Mokei, however, said to the Morduine and myself:

"No; do you move away, mates, for I shall best help myself. Never youmind. "

And, sure enough, he did succeed in drawing himself out on to the icewithout assistance. Whereafter he remarked as he shook himself:

"A nice pickle, this, to be in! I might as well have been drowned!"

And, in fact, at the moment he looked, with his chattering teeth andgreat tongue licking a dripping moustache, precisely like a large, good-natured dog. 

Then I remembered how, a month earlier, he had accidentally driven theblade of his axe through the joint of his left thumb, and, merelypicking up the white fragment of flesh with the nail turning blue, andscanning it with his unfathomable eyes, had remarked, as though it washe himself that had been at fault:

"How often before I have injured that thumb, I could not say. And whenonce I dislocated it, I went on working with it longer than was right. .. . Now I will go and bury it. "

With which, carefully wrapping up the fragment in some shavings, he hadthrust the whole into his pocket, and bandaged the wounded hand. 

Similarly, after that, did Boev, the man next in order behind Mokei, contrive to wrest himself from the grasp of the ice, though, onimmersion, he started bawling, "Mates, I shall drown! I am deadalready! Help me, help me!" and became so cramped with terror as to beextricated only with great difficulty, while amid the general confusionthe Morduine too nearly slipped into the water. 

"A narrow shave of saying Vespers tonight with the devils in Hell!" heremarked as he clambered back, and stood grinning with an even moreangular and attenuated appearance than usual. 

The next moment Boev achieved a second plunge, and screamed, as before, for help. 

"Don't shout, you goat of a Yashka!" Ossip exclaimed as he threatenedhim with the spirit-level. "Why scare people? I'll give it you! Lookhere, lads. Let every man take off his belt and turn out his pockets. Then he'll walk lighter. "

Toothed jaws gaped and crunched at us at every step, and vomited thickspittle; at every tenth step their keen blue fangs reached for ourlives. Meanwhile, the soaked condition of our boots and clothes hadrendered us as slimy as though smeared with paste. Also, it so weighedus down as to hinder any active movement, and to cause each step to betaken cautiously, slowly, silently, and with ponderous diffidence. 

Yet, soaked though we were, Ossip might verily have known the number ofcracks in advance, so smooth and harelike was his progress from floe tofloe as at intervals he faced about, watched us, and cried sonorously:

"That's the way to do it, eh?"

Yes, he absolutely played with the river, and though it kept catchingat his diminutive form, he always evaded it, circumvented itsmovements, and avoided its snares. Nay, capable even of directing itstrend did he seem, and of thrusting under our feet only the largest andfirmest floes. 

"Lads, there is no need to be downhearted, " he would cry at intervals. 

"Ah, that brave Ossip!" the Morduine once ejaculated. "In very truth ishe a man, and no mistake! Just look at him!"

The closer we approached the further shore, the thinner and the morebrittle did the ice become, and the more liable we to break through it. By this time the town had nearly passed us, and we were bidding fair tobe carried out into the Volga, where the ice would still be sound, and, as likely as not, draw us under itself. 

"By your leave, we are going to be drowned, " the Morduine murmured ashe glanced at the blue shadow of eventide on our left. 

And simultaneously, as though compassionating our lot, a large floegrounded upon the bank, glided upwards with a cracking and a crashing, and there held fast!

"Run, all of you!" came a furious shout from Ossip. "Hurry up, now! Putyour very best legs foremost!"

For myself, as I sprang upon the floe I lost my footing, and, fallingheadlong and remaining seated on the hither end of the floe amid ashower of spray, saw five of my seven comrades rush past, pushing andjostling, as they made for the shore. But presently the Morduine turnedand halted beside me, with the intention of rendering Ossip assistance. 

"Run, you young fools!" the latter exclaimed. "Come! Be off with you!"

Somehow in his face there was now a livid, uncertain air, while hiseyes had lost their fire, and his mouth was curiously agape. 

"No, mate. Do YOU get up, " was my counter-adjuration. 

"Unfortunately, I have hurt my leg, " he replied with his head bentdown. "In fact, I am not sure that I can get up. "

However, we contrived to raise him and carry him ashore with an arm ofhis resting on each of our necks. Meanwhile he growled with chatteringteeth:

"Aha, you river devils! Drown me if you can! But I've not given you achance, the Lord be thanked! Hi, look out! The ice won't bear the threeof us. Mind how you step, and choose places where the ice is bare ofsnow. There it's firmer. No, a better plan still would be to leave mewhere I am. "

Next, with a frowning scrutiny of my face, he inquired:

"That notebook of our misdeeds--hasn't it had a wetting and got donefor?"

That very moment, as we stepped from the stranded floe (in grounding, it had crushed and shattered a small boat), such part of it as lay inthe water gave a loud crack, and, swaying to and fro, and emitting agurgling sound, floated clear of the rest. 

"Ah!" was the Morduine's quizzical comment. "YOU knew well enough whatneeded to be done. "

Wet, and chilled to the bone, though relieved in spirit, we steppedashore to find a crowd of townspeople in conversation with Boev and theold soldier. And as we deposited our charge under the lea of a pile oflogs he shouted cheerfully:

"Mates, Makarei's notebook is done for, soaked through!" And since thenotebook in question was weighing upon my breast like a brick, I pulledit out unseen, and hurled it far into the river with a plop like thatof a frog. 

As for the Diatlovs, they lost no time in setting out in search ofvodka in the tavern on the hill, and slapped one another on the back asthey ran, and could be heard shouting, "Hurrah, hurrah!"

Upon this, a tall old man with the beard of an apostle and the eyes ofa brigand muttered:

"Infidels, why disturb peaceful folk like this? You ought to bethrashed!"

Whereupon Boev, who was changing his clothes, retorted:

"What do you mean by 'disturb'?"

"Besides, " put in the old soldier, "even though we are Christians likeyourself, we might as well have been drowned for all that you did tohelp us. "

"What could we have done?"

Meanwhile Ossip had remained lying on the ground with one leg stretchedout at full length, and tremulous hands fumbling at his greatcoat asunder his breath he muttered:

"Holy Mother, how wet I am! My clothes, though I have only worn them ayear, are ruined for ever!"

Moreover, he seemed now to have shrunken again in stature--to havebecome crumpled up like a man run over. Indeed, as he lay he seemedactually to be melting, so continuously was his bulk decreasing in size. 

But suddenly he raised himself to a sitting posture, groaned, andexclaimed in high-pitched, wrathful accents:

"May the devil take you all! Be off with you to your washhouses andchurches! Yes, be off, for it seems that, as God couldn't keep His holyfestival without you, I've had to stand within an ace of death and tospoil my clothes-yes, all that you fellows should be got out of yourfix!"

Nevertheless, the men merely continued taking off their boots, andwringing out their clothes, and conversing with sundry gasps and gruntswith the bystanders. So presently Ossip resumed:

"What are you thinking of, you fools? The washhouse is the best placefor you, for if the police get you, they'll soon find you a lodging, and no mistake!"

One of the townspeople put in officiously:

"Aye, aye. The police have been sent for. "

And this led Boev to exclaim to Ossip:

"Why pretend like that?"

"Pretend? I?"

"Yes--you. "

"What do you mean?"

"I mean that it was you who egged us on to cross the river. "

"You say that it was I?"

"I do. "

"Indeed?"

"Aye, " put in Budirin quietly, but incisively. And him the Morduinesupported by saying in a sullen undertone:

"It was you, mate. By God it was. It would seem that you haveforgotten. "

"Yes, you started all this business, " the old soldier corroborated, indour, ponderous accents. 

"Forgotten, indeed? HE?" was Boev's heated exclamation. 

"How can you say such a thing? Well, let him not try to shift theresponsibility on to others--that's all! WE'LL see, right enough, thathe goes through with it!"

To this Ossip made no reply, but gazed frowningly at his dripping, half-clad men. 

All at once, with a curious outburst of mingled smiles and tears (itwould be hard to say which), he shrugged his shoulders, threw up hishands, and muttered:

"Yes, it IS true. If it please you, it was I that contrived the idea. "

"Of COURSE it was!" the old soldier cried triumphantly. 

Ossip turned his eyes again to where the river was seething like a bowlof porridge, and, letting his eyes fall with a frown, continued:

"In a moment of forgetfulness I did it. Yet how is it that we were notall drowned? Well, you wouldn't understand even if I were to tell you. No, by God, you wouldn't!. .. Don't be angry with me, mates. Pardonme for the festival's sake, for I am feeling uneasy of mind. Yes, I itwas that egged you on to cross the river, the old fool that I was!"

"Aha!" exclaimed Boev. "But, had I been drowned, what should you havesaid THEN?"

In fact, by this time Ossip seemed conscious to the full of thefutility and the senselessness of what he had done: and in his state ofsliminess, as he sat nodding his head, picking at the sand, looking atno one, and emitting a torrent of remorseful words, he reminded mestrongly of a new-born calf. 

And as I watched him I thought to myself:

"Where now is the leader of men who could draw his fellows in his trainwith so much care and skill and authority?"

And into my soul there trickled an uneasy sense of something lacking. Seating myself beside Ossip (for I desired still to retain a measure ofmy late impression of him), I said to him in an undertone:

"Soon you will be all right again. "

With a sideways glance he muttered in reply, as he combed his beard:

"Well, you saw what happened just now. Always do things so happen. "

While for the benefit of the men he added:

"That was a good jest of mine, eh?"

The summit of the hill which lay crouching, like a great beast, on thebrink of the river was standing out clearly against the fast darkeningsky; while a clump of trees thereon had grown black, and everywhereblue shadows of the spring eventide were coming into view, and loomingbetween the housetops where the houses lay pressed like scabs againstthe hill's opaque surface, and peering from the moist, red jaws of theravine which, gaping towards the river, seemed as though it werestretching forth for a draught of water. 

Also, by now the rustling and crunching of the ice on the similarlydarkening river was beginning to assume a deeper note, and at times afloe would thrust one of its extremities into the bank as a pig thrustsits snout into the earth, and there remain motionless before once morebeginning to sway, tearing itself free, and floating away down theriver as another such floe glided into its place. 

And ever more and more swiftly was the water rising, and washing awaysoil from the bank, and spreading a thick sediment over the dark bluesurface of the river. And as it did so, there resounded in the air astrange noise as of chewing and champing, a noise as though some hugewild animal were masticating, and licking itself with its great longtongue. 

And still there continued to come from the town the melancholy, distance-softened, sweet-toned song of the bells. 

Presently, the brothers Diatlov appeared descending from the hill withbottles in their hands, and sporting like a couple of joyous puppies, while to intercept them there could be seen advancing along the bank ofthe river a grey-coated police sergeant and two black-coated constables. 

"Oh Lord!" groaned Ossip as he rubbed his knee. 

As for the townsfolk, they had no love for the police, so hastened towithdraw to a little distance, where they silently awaited theofficers' approach. Before long the sergeant, a little, withered sortof a fellow with diminutive features and a sandy, stubby moustache, called out in gruff, stern, hoarse, laboured accents:

"So here you are, you rascals!"

Ossip prised himself up from the ground with his elbow, and saidhurriedly:

"It was I that contrived the idea of the thing, your Excellency; but, pray let me off in honour of the festival. "

"What do you say, you--?" the sergeant began, but his bluster was lostamid the swift flow of Ossip's further conciliatory words. 

"We are folk of this town, " Ossip continued, "who tonight foundourselves stranded on the further bank, with nothing to buy bread with, even though the day after tomorrow will be Christ's day, the day whenChristians like ourselves wish to clean themselves up a little, and togo to church. So I said to my mates, 'Be off with you, my good fellows, and may God send that no mishap befall you!' And for thispresumptuousness of mine I have been punished already, for, as you cansee, have as good as broken my leg. "

"Yes, " ejaculated the sergeant grimly. "But if you had been drowned, what then?"

Ossip sighed wearily. 

"What then, do you say, your Excellency? Why, then, nothing, with yourpermission. "

This led the officer to start railing at the culprit, while the crowdlistened as silently and attentively as though he had been sayingsomething worthy to be heard and heeded, rather than foully andcynically miscalling their mothers. 

Lastly, our names having been noted, the police withdrew, while each ofus drank a dram of vodka (and thereby gained a measure of warmth andcomfort), and then began to make for our several homes. Ossip followedthe police with derisive eyes; whereafter, he leapt to his feet with animble, adroit movement, and crossed himself with punctilious piety. 

"That's all about it, thank God!" he exclaimed. 

"What?" sniggered Boev, now both disillusioned and astonished. "Do youreally mean to say that that leg of yours is better already? Or do youmean that it never was injured at all?"

"Ah! So you wish that it HAD been injured, eh?"

"The rascal of a Petrushka!" the other exclaimed. 

"Now, " commanded Ossip, "do all of you be off, mates. " And with that hepulled his wet cap on to his head. 

I accompanied him--walking a little behind the rest. As he limpedalong, he said in an undertone-said kindly--and as though he werecommunicating a secret known only to himself:

"Whatsoever one may do, and whithersoever one may turn, one will findthat life cannot be lived without a measure of fraud and deceit. Forthat is what life IS, Makarei, the devil fly away with it!. .. Isuppose you're making for the hill? Well, I'll keep you company. "

Darkness had fallen, but at a certain spot some red and yellow lamps, lamps the beams of which seemed to be saying, "Come up hither!" wereshining through the obscurity. 

Meanwhile, as we proceeded in the direction of the bells that wereringing on the hill, rivulets of water flowed with a murmur under ourfeet, and Ossip's kindly voice kept mingling with their sound. 

"See, " he continued, "how easily I befooled that sergeant! That is howthings have to be done, Makarei--one has to keep folk from knowingone's business, yet to make them think that they are the chief personsconcerned, and the persons whose wit has put the cap on the whole. "

Yet as I listened to his speech, while supporting his steps, I couldmake little of it. 

Nor did I care to make very much of it, for I was of a simple andeasygoing nature. And though at the moment I could not have toldwhether I really liked Ossip, I would still have followed his lead inany direction--yes, even across the river again, though the ice hadbeen giving way beneath me. 

And as we proceeded, and the bells echoed and re-echoed, I thought tomyself with a spasm of joy:

"Ah, many times may I thus walk to greet the spring!"

While Ossip said with a sigh:

"The human soul is a winged thing. Even in sleep it flies. "

 * * * * *

A winged thing? Yes, and a thing of wonder. 

GUBIN

The place where I first saw him was a tavern wherein, ensconced in thechimney-corner, and facing a table, he was exclaiming stutteringly, "Oh, I know the truth about you all! Yes, I know the truth about you!"while standing in a semicircle in front of him, and unconsciouslyrendering him more and more excited with their sarcasticinterpolations, were some tradesmen of the superior sort--five innumber. One of them remarked indifferently:

"How should you NOT know the truth about us, seeing that you do nothingbut slander us?"

Shabby, in fact in rags, Gubin at that moment reminded me of a homelessdog which, having strayed into a strange street, has found itself heldup by a band of dogs of superior strength, and, seized withnervousness, is sitting back on its haunches and sweeping the dust withits tail; and, with growls, and occasional barings of its fangs, andsundry barkings, attempting now to intimidate its adversaries, and nowto conciliate them. Meanwhile, having perceived the stranger'shelplessness and insignificance, the native pack is beginning tomoderate its attitude, in the conviction that, though continuedmaintenance of dignity is imperative, it is not worthwhile to pick aquarrel so long as an occasional yelp be vented in the stranger's face. 

"To whom are you of any use?" one of the tradesmen at length inquired. 

"Not a man of us but may be of use. "

"To whom, then?". .. 

I had long since grown familiar with tavern disputes concerningverities, and not infrequently seen those disputes develop into openbrawls; but never had I permitted myself to be drawn into their toils, or to be set wandering amid their tangles like a blind man negotiatinga number of hillocks. Moreover, just before this encounter with Gubin, I had arrived at a dim surmise that when such differences were carriedto the point of madness and bloodshed. Really, they constituted anexpression of the unmeaning, hopeless, melancholy life that is lived inthe wilder and more remote districts of Russia--of the life that islived on swampy banks of dingy rivers, and in our smaller and moreGod-forgotten towns. For it would seem that in such places men havenothing to look for, nor any knowledge of how to look for anything;wherefore, they brawl and shout in vain attempts to dissipatedespondency. .. . 

I myself was sitting near Gubin, but on the other side of the table. Yet, this was not because his outbursts and the tradesmen's retortsthereto were a pleasure to listen to, since to me both the one and theother seemed about as futile as beating the air. 

"To whom are YOU of use?"

"To himself every man can be useful. "

"But what good can one do oneself?". .. 

The windows of the tavern were open, while in the pendent, undulatingcloud of blue smoke that the flames of the lamps emitted, those lampslooked like so many yellow pitchers floating amid the waters of astagnant pond. Out of doors there was brooding the quiet of an Augustnight, and not a rustle, not a whisper was there to be heard. Hence, asnumbed with melancholy, I gazed at the inky heavens and limpid stars Ithought to myself:

"Surely, never were the sky and the stars meant to look down upon alife like this, a life like this?"

Suddenly someone said with the subdued assurance of a person readingaloud from a written document:

"Unless the peasants of Kubarovo keep a watch upon their timber lands, the sun will fire them tomorrow, and then the Birkins' forest also willcatch alight. "

For a moment the dispute died down. Then, as it were cleaving thesilence, a voice said stutteringly:

"Who cares about the significance of the word 'truth'?"

And the words--heavy, jumbled, and clumsy--filled me with despondentreflections. Then again the voices rose--this time in louder and morevenomous accents, and with their din recalled to me, by some accident, the foolish lines:

 The gods did give men water To wash in, and to drink; Yet man has made it but a pool In which his woes to sink. 

Presently I moved outside and, seating myself on the steps of theveranda, fell to contemplating the dull, blurred windows of theArchpriest's house on the other side of the square, and to watching howblack shadows kept flitting to and fro behind their panes as the faint, lugubrious notes of a guitar made themselves heard. And a high-pitched, irritable voice kept repeating at intervals: "Allow me. Pray, permit meto speak, " and being answered by a voice which intermittently shot intothe silence, as into a bottomless sack, the words: "No, do you wait amoment, do you wait a moment. "

Surrounded by the darkness, the houses looked stunted like gravestones, with a line of black trees above their roofs that loomed shadowy andcloud-like. Only in the furthest corner of the expanse was the light ofa solitary street lamp bearing a resemblance to the disk of astationary, resplendent dandelion. 

Over everything was melancholy. Far from inviting was the generaloutlook. So much was this the case that, had, at that moment, anyonestolen upon me from behind the bushes and dealt me a sudden blow on thehead, I should merely have sunk to earth without attempting to see whomy assailant had been. 

Often, in those days, was I in this mood, for it clave to me asfaithfully as a dog--never did it wholly leave me. 

"It was for men like THOSE that this fair earth of ours was bestowedupon us!" I thought to myself. 

Suddenly, with a clatter, someone ran out of the door of the tavern, slid down the steps, fell headlong at their foot, quickly regained hisequilibrium, and disappeared in the darkness after exclaiming in athreatening voice:

"Oh, I'LL pay you out! I'LL skin you, you damned. .. !"

Whereafter two figures that also appeared in the doorway said as theystood talking to one another:

"You heard him threaten to fire the place, did you not?"

"Yes, I did. But why should he want to fire it?"

"Because he is a dangerous rascal. "

Presently, slinging my wallet upon my back, I pursued my onward wayalong a street that was fenced on either side with a tall palisade. AsI proceeded, long grasses kept catching at my feet and rustling drily. And so warm was the night as to render the payment of a lodging feesuperfluous; and the more so since in the neighbourhood of thecemetery, where an advanced guard of young pines had pushed forward tothe cemetery wall and littered the sandy ground, with a carpet of red, dry cones, there were sleeping-places prepared in advance. 

Suddenly from the darkness there emerged, to recoil again, a man's tallfigure. 

"Who is that? Who is it?" asked the hoarse, nervous voice of Gubin indissipation of the deathlike stillness. 

Which said, he and I fell into step with one another. As we proceededhe inquired whence I had come, and why I was still abroad. Whereafterhe extended to me, as to an old acquaintance, the invitation:

"Will you come and sleep at my place? My house is near here, and as forwork, I will find you a job tomorrow. In fact, as it happens, I amneeding a man to help me clean out a well at the Birkins' place. Willthe job suit you? Very well, then. Always I like to settle thingsovernight, as it is at night that I can best see through people. "

The "house" turned out to be nothing more than an old one-eyed, hunchbacked washhouse or shanty which, bulging of wall, stood wedgedagainst the clayey slope of a ravine as though it would fain buryitself amid the boughs of the neighbouring arbutus trees and elders. 

Without striking a light, Gubin flung himself upon some mouldy hay thatlittered a threshold as narrow as the threshold of a dog-kennel, andsaid to me with an air of authority as he did so:

"I will sleep with my head towards the door, for the atmosphere here isa trifle confined. "

And, true enough, the place reeked of elderberries, soap, burnt stuff, and decayed leaves. I could not conceive why I had come to such a spot. 

The twisted branches of the neighbouring trees hung motionless athwartthe sky, and concealed from view the golden dust of the Milky Way, while across the Oka an owl kept screeching, and the strange, arrestingremarks of my companion pelted me like showers of peas. 

"Do not be surprised that I should live in a remote ravine, " he said. "I, whose hand is against every man, can at least feel lord of what Isurvey here. "

Too dark was it for me to see my host's face, but my memory recalledhis bald cranium, and the yellow light of the lamps falling upon a noseas long as a woodpecker's beak, a pair of grey and stubbly cheeks, apair of thin lips covered by a bristling moustache, a mouth sharp-cutas with a knife, and full of black, evil-looking stumps, a pair ofpointed, sensitive, mouse-like ears, and a clean-shaven chin. The lastfeature in no way consorted with his visage, or with his wholeappearance; but at least it rendered him worthy of remark, and enabledone to realise that one had to deal with neither a peasant nor asoldier nor a tradesman, but with a man peculiar to himself. Also, hisframe was lanky, with long arms and legs, and pointed knees and elbows. In fact, so like a piece of string was his body that to twist it roundand round, or even to tie it into a knot, would, seemingly, have beeneasy enough. 

For awhile I found his speech difficult to follow; wherefore, silentlyI gazed at the sky, where the stars appeared to be playing atfollow-my-leader. 

"Are you asleep?" at length he inquired. 

"No, I am not. Why do you shave your beard?"

"Why do you ask?"

"Because, if you will pardon me, I think your face would look betterbearded. "

With a short laugh he exclaimed:

"Bearded? Ah, sloven! Bearded, indeed!"

To which he added more gravely:

"Both Peter the Great and Nicholas I were wiser than you, for theyordained that whosoever should be bearded should have his nose slit, and be fined a hundred roubles. Did you ever hear of that?"

"No. "

"And from the same source, from the beard, arose also the Great Schism. "

His manner of speaking was too rapid to be articulate, and, in leavinghis mouth, his words caused his lips to bare stumps and gums amid whichthey lost their way, became disintegrated, and issued, as it were, inan incomplete state. 

"Everyone, " he continued, "knows that life is lived more easily with abeard than without one, since with a beard lies are more easilytold--they can be told, and then hidden in the masses of hair. Hence weought to go through life with our faces naked, since such faces renderuntruthfulness more difficult, and prevent their owners fromprevaricating without the fact becoming plain to all. "

"But what about women?"

"What about women? Well, women can always lie to their husbandssuccessfully, but not to all the town, to all the world, to folk ingeneral. Moreover, since a woman's real business in life is the same asthat of the hen, to rear young, what can it matter if she DOES cackle afew falsehoods, provided that she be neither a priest nor a mayor nor atchinovnik, and does not possess any authority, and cannot establishlaws? For the really important point is that the law itself should notlie, but ever uphold truth pure and simple. Long has the prevalentillegality disgusted me. "

The door of the shanty was standing open, and amid the outer darkness, as in a church, the trees looked like pillars, and the white stems ofthe birches like silver candelabra tipped with a thousand lights, ordimly-seen choristers with faces showing pale above sacramentalvestments of black. All my soul was full of a sort of painfulrestlessness. It was a feeling as though I should live to rise and goforth into the darkness, and offer battle to the terrors of the night;yet ever, as my companion's torrential speech caught and held myattention, it detained me where I was. 

"My father was a man of no little originality and character, " he wenton. "Wherefore, none of the townsfolk liked him. By the age of twentyhe had risen to be an alderman, yet never to the end could get thebetter of folk's stubbornness and stupidity, even though he made it hiscustom to treat all and sundry to food and drink, and to reason withthem. No, not even at the last did he attain his due. People feared himbecause he revolutionised everything, revolutionised it down to thevery roots; the truth being that he had grasped the one essential factthat law and order must be driven, like nails, into the people's veryvitals. "

Mice squeaked under the floor, and on the further side of the Oka anowl screeched, while amid the pitch-black heavens I could see a numberof blotches intermittently lightening to an elusive red and blurringthe faint glitter of the stars. 

"It was one o'clock in the morning when my father died, " Gubincontinued. "And upon myself, who was seventeen and had just finished mycourse at the municipal school of Riazan, there devolved, naturallyenough, all the enmity that my father had incurred during his lifetime. 'He is just like his sire, ' folk said. Also, I was alone, absolutelyalone, in the world, since my mother had lost her reason two yearsbefore my father's death, and passed away in a frenzy. However, I hadan uncle, a retired unter-officier who was both a sluggard, a tippler, and a hero (a hero because he had had his eyes shot out at Plevna, andhis left arm injured in a manner which had induced paralysis, and hisbreast adorned with the military cross and a set of medals). Andsometimes, this uncle of mine would rally me on my learning. Forinstance, 'Scholar, ' he would say, 'what does "tiversia" mean?' 'Nosuch word exists, ' would be my reply, and thereupon he would seize meby the hair, for he was rather an awkward person to deal with. Anotherfactor as concerned making me ashamed of my scholarship was theignorance of the townspeople in general, and in the end I became thecommon butt, a sort of 'holy idiot. '"

So greatly did these recollections move Gubin that he rose andtransferred his position to the door of the hut, where, a dark bluragainst the square of blue, he lit a gurgling pipe, and puffed thereatuntil his long, conical nose glowed. Presently the surging stream ofwords began again:

"At twenty I married an orphan, and when she fell ill and diedchildless I found myself alone once more, and without an adviser or afriend. However, still I continued both to live and to look about me. And in time, I perceived that life is not lived wholly as it should be. "

"What in life is 'not lived wholly as it should be'?"

"Everything in life. For life is mere folly, mere fatuous nonsense. Thetruth is that our dogs do not bark always at the right moment. Forinstance, when I said to folk, 'How would it be if we were to open atechnical school for girls?' They merely laughed and replied, 'Tradeworkers are hopeless drunkards. Already have we enough of them. Besides, hitherto women have contrived to get on WITHOUT education. 'And when next I conceived a scheme for instituting a match factory, itbefell that the factory was burnt down during its first year ofexistence, and I found myself once more at a loose end. Next a certainwoman got hold of me, and I flitted about her like a martin around abelfry, and so lost my head as to live life as though I were not onearth at all--for three years I did not know even what I was doing, andonly when I recovered my senses did I perceive myself to be a pauper, and my all, every single thing that I had possessed, to have passedinto HER white hands. Yes, at twenty-eight I found myself a beggar. YetI have never wholly regretted the fact, for certainly for a time Ilived life as few men ever live it. 'Take my all--take it!' I used tosay to her. And, truly enough, I should never have done much good withmy father's fortune, whereas she--well, so it befell. Somehow I thinkthat in those days my opinions must have been different from now--nowthat I have lost everything. .. . Yet the woman used to say, 'You haveNOT lost everything, ' and she had wit enough to fit out a whole townfulof people. "

"This woman--who was she?"

"The wife of a merchant. Whenever she unrobed and said, 'Come! What isthis body of mine worth?' I used to make reply, 'A price that is beyondcompute. '. .. So within three years everything that I possessedvanished like smoke. Sometimes, of course, folk laughed at and jibed atme; nor did I ever refute them. But now that I have come to have abetter understanding of life's affairs, I see that life is not whollylived as it should be. For that matter, too, I do not hold my tongue onthe subject, for that is not my way--still left to me I have a tongueand my soul. The same reason accounts for the fact that no one likesme, and that by everyone I am looked upon as a fool. "

"How, in your opinion, ought life to be lived?"

Without answering me at once, Gubin sucked at his pipe until his nosemade a glowing red blur in the darkness. Then he muttered slowly:

"How life ought to be lived no one could say exactly. And this though Ihave given much thought to the subject, and still am doing so. "

I found it no difficult matter to form a mental picture of the desolateexistence which this man must be leading--this man whom all his fellowsboth derided and shunned. For at that time I too was bidding fair tofail in life, and had my heart in the grip of ceaseless despondency. 

The truth is that of futile people Russia is over-full. Many such Imyself have known, and always they have attracted me as strongly andmysteriously as a magnet. Always they have struck me more favourablythan the provincial-minded majority who live for food and work alone, and put away from them all that could conceivably render theirbread-winning difficult, or prevent them from snatching bread out ofthe hands of their weaker neighbours. For most such folk are gloomy andself-contained, with hearts that have turned to wood, and an outlookthat ever reverts to the past; unless, indeed, they be folk of spuriousgood nature, an addition to talkativeness, and an apparent bonhomiewhich veils a frigid, grey interior, and conveys an impression ofcruelty and greed of all that life contains. 

Always, in the end, I have detected in such folk something wintry, something that makes them seem, as it were, to be spending spring andsummer in expectation solely of the winter season, with its longnights, and its cold of an austerity which forces one for ever to beconsuming food. 

Yet seldom among this distasteful and wearisome crowd of wintry folk isthere to be encountered a man who has altogether proved a failure. Butif he has done so, he will be found to be a man whose nature is of amore thoughtful, a more truly existent, a more clear-sighted cast thanthat of his fellows--a man who at least can look beyond the boundariesof the trite and commonplace, and whose mentality has a greatercapacity for attaining spiritual fulfilment, and is more desirous ofdoing so, than the mentality of his compeers. That is to say, in such aman one can always detect a striving for space, as a man who, lovinglight, carries light in himself. 

Unfortunately, all too often is that light only the fugitivephosphorescence of putrefaction; wherefore as one contemplates him onesoon begins to realise with bitterness and vexation and disappointmentthat he is but a sluggard, but a braggart, but one who is petty andweak and blinded with conceit and distorted with envy, but one betweenwhose word and whose deed there gapes a disparity even wider and deeperthan the disparity which divides the word from the deed of the man ofwinter, of the man who, though he be as tardy as a snail, at least ismaking some way in the world, in contradistinction from the failure whorevolves ever in a single spot, like some barren old maid before thereflection in her looking-glass. 

Hence, as I listened to Gubin, there recurred to me more than oneinstance of his type. 

"Yes, I have succeeded in observing life throughout, " he muttereddrowsily as his head sank slowly upon his breast. 

And sleep overtook myself with similar suddenness. Apparently thatslumber was of a few minutes' duration only, yet what aroused me wasGubin pulling at my leg. 

"Get up now, " he said. "It is time that we were off. "

And as his bluish-grey eyes peered into my face, somehow I derived fromtheir mournful expression a sense of intellectuality. Beneath the hairon his hollow cheeks were reddish veins, while similar veins, bluish intint, covered with a network his temples, and his bare arms had theappearance of being made of tanned leather. 

Dawn had not yet broken when we rose and proceeded through theslumbering streets beneath a sky that was of a dull yellow, and amid anatmosphere that was full of the smell of burning. 

"Five days now has the forest been on fire, " observed Gubin. "Yet thefools cannot succeed in putting it out. "

Presently the establishment of the merchants Birkin lay before us, anestablishment of curious aspect, since it constituted, rather, aconglomeration of appendages to a main building of ground floor andattics, with four windows facing on to the street, and a series ofunderpropping annexes. That series extended to the wing, and was solidand permanent, and bade fair to overflow into the courtyard, andthrough the entrance-gates, and across the street, and to the verykitchen-garden and flower-garden themselves. Also, it seemed to havebeen stolen piecemeal from somewhere, and at different periods, andfrom different localities, and tacked at haphazard on to the walls ofthe parent erection. Moreover, all the windows of the latter weresmall, and in their green panes, as they confronted the world, therewas a timid and suspicious air, while, in particular, the three windowswhich faced upon the courtyard had iron bars to them. Lastly, therewere posted, sentinel-like on the entrance-steps, two water-butts as aprecaution against fire. 

"What think you of the place?" Gubin muttered as he peered into thewell. "Isn't it a barbarous hole? The right thing would be to pull itdown wholesale, and then rebuild it on larger and less restrictedlines. Yet these fools merely go tacking new additions on to the old. "

For awhile his lips moved as in an incantation. Then he frowned, glanced shrewdly at the structures in question, and continued softly:

"I may say in passing that the place is MINE. "

"YOURS?"

"Yes, mine. At all events, so it used to be. "

And he pulled a grimace as though he had got the toothache beforeadding with an air of command:

"Come! I will pump out the water, and YOU shall carry it to theentrance-steps and fill the water-butts. Here is a pail, and here aladder. "

Whereafter, with a considerable display of strength, he set about hisportion of the task, whilst I myself took pail in hand and advancedtowards the steps to find that the water-butts were so rotten that, instead of retaining the water, they let it leak out into thecourtyard. Gubin said with an oath:

"Fine masters these--masters who grudge one a groat, and squander arouble! What if a fire WERE to break out? Oh, the blockheads!"

Presently, the proprietors in person issued into the courtyard--thestout, bald Peter Birkin, a man whose face was flushed even to thewhites of his shifty eyes, and, close behind him, eke his shadow, JonahBirkin--a person of sandy, sullen mien, and overhanging brows, anddull, heavy eyes. 

"Good day, dear sir, " said Peter Birkin thinly, as with a puffy hand heraised from his head a cloth cap, while Jonah nodded. And then, with asidelong glance at myself, asked in a deep bass voice:

"Who is this young man?"

Large and important like peacocks, the pair then shuffled across thewet yard, and in so doing, went to much trouble to avoid soiling theirpolished shoes. Next Peter said to his brother:

"Have you noticed that the water-butts are rotted? Oh, that fineYakinika! He ought long ago to have been dismissed. "

"Who is that young man over there?" Jonah repeated with an air ofasperity. 

"The son of his father and mother, " Gubin replied quietly, and withoutso much as a glance at the brothers. 

"Well, come along, " snuffled Peter with a drawling of his vowels. "Itis high time that we were moving. It doesn't matter who the young manmay be. "

And with that they slip-slopped across to the entrance gates, whileGubin gazed after them with knitted brows, and as the brothers weredisappearing through the wicket said carelessly:

"The old sheep! They live solely by the wits of their stepmother, andif it were not for her, they would long ago have come to grief. Yes, she is a woman beyond words clever. Once upon a time there were threebrothers--Peter, Alexis, and Jonah; but, unfortunately, Alexis gotkilled in a brawl. A fine, tall fellow HE was, whereas these two are apair of gluttons, like everyone else in this town. Not for nothing dothree loaves figure on the municipal arms! Now, to work again! Or shallwe take a rest?"

Here there stepped on to the veranda a tall, well-grown young woman inan open pink bodice and a blue skirt who, shading blue eyes with herhand, scanned the courtyard and the steps, and said with somediffidence:

"Good day, Yakov Vasilitch. "

With a good-humoured glance in response, and his mouth open, Gubinwaved a hand in greeting:

"Good day to YOU, Nadezhda Ivanovna, " he replied. "How are you thismorning?"

Somehow this made her blush, and cross her arms upon her ample bosom, while her kindly, rounded, eminently Russian face evinced the ghost ofa shy smile. At the same time, it was a face wherein not a singlefeature was of a kind to remain fixed in the memory, a face as vacantas though nature had forgotten to stamp thereon a single wish. Hence, even when the woman smiled there seemed to remain a doubt whether thesmile had really materialised. 

"How is Natalia Vasilievna?" continued Gubin. 

"Much as usual, " the woman answered softly. 

Whereafter hesitantly, and with downcast eyes, she essayed to cross thecourtyard. As she passed me I caught a whiff of raspberries andcurrants. 

Disappearing into the grey mist through a small door with iron staples, she soon reissued thence with a hencoop, and, seating herself on thesteps of the doorway, and setting the coop on her knees, took betweenher two large palms some fluttering, chirping, downy, golden chicks, and raised them to her ruddy lips and cheeks with a murmur of:

"Oh my little darlings! Oh my little darlings!"

And in her voice, somehow, there was a note as of intoxication, ofabandonment. Meanwhile dull, reddish sunbeams were beginning to peerthrough the fence, and to warm the long, pointed staples with which itwas fastened together. While in a stream of water that was drippingfrom the eaves, and trickling over the floor of the court, and aroundthe woman's feet, a single beam was bathing and quivering as though itwould fain effect an advance to the woman's lap and the hencoop, and, with the soft, downy chicks, enjoy the caresses of the woman's barewhite arms. 

"Ah, little things!" again she murmured. "Ah, little children of mine!"

Upon that Gubin suddenly desisted from his task of hauling up thebucket, and, as he steadied the rope with his arms raised above hishead, said quickly:

"Nadezhda Ivanovna, you ought indeed to have had some children--six atthe least!"

Yet no reply came, nor did the woman even look at him. 

The rays of the sun were now spreading, smokelike and greyish-yellow, over the silver river. Above the river's calm bed a muslin texture ofmist was coiling. Against the nebulous heavens the blue of the forestwas rearing itself amid the fragrant, pungent fumes from the burningtimber. 

Yet still asleep amid its sheltering half-circle of forest was thequiet little town of Miamlin, while behind it, and encompassing it aswith a pair of dark wings, the forest in question looked as though itwere ruffling its feathers in preparation for further flight beyond thepoint where, the peaceful Oka reached, the trees stood darkening, overshadowing the water's clear depths, and looking at themselvestherein. 

Yet, though the hour was so early, everything seemed to have about itan air of sadness, a mien as though the day lacked promise, as thoughits face were veiled and mournful, as though, not yet come to birth, itnevertheless were feeling weary in advance. 

Seating myself by Gubin on some trampled straw in the hut ordinarilyused by the watchman of the Birkins' extensive orchard, I found that, owing to the orchard being set on a hillside, I could see over the topsof the apple and pear and fig trees, where their tops hung bespangledwith dew as with quicksilver, and view the whole town and itsmulticoloured churches, yellow, newly-painted prison, andyellow-painted bank. 

And while in the town's lurid, four-square buildings I could trace acertain resemblance to the aces of clubs stamped upon convicts' backs, in the grey strips of the streets I could trace a certain resemblanceto a number of rents in an old, ragged, faded, dusty coat. Indeed, thatmorning all comparisons seemed to take on a tinge of melancholy; thereason being that throughout the previous evening there had beenmoaning in my soul a mournful dirge on the future life. 

With nothing, however, were the churches of the town of which I amspeaking exactly comparable, for many of them had attained a degree ofbeauty the contemplation of which caused the town to assumethroughout--a different, a more pleasing and seductive, aspect. ThoughtI to myself: "Would that men had fashioned all other buildings in thetown as the churches have been fashioned!"

One of the latter, an old, squat edifice the blank windows of whichwere deeply sunken in the stuccoed walls, was known as the "Prince'sChurch, " for the reason that it enshrined the remains of a local Princeand his wife, persons of whom it stood recorded that "they did pass alltheir lives in kindly, unchanging love. ". .. 

The following night Gubin and I chanced to see Peter Birkin's tall, pale, timid young wife traverse the garden on her way to a tryst in thewashhouse with her lover, the precentor of the Prince's Church. And asclad in a simple gown, and barefooted, and having her ample shouldersswathed in an old, gold jacket or shawl of some sort, she crossed theorchard by a path running between two lines of apple trees; she walkedwith the unhasting gait of a cat which is crossing a yard after ashower of rain, and from time to time, whenever a puddle isencountered, lifts and shakes fastidiously one of its soft paws. Probably, in the woman's case, this came of the fact that things keptpricking and tickling her soles as she proceeded. Also, her knees, Icould see, were trembling, and her step had in it a certain hesitancy, a certain lack of assurance. 

Meanwhile, bending over the garden from the warm night sky, the moon'skindly visage, though on the wane, was shining brightly; and when thewoman emerged from the shadow of the trees I could discern the darkpatches of her eyes, her rounded, half-parted lips, and the thick plaitof hair which lay across her bosom. Also, in the moonlight her bodicehad assumed a bluish tinge, so that she looked almost phantasmal; andwhen soundlessly, moving as though on air, she stepped back into theshadow of the trees, that shadow seemed to lighten. 

All this happened at midnight, or thereabouts, but neither of us wasyet asleep, owing to the fact that Gubin had been telling me someinteresting stories concerning the town and its families andinhabitants. However, as soon as he descried the woman looming like aghost, he leapt to his feet in comical terror, then subsided on to thestraw again, contracted his body as though he were in convulsions, andhurriedly made the sign of the cross. 

"Oh Jesus our Lord!" he gasped. "Tell me what that is, tell me whatthat is!"

"Keep quiet, you, " I urged. 

Instead, lurching in my direction, he nudged me with his arm, "Is it Nadezhda, think you?" he whispered. 

"It is. "

"Phew! The scene seems like a dream. Just in the same way, and in thevery same place, did her mother-in-law, Petrushka's stepmother, use tocome and walk. Yes, it was just like this. "

Then, rolling over, face downwards, he broke into subdued, maliciouschuckles; whereafter, seizing my hand and sawing it up and down, hewhispered amid his exultant pants:

"I expect Petrushka is asleep, for probably he has taken too muchliquor at the Bassanov's smotrini. [A festival at which a fiance payshis first visit to the house of the parents of his betrothed. ] Aye, hewill be asleep. And as for Jonah, HE will have gone to Vaska Klochi. Sotonight, until morning, Nadezhda will be able to kick up her heels toher heart's content. "

I too had begun to surmise that the woman was come thither for purposesof her own. Yet the scene was almost dreamlike in its beauty. Itthrilled me to the soul to watch how the woman's blue eyes gazed abouther--gazed as though she were ardently, caressingly whispering to allliving creatures, asleep or awake:

"Oh my darlings! Oh my darlings!"

Beside me the uncouth, broken-down Gubin went on in hoarse accents:

"You must know that she is Petrushka's THIRD wife, a woman whom he tookto himself from the family of a merchant of Murom. Yet the town has itthat not only Petrushka, but also Jonah, makes use of her--that sheacts as wife to both brothers, and therefore lacks children. Also hasit been said of her that one Trinity Sunday she was seen by a party ofwomen to misconduct herself in this garden with a police sergeant, andthen to sit on his lap and weep. Yet this last I do not wholly believe, for the sergeant in question is a veteran scarcely able to put one footbefore the other. Also, Jonah, though a brute, lives in abject fear ofhis stepmother. "

Here a worm-eaten apple fell to the ground, and the woman paused;whereafter, with head a little raised, she resumed her way with greaterspeed. 

As for Gubin, he continued, unchecked, though with a trifle lessanimosity, rather as though he were reading aloud a manuscript which hefound wearisome:

"See how a man like Peter Birkin may pride himself upon his wealth, andreceive honour during his lifetime, yet all the while have the devilgrinning over his shoulder!"

Then he, Gubin, kept silent awhile, and merely breathed heavily, andtwisted his body about. But suddenly, he resumed in a strange whisper:

"Fifteen years ago--no, surely it was longer ago than that?--MadameNadkin, Nadezhda's mother-in-law, made it her practice to come to thisspot to meet her lover. And a fine gallant HE was!"

Somehow, as I watched the woman creeping along, and looking as thoughshe were intending to commit a theft, or as though she fancied that atany moment she might see the plump brothers Birkin issue from thecourtyard into the garden and come shuffling ponderously over thedarkened ground, with ropes and cudgels grasped in coarse, red handswhich knew no pity; somehow, as I watched her, I felt saddened, andpaid little heed to Gubin's whispered remarks, so intently were my eyesfixed upon the granary wall as, after gliding along it awhile, thewoman bent her head and disappeared through the dark blue of thewashhouse door. As for Gubin, he went to sleep with a last drowsyremark of:

"Life is all falsity. Husbands, wives, fathers, children--all of thempractise deceit. "

In the east, portions of the sky were turning to light purple, andother portions to a darker hue, while from time to time I could see, looming black against those portions, coils of smoke the density ofwhich kept being stabbed with fiery spikes of flame, so that the vague, towering forest looked like a hill on the top of which a fiery dragonwas crawling about, and writhing, and intermittently raising tremulous, scarlet wings, and as often relapsing into, becoming submerged in, thebank of vapour. And, in contemplating the spectacle, I seemed actuallyto be able to hear the cruel, hissing din of combat between red andblack, and to see pale, frightened rabbits scudding from underneath theroots of trees amid showers of sparks, and panting, half-suffocatedbirds fluttering wildly amid the branches as further and furtherafield, and more and more triumphantly, the scarlet dragon unfurled itswings, and consumed the darkness, and devoured the rain-soaked timber. 

Presently from the dark, blurred doorway in the wall of the washhousethere emerged a dark figure which went flitting away among the trees, while after it someone called in a sharp, incisive whisper:

"Do not forget. You MUST come. "

"Oh, I shall be only too glad!"

"Very well. In the morning the lame woman shall call upon you. Do youhear?"

And as the woman disappeared from view the other person saunteredacross the garden, and scaled the fence with a clatter. 

That night I could not sleep, but, until dawn, lay watching the burningforest as gradually the weary moon declined, and the lamp of Venus, cold and green as an emerald, came into view over the crosses on thePrince's Church. Indeed was the latter a fitting place for Venus toillumine if really it had been the case that the Prince and Princesshad "passed their lives in kindly, unchanging love"!

Gradually, the dew cleared the trees of the night darkness, and causedthe damp, grey foliage to smile once more with aniseed and redraspberry, and to sparkle with the gold of their mildew. Also, therecame hovering about us goldfinches with their little red-hooded crests, and fussy tomtits in their cravats of yellow, while a nimble, dark, blue woodpecker scaled the stem of an apple tree. And everywhere, yellow leaves fluttered to earth, and, in doing so, so closelyresembled birds as to make it not always easy to distinguish whether aleaf or a tomtit had glimmered for a moment in the air. 

Gubin awoke, sighed, and with his gnarled knuckles gave his puffy eyesa rub. Then he raised himself upon all-fours, and, crawling, muchdishevelled with sleep, out of the watchman's hut, snuffed the air (aprocess in which his movements approximated comically to those of akeen-nosed watch-dog). Finally he rose to his feet, and, in the act, shook one of the trees so violently as to cause a bough to shed itsburden of ripe fruit, and disperse the apples hither and thither overthe dry surface of the ground, or cause them to bury themselves amongthe long grass. Three of the juiciest apples he duly recovered, and, after examination of their exterior, probed with his teeth, whilekicking away from him as many of the remainder as he could descry. 

"Why spoil those apples?" I queried

"Oh, so you are NOT asleep?" he countered with a nod of hismelon-shaped cranium. "As a matter of fact, a few apples won't bemissed, for there are too many of them about. My own father it was thatplanted the trees which have grown them. "

Then, turning upon me a keen, good-humoured eye, and chuckling, headded:

"What about that Nadezhda? Ah, she is a clever woman indeed! Yet I havea surprise in store for her and her lover. "

"Why should you have?"

"Because I desire to benefit mankind at large" (this was saiddidactically, and with a frown). "For, no matter where I detect evil orunderhandedness, it is my duty--I feel it to be my duty--to expose thatevil, and to lay it bare. There exist people who need to be taught alesson, and to whom I long to cry: 'Sinners that you are, do you leadmore righteous lives!'"

From behind some clouds the sun was rising with a disk as murky andmournful as the face of an ailing child. It was as though he werefeeling conscious that he had done amiss in so long delaying to shedlight upon the world, in so long dallying on his bed of soft cloudsamid the smoke of the forest fire. But gradually the cheering beamssuffused the garden throughout, and evoked from the ripening fruit anintoxicating wave of scent in which there could be distinguished alsothe bracing breath of autumn. 

Simultaneously there rose into the sky, in the wake of the sun, a densestratum of cloud which, blue and snow-white in colour, lay with itssoft hummocks reflected in the calm Oka, and so wrought therein asecondary firmament as profound and impalpable as its original. 

"Now then, Makar!" was Gubin's command, and once more I posted myselfat the bottom of the well. About three sazheni in depth, and lined withcold, damp mud to above the level of my middle, the orifice was chargedwith a stifling odour both of rotten wood and of something moreintolerable still. Also, whenever I had filled the pail with mud, andthen emptied it into the bucket and shouted "Right away!" the bucketwould start swinging against my person and bumping it, as unwillinglyit went aloft, and thereafter discharge upon my head and shouldersclots of filth and drippings of water--meanwhile screening, with itscircular bottom, the glowing sun and now scarce visible stars. Inpassing, the spectacle of those stars' waning both pained and cheeredme, for it meant that for a companion in the firmament they now had thesun. Hence it was until my neck felt almost fractured, and my spine andthe nape of my neck were aching as though clamped in a cast of plasterof paris, that I kept my eyes turned aloft. Yes, anything to gain asight of the stars! From them I could not remove my vision, for theyseemed to exhibit the heavens in a new guise, and to convey to me thejoyful tidings that in the sky there was present also the sun. 

Yet though, meanwhile, I tried to ponder on something great, I neverfailed to find myself cherishing the absurd, obstinate apprehensionthat soon the Birkins would leave their beds, enter the courtyard, andhave Nadezhda betrayed to them by Gubin. 

And throughout there kept descending to me from above the latter'sinarticulate, as it were damp-sodden, observations. 

"Another rat!" I heard him exclaim. "To think that those two fellows, men of money, should neglect for two whole years to clean out theirwell! Why, what can the brutes have been drinking meanwhile? Look outbelow, you!"

And once more, with a creaking of the pulley, the bucket woulddescend--bumping and thudding against the lining of the well as it didso, and bespattering afresh my head and shoulders with its filth. Rightly speaking, the Birkins ought to have cleared out the wellthemselves!

"Let us exchange places, " I cried at length. 

"What is wrong?" inquired Gubin in response

"Down here it is cold--I can't stand it any longer. "

"Gee up!" exclaimed Gubin to the old horse which supplied the leveragepower for the bucket; whereupon I seated myself upon the edge of thereceptacle and went aloft, where everything was looking so bright andwarm as to bear a new and unwontedly pleasing appearance. 

So now it was Gubin's turn to stand at the bottom of the well. Andsoon, in addition to the odour of decay, and a subdued sound ofsplashing, and the rumblings and bumpings of the iron bucket againstits chain, there began to come up from the damp, black cavity a perfectstream of curses. 

"The infernal skinflints!" I heard my companion exclaim. 

"Hullo, here is something! A dog or a baby, eh? The damned oldbarbarians!"

And the bucket ascended with, among its contents, a sodden and mostancient hat. With the passage of time Gubin's temper grew worse andworse. 

"If I SHOULD find a baby here, " next he exclaimed, "I shall report thematter to the police, and get those blessed old brothers into trouble. "

Each movement of the leathern-hided, wall-eyed steed which did ourbidding was accompanied by a swishing of a sandy tail which had for itsobject the brushing away of autumn's harbingers, the bluebottles. Almost with the tranquil gait of a religious did the animal accomplishits periodical journeys from the wall to the entrance gates and backagain; after which it always heaved a profound sigh, and stood with itsbony crest lowered. 

Presently, from a corner of the yard that lay screened behind somerank, pale, withered, trampled herbage a door screeched. Into the yardthere issued Nadezhda Birkin, carrying a bunch of keys, and followed bya lady who, elderly and rotund of figure, had a few dark hairs growingon her full and rather haughty upper lip. As the two walked towards thecellar (Nadezhda being clad only in an under-petticoat, with a chemisehalf-covering her shoulders, and slippers thrust on to bare feet), Iperceived from the languor of the younger woman's gait that she wasfeeling weary indeed. 

"Why do you look at us like that?" her senior inquired of me as shedrew level. And as she did so the eyes that peered at me from above thefull and, somehow, displaced-looking cheeks bid in them a dim, misty, half-blind expression. 

"That must be Peter Birkin's mother-in-law, " was my unspoken reflection. 

At the door of the cellar Nadezhda handed the keys to her companion, and with a slow step which set her ample bosom swaying, and increasedthe disarray of the bodice on her round, but broad, shoulders, approached myself, and said quietly:

"Please open the gutter-sluice and let out the water into the street, or the yard will soon be flooded. Oh, the smell of it! What is thatthing there? A rat? Oh batinshka, what a horrible mess!"

Her face had about it a drawn look, and under her eyes there were apair of dark patches, and in their depths the dry glitter of a personwho has spent a night of waking. True, it was a face still fresh ofhue; yet beads of sweat were standing on the forehead, and hershoulders looked grey and heavy--as grey and heavy as unleavened breadwhich the fire has coated with a thin crust, yet failed to bakethroughout. 

"Please, also, open the wicket, " she continued. "And, in case a lameold beggar-woman should call, come and tell me. I am the NadezhdaIvanovna for whom she will inquire. Do you understand?"

From the well, at this point, there issued the words:

"Who is that speaking?"

"It is the mistress, " I replied. 

"What? Nadezhda? With her I have a bone to pick. "

"What did he say?" the woman asked tensely as she raised her dark, thinly pencilled brows, and made as though to go and lean over thewell. Independently of my own volition I forestalled what Gubin mightnext have been going to say by remarking:

"I must tell you that last night he saw you walking in the garden here. "

"Indeed?" she ejaculated, and drew herself to her full height. Yet indoing so she blushed to her shoulders, and, clapping plump hands to herbosom, and opening dark eyes to their fullest, said in a hasty andconfused whisper as, again paling and shrinking in stature, shesubsided like a piece of pastry that is turning heavy:

"Good Lord! WHAT did he see?. .. If the lame woman should call, youmust not admit her. No, tell her that she will not be wanted, that Icannot, that I must not--But see here. Here is a rouble for you. Oh, good Lord!"

By this time even louder and more angry exclamations had begun toascend from Gubin. Yet the only sound to reach my ears was the woman'smuttered whispering, and as I glanced into her face I perceived thatits hitherto high-coloured and rounded contours had fallen in, andturned grey, and that her flushed lips were trembling to such an extentas almost to prevent the articulation of her words. Lastly, her eyeswere frozen into an expression of pitiful, doglike terror. 

Suddenly she shrugged her shoulders, straightened her form, put awayfrom her the expression of terror, and said quietly, but incisively:

"You will not need to say anything about this. Allow me. "

And with a swaying step she departed--a step so short as almost toconvey the impression that her legs were bound together. Yet while thegait was the gait of a person full of suppressed fury, it was also thegait of a person who can scarcely see an inch in advance. 

"Haul away, you!" shouted Gubin. 

I hauled him up in a state of cold and wet; whereafter he fell tostamping around the coping of the well, cursing, and waving his arms. 

"What have you been thinking of all this time?" he vociferated. "Why, for ever so long I shouted and shouted to you!"

"I have been telling Nadezhda that last night you saw her walking inthe garden. "

He sprang towards me with a vicious scowl. 

"Who gave you leave to do so?" he exclaimed. 

"Wait a moment. I said that it was only in a dream, that you saw hercrossing the garden to the washhouse. "

"Indeed? And why did you do that?"

Somehow, as, barelegged and dripping with mud, he stood blinking hiseyes at me with a most disagreeable expression, he looked extremelycomical. 

"See here, " I remarked, "you have only to go and tell her husband abouther for me to go and tell him the same story about your having seen thewhole thing in a dream. "

"Why?" cried Gubin, now almost beside himself. Presently, however, herecovered sufficient self-possession to grin and ask in an undertone:

"HOW MUCH DID SHE GIVE YOU?"

I explained to him that my sole reason for what I had done had beenthat I pitied the woman, and feared lest the brothers Birkin should doan injury to one who at least ought not to be betrayed. Gubin began bydeclining to believe me, but eventually, after the matter had beenthought out, said:

"Acceptance of money for doing what is right is certainly irregular;but at least is it better than acceptance of money for conniving atsin. Well, you have spoilt my scheme, young fellow. Hired only to cleanout the well, I would nevertheless have cleaned out the establishmentas a whole, and taken pleasure in doing so. "

Then once more he relapsed into fury, and muttered as he scurried roundand round the well:

"How DARED you poke your nose into other people's affairs? Who are YOUin this establishment?"

The air was hot and arid, yet still the sky was as dull as thoughcoated throughout with the dust of summer, and, as yet, one could gazeat the sun's purple, rayless orb without blinking, and as easily as onecould have gazed at the glowing embers of a wood fire. 

Seated on the fence, a number of rooks were directing intelligent blackeyes upon the heaps of mud which lay around the coping of the well. Andfrom time to time they fluttered their wings impatiently, and cawed. 

"I got you some work, " Gubin continued in a grumbling tone, "and putheart into you with the prospect of employment. And now you have goneand treated me like--"

At this point I caught the sound of a horse trotting towards theentrance-gates, and heard someone shout, as the animal drew level withthe house:

"YOUR timber too has caught alight!"

Instantly, frightened by the shout, the rooks took to their wings andflew away. Also, a window sash squeaked, and the courtyard resoundedwith sudden bustle--the culinary regions vomiting the elderly lady andthe tousled, half-clad Jonah; and an open window the upper half of thered-headed Peter. 

"Men, harness up as quickly as possible!" the latter cried, his voicecharged with a plaintive note. 

And, indeed, he had hardly spoken before Gubin led out a fat roan pony, and Jonah pulled from a shelter a light buggy or britchka. MeanwhileNadezhda called from the veranda to Jonah:

"Do you first go in and dress yourself!"

The elderly lady then unfastened the gates; whereupon a stunted, oldishmuzhik in a red shirt limped into the yard with a foam-flecked steed, and exclaimed:

"It is caught in two places--at the Savelkin clearing and near thecemetery!"

Immediately the company pressed around him with groans andejaculations, and Gubin alone continued to harness the pony with swiftand dexterous hands--saying to me through his teeth as he did so, andwithout looking at anyone:

"That is how those wretched folk ALWAYS defer things until too late. "

The next person to present herself at the entrance gates was abeggar-woman. Screwing up her eyes in a furtive manner, she droned:

"For the sake of Lord Je-e-esus!"

"God will give you alms! God will give you alms!" was Nadezhda's replyas, turning pale, she flung out her arms in the old woman's direction. "You see, a terrible thing has happened--our timber lands have caughtfire. You must come again later. "

Upon that Peter's bulky form (which had entirely filled the window fromwhich it had been leaning), disappeared with a jerk, and in its steadthere came into view the figure of a woman. Said she contemptuously:

"See the visitation with which God has tried us, you men of fainthearts and indolent hands!"

The woman's hair was grey at the temples, and had resting upon it asilken cap which so kept changing colour in the sunlight as to conveyto one the impression that her head was bonneted with steel, while inher face, picturesque but dark (seemingly blackened with smoke), theregleamed two pupil-less blue eyes of a kind which I had never beforebeheld. 

"Fools, " she continued, "how often have I not pointed out to you thenecessity of cutting a wider space between the timber and the cemetery?"

From a furrow above the woman's small but prominent nose, a pair ofheavy brows extended to temples that were silvered over. As she spokethere fell a strange silence amid which save for the pony's pawing ofthe mire no sound mingled with the sarcastic reproaches of the deep, almost masculine voice. 

"That again is the mother-in-law, " was my inward reflection. 

Gubin finished the harnessing--then said to Jonah in the tone of asuperior addressing a servant:

"Go in and dress yourself, you object!"

Nevertheless, the Birkins drove out of the yard precisely as they were, while the peasant mounted his belathered steed and followed them at atrot; and the elderly lady disappeared from the window, leaving itspanes even darker and blacker than they had previously been. Gubin, slip-slopping through the puddles with bare feet, said to me with asharp glance as he moved to shut the entrance gates:

"I presume that I can now take in hand the little affair of which youknow. "

"Yakov!" at this juncture someone shouted from the house. 

Gubin straightened himself a la militaire. 

"Yes, I am coming, " he replied. 

Whereafter, padding on bare soles, he ascended the steps. Nadezhda, standing at their top, turned away with a frown of repulsion at hisapproach, and nodded and beckoned to myself. 

"What has Yakov said to you?" she inquired

"He has been reproaching me. "

"Reproaching you for what?"

"For having spoken to you. "

She heaved a sigh. 

"Ah, the mischief-maker!" she exclaimed. "And what is it that he wants?"

As she pouted her displeasure her round and vacant face looked almostchildlike. 

"Good Lord!" she added. "What DO such men as he want?"

Meanwhile the heavens were becoming overspread with dark grey clouds, and presaging a flood of autumn rain, while from the window near thesteps the voice of Peter's mother-in-law was issuing in a steadystream. At first, however, nothing was distinguishable save a soundlike the humming of a spindle. 

"It is my mother that is speaking, " Nadezhda explained softly. "She'llgive it him! Yes, SHE will protect me!"

Yet I scarcely heard Nadezhda's words, so greatly was I feeling struckwith the quiet forcefulness, the absolute assurance, of what was beingsaid within the window. 

"Enough, enough!" said the voice. "Only through lack of occupation haveyou joined the company of the righteous. "

Upon this I made a move to approach closer to the window; whereuponNadezhda whispered:

"Whither are you going? You must not listen. "

While she was yet speaking I heard come from the window:

"Similarly your revolt against mankind has come of idleness, of lack ofan interest in life. To you the world has been wearisome, so, whiledevising this revolt as a resource, you have excused it on the groundof service of God and love of equity, while in reality constitutingyourself the devil's workman. "

Here Nadezhda plucked at my sleeve, and tried to pull me away, but Iremarked:

"I MUST learn what Gubin has got to say in answer. "

This made Nadezhda smile, and then whisper with a confiding glance atmy face:

"You see, I have made a full confession to her. I went and said to her:'Mamenka, I have had a misfortune. ' And her only reply as she strokedmy hair was, 'Ah, little fool!' Thus you see that she pities me. Andwhat makes her care the less that I should stray in that direction isthat she yearns for me to bear her a child, a grandchild, as an heir toher property. "

Next, Gubin was heard saying within the room:

"Whensoever an offence is done against the law I. .. "

At once a stream of impressive words from the other drowned hisutterance:

"An offence is not always an offence of moment, since sometimes aperson outgrows the law, and finds it too restrictive. No one personought to be rated against another. For whom alone ought we to fear?Only the God in whose sight all of us have erred!"

And though in the elderly lady's voice there was weariness anddistaste, the words were spoken slowly and incisively. Upon this Gubintried to murmur something or another, but again his utterance failed toedge its way into his interlocutor's measured periods:

"No great achievement is it, " she said, "to condemn a fellow creature. For always it is easy to sit in judgment upon our fellows. And even ifa fellow creature be allowed to pursue an evil course unchecked, hisoffence may yet prove productive of good. Remember how in every casethe Saints reached God. Yet how truly sanctified, by the time that theydid so reach Him, were they? Let this ever be borne in mind, for we areover-apt to condemn and punish!"

"In former days, Natalia Vassilievna, you took away from me mysubstance, you took my all. Also, let me recount to you how we fellinto disagreement. "

"No; there is no need for that. "

"Thereafter, I ceased to be able to bear the contemplation of myself; Iceased to consider myself as of any value. "

"Let the past remain the past. That which must be is not to be avoided. "

"Through you, I say, I lost my peace of mind. "

Nadezhda nudged me, and whispered with gay malice:

"That is probably true, for they say that once he was one of herlovers. "

Then she recollected herself and, clapping her hands to her face, criedthrough her fingers:

"Oh good Lord! What have I said? No, no, you must not believe thesetales. They are only slanders, for she is the best of women. "

"When evil has been done, " continued the quiet voice within the window, "it can never be set right by recounting it to others. He upon whom aburden has been laid should try to bear it. And, should he fail to bearit, the fact will mean that the burden has been beyond his strength. "

"It was through you that I lost everything. It was you that stripped mebare. "

"But to that which you lost I added movement. Nothing in life is everlost; it merely passes from one hand to another--from the unskilledhand to the experienced--so that even the bone picked of a dog mayultimately become of value. "

"Yes, a bone--that is what I am. "

"Why should you say that? You are still a man. "

"Yes, a man, but a man useful for what?"

"Useful, even though the use may not yet be fully apparent. "

To this, after a pause, the speaker added:

"Now, depart in peace, and make no further attempt against this woman. Nay, do not even speak ill of her if you can help it, but considereverything that you saw to have been seen in a dream. "

"Ah!" was Gubin's contrite cry. "It shall be as you say. Yet, though Ishould hate, I could not bear, to grieve you, I must confess that theheight whereon you stand is--"

"Is what, Oh friend of mine?"

"Nothing; save that of all souls in this world you are, withoutexception, the best. "

"Yakov Petrovitch, in this world you and I might have ended our livestogether in honourable partnership. And even now, if God be willing, wemight do so. "

"No. Rather must farewell be said. "

All became quiet within the window, except that after a prolongedsilence there came from the woman a deep sigh, and then a whisper of, "Oh Lord!"

Treading softly, like a cat, Nadezhda darted away towards the steps;whereas I, less fortunate, was caught by the departing Gubin in thevery act of leaving the neighbourhood of the window. Upon that heinflated his cheeks, ruffled up his sandy hair, turned red in the facelike a man who has been through a fight, and cried in strange, querulous, high-pitched accents:

"Hi! What were you doing just now? Long-legged devil that you are, Ihave no further use for you--I do not intend to work with you any more. So you can go. "

At the same moment the dim face, with its great blue eyes, showeditself at the window, and the stem voice inquired:

"What does the noise mean?"

"What does it mean? It means that I do not intend--"

"You must not, if you wish to create a disturbance, do it anywhere butin the street. It must not be created here. "

"What is all this?" Nadezhda put in with a stamp of her foot. "What--"

At this point, the cook rushed out with a toasting-fork and militantlyranged herself by Nadezhda's side, exclaiming:

"See what comes of not having a single muzhik in the house!"

I now prepared to withdraw, but, in doing so, glanced once more at thefeatures of the elderly lady, and saw that the blue pupils were dilatedso as almost to fill the eyes in their entirety, and to leave only abluish margin. And strange and painful were those eyes--eyes fixedblindly, eyes which seemed to have strayed from their orbits throughyielding to emotion and a consequent overstrain--while the apple of thethroat had swelled like the crop of a bird, and the sheen of the silkenhead-dress become as the sheen of metal. Involuntarily, I thought tomyself:

"It is a head that must be made of iron. "

By this time Gubin had penitently subsided, and was exchanging harmlessremarks with the cook, while carefully avoiding my glance. 

"Good day to you, madame, " at length I said as I passed the window. 

Not at once did she reply, but when she did so she said kindly:

"And good day to YOU, my friend. Yes, I wish you good day. "

To which she added an inclination of the head which resembled nothingso much as a hammer which much percussion upon an anvil has wrought toa fine polish. 

NILUSHKA

The timber-built town of Buev, a town which has several times beenburnt to the ground, lies huddled upon a hillock above the riverObericha. Its houses, with their many-coloured shutters, stand socrowded together as to form around the churches and gloomy law courts aperfect maze--the streets which intersect the dark masses of housesmeandering aimlessly hither and thither, and throwing off alleyways asnarrow as sleeves, and feeling their way along plot-fences andwarehouse walls, until, viewed from the hillock above, the town looksas though someone has stirred it up with a stick and dispersed andconfused everything that it contains. Only from the point where GreatZhitnaia Street takes its rise from the river do the stone mansions ofthe local merchants (for the most part German colonists) cut a grim, direct line through the packed clusters of buildings constructed ofwood, and skirt the green islands of gardens, and thrust aside thechurches; whereafter, continuing its way through Council Square (stillrunning inexorably straight), the thoroughfare stretches to, andtraverses, a barren plain of scrub, and so reaches the pine plantationbelonging to the Monastery of St. Michael the Archangel where thelatter is lurking behind a screen of old red spruces of which thedenseness seems to prop the very heavens, and which on clear, sunnydays can be seen rising to mark the spot whence the monastery'scrosses, like the gilded birds of the forest of eternal silence, scintillate a constant welcome. 

At a distance of some ten houses before Zhitnaia Street debouches uponthe plain which I have mentioned there begin to diverge from the streetand to trend towards a ravine, and eventually to lose themselves in thelatter's recesses, the small, squat shanties with one or two windowsapiece which constitute the suburb of Tolmachikha. This suburb, it maybe said, had as its original founders the menials of a landowner namedTolmachev--a landowner who, after emancipating his serfs some thirteenyears before all serfs were legally emancipated, [In the year 1861]was, for his action, visited with such bitter revilement that, in direoffence at the same, he ended by becoming an inmate of the monastery, and there spending ten years under the vow of silence, until deathovertook him amid a peaceful obscurity born of the fact that theauthorities had forbidden his exhibition to pilgrims or strangers. 

It is in the very cots originally apportioned to Tolmachev's menials, at the time, fifty years ago, when those menials were converted intocitizens, that the present inhabitants of the suburb dwell. And neverhave they been burnt out of those homes, although the same period hasseen all Buev save Zhitnaia Street consumed, and everywhere that onemay delve within the township one will be sure to come acrossundestroyed hearthstones. 

The suburb, as I have said, stands at the hither end and on the slopingside of one of the arms of a deep, wooded ravine, with its windowsfacing towards the ravine's yawning mouth, and affording a view directto the Mokrie (certain marshes beyond the Obericha) and the swampyforest of firs into which the dim red sun declines. Further on, theravine trends across the plain, then bends round towards the westernside of the town, cats away the clayey soil with an appetite which eachspring increases, and which, carrying the soil down to the river, isgradually clogging the river's flow, diverting the muddy water towardsthe marshes, and converting those marshes into a lagoon outright. Thefissure in question is named "The Great Ravine, " and has its steepflanks so overgrown with chestnuts and laburnums that even insummertime its recesses are cool and moist, and so serve as aconvenient trysting place for the poorer lovers of the suburb and thetown, and witness their tea drinkings and frequently fatal quarrels, aswell as being used by the more well-to-do for a dumping ground forrubbish of the nature of deceased dogs, cats, and horses. 

Pleasantly singing, there scours the bottom of the ravine the brookknown as the Zhandarmski Spring, a brook celebrated throughout Buev forits crystal-cold water, which is so icy of temperature that even on aburning day it will make the teeth ache. This water the denizens ofTolmachikha account to be their peculiar property; wherefore they areproud of it, and drink it to the exclusion of any other, and so live toa green old age which in some cases cannot even reckon its years. Andby way of a livelihood, the men of the suburb indulge in hunting, fishing, fowling, and thieving (not a single artisan proper does thesuburb contain, save the cobbler Gorkov--a thin, consumptive skeletonof surname Tchulan); while, as regards the women, they, in winter, sewand make sacks for Zimmel's mill, and pull tow, and in summer theyscour the plantation of the monastery for truffles and other produce, and the forest on the other side of the river for huckleberries. Also, two of the suburb's women practise as fortune tellers, while two othersconduct an easy and highly lucrative trade in prostitution. 

The result is that the town, as distinguished from the suburb, believesthe men of the latter to be one and all thieves, and the women andgirls of the suburb to be one and all disreputable characters. Hencethe town strives always to restrict and extirpate the suburb, while thesuburbans retaliate upon the townsfolk with robbery and arson andmurder, while despising those townsfolk for their parsimony, decorum, and avarice, and detesting the settled, comfortable mode of life whichthey lead. 

So poor, for that matter, is the suburb that never do even beggarsresort thither, save when drunk. No, the only creatures which resortthither are dogs which subsist no one knows how as predatorily theyroam from court to court with tails tucked between their flanks, andbloodless tongues hanging down, and legs ever prepared, on sighting ahuman being, to bolt into the ravine, or to let down their owners uponsubservient bellies in expectation of a probable kick or curse. 

In short, every cranny of every cot in the place, with the grimy panesof their windows, and their lathed roofs overgrown with velvety moss, breathes forth the universal, deadly hopelessness induced by Russia'scrushing poverty. 

In the Tolmachikhans' backyards grow only alders, elders, and weeds. Everywhere docks thrust up heads through cracks in the fences to catchat the legs or the skirts of passers-by, while masses of nettlessqueeze their way under fences to sting little children. Apropos, thelatter are all thin and hungry, in the highest degree quarrelsome, andaddicted to prolonged lamentation. Also, each spring sees a certainproportion of their number carried off by diphtheria, while scarlatinaand measles are as epidemic among them as is typhoid among their elders. 

Thus the sounds of life most to be heard throughout the suburb are thesounds either of weeping or of mad cursing. In general, however, lifein Tolmachikha is lived quietly and lethargically. So much is this thecase that in spring even the cats forbear to squall save in crushed andsubdued accents. The only local person to sing is Felitzata; and evenshe does so only when she is drunk. It may be said that Felitzata is asaucy, cunning procuress, and does her singing in a peculiarly thickand rasping voice which, with many croaks and hiatuses, necessitatesmuch closing of the eyes, and a great protruding of the apple of thethroat. Indeed, it is only the women of the place who, turbulentlyquarrelsome and hysterically noisy, spend most of the day in scouringthe streets with skirts tucked up, and never cease begging for pinchesof salt or flour or spoonfuls of oil as they rail and screech at andbeat their children, and thrust withered breasts into their babies'mouths, and rush and fling themselves about, and bawl in a constantendeavour to right their woebegone condition. Yes, all are dishevelledand dirty, and have wizened, bony faces, and the restless eyes ofthieves. Never, indeed, is a woman plump of figure, save at the periodwhen she is ill, and her eyes are dim, and her gait is laboured. Yetuntil they are forty, the majority of the women become pregnant withevery winter, and on the arrival of spring may be seen walking abroadwith large stomachs and blue hollows under the eyes. And even this doesnot prevent them from working with the same desperate energy as whenthey are not with child. In short, the inhabitants of the placeresemble needles and threads with which some rough, clumsy, andimpatient hand is for ever trying to darn a ragged cloth which asconstantly parts and rends. 

 * * * * *

The chief person of repute in the suburb is my landlord, one AntipaVologonov--a little old man who keeps a shop of "odd wares, " and alsolends money on pledge. 

Unfortunately, Antipa is a sufferer from a long-standing tendency torheumatism, which has left him bow-legged, and has twisted and swollenhis fingers to the extent that they will not bend. Hence, he alwayskeeps his hands tucked into his sleeves, though seemingly he has theless use for them in that, even when he withdraws them from theirshelter, he does so as cautiously as though he were afraid of theirbecoming dislocated. 

On the other hand, he never loses his temper, and he never growsexcited. 

"Neither of those things suits me, " he will say, "for my heart isdilated, and might at any moment fail. "

As for his face, it has high cheekbones which in places blossom intodark red blotches; an expression as calm as that of the face of aKhirghiz; a chin whence dangle wisps of mingled grey, red, and flaxenhair of a perpetually moist appearance; oblique and ever-changing eyeswhich are permanently contracted; a pair of thick, parti-colouredeyebrows which cast deep shadows over the eyes; and temples whereon anumber of blue veins struggle with an irregular, sparse coating ofbristles. Finally, about his whole personality there is something evervariable and intangible. 

Also, his gait is irritatingly slow; and the more so owing to his coat, which, of a cut devised by himself, consists, as it were, of cassock, sarafan [jacket], and waistcoat in one. As often as not he finds theskirts of the garment cumbering his legs; whereupon he has to stop andgive them a kick. And thus it comes about that permanently the skirtsare ragged and torn. 

"No need for hurry, " is his customary remark. "Always, in time, doesone win to one's pitch in the marketplace. "

His speech is cast in rounded periods, and displays a great love forecclesiastical terms. On the occurrence of one such term, he pausesthereafter as though mentally he were adding to the term a very thick, a very black, full stop. Yet always he will converse with anyone, andat great length--his probable motive being a desire to leave behind himthe reputation of a wise old man. 

In his shanty are three windows facing on to the street, and apartition-wall which divides it into two rooms of unequal size. In thelarger room, which contains a Russian stove, he himself lives; in thesmaller room I have my abode. By a passage the two are separated from astoreroom where, closeted behind a door to which there are a heavy, old-fashioned bolt and many iron and brass screws, Antipa preservespledges left by his neighbours, such as samovars, ikons, winterclothing and the like. Of this storeroom he always carries the greatindentated key at the back of the strap which upholds his clothbreeches; and, whenever the police call to ascertain whether he isharbouring any stolen goods, a long time ensues whilst he is shiftingthe key round to his stomach, and again a long time whilst he isunfastening it from the belt. Meanwhile, he says pompously to theSuperintendent or the Deputy Superintendent:

"Never do I take in goods of that kind. Of the truth of what I say, your honour, you have more than once assured yourself in person. "

Also, whenever Antipa sits down the key rattles against the back or theseat of his chair; whereupon he bends his arm with difficulty, andfeels to see whether or not the key has come unslung. This I know forthe reason that the partition-wall is not so thick but that I can hearhis every breath drawn, and divine his every movement. 

Of an evening, when the misty sun is slanting across the river towardsthe auburn belt of pines, and distilling pink vapours from the sombrevista to be seen through the shaggy mouth of the ravine, AntipaVologonov sets out a squat samovar that is dinted of side, and platedwith green oxide on handle, turncock, and spout. Then he seats himselfat his table by the window. 

At intervals I hear the evening stillness broken by questions put in atone which implies always an expectation of a precise answer. 

"Where is Darika?"

"He has gone to the spring for water. " The answer is given whiningly, and in a thin voice. 

"And how is your sister?

"Still in pain. "

"Yes? Well, you can go now. "

Giving a slight cough to clear his throat, the old man begins to singin a quavering falsetto:

 Once a bullet smote my breast, And scarce the pang I felt. But ne'er the pang could be express'd Which love's flame since hath dealt!

As the samovar hisses and bubbles, heavy footsteps resound in thestreet, and an indistinct voice says:

"He thinks that because he is a Town Councillor he is also clever. "

"Yes; such folk are apt to grow very proud. "

"Why, all his brains put together wouldn't grease one of my boots!"

And as the voices die away the old man's falsetto trickles forth anew, humming:

"The poor man's anger. .. Minika! Hi, you! Come in here, and I will giveyou a bit of sugar. How is your father getting on? Is he drunk atpresent?"

"No, sober, for he is taking nothing but kvas and cabbage soup. "

"And what is he doing for a living?"

"Sitting at the table, and thinking. "

"And has your mother been beating him again?"

"No--not again. "

"And she--how is she?"

"Obliged to keep indoors. "

"Well, run along with you. "

Softly there next presents herself before the window Felitzata, a womanof about forty with a hawk-like gleam in her coldly civil eyes, and apair of handsome lips compressed into a covert smile. She is well knownthroughout the suburb, and once had a son, Nilushka, who was the local"God's fool. " Also she has the reputation of knowing what is correctprocedure on all and sundry occasions, as well as of being skilled inlamentations, funeral rites, and festivities in connection with themusterings of recruits. Lastly she has had a hip broken, so that shewalks with an inclination towards the left. 

Her fellow women say of her that her veins contain "a drop of gentleblood"; but probably the statement is inspired by no more than thefact that she treats everyone with the same cold civility. Nevertheless, there is something peculiar about her, for her hands areslender and have long fingers, and her head is haughtily poised, andher voice has a metallic ring, even though the metal has, as it were, grown dull and rusty. Also, she speaks of everyone, herself included, in the most rough and downright terms, yet terms which are so simplethat, though her talk may be disconcerting to listen to, it could neverbe called obscene. 

For instance, once I overheard Vologonov reproach her for not leading amore becoming life:

"You ought to have more self-restraint, " said he, "seeing that you area lady, and also your own mistress. "

"That is played out, my friend, " she replied. "You see, I have had verymuch to bear, for there was a time when such hunger used to gnaw at mybelly as you would never believe. It was then that my eyes becamedazzled with the tokens of shame. So I took my fill of love, as doesevery woman. And once a woman has become a light-o'-love she may aswell doff her shift altogether, and use the body which God has givenher. And, after all, an independent life is the best life; so I hawkmyself about like a pot of beer, and say, 'Drink of this, anyone wholikes, while it still contains liquor. '"

"It makes one feel ashamed to hear such talk, " said Vologonov with asigh. In response she burst out laughing. 

"What a virtuous man!" was her comment upon his remark. 

Until now Antipa had spoken cautiously, and in an undertone, whereasthe woman had replied in loud accents of challenge. 

"Will you come in and have some tea?" he said next as he leant out ofthe window. 

"No, I thank you. In passing, what a thing I have heard about you!"

"Do not shout so loud. Of what are you speaking?"

"Oh, of SUCH a thing!"

"Of NOTHING, I imagine. "

"Yes, of EVERYTHING. "

"God, who created all things, alone knows everything. "

Whereafter the pair whispered together awhile. Then Felitzatadisappeared as suddenly as she had come, leaving the old man sittingmotionless. At length he heaved a profound sigh, and muttered tohimself. 

"Into that Eve's ears be there poured the poison of the asp!. .. Yetpardon me, Oh God! Yea, pardon me!"

The words contained not a particle of genuine contrition. Rather, Ibelieve, he uttered them because he had a weakness not for words whichsignified anything, but for words which, being out of the way, were notused by the common folk of the suburb. 

 * * * * *

Sometimes Vologonov knocks at the partition-wall with a superannuatedarshin measure which has only fifteen vershoki of its length remaining. He knocks, and shouts:

"Lodger, would you care to join me in a pot of tea?"

During the early days of our acquaintanceship he regarded me withmarked and constant suspicion. Clearly he deemed me to be a policedetective. But subsequently he took to scanning my face with criticalcuriosity, until at length he said with an air of imparting instruction:

"Have you ever read Paradise Lost and Destroyed?"

"No, " I replied. "Only Paradise Regained. "

This led him to wag his parti-coloured beard in token that 'hedisagreed with my choice', and to observe:

"The reason why Adam lost Paradise is that he allowed Eve to corrupthim. And never did the Lord permit him to regain it. For who is worthyto return to the gates of Paradise? Not a single human being. "

And, indeed, I found it a waste of time to dispute the matter, for hemerely listened to what I had to say, and then, without an attempt atrefutation, repeated in the same tone as before, and exactly in thesame words, his statement that "Adam lost Paradise for the reason thathe allowed Eve to corrupt him. "

Similarly did women constitute our most usual subject of conversation. 

"You are young, " once he said, "and therefore a human being bound tofind forbidden fruit blocking your way at every step. This because thehuman race is a slave to its love of sin, or, in other words, to loveof the Serpent. Yes, woman constitutes the prime impediment toeverything in life, as history has many times affirmed. And first andforemost is she the source of restlessness. 'Charged with poison, theSerpent shall plunge in thee her fangs. ' Which Serpent is, of course, our desire of the flesh, the Serpent at whose instigation the Greeksrazed towns to the ground, and ravaged Troy and Carthagena and Egypt, and the Serpent which caused an amorous passion for the sister ofAlexander Pavlovitch [The Emperor Alexander I] to bring aboutNapoleon's invasion of Russia. On the other hand, both the Mohammedannations and the Jews have from earliest times grasped the matteraright, and kept their women shut up in their back premises; whereas WEpermit the foulest of profligacy to exist, and walk hand in hand withour women, and allow them to graduate as female doctors and to pullteeth, and all the rest of it. The truth is that they ought not to beallowed to advance beyond midwife, since it is woman's business eitherto serve as a breeding animal or opprobriously to be calledneiskusobrachnaia neviesta [Maid who hast never tasted of marriage. ]Yes, woman's business should end there. "

Near the stove there ticks and clicks on the grimy wall that is paperedwith "rules and regulations" and sheets of yellow manuscript thependulum of a small clock, with, hanging to one of its weights, ahammer and a horseshoe, and, to the other, a copper pestle. Also, in acorner of the room a number of ikons make a glittering show with theirsilver applique and the gilded halos which surmount their figures'black visages, while a stove with a ponderous grate glowers out of thewindow at the greenery in Zhitnaia Street and beyond the ravine (beyondthe ravine everything looks bright and beautiful), and the dusty, dimlylighted storeroom across the passage emits a perennial odour of driedmushroom, tobacco leaves, and hemp oil. 

Vologonov stirs his strong, stewed tea with a battered old teaspoon, and says with a sigh as he sips a little:

"All my life I have been engaged in gaining experience so that now Iknow most things, and ought to be listened to with attention. Usuallyfolk do so listen to me, but though here and there one may find aliving soul, of the rest it may be said: 'In the House of David shallterrible things come to pass, and fire shall consume the spirit oflechery. '"

The words resemble bricks in that they seem, if possible, to increasethe height of the walls of strange and extraneous events, and evenstranger dramas, which loom for ever around, me. 

"For example, " continues the old man, "why is Mitri Ermolaev Polukonov, our ex-mayor, lying dead before his time? Because he conceived a numberof arrogant projects. For example, he sent his eldest son to study atKazan--with the result that during the son's second year at theUniversity he, the son, brought home with him a curly-headed Jewess, and said to his father: 'Without this woman I cannot live--in her arebound up my whole soul and strength. ' Yes, a pass indeed! And from thatday forth nothing but misfortune befell in that Yashka took to drink, the Jewess gave way to repining, and Mitri had to go perambulating thetown with piteous invitations to 'come and see, my brethren, to whatdepths I have sunk!' And though, eventually, the Jewess died of abloody flux, of a miscarriage, the past was beyond mending, and, whilethe son went to the bad, and took to drink for good and all, the father'fell a victim by night to untimely death. ' Yes, the lives of two folkwere thus undone by 'the thorn-bearing company of Judaea. ' Likeourselves, the Hebrew has a destiny of his own. And destiny cannot bedriven out with a stick. Of each of us the destiny is unhasting. Itmoves slowly and quietly, and can never be avoided. 'Wait, ' it says. 'Seek not to press onward. '"

As he discourses, Vologonov's eyes ceaselessly change colour--nowturning to a dull grey, and wearing a tired expression, and nowbecoming blue, and assuming a mournful air, and now (and mostfrequently of all) beginning to emit green flashes of an impartialmalevolence. 

"Similarly, the Kapustins, once a powerful family, came at length todust-became as nothing. It was a family the members of which were everin favour of change, and devoted to anything that was new. In fact, they went and set up a piano! Well, of them only Valentine is still onhis legs, and he (he is a doctor of less than forty years of age) is ahopeless drunkard, and saturated with dropsy, and fallen a prey toasthma, so that his cancerous eyes protrude horribly. Yes, theKapustins, like the Polukonovs, may be 'written down as dead. '"

Throughout, Vologonov speaks in a tone of unassailable conviction, in atone implying that never could things happen, never could things havehappened, otherwise than as he has stated. In fact, in his hands eventhe most inexplicable, the most grievous, phenomena of life become suchas a law has inevitably decreed. 

"And the same thing will befall the Osmukhins, " he next remarks. "Letthem be a warning to you never to make friends with Germans, and neverto engage in business with them. In Russia any housewife may brew beer;yet our people will not drink it--they are more used to spirits. Also, Russian folk like to attain their object in drinking AT ONCE; and ashkalik of vodka will do more to sap wit than five kruzhki of beer. Once our people liked uniform simplicity; but now they are become likea man who was born blind, and has suddenly acquired sight. A changeindeed! For thirty-three years did Ilya of Murom [Ilya Murometz, thelegendary figure most frequently met with In Russian bilini (folksongs), and probably identical with Elijah the Prophet, though creditedwith many of the attributes proper, rather, to the pagan god Perun theThunderer. ] sit waiting for his end before it came; and all who cannotbide patiently in a state of humility. .. "

Meanwhile clouds shaped like snow-white swans are traversing theroseate heavens and disappearing into space, while below them, onearth, the ravine can be seen spread out like the pelt of a bear whichthe broad shoulders of some fabulous giant have sloughed before takingrefuge in the marshes and forest. In fact the landscape reminds me ofsundry ancient tales of marvels, as also does Antipa Vologonov, the manwho is so strangely conversant with the shortcomings of human life, andso passionately addicted to discussing them. 

For a moment or two he remains silent as sibilantly he purses his lipsand drinks some saffron-coloured tea from the saucer which the splayedfingers of his right hand are balancing on their tips. Whereafter, whenhis wet moustache has been dried, his level voice resumes its speech intones as measured as those of one reading aloud from the Psalter. 

"Have you noticed a shop in Zhitnaia Street kept by an old man namedAsiev? Once that man had ten sons. Six of them, however, died ininfancy. Of the remainder the eldest, a fine singer, was at onceextravagant and a bookworm; wherefore, whilst an officer's servant atTashkend, he cut the throats of his master and mistress, and for doingso was executed by shooting. As a matter of fact, the tale has it thathe had been making love to his mistress, and then been thrown over infavour of his master once more. And another son, Grigori, after beinggiven a high school education at St. Petersburg, became a lunatic. Andanother, Alexei, entered the army as a cavalryman, but is now acting asa circus rider, and probably has also become a drunkard. And theyoungest son of all, Nikolai, ran away as a boy, and, eventuallyarriving in Norway with a precious scheme for catching fish in theArctic Ocean, met with failure through the fact that he had overlookedthe circumstance that we Russians have fish of our own and to spare, and had to have his interest assigned by his father to a localmonastery. So much for fish of the Arctic Seas! Yet if Nikolai had onlywaited, if he had only been more patient, he--"

Here Vologonov lowers his voice, and continues with something of thegrowl of an angry dog:

"I too have had sons, one of whom was killed at Kushka (a document hascertified to that effect), another was drowned whilst drunk, three moredied in infancy, and only two are still alive. Of these last, I knowthat one is acting as a waiter in a hotel at Smolensk, while the other, Melenti, was educated for the Church, sent to study in a seminary, induced to abscond and get into trouble, and eventually dispatched toSiberia. There now! Yes, the Russian is what might be called a'lightweighted' individual, an individual who, unless he holds himselfdown by the head, is soon carried off by the wind like a chicken'sfeather--for we are too self-confident and restless. Before now, Imyself have been a gull, a man lacking balance: for never does youthrealise its own insignificance, or know how to wait. "

Dissertations of the kind drop from the old man like water from a leakypipe on a cold, blustery day in autumn. Wagging his grey beard, hetalks and talks, until I begin to think that he must be an evil wizard, and master of this remote, barren, swampy, ravine-pitted region--thathe it is who originally planted the town in this uncomfortable, clayeyhollow, and has thrown the houses into heaps, and entangled thestreets, and wantonly created the town's unaccountably rude and roughand deadly existence, and addled men's brains with disconnectednonsense, and consumed their hearts with a fear of life. Yes, it comesto me that it must be he who, during the long six months of winter, causes cruel snowstorms from the plain to invade the town, and withfrost compresses the buildings of the town until their rafters crack, and stinging cold brings birds to the ground. Lastly, I become seizedwith the idea that it must be he who, almost every summer, envelops thetown in those terrible visitations of heat by night which seem almostto cause the houses to melt. 

However, as a rule he maintains complete silence, and merely makeschewing motions with his strong-toothed jaws as he sits wagging hisbeard from side to side. At such times there is in his eyes a bluishfire like the gleam of charcoal, while his crooked fingers writhe likeworms, and his outward appearance becomes sheerly that of a magician ofiniquity. 

Once I asked him:

"What in particular ought men to wait for?"

For a while he sat clasping his beard, and, with contracted eyes, gazing as at something behind me. Then he said quietly and didactically:

"Someday there will arise a Strange Man who will proclaim to the worldthe Word to which there never was a beginning. But to which of us isthe hour when that Man will arise known? To none of us. .. And to whichof us are known the miracles which that Word will perform? To none ofus. "

 * * * * *

Once upon a time there used to glide past the window of my room thefair, curly, wavering, golden head of Nilushka the idiot, a lad lookinglike a thing which the earth has begotten of love. Yes, Nilushka waslike an angel in some sacred picture adorning the southern or thenorthern gates of an ancient church, as, with his flushed face smearedwith wax-smoke and oil, and his light blue eyes gleaming in a cold, unearthly smile, and a frame clad in a red smock reaching to below hisknees, and the soles of his feet showing black (always he walked ontiptoe), and his thin calves, as straight and white as the calves of awoman, covered with golden down, he walked the streets. 

Sometimes hopping along on one leg, and smiling, and waving his arms, and causing the ample folds and sleeves of his smock to flutter untilhe seemed to be moving in the midst of a nimbus, Nilushka would sing ina halting whisper the childish ditty:

 Oh Lo-ord, pardon me! Wo-olves run, And do-ogs run, And the hunters wait To kill the wolves. Oh Lo-ord, pardon me!

Meanwhile, he would diffuse a cheering atmosphere of happiness withwhich no one in the locality had anything in common. For he was ever alighthearted, winning, essentially pure innocent of the type whichnever fails to evoke good-natured smiles and kindly emotions. Indeed, as he roamed the streets, the suburb seemed to live its life with lessclamour, to appear more decent of outward guise, since the local folklooked upon the imbecile with far more indulgence than they did upontheir own children; and he was intimate with, and beloved by, even theworst. Probably the reason for this was that the semblance of flightamid an atmosphere of golden dust which was his combined with hisstraight, slender little figure to put all who beheld him in mind ofchurches, angels, God, and Paradise. At all events, all viewed him in amanner contemplative, interested, and more than a little deferential. 

A curious fact was the circumstance that whenever Nilushka sighted astray gleam from a piece of glass, or the glitter of a morsel of copperin sunlight, he would halt dead where he was, turn grey with theashiness of death, lose his smile, and remain dilating to an unnaturalextent his clouded and troubled eyes. And so, with his whole formdistorted with horror, and his thin hand crossing himself, and hisknees trembling, and his smock fluttering around his frail wisp of abody, and his features growing stonelike, he would, for an hour ormore, continue to stand, until at length someone laid a hand in his, and led him home. 

The tale had it that, in the first instance, born "soft-headed, " hefinally lost his reason, five years before the period of which I amwriting, when a great fire occurred, and that thenceforth anything, save sunlight, that in any way resembled fire plunged him into thistorpor of dumb dread. Naturally the people of the suburb devoted to hima great deal of attention. 

"There goes God's fool, " would be their remark. "It will not be longbefore he dies and becomes a Saint, and we fall down and worship him. "

Yet there were persons who would go so far as to crack rude jests athis expense. For instance, as he would be skipping along, with hischildish voice raised in his little ditty, some idler or another wouldshout from a window, or through the cranny of a fence:

"Hi, Nilushka! Fire! Fire!"

Whereupon the angel-faced imbecile would sink to earth as though hislegs had been cut away at the knee from under him, and he would huddle, frantically clutching his golden head in his permanently soiled hands, and exposing his youthful form to the dust, under the nearest house orfence. 

Only then would the person who had given him the fright repent, and saywith a laugh:

"God in heaven, what a stupid lad this is!"

And, should that person have been asked why he had thus terrified theboy, he would probably have replied:

"Because it is such sport to do so. As a lad who cannot feel things asother human beings do, he inclines folk to make fun of him. "

As for the omniscient Antipa Vologonov, the following was his frequentcomment on Nilushka:

"Christ also had to walk in terror. Christ also was persecuted. Why so?Because ever He endured in rectitude and strength. Men need to learnwhat is real and what is unreal. Many are the sins of earth come of thefact that the seeming is mistaken for the actual, and that men keeppressing forward when they ought to be waiting, to be provingthemselves. "

Hence Vologonov, like the rest, bestowed much attention upon Nilushka, and frequently held conversations with him. 

"Do you now pray to God, " he said once as he pointed to heaven with oneof his crooked fingers, and with the disengaged hand clasped hisdishevelled, variously coloured beard. 

Whereupon Nilushka glanced fearfully at the mysteriously pointingfinger, and, plucking sharply at his forehead, shoulders, and stomachwith two fingers and a thumb, intoned in thin, plaintive accents:

"Our Father in Heaven--"

"WHICH ART in Heaven. "

"Yes, in the Heaven of Heavens. "

"Ah, well! God will understand. He is the friend of all blessed ones. "[Idiots; since persons mentally deficient are popularly deemed to standin a peculiarly close relation to the Almighty. ]

Again, great was Nilushka's interest in anything spherical. Also, hehad a love for handling the heads of children; when, softly approachinga group from behind, he would, with his bright, quiet smile, layslender, bony fingers upon a close-cropped little poll; with the resultthat the children, not relishing such fingering, would take alarm atthe same, and, bolting to a discreet distance, thence abuse the idiot, put out their tongues at him, and drawl in a nasal chorus:

"Nilka, the bottle-neck, the neck without a nape to it" [Probably theattractiveness of this formula lay rather in the rhyming of the Russianwords: "Nilka, butilka, bashka bez zatilka!" than in their actualmeaning]. 

Yet their fear of him was in no way reciprocated, nor, for that matter, did they ever assault him, despite the fact that occasionally theywould throw an old boot or a chip of wood in his direction-throw itaimlessly, and without really desiring to hit the mark aimed at. 

Also, anything circular--for example, a plate or the wheel of a toy, engaged Nilushka's attention and led him to caress it as eagerly as hedid globes and balls. Evidently the rotundity of the object was thepoint that excited his interest. And as he turned the object over andover, and felt the flat part of it, he would mutter:

"But what about the other one?"

What "the other one" meant I could never divine. Nor could Antipa. Once, drawing the idiot to him, he said:

"Why do you always say 'What about the other one'?"

Troubled and nervous, Nilushka merely muttered some unintelligiblereply as his fingers turned and turned about the circular object whichhe was holding. 

"Nothing, " at length he replied. 

"Nothing of what?

"Nothing here. "

"Ah, he is too foolish to understand, " said Vologonov with a sigh ashis eyes darkened in meditative fashion. 

"Yes, though it may seem foolish to say so, " he added, "some peoplewould envy him. "

"Why should they?"

"For more than one reason. To begin with, he lives a life free fromcare--he is kept comfortably, and even held in respect. Since no onecan properly understand him, and everyone fears him, through a beliefthat folk without wit, the 'blessed ones of God, ' are more especiallythe Almighty's favourites than persons possessed of understanding. Onlya very wise man could deal with such a matter, and the less so in thatit must be remembered that more than one 'blessed one' has become aSaint, while some of those possessed of understanding have gone--well, have gone whither? Yes, indeed!"

And, thoughtfully contracting the bushy eyebrows which looked as thoughthey had been taken from the face of another man, Vologonov thrust hishands up his sleeves, and stood eyeing Nilushka shrewdly with hisintangible gaze. 

Never did Felitzata say for certain who the boy's father had been, butat least it was known to me that in vague terms she had designated twomen as such--the one a young "survey student, " and the other a merchantby name Viporotkov, a man notorious to the whole town as a mostturbulent rake and bully. But once when she and Antipa and I wereseated gossiping at the entrance-gates, and I inquired of her whetherNilushka's father were still surviving, she replied in a careless way:

"He is so, damn him!"

"Then who is he?"

Felitzata, as usual, licked her faded, but still comely, lips with thetip of her tongue before she replied:

"A monk. "

"Ah!" Vologonov exclaimed with unexpected animation. "That, then, explains things. At all events, we have in it an intelligible THEORY ofthings. "

Whereafter, he expounded to us at length, and with no sparing ofdetails, the reason why a monk should have been Nilushka's fatherrather than either the merchant or the young "survey student. " And asVologonov proceeded he grew unwontedly enthusiastic, and went so far asto clench his fists until presently he heaved a sigh, as thoughmentally hurt, and said frowningly and reproachfully to the woman:

"Why did you never tell us this before? It was exceedingly negligent ofyou. "

Felitzata looked at the old man with sarcasm and sauciness gleaming inher brown eyes. Suddenly, however, she contracted her brows, counterfeited a sigh, and whined:

"Ah, I was good-looking then, and desired of all. In those days I hadboth a good heart and a happy nature. "

"But the monk may prove to have been an important factor in thequestion, " was Antipa's thoughtful remark. 

"Yes, and many another man than he has run after me for his pleasure, "continued Felitzata in a tone of reminiscence. This led Vologonov tocough, rise to his feet, lay his hand upon the woman's claret-colouredsleeve of satin, and say sternly:

"Do you come into my room, for I have business to transact with you. "

As she complied she smiled and winked at me. And so the pairdeparted--he shuffling carefully with his bandy legs, and she watchingher steps as though at any moment she might collapse on to her leftside. 

Thenceforth, Felitzata visited Vologonov almost daily; and once duringthe time of two hours or so that the pair were occupied in drinking teaI heard, through the partition-wall, the old man say in vigorous, level, didactical tones:

"These tales and rumours ought not to be dismissed save with caution. At least ought they to be given the benefit of the doubt. For, thoughall that he says may SEEM to us unintelligible, there may yet beenshrined therein a meaning, such as--"

"You say a meaning?"

"Yes, a meaning which, eventually, will be vouchsafed to you in avision. For example, you may one day see issue from a dense forest aman of God, and hear him cry aloud: Felitzata, Oh servant of God, Ohsinner most dark of soul--"

"What a croaking, to be sure!"

"Be silent! No nonsense! Do you blame yourself rather than sing yourown praises. And in that vision you may hear the man of God cry:'Felitzata, go you forth and do that which one who shall meet you mayrequest you to perform!' And, having gone forth, you may find the manof God to be the monk whom we have spoken of. "

"A-a-ah!" the woman drawled with an air of being about to say somethingmore. 

"Come, fool!"

"You see--"

"Have I, this time, abused you?"

"No, but--"

"I have an idea that the man of God will be holding a crook. "

"Of course, " assented Felitzata. 

Similarly, on another occasion, did I hear Antipa mutter confidentiallyto his companion:

"The fact that all his sayings are so simple is not a favourable sign. For, you see, they do not harmonise with the affair in its entirety--insuch a connection words should be mysterious, and so, able to beinterpreted in more than one way, seeing that the more meanings wordspossess, the more are those words respected and heeded by mankind. "

"Why so?" queried Felitzata. 

"Why so?" re-echoed Vologonov irritably. "Are we not, then, to respectANYONE or ANYTHING? Only he is worthy of respect who does not harm hisfellows; and of those who do not harm their fellows there are but few. To this point you must pay attention--you must teach him words ofvariable import, words more abstract, as well as more sonorous. "

"But I know no such words. "

"I will repeat to you a few, and every night, when he goes to bed, youshall repeat them to HIM. For example: 'Adom ispolneni, pokaites'[Do yepeople who are filled with venom repent]. And mark that the exactwords of the Church be adhered to. For instance, 'Dushenbitzi, pozhaleite Boga, okayannie, ' [Murderers of the soul, accursed ones, repent ye before God. ] must be said rather than 'Dushenbitzi, pozhaleite Boga, okayanni, ' since the latter, though the shorter form, is also not the correct one. But perhaps I had better instruct the ladmyself. "

"Certainly that would be the better plan. "

So from that time onwards Vologonov fell to stopping Nilushka in thestreet, and repeating to him something or another in his kindlyfashion. Once he even took him by the hand, and, leading him to hisroom, and giving him something to cat, said persuasively:

"Say this after me. 'Do not hasten, Oh ye people. ' Try if you can saythat. "

"'A lantern, '" began Nilushka civilly. 

"'A lantern?' Yes. Well, go on, and say, 'I am a lantern unto thee--"

"I want to sing, it. "

"There is no need for that, though presently you shall sing it. For themoment your task is to learn the correct speaking of things. So sayafter me--"

"O Lo-ord, have mercy!" came in a quiet, thoughtful chant from theidiot. Whereafter he added in the coaxing tone of a child:

"We shall all of us have to die. "

"Yes, but come, come!" expostulated Vologonov. "What are you blurtingout NOW? That much I know without your telling me--always have I known, little friend, that each of us is hastening towards his death. Yet yourwant of understanding exceeds what should be. "

"Dogs run-"

"Dogs? Now, enough, little fellow. "

"Dogs run like chickens. They run here, in the ravine, " continuedNilushka in the murmuring accents of a child of three. 

"Nevertheless, " mused Vologonov, "even that seeming nothing of his maymean something. Yes, there may lie in it a great deal. Now, say:'Perdition will arise before him who shall hasten. '"

"No, I want to SING something. "

With a splutter Vologonov said:

"Truly you are a difficult subject to deal with!"

And with that he fell to pacing the floor with long, thoughtful stridesas the idiot's voice cried in quavering accents:

"O Lo-ord, have me-ercy upon us!"

 * * * * *

Thus the winsome Nilushka proved indispensable to the foul, mean, unhealthy life of the suburb. Of that life he coloured and rounded offthe senselessness, the ugliness, the superfluity. He resembled anapple hanging forgotten on a gnarled old worm-eaten tree, whence allthe fruit and the leaves have fallen until only the branches wave inthe autumn wind. Rather, he resembled a sole-surviving picture in thepages of a ragged, soiled old book which has neither a beginning nor anending, and therefore can no longer be read, is no longer worth thereading, since now its pages contain nothing intelligible. 

And as smiling his gracious smile, the lad's pathetic, legendary figureflitted past the mouldy buts and cracked fences and riotous beds ofnettles, there would readily recur to the memory, and succeed oneanother, visions of some of the finer and more reputable personages ofRussian lore--there would file before one's mental vision, in endlesssequence, men whose biographies inform us how, in fear for their souls, they left the life of the world, and, hieing them to the forests andthe caves, abandoned mankind for the wild things of nature. And at thesame time would there recur to one's memory poems concerning the blindand the poor-in particular, the poem concerning Alexei the Man of God, and all the multitude of other fair, but unsubstantial, forms whereinRussia has embodied her sad and terrified soul, her humble andprotesting grief. Yet it was a process to depress one almost to thepoint of distraction. 

Once, forgetting that Nilushka was imbecile, I conceived anirrepressible desire to talk with him, and to read him good poetry, andto tell him both of the world's youthful hopes and of my own personalthoughts. 

The occasion happened on a day when, as I was sitting on the edge ofthe ravine, and dangling my legs over the ravine's depths, the lad camefloating towards me as though on air. In his hands, with their fingersas slender as a girl's, he was holding a large leaf; and as he gazed atit the smile of his clear blue eyes was, as it were, pervading him fromhead to foot. 

"Whither, Nilushka?" said I. 

With a start he raised his head and eyes heavenward. Then timidly heglanced at the blue shadow of the ravine, and extended to me his leaf, over the veins of which there was crawling a ladybird. 

"A bukan, " he observed. 

"It is so. And whither are you going to take it?"

"We shall all of us die. I was going to take and bury it. "

"But it is alive; and one does not bury things before they are dead. "

Nilushka closed and opened his eyes once or twice. 

"I should like to sing something, " he remarked. 

"Rather, do you SAY something. "

He glanced at the ravine again--his pink nostrils quivering anddilating--then sighed as though he was weary, and in allunconsciousness muttered a foul expression. As he did so I noticed thaton the portion of his neck below his right ear there was a largebirthmark, and that, covered with golden down like velvet, andresembling in shape a bee, it seemed to be endowed with a similitude oflife, through the faint beating of a vein in its vicinity. 

Presently the ladybird raised her upper wings as though she werepreparing for flight; whereupon Nilushka sought with a finger to detainher, and, in so doing, let fall the leaf, and enabled the insect todetach itself and fly away at a low level. Upon that, bending forwardwith arms outstretched, the idiot went softly in pursuit, much asthough he himself were launching his body into leisurely flight, but, when ten paces away, stopped, raised his face to heaven, and, with armspendent before him, and the palms of his hands turned outwards asthough resting on something which I could not see, remained fixed andmotionless. 

From the ravine there were tending upwards towards the sunlight somegreen sprigs of willow, with dull yellow flowers and a clump of greywormwood, while the damp cracks which seamed the clay of the ravinewere lined with round leaves of the "mother-stepmother plant, " andround about us little birds were hovering, and from both the bushes andthe bed of the ravine there was ascending the moist smell of decay. Yetover our heads the sky was clear, as the sun, now sole occupant of theheavens, declined slowly in the direction of the dark marshes acrossthe river; only above the roofs of Zhitnaia Street could there be seenfluttering about in alarm a flock of snow-white pigeons, while wavingbelow them was the black besom which had, as it were, swept them intothe air, and from afar one could hear the sound of an angry murmur, themournful, mysterious murmur of the town. 

Whiningly, like an old man, a child of the suburb was raising its voicein lamentation; and as I listened to the sound, it put me in mind of aclerk reading Vespers amid the desolation of an empty church. Presentlya brown dog passed us with shaggy head despondently pendent, and eyesas beautiful as those of a drunken woman. 

And, to complete the picture, there was standing--outlined against thenearest shanty of the suburb, a shanty which lay at the extreme edge ofthe ravine-there was standing, face to the sun, and back to the town, as though preparing for flight, the straight, slender form of the boywho, while alien to all, caressed all with the eternallyincomprehensible smile of his angel-like eyes. Yes, that goldenbirthmark so like a bee I can see to this day!

 * * * * *

Two weeks later, on a Sunday at mid-day, Nilushka passed into the otherworld. That day, after returning home from late Mass, and handing tohis mother a couple of wafers which had been given him as a mark ofcharity, the lad said:

"Mother, please lay out my bed on the chest, for I think that I amgoing to lie down for the last time. "

Yet the words in no way surprised Felitzata, for he had often beforeremarked, before retiring to rest:

"Some day we shall all of us have to die. "

At the same time, whereas, on previous occasions, Nilushka had nevergone to sleep without first of all singing to himself his little song, and then chanting the eternal, universal "Lord, have mercy upon us!"he, on this occasion, merely folded his hands upon his breast, closedhis eyes, and relapsed into slumber. 

That day Felitzata had dinner, and then departed on business of herown; and when she returned in the evening, she was astonished to findthat her son was still asleep. Next, on looking closer at him, sheperceived that he was dead. 

"I looked, " she related plaintively to some of the suburban residentswho came running to her cot, "and perceived his little feet to be blue;and since it was only just before Mass that I had washed his hands withsoap, I remarked the more readily that his feet were become less whitethan his hands. And when I felt one of those hands, I found that it hadstiffened. "

On Felitzata's face, as she recounted this, there was manifest anervous expression. Likewise, her features were a trifle flushed. Yetgleaming also through the tears in her languorous eyes there was asense of relief--one might almost have said a sense of joy. 

"Next, " continued she, "I looked closer still, and then fell on myknees before the body, sobbing: 'Oh my darling, whither art thou fled?Oh God, wherefore hast Thou taken him from me?'"

Here Felitzata inclined her head upon her left shoulder contracted herbrows over her mischievous eyes, clasped her hands to her breast, andfell into the lament:

 Oh, gone is my dove, my radiant moon! O star of mine eyes, thou hast set too soon! In darksome depths thy light lies drown'd, And time must yet complete its round, And the trump of the Second Advent sound, Ere ever my--

"Here, you! Hold your tongue!" grunted Vologonov irritably. 

For myself, I had, that day, been walking in the forest, until, as Ireturned, I was brought up short before the windows of Felitzata's cotby the fact that some of the erstwhile turbulent denizens of the suburbwere whispering softly together as, with an absence of all noise, theytook turns to raise themselves on tiptoe, and, craning their necks, topeer into one of the black window-spaces. Yes, like bees on the step ofa hive did they look, and on the great majority of faces, and in thegreat majority of eyes, there was quivering an air of tense, nervousexpectancy. 

Only Vologonov was nudging Felitzata, and saying to her in a loud, authoritative tone:

"Very ready are you to weep, but I should like first to hear the exactcircumstances of the lad's death. "

Thus invited, the woman wiped her eyes with the sleeve of her bodice, licked her lips, heaved a prolonged sigh, and fell to regardingAntipa's red, hardbitten face with the cheerful, unabashed glance of aperson who is under the influence of liquor. From under her whitehead-band there had fallen over her temples and her right cheek a fewwisps of golden hair; and indeed, as she drew herself up, and tossedher head and bosom, and smoothed out and stretched the creases in herbodice, she looked less than her years. Everyone now fell to eyeing herin an attentive silence, though not, it would seem, without a touch ofenvy. 

Abruptly, sternly, the old man inquired:

"Did the lad ever complain of ill-health?"

"No, never, " Felitzata replied. "Never once did he speak of it--neveronce. "

"And he had not been beaten?"

"Oh, how can you ask me such a thing, and especially seeing that, that--?"

"I did not say beaten by YOU. "

"Well, I cannot answer for anyone else, but at least had he no mark onhis body, seeing that when I lifted the smock I could find nothing savefor scratches on legs and back. "

Her tone now had in it a new ring, a ring of increased assurance, andwhen she had finished she closed her bright eyes languidly beforeheaving a soft, as it were, voluptuous, and, withal, very audible sigh. 

Someone here murmured:

"She DID use to beat him. "

"What?"

"At all events she used to lose her temper with him. "

This led to the putting of a further dozen or so of leading questions;whereafter Antipa, for a while, preserved a suggestive silence, and thecrowd too remained silent, as though it had suddenly been lulled toslumber. Only at long last, and with a clearing of his throat, didAntipa say:

"Friends, we must suppose that God, of His infinite Mercy, hasvouchsafed to us here a special visitation, in that, as all of us haveperceived, a lad bereft of wit, the same radiant lad whom all of ushave known, has here abided in the closest of communion with theBlessed Dispenser of life on earth. "

Then I moved away, for upon my heart there was pressing a burden ofunendurable sorrow, and I was yearning, oh, so terribly, to seeNilushka once more. 

The back portion of Felitzata's cot stood a little sunken into theground, so that the front portion had its cold window panes and raisedsash tilted a trifle towards the remote heavens. I bent my head, andentered by the open door. Near the threshold Nilushka was lying on anarrow chest against the wall. The folds of a dark-red pillow offustian under the head set off to perfection the pale blue tint of hisround, innocent face under its corona of golden curls; and though theeyes were closed, and the lips pressed tightly together, he stillseemed to be smiling in his old quiet, but joyous, way. In general, thetall, thin figure on the mattress of dark felt, with its bare legs, andits slender hands and wrists folded across the breast, reminded me lessof an angel than of a certain image of the Holy Child with which ablackened old ikon had rendered me familiar from my boyhood upwards. 

Everything amid the purple gloom was still. Even the flies wereforbearing to buzz. Only from the street was there grating through theshaded window the strong, roguish voice of Felitzata as it traced thestrange, lugubrious word-pattern:

 With my bosom pressed to the warm, grey earth, To thee, grey earth, to thee, Oh my mother of old, I beseech thee, I who am a mother like thee, And a mother in pain, to enfold in thy arms This my son, this my dead son, this my ruby, This my drop of my heart's blood, this my--

Suddenly I caught sight of Antipa standing in the doorway. He waswiping his eyes with the back of his hand. Presently in a gruff andunsteady voice he said:

"It is all very fine for you to weep, good woman, but the present isnot the right moment to sing such verses as those--they were meant, rather, to be sung in a graveyard at the side of a tomb. Well, tell meeverything without reserve. Important is it that I should knowEVERYTHING. "

Whereafter, having crossed himself with a faltering hand, he carefullyscrutinised the corpse, and at last let his eyes halt upon the lad'ssweet features. Then he muttered sadly:

"How extraordinarily he has grown! Yes, death has indeed enlarged him!Ah, well, so be it! Soon I too shall have to be stretching myself out. Oh that it were now!"

Then with cautious movements of his deformed fingers he straightenedthe folds of the lad's smock, and drew it over the legs. Whereafter hepressed his flushed lips to the hem of the garment. 

Said I to him at that moment:

"What is it that you have been wanting of him? Why is it that you havebeen trying to teach him strange words?"

Straightening himself, and glancing at me with dim eyes, Antiparepeated:

"What is it that I have been wanting of him?" To the repetition headded with manifest sincerity, though also with a self-depreciatorymovement of the head:

"To tell the truth, I scarcely know WHAT it is that I have been wantingof him. By God I do not. Yet, as one speaking the truth in the presenceof death, I say that never during my long lifetime had I so desiredaught else. .. . Yes, I have waited and waited for fortune to revealit to me; and ever has fortune remained mute and tongueless. Foolishwas it of me to have expected otherwise, to have expected, forinstance, that some day there might occur something marvellous, something unlooked-for. "

With a short laugh, he indicated the corpse with his eyes, andcontinued more firmly:

"Yes, bootless was it to have expected anything from such a source asthat. Never, despite one's wishes, was anything possible of acquisitionthence. .. This is usually the case. Felitzata, as a clever womanindeed (albeit one cold of heart), was for having her son accounted aGod's fool, and thereby gaining some provision against her old age. "

"But you yourself were the person who suggested that? You yourselfwished it?"

"I?"

Presently, thrusting his hands up his sleeves, he added dully andbrokenly:

"Yes, I DID wish it. Why not, indeed, seeing that at least it wouldhave brought comfort to the poor people of this place? Sometimes I feelvery sorry for them with their bitter, troublous lives--lives which maybe the lives of rogues and villains, yet are lives which have producedamongst us a pravednik, " [A "just person, " a human being without sin]. 

All the evening sky was now aflame. Upon the ear there fell themournful lament:

When snow has veiled the earth in white, The snowy plain the wildwolves tread. They wail for the cheering warmth of spring As I bewailthe bairn that's dead. 

Vologonov listened for a moment. Then he said firmly:

"These are mere accesses of impulse which come upon her. And that isonly what might be expected. Even as in song or in vice there is noholding her, so remorse, when it has fastened upon such a woman'sheart, will know no bounds. I may tell you that on one occasion twoyoung merchants took her, stripped her stark naked, and drove her intheir carriage down Zhitnaia Street, with themselves sitting on theseats of the vehicle, and Felitzata standing upright between them--yes, in a state of nudity! Thereafter they beat her almost to death. "

As I stepped out into the dark, narrow vestibule, Antipa, who wasfollowing me, muttered:

"Such a lament as hers could come only of genuine grief. "

We found Felitzata in front of the hut, with her back covering thewindow. There, with hands pressed to her bosom, and her skirt all awry, she was straining her dishevelled head towards the heavens, while theevening breeze, stirring her fine auburn hair, scattered itpromiscuously over her flushed, sharply-defined features and wildlyprotruding eyes. A bizarre, pitiable, and extraordinary figure did shecut as she wailed in a throaty voice which constantly gathered strength:

Oh winds of ice, winds cruel and rude, Press on my heart till itsthrobbings fail! Arrest the current of my blood! Turn these hot meltingtears to hail!

Before her there was posted a knot of women, compassionatecontemplators of the singer's distracted, grief-wrought features. Through the ravine's dark opening I could see the sun sinking below thesuburb before plunging into the marshy forest and having his diskpierced by sharp, black tips of pine trees. Already everything aroundhim was red. Already, seemingly, he had been wounded, and was bleedingto death. 

THE CEMETERY

In a town of the steppes where I found life exceedingly dull, the bestand the brightest spot was the cemetery. Often did I use to walk there, and once it happened that I fell asleep on some thick, rich, sweet-smelling grass in a cradle-like hollow between two tombs. 

From that sleep I was awakened with the sound of blows being struckagainst the ground near my head. The concussion of them jarred me not alittle, as the earth quivered and tinkled like a bell. Raising myselfto a sitting posture, I found sleep still so heavy upon me that atfirst my eyes remained blinded with unfathomable darkness, and couldnot discern what the matter was. The only thing that I could see amidthe golden glare of the June sunlight was a wavering blur which atintervals seemed to adhere to a grey cross, and to make it give forth asuccession of soft creaks. 

Presently, however--against my wish, indeed--that wavering blurresolved itself into a little, elderly man. Sharp-featured, with athick, silvery tuft of hair beneath his under lip, and a bushy whitemoustache curled in military fashion, on his upper, he was using thecross as a means of support as, with his disengaged hand outstretched, and sawing the air, he dug his foot repeatedly into the ground, and, ashe did so, bestowed upon me sundry dry, covert glances from the depthsof a pair of dark eyes. 

"What have you got there?" I inquired. 

"A snake, " he replied in an educated bass voice, and with a ruggedforefinger he pointed downwards; whereupon I perceived that wrigglingon the path at his feet and convulsively whisking its tail, there wasan echidna. 

"Oh, it is only a grassworm, " I said vexedly. 

The old man pushed away the dull, iridescent, rope-like thing with thetoe of his boot, raised a straw hat in salute, and strode firmlyonwards. 

"I thank you, " I called out; whereupon, he replied without lookingbehind him:

"If the thing really WAS a grassworm, of course there was no danger. "

Then he disappeared among the tombstones. 

Looking at the sky, I perceived the time to be about five o'clock. 

The steppe wind was sighing over the tombs, and causing long stems ofgrass to rock to and fro, and freighting the heated air with the silkenrustling of birches and limes and other trees, and leading one todetect amid the humming of summer a note of quiet grief eminentlycalculated to evoke lofty, direct thoughts concerning life and one'sfellow-men. 

Veiling with greenery, grey and white tombstones worn with the snows ofwinter, crosses streaked with marks of rain, and the wall with whichthe graveyard was encircled, the rank vegetation served to also concealthe propinquity of a slovenly, clamorous town which lay coated withrich, sooty grime amid an atmosphere of dust and smells. 

As I set off for a ramble among the tombs and tangled grass, I coulddiscern through openings in the curtain of verdure a belfry's gildedcross which reared itself solemnly over crosses and memorials. At thefoot of those memorials the sacramental vestment of the cemetery wasstudded with a kaleidoscopic sheen of flowers over which bees and waspswere so hovering and humming that the grass's sad, prayerful murmurseemed charged with a song of life which yet did not hinder reflectionson death. Fluttering above me on noiseless wing were birds the flightof which sometimes made me start, and stand wondering whether theobject before my gaze was really a bird or not: and everywhere theshimmer of gilded sunlight was setting the close-packed graveyard in aquiver which made the mounds of its tombs reminiscent of a sea when, after a storm, the wind has fallen, and all the green level is anexpanse of smooth, foamless billows. 

Beyond the wall of the cemetery the blue void of the firmament waspierced with smoky chimneys of oil-mills and soap factories, the roofsof which showed up like particoloured stains against the darker ragsand tatters of other buildings; while blinking in the sunlight I coulddiscern clatter-emitting, windows which looked to me like watchfuleyes. Only on the nearer side of the wall was a sparse strip of turfdotted over with ragged, withered, tremulous stems, and beyond this, again, lay the site of a burnt building which constituted a black patchof earth-heaps, broken stoves, dull grey ashes, and coal dust. Toheaven gaped the black, noisome mouths of burning-pits wherein the moreeconomical citizens were accustomed nightly to get rid of the contentsof their dustbins. Among the tall stems of steppe grass waved large, glossy leaves of ergot; in the sunlight splinters of broken glasssparkled as though they were laughing; and, from two spots in the darkbrown plot which formed a semicircle around the cemetery, thereprojected, like teeth, two buildings the new yellow paint of whichnevertheless made them look mean and petty amid the tangle of rubbish, pigweed, groundsel, and dock. 

Indolently roaming hither and thither, a few speckled hens resembledfemale pedlars, and some pompous red cockerels a troupe of firemen; inthe orifices of the burning-pits a number of mournful-eyed, homelessdogs were lying sheltered; among the shoots of the steppe scrub somelean cats were stalking sparrows; and a band of children who wereplaying hide-and-seek among the orifices above-mentioned presented, apitiful sight as they went skipping over the filthy earth, disappearingin the crevices among the piles of heaped-up dirt. 

Beyond the site of the burnt-out building there stretched a series ofmean, close-packed huts which, crammed exclusively with needy folk, stood staring, with their dim, humble eyes of windows, at the crumblingbricks of the cemetery wall, and the dense mass of trees which thatwall enclosed. Here, in one such hut, had I myself a lodging in adiminutive attic, which not only smelt of lamp-oil, but stood in aposition to have wafted to it the least gasp or ejaculation on the partof my landlord, Iraklei Virubov, a clerk in the local treasury. Inshort, I could never glance out of the window at the cemetery on theother side of the strip of dead, burnt, polluted earth withoutreflecting that, by comparison, that cemetery was a place of sheerbeauty, a place of ceaseless attraction. 

And ever, that day, as though he had been following me, could there besighted among the tombs the dark figure of the old man who had soabruptly awakened me from slumber; and since his straw hat reflectedthe sunlight as brilliantly as the disk of a sunflower as it meanderedhither and thither, I, in my turn, found myself following him, thoughthinking, all the while, of Iraklei Virubov. Only a week was it sinceIraklei's wife, a thin, shrewish, long-nosed woman with green andcatlike eyes, had set forth on a pilgrimage to Kiev, and Iraklei hadhastened to import into the hut a stout, squint-eyed damsel whom he hadintroduced to me as his "niece by marriage. "

"She was baptised Evdokia, " he had said on the occasion referred to. "Usually, however, I call her Dikanka. Pray be friendly with her, butremember, also, that she is not a person with whom to take liberties. "

Large, round-shouldered, and clean-shaven like a chef, Virubov was forever hitching up breeches which had slipped from a stomach ruined withsurfeits of watermelon. And always were his fat lips parted as thoughathirst, and perpetually had he in his colourless eyes an expression ofinsatiable hunger. 

One evening I overheard a dialogue to the following effect. 

"Dikanka, pray come and scratch my back. Yes, between theshoulder-blades. O-o-oh, that is it. My word, how strong you are!"

Whereat Dikanka had laughed shrilly. And only when I had moved mychair, and thrown down my book, had the laughter and unctuouswhispering died away, and given place to a whisper of:

"Holy Father Nicholas, pray for us unto God! Is the supper kvas ready, Dikanka?"

And softly the pair had departed to the kitchen--there to grunt andsqueal once more like a couple of pigs. .. . 

The old man with the grey moustache stepped over the turf with theelastic stride of youth, until at length he halted before a largemonument in drab granite, and stood reading the inscription thereon. Featured not altogether in accordance with the Russian type, he had ona dark-blue jacket, a turned-down collar, and a black stock finishedoff with a large bow--the latter contrasting agreeably with the thick, silvery, as it were molten, chin-tuft. Also, from the centre of afierce moustache there projected a long and gristly nose, while overthe grey skin of his cheeks there ran a network of small red veins. Inthe act of raising his hand to his hat (presumably for the purpose ofsaluting the dead), he, after conning the dark letters of theinscription on the tomb, turned a sidelong eye upon myself; and since Ifound the fact embarrassing, I frowned, and passed onward, full, still, of thoughts of the street where I was residing and where I desired tofathom the mean existence eked out by Virubov and his "niece. "

As usual, the tombs were also being patrolled by Pimesha, otherwisePimen Krozootov, a bibulous, broken-down ex-merchant who used to spendhis time in stumbling and falling about the graves in search of thesupposed resting-place of his wife. Bent of body, Pimesha had a small, bird-like face over-grown with grey down, the eyes of a sick rabbit, and, in general, the appearance of having undergone a chewing by a setof sharp teeth. For the past three years he had thus been roaming thecemetery, though his legs were too weak to support his undersized, shattered body; and whenever he caught his foot he fell, and for longcould not rise, but lay gasping and fumbling among the grass, androoting it up, and sniffing with a nose as sharp and red as though theskin had been flayed from it. True, his wife had been buried atNovotchevkassk, a thousand versts away, but Pimen refused to credit thefact, and always, on being told it, stuttered with much blinking of hiswet, faded eyes: "Natasha? Natasha is here. "

Also, there used to visit the spot, well-nigh daily, a MadameChristoforov, a tall old lady who, wearing black spectacles and a plaingrey, shroudlike dress that was trimmed with black velvet, never failedto have a stick between her abnormally long fingers. Wizened of face, with cheeks hanging down like bags, and a knot of grey, rather, grey-green, hair combed over her temples from under a lace scarf, andalmost concealing her ears, this lady pursued her way withdeliberation, and entire assurance, and yielded the path to no one whomshe might encounter. I have an idea that there lay buried there a sonwho had been killed in a roisterers' brawl. 

Another habitual visitor was thin-legged, short-sighted AulicCouncillor Praotzev, ex-schoolmaster. With a book stuffed into thepocket of his canvas pea-jacket, a white umbrella grasped in his redhand, and a smile extending to ears as sharp and pointed as a rabbit's, he could, any Sunday after dinner, be seen skipping from tomb to tomb, with his umbrella brandished like a white flag soliciting terms ofpeace with death. 

And, on returning home before the bell rang for Vespers, he would findthat a crowd of boys had collected outside his garden wall; whereupon, dancing about him like puppies around a stork, they would fall toshouting in various merry keys:

"The Councillor, the Councillor! Who was it that fell in love withMadame Sukhinikh, and then fell into the pond?"

Losing his temper, and opening a great mouth, until he looked like anold rook which is about to caw, the Councillor would stamp his footseveral times, as though preparing to dance to the boys' shouting, andlower his head, grasp his umbrella like a bayonet, and charge at thelads with a panting shout of:

"I'll tell your fathers! Oh, I'll tell your mothers!"

As for the Madame Sukhinikh, referred to, she was an old beggar-womanwho, the year round, and in all weathers, sat on a little bench besidethe cemetery wicket, and stuck to it like a stone. Her large face, aface rendered bricklike by years of inebriety, was covered with darkblotches born of frostbite, alcoholic inflammation, sunburn, andexposure to wind, and her eyes were perpetually in a state ofsuppuration. Never did anyone pass her but she proffered a wooden cupin a suppliant hand, and cried hoarsely, rather as though she werecursing the person concerned:

"Give something for Christ's sake! Give in memory of your kinsfolkthere!"

Once an unexpected storm blew in from the steppes, and brought adownpour which, overtaking the old woman on her way home, caused her, her sight being poor, to fall into a pond, whence Praotzev attempted torescue her, and into which, in the end, he slipped himself. From thatday onwards he was twitted on the subject by the boys of the town. 

Other frequenters of the cemetery I see before me--dark, silentfigures, figures of persons whom still unsevered cords of memory seemedto have bound to the place for the rest of their lives, and compelledto wander, like unburied corpses, in quest of suitable tombs. Yes, theywere persons whom life had rejected, and death, as yet, refused toaccept. 

Also, at times there would emerge from the long grass a homeless dogwith large, sullen eyes, eyes startling at once in their intelligenceand in their absolute Ishmaelitism--until one almost expected to hearissue from the animal's mouth reproaches couched in human language. 

And sometimes the dog would still remain halted in the cemetery as, with tail lowered, it swayed its shelterless, shaggy head to and frowith an air of profound reflection, while occasionally venting asubdued, long-drawn yelp or howl. 

Again, among the dense old lime trees, there would be scurrying anunseen mob of starlings and jackdaws whose young would, meanwhile, maintain a soft, hungry piping, a sort of gently persuasive, chirrupingchorus; until in autumn, when the wind had stripped bare the boughs, these birds' black nests would come to look like mouldy, rag-swathedheads of human beings which someone had torn from their bodies andflung into the trees, to hang for ever around the white, sugarloaf-shaped church of the martyred St. Barbara. During that autumnseason, indeed, everything in the cemetery's vicinity looked sad andtarnished, and the wind would wail about the place, and sigh like alover who has been driven mad through bereavement. .. . 

Suddenly the old man halted before me on the path, and, sternlyextending a hand towards a white stone monument near us, read aloud:

"'Under this cross there lies buried the body of the respected citizenand servant of God, Diomid Petrovitch Ussov, '" etc. , etc. 

Whereafter the old man replaced his hat, thrust his hands into thepockets of his pea-jacket, measured me with eyes dark in colour, butexceptionally clear for his time of life, and said:

"It would seem that folk could find nothing to say of this man beyondthat he was a 'servant of God. ' Now, how can a servant be worthy ofhonour at the hand of 'citizens'?"

"Possibly he was an ascetic, " was my hazarded conjecture; whereupon theold man rejoined with a stamp of his foot:

"Then in such case one ought to write--"

"To write what?"

"To write EVERYTHING, in fullest possible detail. "

And with the long, firm stride of a soldier my interlocutor passedonwards towards a more remote portion of the cemetery--myself walking, this time, beside him. His stature placed his head on a level with myshoulder only, and caused his straw hat to conceal his features. Hence, since I wished to look at him as he discoursed, I found myself forcedto walk with head bent, as though I had been escorting a woman. 

"No, that is not the way to do it, " presently he continued in the soft, civil voice of one who has a complaint to present. "Any such proceedingis merely a mark of barbarism--of a complete lack of observation of menand life. "

With a hand taken from one of his pockets, he traced a large circle inthe air. 

"Do you know the meaning of that?" he inquired. 

"Its meaning is death, " was my diffident reply, made with a shrug ofthe shoulders. 

A shake of his head disclosed to me a keen, agreeable, finely cut faceas he pronounced the following Slavonic words:

"'Smertu smert vsekonechnie pogublena bwist. '" [Death hath been forever overthrown by death. "]

"Do you know that passage?" he added presently. 

Yet it was in silence that we walked the next ten paces--he threadinghis way along the rough, grassy path at considerable speed. Suddenly hehalted, raised his hat from his head, and proffered me a hand. 

"Young man, " he said, "let us make one another's better acquaintance. Iam Lieutenant Savva Yaloylev Khorvat, formerly of the State RemountEstablishment, subsequently of the Department of Imperial Lands. I am aman who, after never having been found officially remiss, am living inhonourable retirement--a man at once a householder, a widower, and aperson of hasty temper. "

Then, after a pause, he added:

"Vice-Governor Khorvat of Tambov is my brother--a younger brother; hebeing fifty-five, and I sixty-one, si-i-ixty one. "

His speech was rapid, but as precise as though no mistake waspermissible in its delivery. 

"Also, " he continued, "as a man cognisant of every possible species ofcemetery, I am much dissatisfied with this one. In fact, neversatisfied with such places am I. "

Here he brandished his fist in the air, and described a large arc overthe crosses. 

"Let us sit down, " he said, "and I will explain things. "

So, after that we had seated ourselves on a bench beside a whiteoratory, and Lieutenant Khorvat had taken off his hat, and with a bluehandkerchief wiped his forehead and the thick silvery hair whichbristled from the knobs of his scalp, he continued:

"Mark you well the word kladbistche. " [The word, though customarilyused for cemetery, means, primarily, a treasure-house. ] Here he nudgedme with his elbow--continuing, thereafter, more softly: "In akladbisiche one might reasonably look for kladi, for treasures ofintellect and enlightenment. Yet what do we find? Only that which isoffensive and insulting. All of us does it insult, for thereby is aninsult paid to all who, in life, are bearing still their 'cross andburden. ' You too will, one day, be insulted by the system, even asshall I. Do you understand? I repeat, 'their cross and burden'--thesense of the words being that, life being hard and difficult, we oughtto honour none but those who STILL are bearing their trials, or bearingtrials for you and me. Now, THESE folk here have ceased to possessconsciousness. "

Each time that the old man waved his hat in his excitement, its smallshadow, bird-like, flew along the narrow path, and over the cross, and, finally, disappeared in the direction of the town. 

Next, distending his ruddy cheeks, twitching his moustache, andregarding me covertly out of boylike eyes, the Lieutenant resumed:

"Probably you are thinking, 'The man with whom I have to deal is oldand half-witted. ' But no, young fellow; that is not so, for long beforeYOUR time had I taken the measure of life. Regard these memorials. AREthey memorials? For what do they commemorate as concerns you andmyself? They commemorate, in that respect, nothing. No, they are notmemorials; they are merely passports or testimonials conferred uponitself by human stupidity. Under a given cross there may lie a Maria, and under another one a Daria, or an Alexei, or an Evsei, or someoneelse--all 'servants of God, ' but not otherwise particularised. Anoutrage this, sir! For in this place folk who have lived theirdifficult portion of life on earth are seen robbed of that record oftheir existences, which ought to have been preserved for your and myinstruction. Yes, A DESCRIPTION OF THE LIFE LIVED BY A MAN is whatmatters. A tomb might then become even more interesting than a novel. Do you follow me?"

"Not altogether, " I rejoined. 

He heaved a very audible sigh. 

"It should be easy enough, " was his remark. "To begin with, I am NOT a'servant of God. ' Rather, I am a man intelligently, of set purpose, keeping God's holy commandments so far as lies within my power. And noone, not even God, has any right to demand of me more than I can give. That is so, is it not?"

I nodded. 

"There!" the Lieutenant cried briskly as, cocking his hat, he assumed astill more truculent air. Then, spreading out his hands, he growled inhis flexible bass:

"What is this cemetery? It is merely a place of show. "

At this moment, for some reason or another, there occurred to me anincident which involved the figure of Iraklei Virubov, the figure whichhad carpet slippers on its ponderous feet, thick lips, a greedy mouth, deceitful eyes, and a frame so huge and cavernous that the dapperlittle Lieutenant could have stepped into it complete. 

The day had been a Sunday, and the hour eventide. On the burnt plot ofground some broken glass had been emitting a reddish gleam, shoots ofergot had been diffusing their gloss, children shouting at play, dogstrotting backwards and forwards, and all things, seemingly, faringwell, sunken in the stillness of the portion of the town adjoining therolling, vacant steppe, with, above them, only the sky's level, dull-blue canopy, and around them, only the cemetery, like an islandamidst a sea. 

With Virubov, I had been sitting on a bench near the wicket-gate of hishut, as intermittently he had screwed his lecherous eyes in thedirection of the stout, ox-eyed lacemaker, Madame Ezhov, who, afterdisposing of her form on a bank hard-by, had fallen to picking lice outof the curls of her eight-year-old Petka Koshkodav. Presently, asswiftly she had rummaged the boy's hair with fingers grown used to suchrapid movement, she had said to her husband (a dealer in second-handarticles), who had been seated within doors, and therefore renderedinvisible--she had said with oily derision:

"Oh, yes, you bald-headed old devil, you! Of course you got your price. Ye-es. Then, fool, you ought to have had a slipper smacked across thatKalmuck snout of yours. Talk of my price, indeed!"

Upon this Virubov had remarked with a sigh, and in sluggish, sententious tones:

"To grant the serfs emancipation was a sheer mistake. I am a humbleenough servant of my country, yet I can see the truth of what I havestated, since it follows as a matter of course. What ought to have beendone is that all the estates of the landowners should have beenconveyed to the Tsar. Beyond a doubt that is so. Then both thepeasantry and the townsfolk, the whole people, in short, would have hadbut a single landlord. For never can the people live properly so longas it is ignorant of the point where it stands; and since it lovesauthority, it loves to have over it an autocratic force, for itscontrol. Always can it be seen seeking such a force. "

Then, bending forward, and infusing into each softly uttered word aperfect lusciousness of falsity, Virubov had added to his neighbour:

"Take, for example, the working-woman who stands free of every tie. "

"How do I stand free of anything?" the neighbour had retorted, incomplete readiness for a quarrel. 

"Oh, I am not speaking in your despite, Pavlushka, but to your credit, "hastily Virubov had protested. 

"Then keep your blandishments for that heifer, your 'niece, '" had beenMadame Ezhov's response. 

Upon this Virubov had risen heavily, and remarked as he moved awaytowards the courtyard:

"All folk need to be supervised by an autocratic eye. "

Thereafter had followed a bout of choice abuse between his neighbourand his "niece, " while Virubov himself, framed in the wicket-gate, andlistening to the contest, had smacked his lips as he gazed at the pair, and particularly at Madame Ezhov. At the beginning of the bout Dikankahad screeched:

"It is my opinion, it is my opinion, that--"

"Don't treat me to any of YOUR slop!" the long-fanged Pavla hadinterrupted for the benefit of the street in general. And thus had theaffair continued. .. . 

Lieutenant Khorvat blew the fag-end of his cigarette from hismouthpiece, glanced at me, and said with seemingly, a not over-civil, twitch of his bushy moustache:

"Of what are you thinking, if I might inquire?"

"I am trying to understand you. "

"You ought not to find that difficult, " was his rejoinder as again hedoffed his hat, and fanned his face with it. "The whole thing may besummed up in two words. It is that we lack respect both for ourselvesand for our fellow men. Do you follow me NOW?"

His eyes had grown once more young and clear, and, seizing my hand inhis strong and agreeably warm fingers, he continued:

"Why so? For the very simple reason that I cannot respect myself when Ican learn nothing, simply nothing, about my fellows. "

Moving nearer to me, he added in a mysterious undertone:

"In this Russia of ours none of us really knows why he has come intoexistence. True, each of us knows that he was born, and that he isalive, and that one day he will die; but which of us knows the reasonwhy all that is so?"

Through renewed excitement, its colour had come back to theLieutenant's face, and his gestures became so rapid as to cause thering on his finger to flash through the air like the link of a chain. Also, I was able to detect the fact that on the small, neat wrist underhis left cuff, there was a bracelet finished with a medallion. 

"All this, my good sir, is because (partially through the fact that menforget the point, and partially through the fact that that point failsto be understood aright) the WORK done by a man is concealed from ourknowledge. For my own part, I have an idea, a scheme--yes, a scheme--intwo words, a, a--"

"N-n-o-u, n-n-o-u!" the bell of the monastery tolled over the tombs inlanguid, chilly accents. 

"--a scheme that every town and every village, in fact, every unit ofhomogeneous population, should keep a record of the particular unit'saffairs, a, so to speak, 'book of life. ' This 'book of life' should bemore than a list of the results of the unit's labour; it should also bea living narrative of the workaday activities accomplished by eachmember of the unit. Eh? And, of course, the record to be compiledwithout official interference--solely by the town council or districtadministration, or by a special 'board, of life and works' or some suchbody, provided only that the task be not carried out by nominees of theGOVERNMENT. And in that record there should be entered everything--thatis to say, everything of a nature which ought to be made publicconcerning every man who has lived among us, and has since gone fromour midst. "

Here the Lieutenant stretched out his hand again in the direction ofthe tombs. 

"My right it is, " he added, "to know how those folk there spent theirlives. For it is by their labours and their thoughts, and even on theproduct of their bones, that I myself am now subsisting. You agree, doyou not?"

In silence I nodded; whereupon he cried triumphantly:

"Ah! You see, do you? Yes, an indispensable point is it, thatwhatsoever a man may have done, whether good or evil, should berecorded. For example, suppose he has manufactured a stove speciallygood for heating purposes; record the fact. Or suppose he has killed amad dog; record the fact. Or suppose he has built a school, or cleanseda dirty street, or been a pioneer in the teaching of sound farming, orstriven, by word and deed, his life long, to combat officialirregularities. .. Record the fact. Again, suppose a woman has borneten, or fifteen, healthy children; record the fact. Yes, and this lastwith particular care, since the conferment of healthy children upon thecountry is a work of absolute importance. "

Further, pointing to a grey headstone with a worn inscription, heshouted (or almost did so):

"Under that stone lies buried the body of a man who never in his lifeloved but one woman, but ONE woman. Now, THAT is a fact which ought tohave been recorded about him for it is not merely a string of namesthat is wanted, but a narrative of deeds. Yes, I have not only adesire, but a RIGHT, to know the lives which men have lived, and theworks which they have performed; and whenever a man leaves our midst weought to inscribe over his tomb full particulars of the 'cross andburden' which he bore, as particulars ever to be held in remembrance, and inscribed there both for my benefit and for the benefit of life ingeneral, as constituting a clear and circumstantial record of the givencareer. Why did that man live? To the question write down, always, theanswer in large and conspicuous characters. Eh?"

"Most certainly. "

This led the Lieutenant's enthusiasm to increase still more as, for thethird time waving his hand in the direction of the tombs, and mouthingeach word, he continued:

"The folk of that town are liars pure and simple, for of set purposethey conceal the particulars of careers that they may depreciate thosecareers in our eyes, and, while showing us the insignificance of thedead, fill the living with a sense of similar insignificance, sinceinsignificant folk are the easiest to manage. Yes, it is a schemethought out with diabolical ingenuity. Yet, for myself--well, try andmake me do what I don't intend to do!"

To which, with his face wrinkled with disgust, he added in a tone likea shot from a pistol:

"Machines are we! Yes, machines, and nothing else!"

Curious was it to watch the old man's excitement as one listened to thestrong bass voice amid the stillness of the cemetery. Once more overthe tombs, there came floating the languid, metallic notes of "N-n-o-u!N-n-o-u!"

The oily gloss on the withered grass had vanished, faded, andeverything turned dull, though the air remained charged with the springperfume of the geraniums, stocks, and narcissi which encircled some ofthe graves. 

"You see, " continued the Lieutenant, "one could not deny that each ofus has his value. By the time that one has lived threescore years, oneperceives that fact very clearly. Never CONCEAL things, since everylife lived ought to be set in the light. And is capable of being so, inthat every man is a workman for the world at large, and constitutes aninstructor in good or in evil, and that life, when looked into, constitutes, as a whole, the sum of all the labour done by theaggregate of us petty, insignificant individuals. That is why we oughtnot to hide away a man's work, but to publish it abroad, and toinscribe on the cross over his tomb his deeds, his services, in theirentirety. Yes, however negligible may have been those deeds, thoseservices, hold them up for the perusal of those who can discover goodeven in what is negligible. NOW do you understand me?"

"I do, " I replied. "Yes, I do. "

"Good!"

The bell of the monastery struck two hasty beats--then became silent, so that only the sad echo of its voice remained reverberating over thecemetery. Once more my interlocutor drew out his cigarette-case, silently offered it to myself, and lighted and puffed industriously atanother cigarette. As he did so his hands, as small and brown as theclaws of a bird, shook a little, and his head, bent down, looked likean Easter egg in plush. 

Still smoking, he looked me in the eyes with a self-diffident frown, and muttered:

"Only through the labour of man does the earth attain development. Andonly by familiarising himself with, and remembering, the past can manobtain support in his work on earth. "

In speaking, the Lieutenant lowered his arm; whereupon on to his wristthere slipped the broad golden bracelet adorned with a medallion, andthere gazed at me thence the miniature of a fair-haired woman: andsince the hand below it was freckled, and its flexible fingers wereswollen out of shape, and had lost their symmetry, the woman'sfine-drawn face looked the more full of life, and, clearly picked out, could be seen to be smiling a sweet and slightly imperious smile. 

"Your wife or your daughter?" I queried. 

"My God! My God!" was, with a subdued sigh, the only responsevouchsafed. Then the Lieutenant raised his arm, and the bracelet slidback to its resting place under his cuff. 

Over the town the columns of curling smoke were growing redder, and theclattering windows blushing to a tint of pink that recalled to mymemory the livid cheeks of Virubov's "niece, " of the woman in whom, like her uncle, there was nothing that could provoke one to "takeliberties. "

Next, there scaled the cemetery wall and stealthily stretchedthemselves on the ground, so that they looked not unlike the far-flungshadows of the cemetery's crosses, a file of dark, tattered figures ofbeggars, while on the further side of the slowly darkening greenery acantor drawled in sluggish, careless accents:

"E-e-ternal me-e--"

"Eternal memory of what?" exclaimed Lieutenant Khorvat with an angryshrug of his shoulders. "Suppose, in his day, a man has been the bestcucumber-salter or mushroom-pickler in a given town. Or suppose he hasbeen the best cobbler there, or that once he said something which thestreet wherein he dwelt can still remember. Would not THAT man be a manwhose record should be preserved, and made accessible to myrecollection?"

And again the Lieutenant's face wreathed itself in solid rings ofpungent tobacco smoke. 

Blowing softly for a moment, the wind bent the long stems of grass inthe direction of the declining sun, and died away. All that remainedaudible amid the stillness was the peevish voices of women saying:

"To the left, I say. "

"Oh, what is to be done, Tanechka?"

Expelling a fresh cloud of tobacco smoke in cylindrical form, the oldman muttered:

"It would seem that those women have forgotten the precise spot wheretheir relative or friend happens to lie buried. "

As a hawk flew over the sun-reddened belfry-cross, the bird's shadowglided over a memorial stone near the spot where we were sitting, glanced off the corner of the stone, and appeared anew beyond it. Andin the watching of this shadow, I somehow found a pleasant diversion. 

Went on the Lieutenant:

"I say that a graveyard ought to evince the victory of life, thetriumph of intellect and of labour, rather than the power of death. However, imagine how things would work out under my scheme. Under itthe record of which I have spoken would constitute a history of atown's life which, if anything, would increase men's respect for theirfellows. Yes, such a history as THAT is what a cemetery ought to be. Otherwise the place is useless. Similarly will the past prove uselessif it can give us nothing. Yet is such a history ever compiled? If itis, how can one say that events are brought about by, forsooth, 'servants of God'?"

Pointing to the tombs with a gesture as though he were swimming, hepaused for a moment or two. 

"You are a good man, " I said, "and a man who must have lived a good andinteresting life. "

He did not look at me, but answered quietly and thoughtfully:

"At least a man ought to be his fellows' friend, seeing that to them heis beholden for everything that he possesses and for everything that hecontains. I myself have lived--"

Here, with a contraction of his brows, he fell to gazing about him, asthough he were seeking the necessary word; until, seeming to fail tofind it, he continued gravely:

"Men need to be brought closer together, until life shall have becomebetter adjusted. Never forget those who are departed, for anything andeverything in the life of a 'servant of God' may prove instructive andof profound significance. "

On the white sides of the memorial-stones, the setting sun was castingwarm lurid reflections, until the stonework looked as though it hadbeen splashed with hot blood. Moreover, every thing around us seemedcuriously to have swelled and grown larger and softer and less cold ofoutline; the whole scene, though as motionless as ever, appeared tohave taken on a sort of bright-red humidity, and deposited thathumidity in purple, scintillating, quivering dew on the turf's variousspikes and tufts. Gradually, also, the shadows were deepening andlengthening, while on the further side of the cemetery wall a cow lowedat intervals, in a gross and drunken fashion, and a party of fowlscackled what seemed to be curses in response, and a saw grated andscreeched. 

Suddenly the Lieutenant burst into a peal of subdued laughter, andcontinued to do so until his shoulders shook. At length he said throughthe paroxysms, as, giving me a push, he cocked his hat boyishly:

"I must confess that, that--that the view which I first took of you wasrather a tragic one. You see, when I saw a man lying prone on the grassI said to myself: 'H'm! What is that?' Next I saw a young fellowroaming about the cemetery with a frown settled on his face, and hisbreeches bulging; and again I said to myself--"

"A book is lying in my breeches pocket, " I interposed. 

"Ah! Then I understand. Yes, I made a mistake, but a very, welcome one. However, as I say, when I first saw you, I said to myself: 'There is aman lying near that tomb. Perhaps he has a bullet, a wound, in histemple?' And, as you know--"

He stopped to wink at me with another outburst of soft, good-humouredlaughter. Then he continued. 

"Nevertheless, the scheme of which I have told you cannot really becalled a scheme, since it is merely a fancy of my own. Yet I SHOULDlike to see life lived in better fashion. "

He sighed and paused, for evidently he was becoming lost in thought. 

"Unfortunately, " he continued at last, "the latter is a desire which Ihave conceived too late. If only I had done so fifteen years ago, whenI was filling the post of Inspector of the prison at Usman--"

His left arm stretched itself out, and once more there slid on to hiswrist the bracelet. For a moment he touched its gold with a rapid, butcareful, delicate, movement--then he restored the trinket to itsretreat, rose suddenly, looked about him for a second or two with afrown, and said in dry, brisk tones as he gave his iron-grey moustachean energetic twist:

"Now I must be going. "

For a while I accompanied him on his way, for I had a keen desire tohear him say something more in that pleasant, powerful bass of his; butthough he stepped past the gravestones with strides as careful andregular as those of a soldier on parade, he failed again to breaksilence. 

Just as we passed the chapel of the monastery there floated forth intothe fair evening stillness, from the bars, of a window, while yet notreally stirring that stillness, a hum of gruff, lazy, peevishejaculations. Apparently they were uttered by two persons who wereengaged in a dispute, since one of them muttered:

"What have you done? What have you done?"

And the other responded carelessly:

"Hold your tongue, now! Pray hold your tongue!"

ON A RIVER STEAMER

The water of the river was smooth, and dull silver of tint. Also, sobarely perceptible was the current that it seemed to be almost stagnantunder the mist of the noontide heat, and only by the changes in theaspect of the banks could one realise how quietly and evenly the riverwas carrying on its surface the old yellow-hulled steamer with thewhite-rimmed funnel, and also the clumsy barge which was being towed inher wake. 

Dreamily did the floats of the paddle-wheels slap the water. Under theplanks of the deck the engines toiled without ceasing. Steam hissed andpanted. At intervals the engine-room bell jarred upon the car. Atintervals, also, the tiller-chains slid to and fro with a dull, rattling sound. Yet, owing to the somnolent stillness settled upon theriver, these sounds escaped, failed to catch one's attention. 

Through the dryness of the summer the water was low. Periodically, inthe steamer's bow, a deck hand like a king, a man with a lean, yellow, black-avised face and a pair of languishing eyes, threw overboard apolished log as in tones of melting melancholy he chanted:

"Se-em, se-em, shest!"

["Seven, seven, six!" (the depth of water, reckoned in sazheni orfathoms)]

It was as though he were wailing:

"Seyem, seyem, a yest-NISHEVO"

[Let us eat, let us eat, but to eat there is--nothing]

Meanwhile, the steamer kept turning her stearlet-like [The stearlet isa fish of the salmon species] prow deliberately and alternately towardseither bank as the barge yawed behind her, and the grey hawser kepttautening and quivering, and sending out showers of gold and silversparkles. Ever and anon, too, the captain on the bridge kept shouting, hoarsely through a speaking-trumpet:

"About, there!"

Under the stem of the barge a wave ran which, divided into a pair ofwhite wings, serpentined away towards either bank. 

In the meadowed distance peat seemed to be being burnt, and over theblack forest there had gathered an opalescent cloud of smoke which alsosuffused the neighbouring marshes. 

To the right, the bank of the river towered up into lofty, precipitous, clayey slopes intersected with ravines wherein aspens and birches foundshelter. 

Everything ashore had about it a restful, sultry, deserted look. Evenin the dull blue, torrid sky there was nought save a white-hot sun. 

In endless vista were meadows studded with trees--trees sleeping inlonely isolation, and, in places, surmounted with either the cross of arural church which looked like a day star or the sails of a windmill;while further back from the banks lay the tissue cloths of ripeningcrops, with, here and there, a human habitation. 

Throughout, the scene was indistinct. Everything in it was calm, touchingly simple, intimate, intelligible, grateful to the soul. Somuch so that as one contemplated the slowly-varying vistas presented bythe loftier bank, the immutable stretches of meadowland, and the green, timbered dance-rings where the forest approached the river, to gaze atitself in the watery mirror, and recede again into the peacefuldistance; as one gazed at all this one could not but reflect thatnowhere else could a spot more simply, more kindly, more beautiful befound, than these peaceful shores of the great river. 

Yet already a few shrubs by the river's margin were beginning todisplay yellow leaves, though the landscape as a whole was smiling thedoubtful, meditative smile of a young bride who, about to bear herfirst child, is feeling at once nervous and delighted at the prospect. 

 * * * * *

The hour was past noon, and the third-class passengers, languid withfatigue induced by the heat, were engaged in drinking either tea orbeer. Seated mostly on the bulwarks of the steamer, they silentlyscanned the banks, while the deck quivered, crockery clattered at thebuffet, and the deck hand in the bows sighed soporifically:

Six! Six! Six-and-a-half!

From the engine-room a grimy stoker emerged. Rolling along, andscraping his bare feet audibly against the deck, he approached theboatswain's cabin, where the said boatswain, a fair-haired, fair-bearded man from Kostroma was standing in the doorway. The seniorofficial contracted his rugged eyes quizzically, and inquired:

"Whither in such a hurry?"

"To pick a bone with Mitka. "

"Good!"

With a wave of his black hand the stoker resumed his way, while theboatswain, yawning, fell to casting his eyes about him. On a lockernear the companion of the engine-room a small man in a buff pea-jacket, a new cap, and a pair of boots on which there were clots of dried mud, was seated. 

Through lack of diversion the boatswain began to feel inclined tohector somebody, so cried sternly to the man in question:

"Hi there, chawbacon!"

The man on the locker turned about--turned nervously, and much as abullock turns. That is to say, he turned with his whole body. 

"Why have you gone and put yourself THERE?" inquired the boatswain. "Though there is a notice to tell you NOT to sit there, it is therethat you must go and sit! Can't you read?"

Rising, the passenger inspected not the notice, but the locker. Then hereplied:

"Read? Yes, I CAN read. "

"Then why sit there where you oughtn't to?"

"I cannot see any notice. "

"Well, it's hot there anyway, and the smell of oil comes up from theengines. .. . Whence have you come?"

"From Kashira. "

"Long from home?"

"Three weeks, about. "

"Any rain at your place?"

"No. But why?"

"How come your boots are so muddy?"

The passenger lowered his head, extended cautiously first one foot, andthen the other, scrutinised them both, and replied:

"You see, they are not my boots. "

With a roar of laughter that caused his brilliant beard to project fromhis chin, the boatswain retorted:

"I think you must drink a bit. "

The passenger said nothing more, but retreated quietly, and with shortstrides, to the stem. From the fact that the sleeves of his pea-jacketreached far below his wrists, it was clear that the garment hadoriginated from the shoulders of another man. 

As for the boatswain, on noting the circumspection and diffidence withwhich the passenger walked, he frowned, sucked at his beard, approacheda sailor who was engaged in vigorously scrubbing the brass on the doorof the captain's cabin with a naked palm, and said in an undertone:

"Did you happen to notice the gait of that little man there in thelight pea-jacket and dirty boots?"

"I did. "

"Then see here. Do keep an eye upon him. "

"But why? Is he a bad lot?"

"Something like it, I think. "

"I will then. "

At a table near the hatchway of the first-class cabin, a fat man ingrey was drinking beer. Already he had reached a state of moderatefuddlement, for his eyes were protruding sightlessly and staringunwinkingly at the opposite wall. Meanwhile, a number of flies wereswarming in the sticky puddles on the table, or else crawling over hisgreyish beard and the brick-red skin of his motionless features. 

The boatswain winked in his direction, and remarked:

"Half-seas over, HE is. "

"'Tis his way, " a pockmarked, eyebrow-less sailor responded. 

Here the drunken man sneezed: with the result that a cloud of flieswere blown over the table. Looking at them, and sighing as hiscompanion had done, the boatswain thoughtfully observed:

"Why, he regularly sneezes flies, eh?"

 * * * * *

The resting-place which I myself had selected was a stack of firewoodover the stokehole shoot; and as I lay upon it I could see the hillsgradually darkening the water with a mourning veil as calmly theyadvanced to meet the steamer; while in the meadows, a last lingeringglow of the sunset's radiance was reddening the stems of the birches, and making the newly mended roof of a hut look as though it were casedin red fustian--communicating to everything else in the vicinity asemblance of floating amid fire--and effacing all outline, and causingthe scene as a whole to dissolve into streaks of red and orange andblue, save where, on a hill above the hut, a black grove of firs stoodthrown into tense, keen, and clear-cut relief. 

Under a hill a party of fishermen had lit a wood fire, the flames ofwhich could be seen playing upon, and picking out, the white hull of aboat--the dark figure of a man therein, a fishing net suspended fromsome stakes, and a woman in a yellow bodice who was sitting beside thefire. Also, amid the golden radiance there could be distinguished aquivering of the leaves on the lower branches of the tree whereunderthe woman sat shaded. 

All the river was calm, and not a sound occurred to break the stillnessashore, while the air under the awning of the third-class portion ofthe vessel felt as stifling as during the earlier part of the day. Bythis time the conversation of the passengers, damped by the shadow ofdusk, had merged into a single sound which resembled the humming ofbees; and amid it one could not distinguish nor divine who wasspeaking, nor the subject of discussion, since every word thereinseemed disconnected, even though all appeared to be talking amicably, and in order, concerning a common topic. At one moment a suppressedlaugh from a young woman would reach the ear; in the cabin, a party whohad agreed to sing a song of general acceptation were failing to hitupon one, and disputing the point in low and dispassionate accents; andin each, such sound there was something vespertinal, gently sad, softlyprayer-like. 

From behind the firewood near me a thick, rasping voice said indeliberate tones:

"At first he was a useful young fellow enough, and clean and spruce;but lately, he has become shabby and dirty, and is going to the dogs. "

Another voice, loud and gruff, replied:

"Aha! Avoid the ladies, or one is bound to go amiss. "

"The saying has it that always a fish makes for deeper water. "

"Besides, he is a fool, and that is worse still. By the way, he is arelative of yours, isn't he?"

"Yes. He is my brother. "

"Indeed? Then pray forgive me. "

"Certainly; but, to speak plainly, he is a fool. "

At this moment I saw the passenger in the buff pea-jacket approach thesally-port, grasp with his left hand a stanchion, and step on to thegrating under which one of the paddle-wheels was churning the water tofoam. There he stood looking over the bulwarks with a swinging motionakin to that of a bat when, grappling some object or another with itswings, it hangs suspended in the air. The fact that the man's cap wasdrawn tightly over his ears caused the latter to stick out almost tothe point of absurdity. 

Presently he turned and peered into the gloom under the awning, though, seemingly, he failed to distinguish myself reposing on the firewood. This enabled me to gain a clear view of a face with a sharp nose, sometufts of light-coloured hair on cheeks and chin, and a pair of small, muddy-looking eyes. He stood there as though he were listening tosomething. 

All of a sudden he stepped firmly to the sally-port, swiftly unlashedfrom the iron top-rail a mop, and threw it overboard. Then he set aboutunlashing a second article of the same species. 

"Hi!" I shouted to him. "What are you doing there?"

With a start the man turned round, clapped a hand to his forehead todiscover my whereabouts, and replied softly and rapidly, and with astammer in his voice:

"How is that your business? Get away with you!"

Upon this I approached him, for I was astonished and amused at hisimpudence. 

"For what you have done the sailors will make you pay right enough, " Iremarked. 

He tucked up the sleeves of his pea-jacket as though he were preparingfor a fight. Then, stamping his foot upon the slippery grating, hemuttered:

"I perceived the mop to have come untied, and to be in danger offalling into the water through the vibration. Upon that I tried tosecure it, and failed, for it slipped from my hands as I was doing so. "

"But, " I remarked in amazement, "my belief is that you WILLFULLY untiedthe mop, to throw it overboard!"

"Come, come!" he retorted. "Why should I have done that? What anextraordinary thing it would have been to do! How could it have beenpossible?"

Here he dodged me with a dexterous movement, and, rearranging hissleeves, walked away. The length of the pea-jacket made his legs lookabsurdly short, and caused me to notice that in his gait there was atendency to shuffle and hesitate. 

Returning to my retreat, I stretched myself upon the firewood oncemore, inhaled its resinous odour, and fell to listening to theslow-moving dialogue of some of the passengers around me. 

"Ah, good sir, " a gruff, sarcastic voice began at my side--butinstantly a yet gruffer voice intervened with:

"Well?"

"Oh, nothing, except that to ask a question is easy, and to answer itmay be difficult. "

"True. "

From the ravines a mist was spreading over the river. 

 * * * * *

At length night fell, and as folk relapsed into slumber the babel oftongues became stilled. The car, as it grew used to the boisterous roarof the engines and the measured rhythm of the paddle-wheels, did not atfirst notice the new sound born of the fact that into the soundspreviously made familiar there began to intrude the snores ofslumberers, and the padding of soft footsteps, and an excited whisperof:

"I said to him--yes, I said: 'Yasha, you must not, you shall not, dothis. '"

The banks had disappeared from view. Indeed, one continued to bereminded of their existence only by the slow passage of the scatteredfires ashore, and the fact that the darkness lay blacker and denseraround those fires than elsewhere. Dimly reflected in the river, thestars seemed to be absolutely motionless, whereas the trailing, goldenreproductions of the steamer's lights never ceased to quiver, as thoughstriving to break adrift, and float away into the obscurity. Meanwhile, foam like tissue paper was licking our dark hull, while at our stern, and sometimes overtaking it, there trailed a barge with a couple oflanterns in her prow, and a third on her mast, which at one momentmarked the reflections of the stars, and at another became merged withthe gleams of firelight on one or the other bank. 

On a bench under a lantern near the spot where I was lying a stoutwoman was asleep. With one hand resting upon a small bundle under herhead, she had her bodice torn under the armpit, so that the white fleshand a tuft of hair could be seen protruding. Also, her face was large, dark of brow, and full of jowl to a point that caused the cheeks toroll to her very ears. Lastly, her thick lips were parted in anungainly, corpselike smile. 

From my own position on a level higher than hers, I looked dreamilydown upon her, and reflected: "She is a little over forty years of age, and (probably) a good woman. Also, she is travelling to visit eitherher daughter and son-in-law, or her son and daughter-in-law, andtherefore is taking with her some presents. Also, there is in her largeheart much of the excellent and maternal. "

Suddenly something near me flashed as though a match had been struck, and, opening my eyes, I perceived the passenger in the curiouspea-jacket to be standing near the woman spoken of, and engaged inshielding a lighted match with his sleeve. Presently, he extended hishand and cautiously applied the particle of flame to the tuft of hairunder the woman's armpit. There followed a faint hiss, and a noxioussmell of burning hair was wafted to my nostrils. 

I leapt up, seized the man by the collar, and shook him soundly. 

"What are you at?" I exclaimed. 

Turning in my grasp he whispered with a scarcely audible, butexceedingly repulsive, giggle:

"Haven't I given her a good fright, eh?"

Then he added:

"Now, let me go! Let go, I say!"

"Have you lost your wits?" I retorted with a gasp. 

For a moment or two his blinking eyes continued to glance at somethingover my shoulder. Then they returned to me, while he whispered:

"Pray let me go. The truth is that, unable to sleep, I conceived that Iwould play this woman a trick. Was there any harm in that? See, now. She is still asleep. "

As I thrust him away his short legs, legs which might almost have beenamputated, staggered under him. Meanwhile I reflected:

"No, I was NOT wrong. He DID of set purpose throw the mop overboard. What a fellow!"

A bell sounded from the engine-room. 

"Slow!" someone shouted with a cheerful hail. 

Upon that, steam issued with such resounding shrillness that the womanawoke with a jerk of her head; and as she put up her left hand to feelher armpit, her crumpled features gathered themselves into wrinkles. Then she glanced at the lamp, raised herself to a sitting position, and, fingering the place where the hair had been destroyed, said softlyto herself:

"Oh, holy Mother of God!"

Presently the steamer drew to a wharf, and, with a loud clattering, firewood was dragged forth and cast into the stokehole with uncouth, warning cries of "Tru-us-sha!" [The word means ship's hold orstokehole, but here is, probably, equivalent to the English "Headsbelow!"]

Over a little town which had its back pressed against a hill the waningmoon was rising and brightening all the black river, causing it togather life as the radiance laved, as it were, the landscape in warmwater. 

Walking aft, I seated myself among some bales and contemplated thetown's frontage. Over one end of it rose, tapering like awalking-stick, a factory chimney, while at the other end, as well as inthe middle, rose belfries, one of which had a gilded steeple, and theother one a steeple either green or blue, but looking black in themoonlight, and shaped like a ragged paint-brush. 

Opposite the wharf there was stuck in the wide gable of a two-storiedbuilding a lantern which, flickering, diffused but a dull, anaemiclight from its dirty panes, while over the long strip of the brokensignboard of the building there could be seen straggling, and executedin large yellow letters, the words, "Tavern and--" No more of thelegend than this was visible. 

Lanterns were hanging in two or three other spots in the drowsy littletown; and wherever their murky stains of light hung suspended in theair there stood out in relief a medley of gables, drab-tinted trees, and false windows in white paint, on walls of a dull slate colour. 

Somehow I found contemplation of the scene depressing. 

Meanwhile the vessel continued to emit steam as she rocked to and frowith a creaking of wood, a slap-slapping of water, and a scrubbing ofher sides against the wharf. At length someone ejaculated surlily:

"Fool, you must be asleep! The winch, you say? Why, the winch is at thestern, damn you!"

"Off again, thank the Lord!" added the rasping voice already heard frombehind the bales, while to it an equally familiar voice rejoined with ayawn:

"It's time we WERE off!"

Said a hoarse voice:

"Look here, young fellow. What was it he shouted?"

Hastily and inarticulately, with a great deal of smacking of the lipsand stuttering, someone replied:

"He shouted: 'Kinsmen, do not kill me! Have some mercy, for Christ'ssake, and I will make over to you everything--yes, everything into yourgood hands for ever! Only let me go away, and expiate my sins, and savemy soul through prayer. Aye, I will go on a pilgrimage, and remainhidden my life long, to the very end. Never shall you hear of me again, nor see me. ' Then Uncle Peter caught him a blow on the head, and hisblood splashed out upon me. As he fell I--well, I ran away, and madefor the tavern, where I knocked at the door and shouted: 'Sister, theyhave killed our father!' Upon that, she put her head out of the window, but only said: 'That merely means that the rascal is making an excusefor vodka. '. .. Aye, a terrible time it was--was that night! And howfrightened I felt! At first, I made for the garret, but presentlythought to myself: 'No; they would soon find me there, and put me to anend as well, for I am the heir direct, and should be the first tosucceed to the property. ' So I crawled on to the roof, and there layhidden behind the chimney-stack, holding on with arms and legs, whileunable to speak for sheer terror. "

"What were you afraid of?" a brusque voice interrupted. 

"What was I afraid of?"

"At all events, you joined your uncle in killing your father, didn'tyou?"

"In such an hour one has not time to think--one just kills a manbecause one can't help oneself, or because it seems so easy to kill. "

"True, " the hoarser voice commented in dull and ponderous accents. "When once blood has flowed the fact leads to more blood, and if a manhas started out to kill, he cares nothing for any reason--he finds goodenough the reason which comes first to his hand. "

"But if this young fellow is speaking the truth, he had a BUSINESSreason--though, properly speaking, even property ought not to provokequarrels. "

"Similarly one ought not to kill just when one chooses. Folk who commitsuch crimes should have justice meted out to them. "

"Yes, but it is difficult always to obtain such justice. For instance, this young fellow seems to have spent over a year in prison fornothing. "

"'For nothing'? Why, did he not entice his father into the hut, andthen shut the door upon him, and throw a coat over his head? He hassaid so himself. 'For nothing, ' indeed!"

Upon this the rapid stream of sobbed, disconnected words, which I hadheard before from some speaker poured forth anew. Somehow, I guessedthat it came from the man in the dirty boots, as once more he recountedthe story of the murder. 

"I do not wish to justify myself, " he said. "I say merely that, inasmuch as I was promised a reprieve at the trial, I told everything, and was therefore allowed to go free, while my uncle and my brotherwere sentenced to penal servitude. "

"But you KNEW that they had agreed to kill him?"

"Well, it is my idea that at first they intended only to give him agood fright. Never did my father recognise me as his son--always hecalled me a Jesuit. "

The gruffer of the two voices pulled up the speaker. 

"To think, " it said, "that you can actually talk about it all!"

"Why shouldn't I? My father brought tears to the eyes of many aninnocent person. "

"A fig for people's tears! If our causes of tears were one and all tobe murdered, what would the state of things become? Shed tears, butnever blood; for blood is not yours to shed. And even if you shouldbelieve your own blood to be your own, know that it is not so, thatyour blood does not belong to you, but to Someone Else. "

"The point in question was my father's property. It all shows how a manmay live awhile, and earn his living, and then suddenly go amiss, andlose his wits, and even conceive a grudge against his own father. .. . Now I must get some sleep. "

Behind the bales all grew quiet. Presently I rose to peer in thatdirection. The passenger in the buff pea-jacket was sitting huddled upagainst a coil of rope, with his hands thrust into his sleeves, and hischin resting upon his arms. As the moon was shining straight into hisface, I could see that the latter was as livid as that of a corpse, andhad its brows drawn down over its narrow, insignificant eyes. 

Beside him, and close to my head, there was lying stretched on the topof the coil of rope a broad-shouldered peasant in a short smock and apair of patched boots of white felt. The ringlets of the wearer's curlybeard were thrust upwards, and his hands clasped behind his head, andwith ox-like eyes he stared at the zenith where a few stars wereshining, and the moon was beginning to sink. 

At length, in a trumpet-like voice (though he seemed to do his best tosoften it) the peasant asked:

"Your uncle is on that barge, I suppose?"

"He is. And so is my brother. "

"Yet you are here! How strange!"

The dark barge, towed against the steamer's blue-silver wash of foam, was cleaving it like a plough, while under the moon the lights of thebarge showed white, and the hull and the prisoners' cage stood raisedhigh out of the water as to our right the black, indentated bank glidedpast in sinuous convolutions. 

From the whole, soft, liquescent fluid scene, the impression which Iderived was melancholy. It evoked in my spirit a sense of instability, a lack of restfulness. 

"Why are you travelling?"

"Because I wish to have a word with him. "

"With your uncle?"

"Yes. "

"About the property?"

"What else?"

"Then look here, my young fellow. Drop it all--both your uncle and theproperty, and betake yourself to a monastery, and there live and pray. For if you have shed blood, and especially if you have shed the bloodof a kinsman, you will stand for ever estranged from all, while, moreover, bloodshed is a dangerous thing--it may at any time come backupon you. "

"But the property?" the young fellow asked with a lift of his head. 

"Let it go, " the peasant vouchsafed as he closed his eyes. 

On the younger man's face the down twitched as though a wind hadstirred it. He yawned, and looked about him for a moment. Then, descrying myself, he cried in a tone of resentment:

"What are you looking at? And why do you keep following me about?"

Here the big peasant opened his eyes, and, with a glance first at theman, and then at myself, growled:

"Less noise there, you mitten-face!"

 * * * * *

As I retired to my nook and lay down, I reflected that what the bigpeasant had said was apposite enough-that the young fellow's face didin very truth resemble an old and shabby woollen mitten. 

Presently I dreamt that I was painting a belfry, and that, as I did so, huge, goggle-eyed jackdaws kept flying around the belfry's gables, andflapping at me with their wings and hindering my work: until, as Isought to beat them off, I missed my footing, fell to earth, and awoketo find my breath choking amid a dull, sick, painful feeling oflassitude and weakness, and a kaleidoscopic mist quavering before myeyes till it rendered me dizzy. From my head, behind the car, a thinstream of blood was trickling. 

Rising with some difficulty to my feet, I stepped aft to a pump, washedmy head under a jet of cold water, bound it with my handkerchief, and, returning, inspected my resting-place in a state of bewilderment as towhat could have caused the accident to happen. 

On the deck near the spot where I had been asleep, there was standingstacked a pile of small logs prepared for the cook's galley; while, inthe precise spot where my head had rested there was reposing a birchfaggot of which the withy-tie had come unfastened. As I raised thefallen faggot I perceived it to be clean and composed of silky loppingsof birch-bark which rustled as I fingered them; and, consequently, Ireflected that the ceaseless vibration of the steamer must have causedthe faggot to become jerked on to my head. 

Reassured by this plausible explanation of the unfortunate, but absurd, occurrence of which I have spoken, I next returned to the stern, wherethere were no oppressive odours to be encountered, and whence a goodview was obtainable. 

The hour was the turn of the night, the hour of maximum tension beforedawn, the hour when all the world seems plunged in a profundity ofslumber whence there can be no awakening, and when the completeness ofthe silence attunes the soul to special sensibility, and when the starsseem to be hanging strangely close to earth, and the morning star, inparticular, to be shining as brightly as a miniature sun. Yet alreadyhad the heavens begun to grow coldly grey, to lose their nocturnalsoftness and warmth, while the rays of the stars were drooping likepetals, and the moon, hitherto golden, had turned pale and becomedusted over with silver, and moved further from the earth as intangiblythe water of the river sloughed its thick, viscous gleam, and swiftlyemitted and withdrew, stray, pearly reflections of the changesoccurring in the heavenly tints. 

In the east there was rising, and hanging suspended over the blackspears of the pine forest, a thin pink mist the sensuous hue of whichwas glowing ever brighter, and assuming a density ever greater, andstanding forth more boldly and clearly, even as a whisper of timidprayer merges into a song of exultant thankfulness. Another moment, andthe spiked tops of the pines blazed into points of red fire resemblingfestival candles in a sanctuary. 

Next, an unseen hand threw over the water, drew along its surface, atransparent and many-coloured net of silk. This was the morning breeze, herald of dawn, as with a coating of tissue-like, silvery scales itrippled the river until the eye grew weary of trying to follow the playof gold and mother-of-pearl and purple and bluish-green reflected fromthe sun-renovated heavens. 

Next, like a fan there unfolded themselves the first sword-shaped beamsof day, with their tips blindingly white; while simultaneously oneseemed to hear descending from an illimitable height a dense sound-waveof silver bells, a sound-wave advancing triumphantly to greet the sunas his roseate rim became visible over the forest like the rim of a cupthat, filled with the essence of life, was about to empty its contentsupon the earth, and to pour a bounteous flood of creative puissanceupon the marshes whence a reddish vapour as of incense was arising. Meanwhile on the more precipitous of the two banks some of the treesnear the river's margin were throwing soft green shadows over thewater, while gilt-like dew was sparkling on the herbage, and birds wereawakening, and as a white gull skimmed the water's surface on levelwings, the pale shadow of those wings followed the bird over the tintedexpanse, while the sun, suspended in flame behind the forest, like theImperial bird of the fairy-tale, rose higher and higher into thegreenish-blue zenith, until silvery Venus, expiring, herself lookedlike a bird. 

Here and there on the yellow strip of sand by the river's margin, long-legged snipe were scurrying about. Two fishermen were rocking in aboat in the steamer's wash as they hauled their tackle. Floating fromthe shore there began to reach us such vocal sounds of morning as thecrowing of cocks, the lowing of cattle, and the persistent murmur ofhuman voices. 

Similarly the buff-coloured bales in the steamer's stem graduallyreddened, as did the grey tints in the beard of the large peasantwhere, sprawling his ponderous form over the deck, he was lying asleepwith mouth open, nostrils distended with stertorous snores, browsraised as though in astonishment, and thick moustache intermittentlytwitching. 

Someone amid the piles of bales was panting as he fidgeted, and as Iglanced in that direction I encountered the gaze of a pair of small, narrow, inflamed eyes, and beheld before me the ragged, mitten-likeface, though now it looked even thinner and greyer than it had done onthe previous evening. Apparently its owner was feeling cold, for he hadhunched his chin between his knees, and clasped his hirsute arms aroundhis legs, as his eyes stared gloomily, with a hunted air, in mydirection. Then wearily, lifelessly he said:

"Yes, you have found me. And now you can thrash me if you wish to doso--you can give me a blow, for I gave you one, and, consequently, it'syour turn to do the hitting. "

Stupefied with astonishment, I inquired in an undertone. 

"It was you, then, that hit me?"

"It was so, but where are your witnesses?"

The words came in hoarse, croaked, suppressed accents, with aseparation of the hands, and an upthrow of the head and projecting carswhich had such a comical look of being crushed beneath the weight ofthe battened-down cap. Next, thrusting his hands into the pockets ofhis pea-jacket, the man repeated in a tone of challenge:

"Where, I say, are your witnesses? You can go to the devil!"

I could discern in him something at once helpless and froglike whichevoked in me a strong feeling of repulsion; and since, with that, I hadno real wish to converse with him, or even to revenge myself upon himfor his cowardly blow, I turned away in silence. 

But a moment later I looked at him again, and saw that he was seated inhis former posture, with his arms embracing his knees, his chin restingupon them, and his red, sleepless eyes gazing lifelessly at the bargewhich the steamer was towing between wide ribbons of foamingwater--ribbons sparkling in the sunlight like mash in a brewer's vat. 

And those eyes, that dead, alienated expression, the gay cheerfulnessof the morning, and the clear radiance of the heavens, and the kindlytints of the two banks, and the vocal sounds of the June day, and thebracing freshness of the air, and the whole scene around us served butto throw into the more tragic relief. 

 * * * * *

Just as the steamer was leaving Sundir the man threw himself into thewater; in the sight of everybody he sprang overboard. Upon that allshouted, jostled their neighbours as they rushed to the side, and fellto scanning the river where from bank to bank it lay wrapped inblinding glitter. 

The whistle sounded in fitful alarm, the sailors threw lifebeltsoverboard, the deck rumbled like a drum under the crowd's surgingrush, steam hissed afflightedly, a woman vented an hysterical cry, andthe captain bawled from the bridge the imperious command:

"Avast heaving lifebelts! By now the fool will have got one! Damn you, calm the passengers!"

An unwashed, untidy priest with timid, staring eyes thrust back hislong, dishevelled hair, and fell to repeating, as his fat shoulderjostled all and sundry, and his feet tripped people up. 

"A muzhik, is it, or a woman? A muzhik, eh?"

By the time that I had made my way to the stern the man had fallen farbehind the stern of the barge, and his head looked as small as a fly onthe glassy surface of the water. However, towards that fly afishing-boat was already darting with the swiftness of a water beetle, and causing its two oars to show quiveringly red and grey, while fromthe marshier of the two banks there began hastily to put out a secondboat which leapt in the steamer's wash with the gaiety of a young calf. 

Suddenly there broke into the painful hubbub on the steamer's deck afaint, heartrending cry of "A-a-ah!"

In answer to it a sharp-nosed, black-bearded, well-dressed peasantmuttered with a smack of his lips:

"Ah! That is him shouting. What a madman he must have been! And an uglycustomer too, wasn't he?"

The peasant with the curly beard rejoined in a tone of convictionengulfing all other utterances:

"It is his conscience that is catching him. Think what you like, butnever can conscience be suppressed. "

Therewith, constantly interrupting one another, the pair betookthemselves to a public recital of the tragic story of the fair-hairedyoung fellow, whom the fishermen had now lifted from the water, andwere conveying towards the steamer with oars that oscillated at topspeed. 

The bearded peasant continued:

"As soon as it was seen that he was but running after the soldier'swife. "

"Besides, " the other peasant interrupted, "the property was not to bedivided after the death of the father. "

With which the bearded muzhik eagerly recounted the history of themurder done by the brother, the nephew, and a son, while the spruce, spare, well-dressed peasant interlarded the general buzz ofconversation with words and comments cheerfully and stridentlydelivered, much as though he were driving in stakes for the erection ofa fence. 

"Every man is drawn most in the direction whither he finds it easiestto go. "

"Then it will be the Devil that will be drawing him, since thedirection of Hell is always the easiest. "

"Well, YOU will not be going that way, I suppose? You don't altogetherfancy it?"

"Why should I?"

"Because you have declared it to be the easiest way. "

"Well, I am not a saint. "

"No, ha-ha! you are not. "

"And you mean that--?"

"I mean nothing. If a dog's chain be short, he is not to be blamed. "

Whereupon, setting nose to nose, the pair plunged into a quarrel stillmore heated as they expounded in simple, but often curiously apposite, language opinions intelligible to themselves alone. The one peasant, alean fellow with lengthy limbs, cold, sarcastic eyes, and a dark, bonycountenance, spoke loudly and sonorously, with frequent shrugs of theshoulders, while the other peasant, a man stout and broad of build whountil now had seemed calm, self-assured of demeanour, and a man ofsettled views, breathed heavily, while his oxlike eyes glowed with anardour causing his face to flush patchily, and his beard to stick outfrom his chin. 

"Look here, for instance, " he growled as he gesticulated and rolled hisdull eyes about. "How can that be? Does not even God know wherein a manought to restrain himself?"

"If the Devil be one's master, God doesn't come into the matter. "

"Liar! For who was the first who raised his hand against his fellow?"

"Cain. "

"And the first man who repented of a sin?"

"Adam. "

"Ah! You see!"

Here there broke into the dispute a shout of: "They are just gettinghim aboard!" and the crowd, rushing away from the stern, carried withit the two disputants--the sparer peasant; lowering his shoulders, andbuttoning up his jacket as he went; while the bearded peasant, following at his heels, thrust his head forward in a surly manner as heshifted his cap from the one ear to the other. 

With a ponderous beating of paddles against the current the steamerheaved to, and the captain shouted through a speaking-trumpet, with aview to preventing a collision between the barge and the stem of thevessel:

"Put her over! Put her o-o-ove-r!"

Soon the fishing-boat came alongside, and the half-drowned man, with aform as limp as a half-empty sack, and water exuding from every stitch, and his hitherto haggard face grown smooth and simple-looking, washoisted on board. 

Next, on the sailors laying him upon the hatchway of the baggage hold, he sat up, leaned forward, smoothed his wet hair with the palms of hishands, and asked dully, without looking at anyone:

"Have they also recovered my cap?"

Someone among the throng around him exclaimed reprovingly:

"It is not about your cap that you ought to be thinking, but about yoursoul. "

Upon this he hiccuped loudly and freely, like a camel, and emitted astream of turgid water from his mouth. Then, looking at the crowd withlack-lustre eyes, he said in an apathetic tone:

"Let me be taken elsewhere. "

In answer, the boatswain sternly bade him stretch himself out, and thisthe young fellow did, with his hands clasped under his head, and hiseyes closed, while the boatswain added brusquely to the onlookers:

"Move away, move away, good people. What is there to stare at? This isnot a show. .. . Hi, you muzhik! Why did you play us such a trick, damn you?"

The crowd however, was not to be suppressed, but indulged in comments. 

"He murdered his father, didn't he?"

"What? THAT wretched creature?"

As for the boatswain, he squatted upon his heels, and proceeded tosubject the rescued man to a course of strict interrogation. 

"What is the destination marked on your ticket?"

"Perm. "

"Then you ought to leave the boat at Kazan. And what is your name?"

"Yakov. "

"And your surname?"

"Bashkin--though we are known also as the Bukolov family. "

"Your family has a DOUBLE surname, then?"

With the full power of his trumpet-like lungs the bearded peasant(evidently he had lost his temper) broke in:

"Though his uncle and his brother have been sentenced to penalservitude and are travelling together on that barge, he--well, he hasreceived his discharge! That is only a personal matter, however. Inspite of what judges may say, one ought never to kill, since consciencecannot bear the thought of blood. Even nearly to become a murderer iswrong. "

By this time more and more passengers had collected as they awakenedfrom sleep and emerged from the first- and second-class cabins. Amongthem was the mate, a man with a black moustache and rubicund featureswho inquired of someone amid the confusion: "You are not a doctor, Isuppose?" and received the astonished, high-pitched reply: "No, sir, nor ever have been one. "

To this someone added with a drawl:

"Why is a doctor needed? Surely the man is a fellow of no particularimportance?"

Over the river the radiance of the summer daylight had gatheredincreased strength, and, since the date was a Sunday, bells weresounding seductively from a hill, and a couple of women in gala apparelwho were following the margin of the river waved handkerchiefs towardsthe steamer, and shouted some greeting. 

Meanwhile the young fellow lay motionless, with his eyes closed. Divested of his pea-jacket, and wrapped about with wet, clingingunderclothing, he looked more symmetrical than previously--his chestseemed better developed, his body plumper, and his face more rotund andless ugly. 

Yet though the passengers gazed at him with compassion or distaste orseverity or fear, as the case might be, all did so without ceremony, asthough he had not been a living man at all. 

For instance, a gaunt gentleman in a grey frock-coat said to a lady ina yellow straw hat adorned with a pink ribbon:

"At our place, in Riazan, when a certain master-watchmaker went andhanged himself to a ventilator, he first of all stopped every watch andclock in his shop. Now, the question is, why did he stop them?"

"An abnormal case indeed!"

On the other hand, a dark-browed woman who had her hands hidden beneathher shawl stood gazing at the rescued man in silence, and with her sideturned towards him. As she did so tears were welling in her grey-blueeyes. 

Presently two sailors appeared. One of them bent over the young fellow, touched him on the shoulder, and said:

"Hi! You are to get up. "

Whereupon the young fellow rose, and was removed elsewhither. 

 * * * * *

When, after an interval, he reappeared on deck, he was clean and dry, and clad in a cook's white jumper and a sailor's blue serge trousers. Clasping his hands behind his back, hunching his shoulders, and bendinghis head forward, he walked swiftly to the stern, with a throng ofidlers--at first one by one, and then in parties of from three to adozen--following in his wake. 

The man seated himself upon a coil of rope, and, craning his neck inwolf-like fashion to eye the bystanders, frowned, let fall his templesupon hands thrust into his flaxen hair, and fixed his gaze upon thebarge. 

Standing or sitting about in the hot sunshine, people stared at himwithout stint. Evidently they would have liked, but did not dare, toengage him in conversation. Presently the big peasant also arrived onthe scene, and, after glancing at all present, took off his hat, andwiped his perspiring face. Next, a grey-headed old man with a red nose, a thin wisp of beard, and watery eyes cleared his throat, and inhoneyed tones took the initiative. 

"Would you mind telling us how it all happened?" he began. 

"Why should I do so?" retorted the young fellow without moving. 

Taking a red handkerchief from his bosom, the old man shook it out andapplied it cautiously to his eyes. Then he said through its folds inthe quiet accents of a man who is determined to persevere:

"Why, you say? For the reason that the occasion is one when all oughtto know the tru--"

Lurching forward, the bearded peasant interposed with a rasp:

"Yes, do you tell us all about it, and things will become easier foryou. For a sin always needs to be made known. "

While, like an echo, a voice said in bold and sarcastic accents:

"It would be better to seize him and tie him up. "

Upon this the young fellow raised his brows a little, and retorted inan undertone:

"Let me bide. "

"The rascal!" the crowd commented, while the old man, neatly foldingand replacing his handkerchief, raised a hand as dry as a cock's leg, and remarked with a sharp, knowing smile:

"Possibly it is not merely out of idle curiosity that folk are makingthis request. "

"Go and be damned to you!" the young fellow exclaimed with a grim snap. Whereupon the big peasant bellowed out in a blustering fashion:

"What? Then you will not tell us at least your destination?"

Whereafter the same speaker continued to hold forth on humanity, God, and the human conscience--staring wildly around him as he did so, waving his arms about, and growing ever more frantic, until really itwas curious to watch him. 

At length the crowd grew similarly excited, and took to encouraging thespeaker with cries of "True! That is so!"

As for the young fellow, he listened awhile in silence, without moving. Then, straightening his back, he rose, thrust his hands into thepockets of his trousers, and, swaying his body to and fro, began toglare at the crowd with greenish eyes which were manifestly lighteningto a vicious gleam. At length, thrusting forth his chest, he criedhoarsely:

"So you ask me whither I am bound? I am bound for the brigands' lair, for the brigands' lair, where, unless you first take and put me infetters, I intend to cut the throat of every man that I meet. Yes, ahundred murders will I commit, for all folk will be the same to me, andnot a soul will I spare. Aye, the end of my tether is reached, so takeand fetter me whilst you can. "

His breath was issuing with difficulty, and as he spoke his shouldersheaved, and his legs trembled beneath him. Also, his face had turnedgrey and become distorted with tremors. 

Upon this, the crowd broke into a gruff, ugly, resentful roar, andedged away from the man. Yet, in doing so, many of its members lookedcuriously like the man himself in the way that they lowered theirheads, caught at their breath, and let their eyes flash. Clearly theman was in imminent danger of being assaulted. 

Suddenly he recovered his subdued demeanour--he, as it were, thawed inthe sunlight: until, as suddenly, his legs gave way beneath him, and, narrowly escaping injury to his face from the corner of a bale, he fellforward upon his knees as though felled with an axe. Thereafter, clutching at his throat, he shouted in a strange voice, and crowdingthe words upon one another:

"Tell me what I am to do. Is all of it my fault? Long I lay in prisonbefore I was tried and told to go free. .. Yet--"

Tearing at his ears and cheeks, he rocked his head to and fro as thoughseeking to rend it from its socket. Then he continued:

"Yet I am NOT free. Nor is it in my power to say what will become ofme. For me there remains neither life nor death. "

"Aha!" exclaimed the big peasant; and at the sound the crowd drew backas in consternation, while some hastened to depart altogether. As forthe remainder (numbering a dozen or so), they herded sullenly, nervously, involuntarily into a mass as the young fellow continued indistracted tones and with a trembling head:

"Oh that I could sleep for the next ten years! For then could I provemyself, and decide whether I am guilty or not. Last night I struck aman with a faggot. As I was walking about I saw asleep a man who hadangered me, and thereupon thought, 'Come! I should like to deal him ablow, but can I actually do it?' And strike him I did. Was it my fault?Always I keep asking myself, 'Can I, or can I not, do a thing?' Aye, lost, lost am I!"

Apparently this outburst caused the man to reach the end of his power, for presently he sank from knees to heels--then on to his side, withhands clasping his head, and his tongue finally uttering the words, "Better had you kill me!"

A hush fell, for all now stood confounded and silent, with, about them, a greyer, a more subdued, look which made all more resemble theirfellows. In fact, to all had the atmosphere become oppressive, asthough everyone's breast had had clamped into it a large, soft clod ofhumid, viscid earth. Until at last someone said in a low, shamefaced, but friendly, tone:

"Good brother, we are not your judges. "

To which someone else added with an equal measure of gentleness:

"Indeed, we may be no better than you. "

"We pity you, but we must not judge you. Only pity is permitted. "

As for the well-dressed peasant, his loud, triumphant utterance was:

"Let God judge him, but men suffer him. Of judging of one another therehas been enough. "

And a fifth man remarked to a friend as he walked away:

"What are we to make of this? To judge by the book, the young fellow isat once guilty and not guilty. "

"Bygones ought to be bygones. Of all courses that is the best. "

"Yes, for we are too quick. What good can that do?"

"Aye, what?"

At length the dark-browed woman stepped forward. Letting her shawl toher shoulders, straightening hair streaked with grey under a brightblue scarf, and deftly putting aside a skirt she so seated herselfbeside the young fellow as to screen from the crowd with the height ofher figure. Then, raising kindly face, she said civilly, butauthoritatively, to the bystanders:

"Do all of you go away. "

Whereupon the crowd began to depart, the big peasant saying as he went:

"There! Just as I foretold has the matter turned out. Conscience HASasserted itself. "

Yet the words were spoken without self-complacency, rather, thoughtfully, and with a sense of awe. 

As for the red-nosed old man who was walking like a shadow behind thelast speaker, he opened his snuff-box, peered therein with his moisteyes, and drawled to no one in particular:

"How often does one see a man play with conscience, yes, even though hebe a rogue! He erects that conscience as a screen to his knaveries andtricks and wiles, and masks the whole with a cloud of words. Yes, weknow how it is done, even though folk may stare at him, and say to oneanother, 'How fervently his soul is glowing!' Aye, all the time that heis holding his hand to his heart he will be dipping the other hand intoyour pocket. "

The lover of proverbs, for his part, unbuttoned his jacket, thrust hishands under his coat-tails, and said in a loud voice:

"There is a saying that you can trust any wild beast, such as a fox ora hedgehog or a toad, but not--"

"Quite so, dear sir. The common folk are exceedingly degenerate. "

"Well, they are not developing as they ought to do. "

"No, they are over-cramped, " was the big peasant's rasped-out comment. "They have no room for GROWTH. "

"Yes, they DO grow, but only as regards beard and moustache, as a treegrows to branch and sap. "

With a glance at the purveyor of proverbs the old man assented byremarking: "Yes, true it is that the common folk are cramped. "Whereafter he thrust a pinch of snuff into his nostrils, and threw backhis head in anticipation of the sneeze which failed to come. At length, drawing a deep breath through his parted lips, he said as he measuredthe peasant again with his eyes:

"My friend, you are of a sort calculated to last. "

In answer the peasant nodded. 

"SOME day, " he remarked, "we shall get what we want. "

In front of us now, was Kazan, with the pinnacles of its churches andmosques piercing the blue sky, and looking like garlands of exoticblooms. Around them lay the grey wall of the Kremlin, and above themsoared the grim Tower of Sumbek. 

Here one and all were due to disembark. 

I glanced towards the stern once more. The dark-browed woman wasbreaking off morsels from a wheaten scone that was lying in her lap, and saying as she did so:

"Presently we will have a cup of tea, and then keep together as far asChristopol. "

In response the young fellow edged nearer to her, and thoughtfully eyedthe large hands which, though inured to hard work, could also be verygentle. 

"I have been trodden upon, " he said. 

"Trodden upon by whom?"

"By all. And I am afraid of them. "

"Why so?"

"Because I am. "

Breathing upon a morsel of the scone, the woman offered it him with thequiet words:

"You have had much to bear. Now, shall I tell you my history, or shallwe first have tea?"

 * * * * *

On the bank there was now to be seen the frontage of the gay, wealthysuburb of Uslon, with its brightly-dressed, rainbow-tinted women andgirls tripping through the streets, and the water of its foaming riversparkling hotly, yet dimly, in the sunlight. 

It was a scene like a scene beheld in a vision. 

A WOMAN

The wind is scudding over the steppe, and beating upon the rampart ofthe Caucasian heights until their backbone seems to be bellying like ahuge sail, and the earth to be whirling and whizzing throughunfathomable depths of blue, and leaving behind it a rack of wind-tornclouds which, as their shadows glide over the surface of the land, seemever to be striving to keep in touch with the onrush of the gale, and, failing to maintain the effort, dissolving in tears and despondency. 

The trees too are bending in the attitude of flight--their boughs arebrandishing their foliage as a dog worries a fleece, and littering theblack soil with leaves among which runs a constant querulous hissingand rustling. Also, storks are uttering their snapping cry, sleek rookscawing, steppe grasshoppers maintaining their tireless chirp, sturdy, well-grown husbandmen uttering shouts like words of command, thethreshing-floors of the rolling steppe diffusing a rain of goldenchaff, and eddying whirlwinds catching up stray poultry feathers, dried-onion strips, and leaves yellowed with the heat, to send themdancing again over the trim square of the little Cossack hamlet. 

Similarly does the sun keep appearing and disappearing as though hewere pursuing the fugitive earth, and ever and anon halting throughweariness before his decline into the dark, shadowy vista where thesnowclad peaks of the western mountains are rearing their heads, andfast-reddening clouds are reminding one of the surface of a ploughedfield. 

At times those clouds part their bulk to reveal in blinding splendourthe silvery saddle of Mount Elburz, and the crystal fangs of otherpeaks--all, apparently, striving to catch and detain the scuddingvapours. And to such a point does one come to realise the earth'sflight through space that one can scarcely draw one's breath for thetension, the rapture, of the thought that with the rush of that dearand beautiful earth oneself is keeping pace towards, and ever tendingtowards, the region where, behind the eternal, snow-clad peaks, therelies a boundless ocean of blue--an ocean beside which there may liestretched yet other proud and marvellous lands, a void of azure amidwhich one may come to descry far-distant, many-tinted spheres ofplanets as yet unknown, but sisters, all, to this earth of ours. 

Meanwhile from the steppe slow, ponderous grey oxen with sharp hornsare drawing an endless succession of wagon-loads of threshed grainthrough rich, black, sootlike dust. Patiently the beasts' round eyesregard the earth, while on the top of each load there lolls a Cossackwho, with face sunburnt to the last pitch of swarthiness, and eyesreddened with exposure to the wind, and beard matted, seeminglysolidified, with dust and sweat, is clad in a shirt drab with grime, and has a shaggy Persian cap thrust to the back of his head. Occasionally, also, he may be seen riding on the pole in front of histeam, and being buffeted from behind by the wind which inflates hisshirt. And as sleek and comfortable as the carcasses of the bullocksare these Cossacks' frames in proportion their eyes are sluggishlyintelligent, and in their every movement is the deliberate air of menwho know precisely what they have to do. 

"Tsob, tsobe!" such fellows shout to their teams. This year they arereaping a splendid harvest. 

Yet though these folk, one and all, look fat and prosperous, their mienis dour, and they speak reluctantly, and through their teeth. Possiblythis is because they are over-weary with toil. However that may be, thefull-fed country people of the region laugh but little, and seldom sing. 

In the centre of the hamlet soars the red brick church of the place--anedifice which, with its five pinnacles, its belfry over its porch, andits yellow plaster window-mouldings, looks like an edifice that hasbeen fashioned of meat, and cemented with grease. Nay, its very shadowseems so richly heavy as to be the shadow of a fane erected by menendowed with a plethora of this world's goods to a god otiose in hisgrandeur. Ranged around the building in ring fashion, the hamlet'ssquat white huts stand girdled with belts of plaited wattle, shawled inthe gorgeous silken scarves of gardens, and crowned with a floweredbrocadework of reed-thatched roofs. In fact, they resemble a bevy ofbuxom babi, [Peasant women] as over and about them wave silver poplartrees, with quivering, lacelike leaves of acacias, and dark-leavedchestnuts (the leaves of the latter like the palms of human hands)which rock to and fro as though they would fain seize, and detain thedriving clouds. Also, from court to court scurry Cossack women who, with skirt-tails tucked up to reveal muscular legs bare to the knee, are preparing to array themselves for the morrow's festival, and, meanwhile, chattering to one another, or shouting to plump infantswhich may be seen bathing in the dust like sparrows, or picking uphandfuls of sand, and tossing them into the air. 

Sheltered from the wind by the churchyard wall, there may be seen also, as they sprawl on the dry, faded herbage, a score of "strollers forwork" that is to say, of folk who, a community apart, consist of"nowhere people, " of dreamers who live constantly in expectation ofsome stroke of luck, some kindly smile from fortune, and of wastrelswho, intoxicated with the abundant bounty of the opulent region, havefallen passive victims to the Russian craze for vagrancy. These folktramp from hamlet to hamlet in parties of two or three, and, whilepurporting to seek employment, merely contemplate that employmentlethargically, express astonishment at the plenitude which it produces, and then decline to put their hands to toil save when dire necessityrenders it no longer possible to satisfy hunger's pangs through theexpedients of mendicancy and theft. Dull, or cowed, or timid, orfurtive of eye, these folk have lost all sense of the differencebetween that which constitutes honesty and that which does not. 

The morrow being the Feast of the Assumption, these people have, in thepresent instance, gathered from every quarter of the country, for thereason that they hope to be provided with food and drink without firstbeing made to earn their entertainment. 

For the most part they are Russians from the central provinces, vagabonds whose faces are blackened, and heads blanched with theunaccustomed sunshine of the South, but whose bodies are clad merely inrags tossed and tumbled by the wind. True, the wearers of those ragsdeclare themselves to be peaceful, respectable citizens whom toil andlife's buffetings have exhausted, and compelled to seek temporary restand prayer; yet never does a creaking, groaning, ponderous grain wagon, with its Cossack driver, pass them by without their according thelatter a humble, obsequious salute as, with straw in mouth, andomitting, always, to raise his cap, the man glances at them askance andwith contempt, or, more frequently, does not even descry thesetattered, grimy hulks between whom and himself there is absolutelynothing in common. 

Lower even, and more noticeably, more pretentiously, than the rest doesa certain "needy" native of Tula named Konev salute each Cossack. Ahardbitten muzhik as sunburnt as a stick of ergot, he has a black bearddistributed irregularly over a lean face, a fawning smile, and eyesdeep-sunken in their sockets. 

Most of these persons I have met for the first time today; but Konev isan old acquaintance of mine, for he and I have more than onceencountered one another on the road between Kursk and the province ofTer. An "artelni, " that is to say, a member of a workman's union, hecultivates his fellows' good graces for the reason that he is also anarrant coward, and accustomed, everywhere save in his own village(which lies buried among the sands of Alexin), to assert that:

"Certainly, this countryside is rich, yet I cannot hit things off withits inhabitants. In my own part of the country folk are more spiritual, more truly Russian, by far than here--they are folk with whom thenatives of this region are not to be compared, since in the onelocality the population has a human soul, whereas in the other localityit is a flint-stone. "

And with a certain quiet reflectiveness, he loves also to recount amarvellous example of unlooked-for enrichment. He will say to you:

"Maybe you do not believe in the virtue of horseshoes? Yet I tell YOUthat once, when a certain peasant of Efremov found a horseshoe, thenext three weeks saw it befall that that peasant's uncle, a tradesmanof Efremov, was burnt to death with all his family, and the propertydevolved to the peasant. Did you ever hear of such a thing? What isgoing to happen CANNOT be foretold, for at any moment fortune may pitya man, and send him a windfall. "

As Konev says this his dark, pointed eyebrows will go shooting up hisforehead, and his eyes come protruding out of their sockets, as thoughhe himself cannot believe what he has just related. 

Again, should a Cossack pass him without returning his salute, he willmutter as he follows the man with his eyes:

"An overfed fellow, that--a fellow who can't even look at a humanbeing! The souls of these folk, I tell you, are withered. "

On the present occasion he has arrived on the scene in company with twowomen. One of them, aged about twenty, is gentle-looking, plump, andglassy of eye, with a mouth perpetually half-open, so that the facelooks like that of an imbecile, and though the exposed teeth of itslower portion may seem to be set in a smile, you will perceive, shouldyou peer into the motionless eyes under the overhanging brows, that shehas recently been weeping in the terrified, hysterical fashion of aperson of weak intellect. 

I have come here with that man and other strangers thus I heard hernarrate in low, querulous tones as with a stumpy finger she rearrangedthe faded hair under her yellow and green scarf. 

A fat-faced youth with high cheek-bones and the small eyes of a Mongolhere nudged her, and said carelessly:

"You mean, rather, that your own man has cast you off. Probably he wasthe only man you ever saw. "

"Aye, " Konev drawled thoughtfully as he felt in his wallet. "Nowadaysfolk need think little of deserting a woman, since in this year ofgrace women are no good at all. "

Upon this the woman frowned--then blinked her eyes timidly, and wouldhave opened her lips to reply, but that her companion interrupted herby saying in a brisk, incisive tone:

"Do not listen to those rascals!"

 * * * * *

The woman's companion, some five or six years her senior, has a faceexceptional in the constant change and movement of its great dark eyesas at one moment they withdraw themselves from the street of theCossack hamlet, to gaze fixedly and gravely towards the steppe where itlies scoured with the scudding breeze, and at another moment fall toscanning the faces of the persons around her, and, at another, frownanxiously, or send a smile flitting across her comely lips as she bendsher head, until her features are concealed. Next, the head is raisedagain, for the eyes have taken on another phase, and become dilatedwith interest, while a sharp furrow is forming between the slendereyebrows, and the finely moulded lips and trim mouth have compressedthemselves together, and the thin nostrils of the straight nose aresnuffing the air like those of a horse. 

In fact, in the woman there is something non-peasant in its origin. Forinstance, let one but watch her sharply clicking feet as, in walking, they peep from under her blue skirt, and one will perceive that theyare not the splayed feet of a villager, but, rather, feet arched ofinstep, and at one time accustomed to the wearing of boots. Or, as thewoman sits engaged in embroidering a blue bodice with a pattern ofwhite peas, one will perceive that she has long been accustomed toplying the needle so dexterously; swiftly do the small, sunburnt handsfly in and out under the tumbled material, eagerly though the wind maystrive to wrest it from her. Again, as she sits bending over her work, one will descry through a rent in her bodice a small, firm bosom whichmight almost have been that of a virgin, were it not for the fact thata projecting teat proclaims that she is a woman preparing to suckle aninfant. In short, as she sits among her companions she looks like afragment of copper flung into the midst of some rusty old scrap-iron. 

Most of the people in whose society I wander neither rise to greatheights nor sink to great depths, but are as colourless as dust, andwearisomely insignificant. Hence is it that whenever I chance upon aperson whose soul I can probe and explore for thoughts unfamiliar to meand words not hitherto heard I congratulate myself, seeing that thoughit is my desire to see life grow more fair and exalted, and I yearn tobring about that end, there constantly reveals itself to me merely avista of sharp angles and dark spaces and poor crushed, defraudedpeople. Yes, never do I seek to project a spark of my own fire into thedarkness of my neighbour's soul but I see that spark disappear, becomelost, in a chaos of dumb vacuity. 

Hence the woman of whom I have just spoken particularly excites myfancy, and leads me to attempt divinations of her past, until I findmyself evolving a story which is not only of vast complexity, but hasgot painted into it merely the colours of my own hopes and aspirations. It is a story necessarily illusory, necessarily bound to make life seemeven worse than before. Yet it is a grievous thing NEVER to distortactuality, NEVER to envelop actuality in the wrappings of one'simagination. .. . 

Closing his eyes, and picking his words with difficulty, a tall, fairpeasant drawls in thick, gluelike tones:

"'Very well, ' I said: and off we set. On the way I said again: 'Gubin, though you may not like to be told so, you are no better than a thief. '"

The o's uttered by this peasant are uniformly round and firm--they rollforward as a cartwheel trundles along a hot, dusty country road. 

The youth with the high cheek-bones fixes the whites of his porcineeyes (eyes the pupils of which are as indeterminate as the eyes of ablind man) upon the woman in the green scarf. Then, having, like acalf, plucked and chewed some stalks of the withered grass, he rolls upthe sleeves of his shirt, bends one fist into the crook of the elbow, and says to Konev with a glance at the well-developed muscle:

"Should you care to hit me?"

"No, you can hit yourself. Hit yourself over the head. Then, perhaps, you'll grow wiser. "

Stolidly the young fellow looks at Konev, and inquires:

"How do you know me to be a fool?"

"Because your personality tells me so. "

"Eh?" cries the young fellow truculently as he raises himself to akneeling posture. "How know you what I am?"

"I have been told what you are by the Governor of your province. "

The young fellow opens his mouth, and stares at Konev. Then he asks:

"To what province do I belong?"

"If you yourself have forgotten to what province you belong, you hadbetter try and loosen your wits. "

"Look here. If I were to hit you, I--"

The woman who has been sewing drops her work to shrug one roundedshoulder as though she were cold, and ask conciliatorily:

"Well, WHAT province do you belong to?"

"I?" the young fellow re-echoes as he subsides on to his heels. "Ibelong to Penza. Why do you ask?"

"Oh never mind why. "

Presently, with a strangely youthful laugh, the woman adds in a murmur:

"I ask because I too belong to that province. "

"And to which canton?"

"To that of Penza. " In the woman's tone is a touch of pride. 

The young fellow squats down before her, as before a wood fire, stretches out his hands, and says in an ingratiating voice:

"What a fine place is our cantonal town! What churches and shops andstone houses there are in it! In fact, one shop sells a machine onwhich you can play anything you like, any sort of a tune!"

"As well as, probably, the fool, " comments Konev in an undertone, though the young fellow is too enthralled with the memory of theamenities of his cantonal capital to notice the remark. Next, smackinghis lips, and chewing his words, he continues in a murmur:

"In those stone houses. "

Here the woman drops her sewing a second time to inquire: "Is there aconvent there?"

"A convent?"

And the young fellow pauses uncouthly to scratch his neck. Only after awhile does he answer:

"A convent? Well, I do not know, for only once, to tell the truth, haveI been in the town, and that was when some of us famine folk were setto a job of roadmaking. "

"Well, well!" gasps Konev, as he rises and takes his departure. 

The vagabonds, huddled against the churchyard wall, look like litterdriven thither by the steppe wind, and as liable to be whirled awayagain whenever the wind shall choose. Three of the party are sleeping, and the remainder either mending their clothing, or killing fleas, orlethargically munching bread collected at the windows of the Cossacks'huts. I find the sight of them weary me as much as does the youngfellows fatuous babble. Also, I find that whenever the elder of the twowomen lifts her eyes from her work, and half smiles, the fainthalf-smile in question vexes me intensely. Consequently, I end bydeparting in Konev's wake. 

Guarding the entrance of the churchyard, four poplar trees stand erect, save when, as the wind harries them, they bow alternately to the arid, dusty earth and towards the dim vista of tow-coloured steppe andsnowcapped mountain peaks. Yet, oh how that steppe, bathed in goldensunshine, draws one to itself and its smooth desolation of sweet, drygrasses as the parched, fragrant expanse rustles under the soughingwind!

"You ask about that woman, eh?" queries Konev, whom I find leaningagainst one of the poplar trunks, and embracing it with an arm. 

"Yes. From where does she hail?"

"From Riazan, she says. Another story of hers is that her name isTatiana. "

"Has she been with you long?"

"No. In fact, it was only this morning, some thirty versts from here, that I overtook her and her companion. However, I have seen her before, at Maikop-on-Laba, during the season of hay harvest, when she had withher an elderly, smoothfaced muzhik who might have been a soldier, andcertainly was either her lover or an uncle, as well as a bully and adrunkard of the type which, before it has been two days in a place, starts about as many brawls. At present, however, she is tramping withnone but this female companion, for, after that the 'uncle' had drunkaway his very belly-band and reins, he was clapped in gaol. TheCossack, you know, is an awkward person to deal with. "

Although Konev speaks without constraint, his eyes are fixed upon theground in a manner suggestive of some disturbing thought. And as thebreeze ruffles his dishevelled beard and ragged pea-jacket it ends byrobbing his head of his cap--of the tattered, peakless clout which, with rents in its lining, so closely resembles a tchepchik [Woman'smob-cap], as to communicate to the picturesque features of its weareran appearance comically feminine. 

"Ye-es, " expectorating, and drawling the words between his teeth, hecontinues: "She is a remarkable woman, a regular, so to speak, highstepper. Yet it must have been the Devil himself that blew thisyoung oaf with the bloated jowl on to the scene. Otherwise I shouldsoon have fixed up matters with her. The cur that he is!"

"But once you told me that you had a wife already?"

Darting at me an angry glance, he turns away with a mutter of:

"AM I to carry my wife about with me in my wallet?"

Here there comes limping across the square a moustachioed Cossack. Inone hand he is holding a bunch of keys, and in the other hand abattered Cossack cap, peak in front. Behind him, sobbing and applyinghis knuckles to his eyes, there is creeping a curly-headed urchin ofeight, while the rear is brought up by a shaggy dog whose dejectedcountenance and lowered tail would seem to show that he too is indisgrace. Each time that the boy whimpers more loudly than usual theCossack halts, awaits the lad's coming in silence, cuffs him over thehead with the peak of the cap, and, resuming his way with the gait of adrunken man, leaves the boy and the dog standing where they are--theboy lamenting, and the dog wagging its tail as its old black muzzlesniffs the air. Somehow I discern in the dog's mien of holding itselfprepared for anything that may turn up, a certain resemblance toKonev's bearing, save that the dog is older in appearance than is thevagabond. 

"You mentioned my wife, I think?" presently he resumes with a sigh. "Yes, I know, but not EVERY malady proves mortal, and I have beenmarried nineteen years!"

The rest is well-known to me, for all too frequently have I heard itand similar tales. Unfortunately, I cannot now take the trouble to stophim; so once more I am forced to let his complaints come oozingtediously into my ears. 

"The wench was plump, " says Konev, "and panting for love; so we justgot married, and brats began to come tumbling from her like bugs from abunk. "

Subsiding a little, the breeze takes, as it were, to whispering. 

"In fact, I could scarcely turn round for them. Even now seven of themare alive, though originally the stud numbered thirteen. And what wasthe use of such a gang? For, consider: my wife is forty-two, and I amforty-three. She is elderly, and I am what you behold. True, hitherto Ihave contrived to keep up my spirits; yet poverty is wearing me down, and when, last winter, my old woman went to pieces I set forth (forwhat else could I do?) to tour the towns. In fact, folk like you andmyself have only one job available--the job of licking one's chops, andkeeping one's eyes open. Yet, to tell you the truth, I no soonerperceive myself to be growing superfluous in a place than I spit uponthat place, and clear out of it. "

Never to this sturdy, inveterate rascal does it seem to occur toinsinuate that he has been doing work of any kind, or that he in theleast cares to do any; while at the same time all self-pity is eschewedin his narrative, and he relates his experiences much as though theyare the experiences of another man, and not of himself. 

Presently, as the Cossack and the boy draw level with us, the former, fingering his moustache, inquires thickly:

"Whence are you come?"

"From Russia. "

"All such folk come from there. "

Thereafter, with a gesture of disdain, this man of the abnormally broadnose, eyes floating in fat, and flaxen head shaped like a flounder's, resumes his way towards the porch of the church. As for the boy, hewipes his nose and follows him while the dog sniffs at our legs, yawns, and stretches itself by the churchyard wall. 

"Did you see?" mutters Konev. "Oh yes, I tell you that the folk hereare far less amiable than our own folk in Russia. .. But hark! What isthat?"

To our ears there have come from behind the corner of the churchyardwall a woman's scream and the sound of dull blows. Rushing thither, webehold the fair-headed peasant seated on the prostrate form of theyoung fellow from Penza, and methodically, gruntingly delivering blowafter blow upon the young fellow's ears with his ponderous fists, whilecounting the blows as he does so. Vainly, at the same time, the womanfrom Riazan is prodding the assailant in the back, whilst her femalecompanion is shrieking, and the crowd at large has leapt to its feet, and, collected into a knot, is shouting gleefully, "THAT'S the way!THAT'S the way!"

"Five!" the fair-headed peasant counts. 

"Why are you doing this?" the prostrate man protests. 

"Six!"

"Oh dear!" ejaculates Konev, dancing with nervousness. "Oh dear, ohdear!"

The smacking, smashing blows fall in regular cadence as, prone on hisface, the young fellow kicks, struggles and puffs up the dust. Meanwhile a tall, dour man in a straw hat is rolling up a shirt-sleeve, and alternately bending and stretching a long arm, whilst a lithe, white-headed young stripling is hopping, sparrow-like, from oneonlooker to another, and exclaiming in suppressed, cautious tones:

"Stop it, pray stop it, or we shall be arrested for creating adisturbance!"

Presently the tall man strides towards the fair-headed peasant, dealshim a single blow which knocks him from the back of the young fellow, and, turning to the crowd, says with an informing air:

"THAT'S how we do it in Tambov!"

"Brutes! Villains!" screams the woman from Riazan, as she bends overthe young fellow. Her cheeks are livid, and as she wipes the flushedface of the beaten youth with the hem of her gown, her dark eyes areflashing with dry wrath, and her lips quivering so painfully as todisclose a set of fine, level teeth. 

Konev, pecking up to her, says with an air of advice:

"You had better take him away, and give him some water. "

Upon this the fair-headed muzhik, rising to his knees, stretches a fisttowards the man from Tambov, and exclaims:

"Why should he have gone and bragged of his strength, pray?"

"Was that a good reason for thrashing him?"

"And who are you?"

"Who am I?"

"Yes, who are YOU?"

"Never mind. See that I don't give you another swipe!"

Upon this the onlookers plunge into a heated debate as to who wasactually the beginner of the disturbance, while the lithe young fellowcontinues to wring his hands, and cry imploringly:

"DON'T make so much noise about it! Remember that we are in a strangeland, and that the folk hereabouts are strict. "

So queerly do his ears project from his head that he would seem to beable, if he pleased, to fold them right over his eyes. 

Suddenly from the roseate heavens comes the vibrant note of a bell;whereupon, the hubbub ceases and at the same moment a young Cossackwith a face studded with freckles, and, in his hands, a cudgel, makeshis appearance among the crowd. 

"What does all this mean?" he inquires not uncivilly. 

"They have been beating a man, " the woman from Riazan replies. As shedoes so she looks comely in spite of her wrath. 

The Cossack glances at her--then smiles. 

"And where is the party going to sleep?" he inquires of the crowd. 

"Here, " someone ventures. 

"Then you must not--someone might break into the church. Go, rather, tothe Ataman [Cossack headman or mayor], and you will be billeted amongthe huts. "

"It is a matter of no consequence, " Konev remarks as he paces besideme. "Yet--"

"They seem to be taking us for robbers, " is my interruption. 

"As is everywhere the way, " he comments. "It is but one thing more laidto our charge. Caution decides always that a stranger is a thief. "

In front of us walks the woman from Riazan, in company with the youngfellow of the bloated features. He is downcast of mien, and at lengthmutters something which I cannot catch, but in answer to which shetosses her head, and says in a distinct, maternal tone:

"You are too young to associate with such brutes. "

The bell of the church is slowly beating, and from the huts there keepcoming neat old men and women who make the hitherto deserted streetassume a brisk appearance, and the squat huts take on a welcoming air. 

In a resonant, girlish voice there meets our ears:

"Ma-am! Ma-amka! Where is the key of the green box? I want my ribands!"

While in answer to the bell's summons, the oxen low a deep echo. 

The wind has fallen, but reddish clouds still are gliding over thehamlet, and the mountain peaks blushing until they seem, thawing, to besending streams of golden, liquid fire on to the steppes, where, asthough cast in stone, a stork, standing on one leg, is listening, seemingly, to the rustling of the heat-exhausted herbage. 

 * * * * *

In the forecourt of the Ataman's hut we are deprived of our passports, while two of our number, found to be without such documents, are ledaway to a night's lodging in a dark storehouse in a corner of thepremises. Everything is executed quietly enough, and without the leastfuss, purely as a matter of routine; yet Konev mutters, as dejectedlyhe contemplates the darkening sky:

"What a surprising thing, to be sure!"

"What is?"

"A passport. Surely a decent, peaceable man ought to be able to travelWITHOUT a passport? So long as he be harmless, let him--"

"You are not harmless, " with angry emphasis the woman from Riazaninterposes. 

Konev closes his eyes with a smile, and says nothing more. 

Almost until the vigil service is over are we kept kicking our heelsabout that forecourt, like sheep in a slaughter-house. Then Konev, myself, the two women, and the fat-faced young fellow are led awaytowards the outskirts of the village, and allotted an empty hut withbroken-down walls and a cracked window. 

"No going out will be permitted, " says the Cossack who has conducted usthither. "Else you will be arrested. "

"Then give us a morsel of bread, " Konev says with a stammer. "Have youdone any work here?" the Cossack inquires. 

"Yes--a little. "

"For me?"

"No. It did not so happen. "

"When it does so happen I will give you some bread. "

And like a water-butt the fat kindly-looking man goes rolling out ofthe yard. 

"What else was to be expected?" grumbles Konev with his eyebrowselevated to the middle of his forehead. "The folk hereabouts areknaves. Ah, well!"

As for the women, they withdraw to the darkest corner of the hut, andlie down, while the young fellow disappears after probing the walls andfloor, and returns with an armful of straw which he strews upon thehard, beaten clay. Then he stretches himself thereon with hands claspedbehind his battered head. 

"See the resourcefulness of that fellow from Penza!" comments Konevenviously. "Hi, you women! There is, it would seem, some straw about. "

To this comes from the women's corner the acid reply:

"Then go and fetch some. "

"For you?"

"Yes, for us. "

"Then I must, I suppose. "

Nevertheless Konev merely remains sitting on the windowsill, anddiscoursing on the subject of certain needy folk who do but desire togo and say their prayers in church, yet are banded into barns. 

"Yes, and though you may say that folk, the world over, have a soul incommon, I tell you that this is not so--that, on the contrary, weRussian strangers find it a hard matter here to get looked upon asrespectable. "

With which he slips out quietly into the street, and disappears fromview. 

The young fellow's sleep is restless--he keeps tossing about, with hisfat arms and legs sprawling over the floor, and grunting, and snoring. Under him the straw makes a crackling sound, while the two womenwhisper together in the darkness, and the reeds of the dry thatch onthe roof rustle (the wind is still drawing an occasional breath), andever and anon a twig brushes against an outside wall. The scene is likea scene in a dream. 

Out of doors the myriad tongues of the pitch-black, starless night seemto be debating something in soft, sad, pitiful tones which ever keepgrowing fainter; until, when the hour of ten has been struck on thewatchman's gong, and the metal ceases to vibrate, the world growsquieter still, much as though all living things, alarmed by the clangin the night, have concealed themselves in the invisible earth or theequally invisible heavens. 

I seat myself by the window, and watch how the earth keeps exhalingdarkness, and the darkness enveloping, drowning the grey, blurred hutsin black, tepid vapour, though the church remains invisible--evidentlysomething stands interposed between it and my viewpoint. And it seemsto me that the wind, the seraph of many pinions which has spent threedays in harrying the land, must now have whirled the earth into ablackness, a denseness, in which, exhausted, and panting, and scarcelymoving, it is helplessly striving to remain within the encompassing, all-pervading obscurity where, helpless and weary in like degree, thewind has sloughed its thousands of wing-feathers--feathers white andblue and golden of tint, but also broken, and smeared with dust andblood. 

And as I think of our petty, grievous human life, as of a drunkard'stune on a sorry musical instrument, or as of a beautiful song spoilt bya witless, voiceless singer, there begins to wail in my soul aninsatiable longing to breathe forth words of sympathy with all mankind, words of burning love for all the world, words of appreciation of, forexample, the sun's beauty as, enfolding the earth in his beams, andcaressing and fertilising her, he bears her through the expanses ofblue. Yes, I yearn to recite to my fellow-men words which shall raisetheir heads. And at length I find myself compounding the followingjejune lines:

 To our land we all are born In happiness to dwell. The sun has bred us to this land Its fairness to excel. In the temple of the sun We high priests are, divine. Then each of us should claim his life, And cry, "This life is mine!"

Meanwhile from the women's corner there comes a soft, intermittentwhispering; and as it continues to filter through the darkness, Istrain my ears until I succeed in catching a few of the words uttered, and can distinguish at least the voices of the whisperers. 

The woman from Riazan mutters firmly, and with assurance:

"Never ought you to show that it hurts you. "

And with a sniff, in a tone of dubious acquiescence, her companionreplies:

"Ye-es-so long as one can bear it. "

"Ah, but never mind. PRETEND. That is to say, when he beats you, makelight of it, and treat it as a joke. "

"But what if he beats me very much indeed?"

"Continue still to make light of it, still to smile at him kindly. "

"Well, YOU can never have been beaten, for you do not seem to know whatit is like. "

"Oh, but I have, my dear--I do know what it is like, for my experienceof it has been large. Do not be afraid, however. HE won't beat you. "

A dog yelps, pauses a moment to listen, and then barks more angrilythan ever. Upon that other dogs reply, and for a moment or two I amannoyed to find that I cannot overhear the women's conversation. Intime, however, the dogs cease their uproar, for want of breath, and thesuppressed dialogue filters once more to my ears. 

"Never forget, my dear, that a muzhik's life is a hard one. Yes, for usplain folk life is hard. Hence, one ought to make nothing of things, and let them come easy to one. "

"Mother of God!"

"And particularly should a woman so face things; for upon hereverything depends. For one thing, let her take to herself, in place ofher mother, a husband or a sweetheart. Yes, try that, and see. Andthough, at first, your husband may find fault with you, he willafterwards take to boasting to other muzhiks that he has a wife who cando everything, and remain ever as bright and loving as the month ofMay. Never does she give in; never WOULD she give in--no, not if youwere to cut off her head!"

"Indeed?"

"Yes. And see if that will not come to be your opinion as much as mine. "

Again, to my annoyance, the dialogue is interrupted--this time by thesound of uncertain footsteps in the street without. Thus the next wordsof the women's conversation escape me. Then I hear:

"Have you ever read 'The Vision of the Mother of God'?"

"N-no, I have not. "

"Then you had better ask some older woman than myself to tell you aboutit, for it is a good book to become acquainted with. Can you read?"

"No, I cannot. But tell me, yourself, what the vision was?"

"Listen, and I will do so. "

From outside the window Konev's voice softly inquires:

"Is that our lot in there? Yes? Thank God, then, for I had nearly lostmy way after stirring up a lot of dogs, and being forced to use myfists upon them. Here, you! Catch hold!"

With which, handing me a large watermelon, he clambers through thewindow with a great clattering and disturbance. 

"I have managed also to gee a good supply of bread, " he continues. "Perhaps you believe that I stole it? But no. Indeed, why should onesteal when one can beg-a game at which I am particularly an old hand, seeing that always, on any occasion, I can make up to people? Ithappened like this. When I went out I saw a fire glowing in a hut, andfolk seated at supper. And since, wherever many people are present, oneof them at least has a kind heart, I ate and drank my fill, and thenmanaged to make off with provender for you as well. Hi, you women!"

There follows no answer. 

"I believe those daughters of whores must be asleep, " he comments. "Hi, women!"

"What is it?" drily inquires the woman from Riazan. 

"Should you like a taste of water-melon?"

"I should, thank you. "

Thereupon, Konev begins to make his way towards the voice. 

"Yes, bread, soft wheaten bread such as you--"

Here the other woman whines in beggar fashion:

"And give ME a taste, too. "

"Oh, yes, I will. But where the devil are you?"

"And a taste of melon as well?"

"Yes, certainly. Hullo! Who is this?"

From the woman from Riazan comes a cry of pain. 

"Mind how you step, wretch!" she exclaims. 

"All right, but you needn't make so much noise about it. You see howdark it is, and I--"

"You ought to have struck a match, then. "

"I possess but a quarter of a match, for matches are notover-plentiful, and even if I did catch hold of you no great harm canhave been done. For instance, when your husband used to beat you hemust have hurt you far worse than I. By the way, DID he beat you?"

"What business is that of yours?"

"None; only, I am curious to know. Surely a woman like you--"

"See here. Do not dare to touch me, or I--"

"Or you what?"

There ensues a prolonged altercation amid which I can hear epithets ofincreasing acerbity and opprobrium being applied; until the woman fromRiazan exclaims hoarsely:

"Oh, you coward of a man, take that!"

Whereupon follows a scrimmage amid which I can distinguish slappings, gross chuckles from Konev, and a muffled cry from the younger woman of:

"Oh, do not so behave, you wretch!"

Striking a match, I approach the spot, and pull Konev away. He is in noway abashed, but merely cooled in his ardour as, seated on the floor atmy feet, and panting and expectorating, he says reprovingly to thewoman:

"When folk wish merely to have a game with you, you ought not to letyourself lose your temper. Fie, fie!"

"Are you hurt?" the woman inquires quietly. 

"What do you suppose? You have cut my lip, but that is the worstdamage. "

"Then if you come here again I will lay the whole of your face open. "

"Vixen! What bumpkinish stupidity!"

Konev turns to myself. 

"And as for you, you go catching at the first thing you find, and havetorn my coat. "

"Then do not insult people. "

"INSULT people, fool? The idea of anyone insulting a woman like THAT!"

Whereafter, with a mean chuckle, the fellow goes on to discourse uponthe ease with which peasant women err, and upon their love of deceivingtheir husbands. 

"The impudent rascal!" comments the woman from Penza sleepily. 

After a while the young fellow springs to his feet, and grates histeeth. Then, reseating himself, and clutching at his head, he saysgloomily:

"I intend to leave here tomorrow, and go home. I do not care WHATbecomes of me. "

With which he subsides on to the floor as though exhausted. 

"The blockhead!" is Konev's remark. 

Amid the darkness a black shape rises. It does so as soundlessly as afish in a pond, glides to the door, and disappears. 

"That was she, " remarks Konev. "What a strong woman! However, if youhad not pulled me away, I should have got the better of her. By God Ishould!"

"Then follow her, and make another attempt. "

"No, " after a moment's reflection he rejoins. "Out there she might gethold of a stick, or a brick, or some such thing. However, I'LL get evenwith her. As a matter of fact, you wasted your time in stopping me, forshe detests me like the very devil. "

And he renews his wearisome boastings of his conquests; until suddenly, he stops as though he has swallowed his tongue. 

All becomes quiet; everything seems to have come to a halt, and to bepressing close in sleep to the motionless earth. I too grow drowsy, andhave a vision amid which my mind returns to the donations which I havereceived that day, and sees them swell and multiply and increase inweight until I feel their bulk pressing upon me like a tumulus of thesteppes. Next, the coppery notes of a bell jar in my ears, and, struckat random intervals, go floating away into the darkness. 

It is the hour of midnight. 

Soon, scattered drops of rain begin to patter down upon the dry thatchof the hut and the dust in the street outside, while a cricketcontinues chirping as though it were hurriedly relating a tale. Also, Ihear filtering forth into the darkness a softly gulped, eagerwhispering. 

"Think, " says one of the voices, "what it must mean to have to gotramping about without work, or only with work for another to do!"

The young fellow who has been so soundly thrashed replies in a dullvoice:

"I know nothing of you. "

"More softly, more softly!" urges the woman. 

"What is it you want?"

"I want NOTHING. It is merely that I am sorry for you as a man yetyoung and strong. You see--well, I have not lived with my eyes shut. That is why I say, come with me. "

"But come whither?"

"To the coast, where I know there to be beautiful plots of land for theasking. You yourself can see how good the land hereabout is. Well, there land better still is to be obtained. "

"Liar!"

"More softly, more softly!" again urges the woman. "Moreover, I am notbad-looking, and can manage things well, and do any sort of work. Henceyou and I might live quite peacefully and happily, and come, eventually, to have a place of our own. Yes, and I could bear and rearyou a child. Only see how fit I am. Only feel this breast of mine. "

The young fellow snorts, and I begin to find the situation oppressive, and to long to let the couple know that I am not asleep. Curiosity, however, prevents me, and I continue listening to the strange, arresting dialogue. 

"Wait a little, " whispers the woman with a gasp. "Do not play with me, for I am not that sort of woman. Yes, I mean what I say. Let be!"

Rudely, roughly the young fellow replies:

"Then don't run after me. A woman who runs after a man, and plays thewhore with him, is--"

"Less noise, please--less noise, I beg of you, or we shall be heard, and I shall be put to shame!"

"Doesn't it put you to shame to be offering yourself to me like this?"

A silence ensues, save that the young fellow goes on snorting andfidgeting, and the raindrops continue to fall with the same reluctance, the same indolence, as ever. Then once more the woman's voice is heardthrough the pattering. 

"Perhaps, " says the voice, "you have guessed that I am seeking ahusband? Yes, I AM seeking one--a good, steady muzhik. "

"But I am NOT a good, steady muzhik. "

"Fie, fie!"

"What?" he sniggers. "A husband for you? The impudence of you! A'husband'! Go along!"

"Listen to me. I am tired of tramping. "

"Then go home. "

This time there ensues a long pause. Then the woman says very softly:

"I have neither home nor kindred. "

"A lie!" ejaculates the young fellow. 

"No, by God it is not a lie! The Mother of God forget me if it is. "

In these last words I can detect the note of tears. By this time thesituation has become intolerable, for I am yearning to rise and kickthe young fellow out of the hut, and then to have a long and earnesttalk with his companion. "Oh that I could take her to my arms, " Ireflect, "and cherish her as I would a poor lost child!"

After a while the sounds of a new struggle between the pair are heard. 

"Don't put me off like that!" growls the young fellow. 

"And don't you make any attempt upon me! I am not the sort of woman tobe forced. "

The next moment there arises a cry of pain and astonishment. 

"What was that for? What was that for?" the woman wails. 

With an answering exclamation I spring to my feet, for my feelings havebecome those of a wild beast. 

At once everything grows quiet again, save that someone, crawls overthe floor and, in leaving the hut, jars the latch of the crazy, single-hinged portal. 

"It was not my fault, " grumbles the young fellow. "It all came of thatstinking woman offering herself to me. Besides, the place is full ofbugs, and I cannot sleep. "

"Beast!" pants someone in the vicinity. 

"Hold your tongue, bitch!" is the fellow's retort. 

By now the rain has ceased, and such air as filters through the windowseems increasedly stifling. Momentarily the hush grows deeper, untilthe breast feels filled with a sense of oppression, and the face andeyes as though they were glued over with a web. Even when I step intothe yard I find the place to be like a cellar on a summer's day, whenthe very ice has melted in the dark retreat, and the latter's blackcavity is charged with hot, viscous humidity. 

Somewhere near me a woman is gulping out sobs. For a moment or two Ilisten; then I approach her, and come upon her seated in a corner withher head in her hands, and her body rocking to and fro as though shewere doing me obeisance. 

Yet I feel angry, somehow, and remain standing before her withoutspeaking--until at length I ask:

"Are you mad?"

"Go away, " is, after a pause, her only reply. 

"I heard all that you said to that young fellow. "

"Oh, did you? Then what business is it of yours? Are you my brother?"

Yet she speaks the words absent-mindedly rather than angrily. Around usthe dim, blurred walls are peering in our direction with sightlesseyes, while in the vicinity a bullock is drawing deep breaths. 

I seat myself by her side. 

"Should you remain much longer in that position, " I remark, "you willhave a headache. "

There follows no reply. 

"Am I disturbing you?" I continue. 

"Oh no; not at all. " And, lowering her hands, she looks at me. "Whencedo you come?"

"From Nizhni Novgorod. "

"Oh, from a long way off!"

"Do you care for that young fellow?"

Not for a moment or two does she answer; and when she does so sheanswers as though the words have been rehearsed. 

"Not particularly. It is that he is a strong young fellow who has losthis way, and is too much of a fool (as you too must have seen) to findit again. So I am very sorry for him. A good muzhik ought to be wellplaced. "

On the bell of the church there strikes the hour of two. Withoutinterrupting herself, the woman crosses her breast at each stroke. 

"Always, " she continues, "I feel sorry when I see a fine young fellowgoing to the dogs. If I were able, I would take all such young men, andrestore them to the right road. "

"Then you are not sorry FOR YOURSELF?"

"Not for myself? Oh yes, for myself as well. "

"Then why flaunt yourself before this booby, as you have been doing?"

"Because I might reform him. Do you not think so? Ah, you do not knowme. "

A sigh escapes her. 

"He hit you, I think?" I venture. 

"No, he did not. And in any case you are not to touch him. "

"Yet you cried out?"

Suddenly she leans towards me, and says:

"Yes, he did strike me--he struck me on the breast, and would haveoverpowered me had it not been that I cannot, I will not, do thingsheartlessly, like a cat. Oh, the brutes that men can be!"

Here the conversation undergoes an interruption through the fact thatsomeone has come out to the hut door, and is whistling softly, as for adog. 

"There he is!" whispers the woman. 

"Then had I not best send him about his business?"

"No, no!" she exclaims, catching at my knees. "No need is there forthat, no need is there for that!"

Then with a low moan she adds:

"Oh Lord, how I pity our folk and their lives! Oh God our Father!"

Her shoulders heave, and presently she bursts into tears, with awhisper, between the pitiful sobs, of:

"How, on such a night as this, one remembers all that one has everseen, and the folk that ever one has known! And oh, how wearisome, wearisome it all is! And how I should like to cry throughout theworld--But to cry what? I know not--I have no message to deliver. "

That feeling I can understand as well as she, for all too often has itseemed to crush my soul with voiceless longing. 

Then, as I stroke her bowed head and quivering shoulder, I ask her whoshe is; and presently, on growing a little calmer, she tells me thehistory of her life. 

She is, it appears, the daughter of a carpenter and bee-keeper. On hermother's death, this man married a young woman, and allowed her, asstepmother, to persuade him to place the narrator, Tatiana, in aconvent, where she (Tatiana) lived from the age of nine tilladolescence, and, meanwhile, was taught her letters, and also a certainamount of manual labour; until, later, her father married her off to afriend of his, a well-to-do ex-soldier, who was acting as forester onthe convent's estate. 

As the woman relates this, I feel vexed that I cannot see herface--only a dim, round blur amid which there looms what appears to bea pair of closed eyes. Also, so complete is the stillness, that she cannarrate her story in a barely audible whisper; and I gain theimpression that the pair of us are sitting plunged in a void ofdarkness where life does not exist, yet where we are destined to beginlife. 

"However, the man was a libertine and a drunkard, and many a riotousnight did he spend with his cronies in the porter's lodge of theconvent. Also, he tried to arouse a similar taste in myself; and thoughfor a time I resisted the tendency, I at length, on his taking tobeating me, yielded. Only for one man, however, had I really a liking;and with him it was, and not with my husband, that I first learnt themeaning of spousehood. .. . Unfortunately, my lover himself wasmarried; and in time his wife came to hear of me, and procured myhusband's dismissal. The chief reason was that the lady, a person ofgreat wealth, was herself handsome, albeit stout, and did not care tosee her place assumed by a nobody. Next, my husband died of drink; andas my father had long been dead, and I found myself alone, I went tosee and consult my stepmother. All that she said, however, was: 'Whycome to me? Go and think things out for yourself. ' And I too thenreflected: 'Yes, why should I have gone to her?' and repaired to theconvent. Yet even there there seemed to be no place left for me, andeventually old Mother Taisia, who had once been my governess, said:'Tatiana, do you return to the world, for there, and only there, willyou have a chance of happiness. So to the world I returned--and stillam roaming it. "

"Your quest of happiness is not following an easy road!"

"It is following the road that it best can. "

By now the darkness has ceased to keep spread over us, as it were, thestretched web of a heavy curtain, but has grown thinner and moretransparent with the tension, save that, in places (for instance, inthe window of the hut), it still lies in thick folds or clots as itpeers at us with its sightless eyes. 

Over the hummock-like roofs of the huts rise the church's steeple andthe poplar trees; while hither and thither on the wall of the hut, thecracks and holes in the crumbling plaster have caused the wall toresemble the map of an unknown country. 

Glancing at the woman's dark eyes, I perceive them to be shining aspensively, innocently as the eyes of a young maiden. 

"You are indeed a curious woman!" I remark. 

"Perhaps I am, " she replies as she moistens her lips with a slender, almost feline tongue. 

"What are you really seeking?"

"I have considered the matter, and know, at last, my mind. It is this:I hope some day to fall in with a good muzhik with whom to go in searchof land. Probably land of the kind, I mean, is to be found in theneighbourhood of New Athos, [A monastery in the Caucasus, built on thereputed site of a cave tenanted by Simeon the Canaanite] for I havebeen there already, and know of a likely spot for the purpose. Andthere we shall set our place in order, and lay out a garden and anorchard, and prepare as much plough land as we may need for ourworking. "

Her words are now firmer, more assured. 

"And when we have put everything in order, other folk may join us; andthen, as the oldest settlers in the place, we shall hold the positionof honour. And thus things will continue until a new village, really afine settlement, will have become formed--a settlement of which myhusband will be selected the warden until such time as I shall havemade of him a barin [Gentleman or squire] outright. Also, children mayone day play in that garden, and a summer-house be built there. Ah, howdelightful such a life appears!"

In fact, she has planned out the future so thoroughly that already shecan describe the new establishment in as much detail as though she haslong been a resident in it. 

"Yes, I yearn indeed for a nice home!" she continues. "Oh that such ahome could fall to my lot! But the first requisite, of course, is amuzhik. "

Her gentle face and eyes peer into the waning night as though theyaspire to caress everything upon which they may light. 

And all the while I am feeling sorry for her--sorry almost to tears. Toconceal the fact I murmur:

"Should I myself suit you?"

She gives a faint laugh. 

"No. "

"Why not?"

"Because the ideas in your mind are different from mine. "

"How do you know what my ideas are?"

She edges away from me a little, then says drily:

"Because I can see them in your eyes. To be plain, I could neverconsent. "

With a finger tapping upon the mouldy, gnarled old oaken stump on whichwe are sitting, she adds:

"The Cossacks, for instance, live comfortably enough; yet I do not likethem. "

"What in them is it that displeases you?"

"Somehow they repel me. True, much of everything is theirs; yet alsothey have ways which alienate me. "

Unable any longer to conceal from her my pity, I say gently:

"Never, I fear, will you discover what you are seeking. "

She shakes her head protestingly. 

"And never ought a woman to be discouraged, " she retorts. "Woman'sproper round is to wish for a child, and to nurse it, and, when it hasbeen weaned, to get herself ready to have another one. That is howwoman should live. She should live as pass spring and summer, autumnand winter. "

I find it a pleasure to watch the play of the woman's intellectualfeatures; and though, also, I long to take her in my arms, I feel thatmy better plan will be to seek once more the quiet, empty steppe, and, bearing in me the recollection of this woman, to resume my lonelyjourney towards the region where the silver wall of the mountainsmerges with the sky, and the dark ravines gape at the steppe with theirchilly jaws. At the moment, however, I cannot so do, for the Cossackshave temporarily deprived me of my passport. 

"What are you yourself seeking?" she asks suddenly as again she edgestowards me. 

"Simply nothing. My one desire is to observe how folk live. "

"And are you travelling alone?"

"I am. "

"Even as am I. Oh God, how many lonely people there are in the world!"

By this time the cattle are awakening from slumber, and, with theirsoft lowings, reminding one of a pipe which I used to hear played by acertain blind old man. Next, four times, with unsteady touch, thedrowsy watchman strikes his gong--twice softly, once with a vigour thatclangs the metal again, and a fourth time with a mere tap of the ironhammer against the copper plate. 

"What sort of lives do the majority of folk lead?"

"Sorry lives. "

"Yes, that is what I too have found. "

A pause follows. Then the woman says quietly:

"See, dawn is breaking, yet never this night have my eyes closed. OftenI am like that; often I keep thinking and thinking until I seem to bethe only human being in the world, and the only human being destined tore-order it. "

"Many folk live unworthy lives. They live them amid discord, abasement, and wrongs innumerable, wrongs born of want and stupidity. "

And as the words leave my lips my mind loses itself in recollections ofall the dark and harrowing and shameful scenes that I have beheld. 

"Listen, " I say. "You may approach a man with nothing but good in yourheart, and be prepared to surrender both your freedom and yourstrength; yet still he may fail to understand you aright. And how shallhe be blamed for this, seeing that never may he have been shown what isgood?"

She lays a hand upon my shoulder, and looks straight into my eyes asshe parts her comely lips. 

"True, " she rejoins--"But, dear friend, it is also true that goodnessnever bargains. "

Together she and I seem to be drifting towards a vista which is comingto look, as it sloughs the shadow of night, ever clearer and clearer. It is a vista of white huts, silvery trees, a red church, anddew-bespangled earth. And as the sun rises he reveals to us clustered, transparent clouds which, like thousands of snow-white birds, gogliding over our heads. 

"Yes, " she whispers again as gently she gives me a nudge. "As onepursues one's lonely way one thinks and thinks--but of what? Dearfriend, you have said that no one really cares what is the matter. Ah, HOW true that is!"

Here she springs to her feet, and, pulling me up with her, gluesherself to my breast with a vehemence which causes me momentarily topush her away. Upon this, bursting into tears, she tends towards meagain, and kisses me with lips so dry as almost to cut me--she kissesme in a way which penetrates to my very soul. 

"You have been oh, so good!" she whispers softly. As she speaks, theearth seems to be sinking under my feet. 

Then she tears herself away, glances around the courtyard, and darts toa corner where, under a fence, a clump of herbage is sprouting. 

"Go now, " she adds in a whisper. "Yes, go. "

Then, with a confused smile, as, crouching among the herbage as thoughit had been a small cave, she rearranges her hair, she adds:

"It has befallen so. Ah, me! May God grant unto me His pardon!"

Astonished, feeling that I must be dreaming, I gaze at her withgratitude, for I sense an extraordinary lightness to be present in mybreast, a radiant void through which joyous, intangible words andthoughts keep flying as swallows wheel across the firmament. 

"Amid a great sorrow, " she adds, "even a small joy becomes a greatfelicity. "

Yet as I glance at the woman's bosom, whereon moist beads are standinglike dewdrops on the outer earth; as I glance at that bosom, whereonthe sun's rays are finding a roseate reflection, as though the bloodwere oozing through the skin, my rapture dies away, and turns tosorrow, heartache, and tears. For in me there is a presentiment thatbefore the living juice within that bosom shall have borne fruit, itwill have become dried up. 

Presently, in a tone almost of self-excuse, and one wherein the wordssound a little sadly, she continues:

"Times there are when something comes pouring into my soul which makesmy breasts ache with the pain of it. What is there for me to do at suchmoments save reveal my thoughts to the moon, or, in the daytime, to ariver? Oh God in Heaven! And afterwards I feel as ashamed of myself!. .. Do not look at me like that. Why stare at me with those eyes, eyesso like the eyes of a child?"

"YOUR face, rather, is like a child's, " I remark. 

"What? Is it so stupid?"

"Something like that. "

As she fastens up her bodice she continues:

"Soon the time will be five o'clock, when the bell will ring for Mass. To Mass I must go today, for I have a prayer to offer to the Mother ofGod. .. Shall you be leaving here soon?"

"Yes--as soon, that is to say, as I have received back my passport. "

"And for what destination?"

"For Alatyr. And you?"

She straightens her attire, and rises. As she does so I perceive thather hips are narrower than her shoulders, and that throughout she iswell-proportioned and symmetrical. 

"I? As yet I do not know. True, I had thought of proceeding toNaltchik, but now, perhaps, I shall not do so, for all my future isuncertain. "

Upon that she extends to me a pair of strong, capable arms, andproposes with a blush:

"Shall we kiss once more before we part?"

She clasps me with the one arm, and with the other makes the sign ofthe cross, adding:

"Good-bye, dear friend, and may Christ requite you for all your words, for all your sympathy!"

"Then shall we travel together?"

At the words she frees herself, and says firmly, nay, sternly:

"Not so. Never would I consent to such a plan. Of course, had you beena muzhik--but no. Even then what would have been the use of it, seeingthat life is to be measured, not by a single hour, but by years?"

And, quietly smiling me a farewell, she moves away towards the hut, whilst I, remaining seated, lose myself in thoughts of her. Will sheever overtake her quest in life? Shall I ever behold her again?

The bell for early Mass begins, though for some time past the hamlethas been astir, and humming in a sedate and non-festive fashion. 

I enter the hut to fetch my wallet, and find the place empty. Evidentlythe whole party has left by the gap in the broken-down wall. 

I repair, next, to the Ataman's office, where I receive back mypassport before setting out to look for my companions in the square. 

In similar fashion to yesterday those "folk from Russia" are lollingalongside the churchyard wall, and also have seated among them, leaninghis back against a log, the fat-jowled youth from Penza, with hisbruised face looking even larger and uglier than before, for the reasonthat his eyes are sunken amid purple protuberances. 

Presently there arrives a newcomer in the shape of an old man with agrey head adorned with a faded velvet skull-cap, a pointed beard, alean, withered frame, prominent cheekbones, a red, porous-looking, cunningly hooked nose, and the eyes of a thief. 

Him a flaxen-haired youth from Orel joins with a similar youth inaccosting. 

"Why are YOU tramping?" inquires the former. 

"And why are YOU?" the old man retorts in nasal tones as, looking at noone, he proceeds to mend the handle of a battered metal teapot with apiece of wire. 

"We are travelling in search of work, and therefore living as we havebeen commanded to live. "

"By WHOM commanded?"

"By God. Have you forgotten?"

Carelessly, but succinctly, the old man retorts:

"Take heed lest upon you, some day, God vomit all the dust and litterwhich you are raising by tramping His earth!"

"How?" cries one of the youths, a long-eared stripling. 

"Were not Christ and His Apostles also tramps?"

"Yes, CHRIST, " is the old man's meaning reply as he raises his sharpeyes to those of his opponent. "But what are you talking of, you fools?With whom are you daring to compare yourselves? Take care lest I reportyou to the Cossacks!"

I have listened to many such arguments, and always found themdistasteful, even as I have done discussions regarding the soul. HenceI feel inclined to depart. 

At this moment, however, Konev makes his appearance. His mien isdejected, and his body perspiring, while his eyes keep blinking rapidly. 

"Has any one seen Tanka--that woman from Riazan?" he inquires. "No?Then the bitch must have bolted during the night. The fact is that, overnight, someone gave me a drop or two to drink, a mere dram, butenough to lay me as fast asleep as a bear in winter-time. And in themeantime, she must have run away with that Penza fellow. "

"No, HE is here, " I remark. 

"Oh, he is, is he? Well, as what has the company registered itself? Asa set of ikon-painters, I should think!"

Again he begins to look anxiously about him. 

"Where can she have got to?" he queries. 

"To Mass, maybe. "

"Of course! Well, I am greatly smitten with her. Yes, my word I am!"

Nevertheless, when Mass comes to an end, and, to the sound of a merrypeal of bells, the well-dressed local Cossacks file out of church, anddistribute themselves in gaudy streams about the hamlet, no Tatianamakes her appearance. 

"Then she IS gone, " says Konev ruefully. "But I'll find her yet! I'LLcome up with her!"

That this will happen I do not feel confident. Nor do I desire that itshould. 

 * * * * *

Five years later I am pacing the courtyard of the Metechski Prison inTiflis, and, as I do so, trying to imagine for what particular offenceI have been incarcerated in that place of confinement. 

Picturesquely grim without, the institution is, inwardly, peopled witha set of cheerful, but clumsy, humourists. That is to say, it wouldseem as though, "by order of the authorities, " the inmates arepresenting a stage spectacle in which they are playing, willingly andzealously, but with a complete lack of experience, imperfectlycomprehended roles as prisoners, warders, and gendarmes. 

For instance, today, when a warder and a gendarme came to my cell toescort me to exercise, and I said to them, "May I be excused exercisetoday? I am not very well, and do not feel like, etcetera, etcetera, "the gendarme, a tall, handsome man with a red beard, held up to me awarning finger. 

"NO ONE, " he said, "has given you permission to feel, or not to feel, like doing things. "

To which the warder, a man as dark as a chimney-sweep, with large blue"whites" to his eyes, added stutteringly:

"To no one here has permission been given to feel, or not to feel, likedoing things. You hear that?"

So to exercise I went. 

In this stone-paved yard the air is as hot as in an oven, for overheadthere lours only a small, flat patch of dull, drab-tinted sky, and onthree sides of the yard rise high grey walls, with, on the fourth, theentrance-gates, topped by a sort of look-out post. 

Over the roof of the building there comes floating the dull roar of theturbulent river Kura, mingled with shouts from the hucksters of theAvlabar Bazaar (the town's Asiatic quarter) and as a cross motif throwninto these sounds, the sighing of the wind and the cooing of doves. Infact, to be here is like being in a drum which a myriad drumsticks arebeating. 

Through the bars of the double line of windows on the second and thethird stories peer the murky faces and towsled heads of some of theinmates. One of the latter spits his furthest into the yard--evidentlywith the intention of hitting myself: but all his efforts prove vain. Another one shouts with a mordant expletive:

"Hi, you! Why do you keep tramping up and down like an old hen? Hold upyour head!"

Meanwhile the inmates continue to intone in concert a strange chantwhich is as tangled as a skein of wool after serving as a plaything fora kitten's prolonged game of sport. Sadly the chant meanders, wavers, to a high, wailing note. Then, as it were, it soars yet higher towardsthe dull, murky sky, breaks suddenly into a snarl, and, growling like awild beast in terror, dies away to give place to a refrain which coils, trickles forth from between the bars of the windows until it haspermeated the free, torrid air. 

As I listen to that refrain, long familiar to me, it seems to voicesomething intelligible, and agitates my soul almost to a sense ofagony. .. . 

Presently, while pacing up and down in the shadow of the building, Ihappen to glance towards the line of windows. Glued to the framework ofone of the iron window-squares, I can discern a blue-eyed face. Overgrown with an untidy sable beard it is, as well as stamped with alook of perpetually grieved surprise. 

"That must be Konev, " I say to myself aloud. 

Konev it is--Konev of the well-remembered eyes. Even at this momentthey are regarding me with puckered attention. 

I throw around me a hasty glance. My own warder is dozing on a shadybench near the entrance. Two more warders are engaged in throwing dice. A fourth is superintending the pumping of water by two convicts, andsuperciliously marking time for their lever with the formula, "Mashkam, dashkam! Dashkam, mashkam!"

I move towards the wall. 

"Is that you, Konev?" is my inquiry. 

"It is, " he mutters as he thrusts his head a little further through thegrating. "Yes, Konev I am, but who you are I have not a notion. "

"What are you here for?"

"For a matter of base coin, though, to be truthful, I am hereaccidentally, without genuine cause. "

The warder rouses himself, and, with his keys jingling like a set offetters, utters drowsily the command:

"Do not stand still. Also, move further from the wall. To approach itis forbidden. "

"But it is so hot in the middle of the yard, sir!"

"Everywhere it is hot, " retorts the man reprovingly, and his headsubsides again. From above comes the whispered query:

"Who ARE you?"

"Well, do you remember Tatiana, the woman from Riazan?"

"DO I remember her?" Konev's voice has in it a touch of subduedresentment. "DO I remember her? Why, I was tried in court together withher!"

"Together with HER? Was she too sentenced for the passing of base coin?"

"Yes. Why should she not have been? She was merely the victim of anaccident, even as I was. "

As I resume my walk in the stifling shade I detect that, from thewindows of the basement there is issuing a smell of, in equal parts, rotten leather, mouldy grain, and dampness. To my mind there recurTatiana's words: "Amid a great sorrow even a small joy becomes a greatfelicity, " and, "I should like to build a village on some land of myown, and create for myself a new and better life. "

And to my recollection there recur also Tatiana's face and yearning, hungry breast. As I stand thinking of these things, there come droppingon to my head from above the low-spoken, ashen-grey words:

"The chief conspirator in the matter was her lover, the son of apriest. He it was who engineered the plot. He has been sentenced to tenyears penal servitude. "

"And she?"

"Tatiana Vasilievna? To the same, and I also. I leave for Siberia theday after tomorrow. The trial was held at Kutair. In Russia I shouldhave got off with a lighter sentence than here, for the folk in theseparts are, one and all, evil, barbaric scoundrels. "

"And Tatiana, has she any children?"

"How could she have while living such a rough life as this? Of coursenot! Besides, the priest's son is a consumptive. "

"Indeed sorry for her am I!"

"So I expect. " And in Konev's tone there would seem to be a touch ofmeaning. "The woman was a fool--of that there can be no doubt; but alsoshe was comely, as well as a person out of the common in her pity forfolk. "

"Was it then that you found her again?"

"When?"

"On that Feast of the Assumption?"

"Oh no. It was only during the following winter that I came up withher. At the time she was serving as governess to the children of an oldofficer in Batum whose wife had left him. "

Something snaps behind me--something sounding like the hammer of arevolver. However, it is only the warder closing the lid of his hugewatch before restoring the watch to his pocket, giving himself astretch, and yawning to the utmost extent of his jaws. 

"You see, she had money, and, but for her restlessness, might havelived a comfortable life enough. As it was, her restlessness--"

"Time for exercise is up!" shouts the warder. 

"Who are you?" adds Konev hastily. "Somehow I seem to remember yourface; but I cannot place it. "

Yet so stung am I with what I have heard that I move away in silence:save that just as I reach the top of the steps I turn to cry:

"Goodbye, mate, and give her my greeting. "

"What are you bawling for?" blusters the warder. .. . 

The corridor is dim, and filled with an oppressive odour. The warderswings his keys with a dry, thin clash, and I, to dull the pain in myheart, strive to imitate him. But the attempt proves futile; and as thewarder opens the door of my cell he says severely:

"In with you, ten-years man!"

Entering, I move towards the window. Between some grey spikes on a wallI can just discern the boisterous current of the Kura, with sakli[warehouses] and houses glued to the opposite bank, and the figures ofsome workmen on the roof of a tanning shed. Below, with his cap pushedto the back of his head, a sentry is pacing backwards and forwards. 

Wearily my mind recalls the many scores of Russian folk whom it hasseen perish to no purpose. And as it does so it feels crushed, as in avice, beneath the burden of great and inexorable sorrow with which alllife is dowered. 

IN A MOUNTAIN DEFILE

In a mountain defile near a little tributary of the Sunzha, there wasbeing built a workman's barraque--a low, long edifice which remindedone of a large coffin lid. 

The building was approaching completion, and, meanwhile, a score ofcarpenters were employed in fashioning thin planks into doors of equalthinness, knocking together benches and tables, and fittingwindow-frames into the small window-squares. 

Also, to assist these carpenters in the task of protecting the barraquefrom tribesmen's nocturnal raids, the shrill-voiced young student ofcivil engineering who had been set in charge of the work had sent tothe place, as watchman, an ex-soldier named Paul Ivanovitch, a man ofthe Cossack type, and myself. 

Yet whereas we were out-at-elbows, the carpenters were sleek, respectable, monied, well-clad fellows. Also, there was something dourand irritating about them, since, for one thing, they had failed torespond to our greeting on our first appearance, and eyed us withnothing but dislike and suspicion. Hence, hurt by their chillyattitude, we had withdrawn from their immediate neighbourhood, constructed a causeway of stepping stones to the eastern bank of therivulet, and taken up our abode beneath the chaotic grey mists whichenveloped the mountain side in that direction. 

Also, over the carpenters there was a foreman--a man whose bony frame, clad in a white shirt and a pair of white trousers, looked always asthough it were ready-attired for death. Moreover, he wore no cap toconceal the yellow patch of baldness which covered most of his head, and, in addition, his nose was squat and grey, his neck and face hadover them skin of a porous, pumice-like consistency, his eyes weregreen and dim, and upon his features there was stamped a dead anddisagreeable expression. To be candid, however, behind the dark lipslay a set of fine, close teeth, while the hairs of the grey beard (abeard trimmed after the Tartar fashion) were thick and, seemingly, soft. 

Never did this man put a hand actually to the work; always he keptroaming about with the large, rigid-looking fingers of his hands tuckedinto his belt, and his fixed and expressionless eyes scanning thebarraque, the men, and the work as his lips vented some such lines as:

 Oh God our Father, bound hast Thou A crown of thorns upon my brow! Listen to my humble prayer! Lighten the burden which I bear!

"What on earth can be in the man's mind?" once remarked the ex-soldier, with a frowning glance at the singer. 

As for our duties, my mates and I had nothing to do, and soon began tofind the time tedious. For his part, the man with the Cossackphysiognomy scaled the mountain side; whence he could be heardwhistling and snapping twigs with his heavy feet, while the ex-soldierselected a space between two rocks for a shelter of ace-rose boughs, and, stretching himself on his stomach, fell to smoking strong mountaintobacco in his large meerschaum pipe as dimly, dreamily he contemplatedthe play of the mountain torrent. Lastly, I myself selected a seat on arock which overhung the brook, dipped my feet in the coolness of thewater, and proceeded to mend my shirt. 

At intervals, the defile would convey to our ears a dull echo of soundsso wholly at variance with the locality as muffled hammer-blows, ascreeching of saws, a rasping of planes, and a confused murmur of humanvoices. 

Also, a moist breeze blew constantly from the dark-blue depths of thedefile, and caused the stiff, upright larches on the knoll behind thebarraque to rustle their boughs, and distilled from the rank soil thevoluptuous scents of ace-rose and pitch-pine, and evoked in the trees'quiet gloom a soft, crooning, somnolent lullaby. 

About a sazhen [Fathom] below the level of the barraque there coursednoisily over its bed of stones a rivulet white with foam. Yet though ofother sounds in the vicinity there were but few, the general effect wasto suggest that everything in the neighbourhood was speaking or singinga tale of such sort as to shame the human species into silence. 

On our own side of the valley the ground lay bathed in sunshine--layscorched to the point of seeming to have spread over it a tissue-cloth. Old gold in colour, while from every side arose the sweet perfume ofdried grasses, and in dark clefts there could be seen sprouting thelong, straight spears and fiery, reddish, cone-shaped blossoms of thatbold, hardy plant which is known to us as saxifrage--the plant of whichthe contemplation makes one long to burst into music, and fills one'swhole body with sensuous languor. 

Laced with palpitating, snow-white foam, the beautiful rivulet pursuedits sportive way over tessellated stones which flashed through theeddies of the glassy, sunlit, amber-coloured water with the silkensheen of a patchwork carpet or costly shawl of Cashmir. 

Through the mouth of the defile one could reach the valley of theSunzha, whence, since men were ther, building a railway to Petrovsk onthe Caspian Sea, there kept issuing and breaking against the crags adull rumble of explosions, of iron rasped against stone, of whistles ofworks locomotives, and of animated human voices. 

From the barraque the distance to the point where the defile debouchedupon the valley was about a hundred paces, and as one issued thence onecould see, away to the left, the level steppes of the Cis-Caucasus, with a boundary wall of blue hills, topped by the silver-hewn saddle ofMount Elburz behind it. True, for the most part the steppes had a dry, yellow, sandy look, with merely here and there dark patches of gardensor black poplar clumps which rendered the golden glare more glaringstill; yet also there could be discerned on the expanse farm buildingsshaped like lumps of sugar or butter, with, in their vicinity, toylikehuman beings and diminutive cattle--the whole shimmering and melting ina mirage born of the heat. And at the mere sight of those steppes, withtheir embroidery of silk under the blue of the zenith, one's musclestightened, and one felt inspired with a longing to spring to one'sfeet, close one's eyes, and walk for ever with the soft, mournful songof the waste crooning in one's ears. 

To the right also of the defile lay the winding valley of the Sunzha, with more hills; and above those hills hung the blue sky, and in theirflanks were clefts which, full of grey mist, kept emitting a ceaselessdin of labour, a sound of dull explosions, as a great puissant forceattained release. 

Yet almost at the same moment would that hurly-burly so merge with theecho of our defile, so become buried in the defile's verdure and rockcrevices, that once more the place would seem to be singing only itsown gentle, gracious song. 

And, should one turn to glance up the defile, it could be seen to grownarrower and narrower as it ascended towards the mists, and the latterto grow thicker and thicker until the whole defile was swathed in adark blue pall. Higher yet there could be discerned the brilliant gleamof blue sky. Higher yet one could distinguish the ice-capped peak ofKara Dagh, floating and dissolving amid the ( from here) invisiblesunlight. Highest of all again brooded the serene, steadfast peace ofheaven. 

Also, everything was bathed in a strange tint of bluish grey: to whichcircumstance must have been due the fact that always one's soul feltfilled with restlessness, one's heart stirred to disquietude, and firedas with intoxication, charged with incomprehensible thoughts, andconscious as of a summons to set forth for some unknown destination. 

 * * * * *

The foreman of the carpenters shaded his eyes to gaze in our direction;and as he did so, he drawled and rasped out in tedious fashion:

 "Some shall to the left be sent, And in the pit of Hell lie pent. While others, holding palm in hand, Shall on God's right take up their stand. "

"DID you hear that?" the ex-soldier growled through clenched teeth. "'Palm in hand' indeed! Why, the fellow must be a Mennonite or aMolokan, though the two, really, are one, and absolutelyindistinguishable, as well as equally foolish. Yes, 'palm in hand'indeed!"

Similarly could I understand the ex-soldier's indignation, for, likehim, I felt that such dreary, monotonous singing was altogether out ofplace in a spot where everything could troll a song so delightful as tolead one to wish to hear nothing more, to hear only the whispering ofthe forest and the babbling of the stream. And especially out of placedid the terms "palm" and "Mennonite" appear. 

Yet I had no great love for the ex-soldier. Somehow he jarred upon me. Middle-aged, squat, square, and bleached with the sun, he had fadedeyes, flattened-out features, and an expression of restless moroseness. Never could I make out what he really wanted, what he was reallyseeking. For instance, once, after reviewing the Caucasus fromKhassav-Urt to Novorossisk, and from Batum to Derbent, and, during thereview, crossing the mountain range by three different routes at least, he remarked with a disparaging smile:

"I suppose the Lord God made the country. "

"You do not like it, then? How should I? Good for nothing is what Icall it. "

Then, with a further glance at me, and a twist of his sinewy neck, headded:

"However, not bad altogether are its forests. "

A native of Kaluga, he had served in Tashkend, and, in fighting withthe Chechintzes of that region, had been wounded in the head with astone. Yet as he told me the story of this incident, he smiledshamefacedly, and, throughout, kept his glassy eyes fixed upon theground. 

"Though I am ashamed to confess it, " he said, "once a woman chipped apiece out of me. You see, the women of that region are shriekingdevils--there is no other word for it; and when we captured a villagecalled Akhal-Tiapa a number of them had to be cut up, so that they layabout in heaps, and their blood made walking slippery. Just as ourcompany of the reserve entered the street, something caught me on thehead. Afterwards, I learnt that a woman on a roof had thrown a stone, and, like the rest, had had to be put out of the way. "

Here, knitting his brows, the ex-soldier went on in more serious vein:

"Yet all that folk used to say about those women, about their havingbeards to shave, turned out to be so much gossip, as I ascertained formyself. I did so by lifting the woman's skirt on the point of mybayonet, when I perceived that, though she was lean, and smelt like agoat, she was quite as regular as, as--"

"Things must have been indeed terrible on that expedition!" Iinterposed. 

"I do not know for certain, since, though men who took an actual partin the expedition's engagements have said that they were so (theChechintze is a vicious brute, and never gives in), I myself know butlittle of the affair, since I spent my whole time in the reserve, andnever once did my company advance to the assault. No, it merely layabout on the sand, and fired at long range. In fact, nothing but sandwas to be seen thereabouts; nor did we ever succeed in finding out whatthe fighting was for. True, if a piece of country be good, it is in ourinterest to take it; but in the present case the country was poor andbare, with never a river in sight, and a climate so hot that all onethought of was one's mortal need of a drink. In fact, some of ourfellows died of thirst outright. Moreover, in those parts there grows asort of millet called dzhugar--millet which not only has a horribletaste, but proves absolutely delusive, since the more one eats of it, the less one feels filled. "

As the ex-soldier told me the tale colourlessly and reluctantly, withfrequent pauses between the sentences (as though either he found itdifficult to recall the experience or he were thinking of somethingelse), he never once looked me straight in the face, but kept his eyesshamefacedly fixed upon the ground. 

Unwieldily and unhealthily stout, he always conveyed to me theimpression of being charged with a vague discontent, a sort of captiousinertia. 

"Absolutely unfit for settlement is this country" he continued as heglanced around him. "It is fit only to do nothing in. For that matter, one doesn't WANT to do anything in it, save to live with one's eyesbulging like a drunkard's--for the climate is too hot, and the placesmells like a chemist's shop or a hospital. "

Nevertheless, for the past eight years had he been roaming this "toohot" country, as though fascinated!

"Why not return to Riazan?" I suggested. 

"Nothing would there be there for me to do, " he replied through histeeth, and with an odd division of his words. 

My first encounter with him had been at the railway station at Armavir, where, purple in the face with excitement, he had been stamping like ahorse, and, with distended eyes, hissing, or, rather, snarling, at acouple of Greeks:

"I'll tear the flesh from your bones!"

Meanwhile the two lean, withered, ragged, identically similar denizensof Hellas had been baring their sharp white teeth at intervals, andsaying apologetically:

"What has angered you, sir?"

Finally, regardless of the Greeks' words, the ex-soldier had beat hisbreast like a drum, and shouted in accents of increased venom:

"Now, where are you living? In Russia, do you say? Then who issupporting you there? Aha-a-a! Russia, it is said, is a goodfoster-mother. I expect you say the same. "

And, lastly, he had approached a fat, grey-headed, bemedalled gendarme, and complained to him:

"Everyone curses us born Russians, yet everyone comes to live withus--Greeks, Germans, Songs, and the lot. And while they get theirlivelihood here, and cat and drink their fill, they continue to curseus. A scandal, is it not?"

 * * * * *

The third member of our party was a man of about thirty who wore aCossack cap over his left ear, and had a Cossack forelock, roundedfeatures, a large nose, a dark moustache, and a retrousse lip. When thevolatile young engineering student first brought him to us and said, "Here is another man for you, " the newcomer glanced at me through thelashes of his elusive eyes--then plunged his hands into the pockets ofhis Turkish overalls. Just as we were departing, however, he withdrewone hand from the left trouser pocket, passed it slowly over the darkbristles of his unshaven chin, and asked in musical tones:

"Do you come from Russia?"

"Whence else, I should like to know?" snapped the ex-soldier gruffly. 

Upon this the newcomer twisted his right-hand moustache then replacedhis hand in his pocket. Broad-shouldered, sturdy, and well-builtthroughout, he walked with the stride of a man who is accustomed tocover long distances. Yet with him he had brought neither wallet norgripsack, and somehow his supercilious, retrousse upper lip and thicklyfringed eyes irritated me, and inclined me to be suspicious of, andeven actively to dislike, the man. 

Suddenly, while we were proceeding along the causeway by the side ofthe rivulet, he turned to us, and said, as he nodded towards thesportively coursing water:

"Look at the matchmaker!"

The ex-soldier hoisted his bleached eyebrows, and gazed around him fora moment in bewilderment. Then he whispered:

"The fool!"

But, for my own part, I considered that what the man had said wasapposite; that the rugged, boisterous little river did indeed resemblesome fussy, light-hearted old lady who loved to arrange affaires ducoeur both for her own private amusement and for the purpose ofenabling other folk to realise the joys of affection amid which she wasliving, and of which she would never grow weary, and to which shedesired to introduce the rest of the world as speedily as possible. 

Similarly, when we arrived at the barraque this man with the Cossackface glanced at the rivulet, and then at the mountains and the sky, and, finally, appraised the scene in one pregnant, comprehensiveexclamation of "Slavno!" [How splendid!]

The ex-soldier, who was engaged in ridding himself of his knapsack, straightened himself, and asked with his arms set akimbo:

"WHAT is it that is so splendid?"

For a moment or two the newcomer merely eyed the squat figure of hisquestioner--a figure upon which hung drab shreds as lichen hangs upon astone. Then he said with a smile:

"Cannot you see for yourself? Take that mountain there, and that cleftin the mountain--are they not good to look at?"

And as he moved away, the ex-soldier gaped after him with a repeatedwhisper of:

"The fool!"

To which presently he added in a louder, as well as a mysterious, tone:

"I have heard that occasionally they send fever patients hither fortheir health. "

The same evening saw two sturdy women arrive with supper for thecarpenters; whereupon the clatter of labour ceased, and therefore therustling of the forest and the murmuring of the rivulet became the moredistinct. 

Next, deliberately, and with many coughs, the ex-soldier set to work tocollect some twigs and chips for the purpose of lighting a fire. Afterwhich, having arranged a kettle over the flames, he said to mesuggestively:

"You too should collect some firewood, for in these parts the nightsare dark and chilly. "

I set forth in search of chips among the stones which lay around thebarraque, and, in so doing, stumbled across the newcomer, who was lyingwith his body resting on an elbow, and his head on his hand, as heconned a manuscript spread out before him. As he raised his eyes togaze vaguely, inquiringly into my face, I saw that one of his eyes waslarger than the other. 

Evidently he divined that he interested me, for he smiled. Yet so takenaback by this was I, that I passed on my way without speaking. 

Meanwhile the carpenters, disposed in two circles around the barraque(a circle to each woman), partook of a silent supper. 

Deeper and deeper grew the shadow of night over the defile. Warmer andwarmer, denser and denser, grew the air, until the twilight caused theslopes of the mountains to soften in outline, and the rocks to seem toswell and merge with the bluish-blackness which overhung the bed of thedefile, and the superimposed heights to form a single apparent whole, and the scene in general to resolve itself into, become united into, one compact bulk. 

Quietly then did tints hitherto red extinguish their tremulousglow--softly there flared up, dusted purple in the sunset's sheen, thepeak of Kara Dagh. Vice versa, the foam of the rivulet now blushed tored, and, seemingly, assuaged its vehemence--flowed with a deeper, amore pensive, note; while similarly the forest hushed its voice, andappeared to stoop towards the water while emitting ever more powerful, intoxicating odours to mingle with the resinous, cloyingly sweetperfume of our wood fire. 

The ex-soldier squatted down before the little blaze, and rearrangedsome fuel under the kettle. 

"Where is the other man?" said he. "Go and fetch him. "

I departed for the purpose, and, on my way, heard one of the carpentersin the neighbourhood of the barraque say in a thick, unctuous, sing-song voice. 

"A great work is it indeed!"

Whereafter I heard the two women fall to drawling in low, hungryaccents:

 "With the flesh I'll conquer pain; The spirit shall my lust restrain; All-supreme the soul shall reign; And carnal vices lure in vain. "

True, the women pronounced their words distinctly enough; yet alwaysthey prolonged the final "u" sound of the stanza's first and thirdlines until, as the melody floated away into the darkness, and, as itwere, sank to earth, it came to resemble the long-drawn howl of a wolf. 

In answer to my invitation to come to supper, the newcomer sprang tohis feet, folded up his manuscript, stuffed it into one of the pocketsof his ragged coat, and said with a smile:

"I had just been going to resort to the carpenters, for they would havegiven us some bread, I suppose? Long is it since I tasted anything. "

The same words he repeated on our approaching the ex-soldier; much asthough he took a pleasure in their phraseology. 

"You suppose that they would have given us bread?" echoed theex-soldier as he unfastened his wallet. "Not they! No love is lostbetween them and ourselves. "

"Whom do you mean by 'ourselves'?"

"Us here--you and myself--all Russian folk who may happen to be inthese parts. From the way in which those fellows keep singing aboutpalms, I should judge them to be sectarians of the sort calledMennonites. "

"Or Molokans, rather?" the other man suggested as he seated himself infront of the fire. 

"Yes, or Molokans. Molokans or Mennonites--they're all one. It is aGerman faith and though such fellows love a Teuton, they do not exactlywelcome US. "

Upon this the man with the Cossack forelock took a slice of bread whichthe ex-soldier cut from a loaf, with an onion and a pinch of salt. Then, as he regarded us with a pair of good-humoured eyes, he said, balancing his food on the palms of his hands:

"There is a spot on the Sunzha, near here, where those fellows have acolony of their own. Yes, I myself have visited it. True, those fellowsare hard enough, but at the same time to speak plainly, NO ONE in theseparts has any regard for us since only too many of the sort of Russianfolk who come here in search of work are not overly-desirable. "

"Where do you yourself come from?" The ex-soldier's tone was severe. 

"From Kursk, we might say. "

"From Russia, then?"

"Yes, I suppose so. But I have no great opinion even of myself. "

The ex-soldier glanced distrustfully at the newcomer. Then he remarked:

"What you say is cant, sheer Jesuitism. It is fellows like THOSE, rather, that ought to have a poor opinion of themselves. "

To this the other made no reply--merely he put a piece of bread intohis mouth. For a moment or two the ex-soldier eyed him frowningly. Thenhe continued:

"You seem to me to be a native of the Don country?"

"Yes, I have lived on the Don as well. "

"And also served in the army?"

"No. I was an only son. "

"Of a miestchanin?" [A member of the small commercial class. ]

"No, of a merchant. "

"And your name--?"

"Is Vasili. "

The last reply came only after a pause, and reluctantly; wherefore, perceiving that the Kurskan had no particular desire to discuss his ownaffairs, the ex-soldier said no more on the subject, but lifted thekettle from the fire. 

The Molokans also had kindled a blaze behind the corner of thebarraque, and now its glow was licking the yellow boards of thestructure until they seemed almost to be liquescent, to be about todissolve and flow over the ground in a golden stream. 

Presently, as their fervour increased, the carpenters, invisible amidthe obscurity, fell to singing hymns--the basses intoning monotonously, "Sing, thou Holy Angel!" and voices of higher pitch responding, coldlyand formally. 

 "Sing ye! Sing glory unto Christ, thou Angel of Holiness! Sing ye! Our singing will we add unto Thine, Thou Angel of Holiness!"

And though the chorus failed altogether to dull the splashing of therivulet and the babbling of the by-cut over a bed of stones, it seemedout of place in this particular spot; it aroused resentment against menwho could not think of a lay more atune with the particular living, breathing objects around us. 

Gradually darkness enveloped the defile until only over the mouth ofthe pass, over the spot where, gleaming a brilliant blue, the rivuletescaped into a cleft that was overhung with a mist of a deeper shade, was there not yet suspended the curtain of the Southern night. 

Presently, the gloom caused one of the rocks in our vicinity to assumethe guise of a monk who, kneeling in prayer, had his head adorned witha pointed skull-cap, and his face buried in his hands. Similarly, thestems of the trees stirred in the firelight until they developed thesemblance of a file of friars entering, for early Mass, the porch oftheir chapel-of-ease. 

To my mind there then recurred a certain occasion when, on just such adark and sultry night as this, I had been seated tale-telling under theboundary-wall of a row of monastic cells in the Don country. Suddenly Ihad heard a window above my head open, and someone exclaim in a kindly, youthful voice:

"The Mother of God be blessed for all this goodly world of ours!"

And though the window had closed again before I had had time to discernthe speaker, I had known that there was resident in the monastery afriar who had large eyes, and a limp, and just such a face as hadVasili here; wherefore, in all probability it had been he who hadbreathed the benediction upon mankind at large, for the reason thatmoments there are when all humanity seems to be one's own body, and inoneself there seems to beat the heart of all humanity. .. . 

Vasili consumed his food deliberately as, breaking off morsels from hisslice, and neatly parting his moustache, he placed the morsels in hismouth with a curious stirring of two globules which underlay the skinnear the ears. 

The ex-soldier, however, merely nibbled at his food--he ate but little, and that lazily. Then he extracted a pipe from his breast pocket, filled it with tobacco, lit it with a faggot taken from the fire, andsaid as he set himself to listen to the singing of the Molokans:

"They are filled full, and have started bleating. Always folk like themseek to be on the right side of the Almighty. "

"Does that hurt you in any way?" Vasili asked with a smile. 

"No, but I do not respect them--they are less saints than humbugs, thanprevaricators whose first word is God, and second word rouble. "

"How do you know that?" cried Vasili amusedly. "And even if their firstword IS God, and their second word rouble, we had best not be too hardupon them, since if they chose to be hard upon US, where should WE be?Yes, we have only to open our mouths to speak a word or two forourselves, and we should find every fist at our teeth. "

"Quite so, " the ex-soldier agreed as, taking up a square of scantling, he examined it attentively. 

"Whom DO you respect?" Vasili continued after a pause. 

"I respect, " the ex-soldier said with some emphasis, "only the Russianpeople, the true Russian people, the folk who labour on land whereonlabour is hard. Yet who are the folk whom you find HERE? In this partof the world the business of living is an easy one. Much of every sortof natural produce is to be had, and the soil is generous andlight--you need but to scratch it for it to bear, and for yourself toreap. Yes, it is indulgent to a fault. Rather, it is like a maiden. Dobut touch her, and a child will arrive. "

"Agreed, " was Vasili's remark as he drank tea from a tin mug. "Yet tothis very part of the world is it that I should like to transport everysoul in Russia. "

"And why?"

"Because here they could earn a living. "

"Then is not that possible in Russia?"

"Well, why are you yourself here?"

"Because I am a man lacking ties. "

"And why are you lacking ties?"

"Because it has been so ordered--it is, so to speak, my lot. "

"Then had you not better consider WHY it is your lot?"

The ex-soldier took his pipe from his mouth, let fall the hand whichheld it, and smoothed his plain features in silent amazement. Then heexclaimed in uncouth, querulous tones:

"Had I not better consider WHY it is my lot, and so forth? Why, damnit, the causes are many. For one thing, if one has neighbours whoneither live nor see things as oneself does, but are uncongenial, whatdoes one do? One just leaves them, and clears out--more especially ifone be neither a priest nor a magistrate. Yet YOU say that I had betterconsider why this is my lot. Do you think that YOU are the only manable to consider things, possessed of a brain?"

And in an access of fury the speaker replaced his pipe, and satfrowning in silence. Vasili eyed his interlocutor's features as thefirelight played red upon them, and, finally, said in an undertone:

"Yes, it is always so. We fail to get on with our neighbours, yet lacka charter of our own, so, having no roots to hold us, just fall towandering, troubling other folk, and earning dislike!"

"The dislike of whom?" gruffly queried the ex-soldier. 

"The dislike of everyone, as you yourself have said!"

In answer the ex-soldier merely emitted a cloud of smoke whichcompletely concealed his form. Yet Vasili's voice had in it anagreeable note, and was flexible and ingratiating, while enunciatingits words roundly and distinctly. 

A mountain owl, one of those splendid brown creatures which have thecrafty physiognomy of a cat, and the sharp grey ears of a mouse, madethe forest echo with its obtrusive cry. A bird of this species I onceencountered among the defile's crags, and as the creature sailed overmy head it startled me with the glassy eyes which, as round as buttons, seemed to be lit from within with menacing fire. Indeed, for a momentor two I stood half-stupefied with terror, for I could not conceivewhat the creature was. 

"Whence did you get that splendid pipe?" next asked Vasili as he rolledhimself a cigarette. "Surely it is a pipe of old German make?"

"You need not fear that I stole it, " the ex-soldier responded as heremoved it from his lips and regarded it proudly. "It was given me by awoman. "

To which, with a whimsical wink, he added a sigh. 

"Tell me how it happened, " said Vasili softly. Then he flung up hisarms, and stretched himself with a despondent cry of:

"Ah, these nights here! Never again may God send me such bad ones! Tryto sleep as one may, one never succeeds. Far easier, indeed, is it tosleep during the daytime, provided that one can find a shady spot. During such nights I go almost mad with thinking, and my heart swellsand murmurs. "

The ex-soldier, who had listened with mouth agape and eyebrows raisedeven higher than usual, responded to this:

"It is the same with me. If one could only--What did you say?"

This last was addressed to myself, who had been about to remark, "Thesame with me also, " but on seeing the pair exchanging a strange glance(as though involuntarily they had surprised one another), had left thewords unspoken. My companions then set themselves to a mutually eagerquestioning with respect to their respective identities, pastexperiences, places of origin, and destinations, even as though theyhad been two kinsmen who, meeting unexpectedly, had discovered for thefirst time their bond of relationship. 

Meanwhile the black, fringed boughs of the pine trees hung stretchedover the flames of the Molokans' fire as though they would catch someof the fire's glow and warmth, or seize it altogether, and put it out. And when, at times, their red tongues projected beyond the corner ofthe barraque, they made the building look as though it had caughtalight, and extended their glow even to the rivulet. Constantly thenight was growing denser and more stifling; constantly it seemed toembrace the body more and more caressingly, until one bathed in it asin an ocean. Also, much as a wave removes dirt from the skin, so thesoftly vocal darkness seemed to refresh and cleanse the soul. For it ison such nights as that that the soul dons its finest raiment, andtrembles like a bride at the expectation of something glorious. 

"You say that she had a squint?" presently I heard Vasili continue inan undertone, and the ex-soldier slowly reply:

"Yes, she had one from childhood upwards--she had one from the day whena fall from a cart caused her to injure her eyes. Yet, if she had notalways gone about with one of her eyes shaded, you would never haveguessed the fact. Also, she was so neat and practical! And herkindness--well, it was kindness as inexhaustible as the water of thatrivulet there; it was kindness of the sort that wished well to all theworld, and to all animals, and to every beggar, and even to myself! Soat last there gripped my heart the thought, 'Why should I not try asoldier's luck? She is the master's favourite--true; yet none the lessthe attempt shall be made by me. ' However, this way or that, always thereply was 'No'; always she put out at me an elbow, and cut me short. "

Vasili, lying prone upon his back, twitched his moustache, and chewed astalk of grass. His eyes were fully open, and for the second time Iperceived that one of them was larger than the other. The ex-soldier, seated near Vasili's shoulder, stirred the fire with a bit of charredstick, and sent sparks of gold flying to join the midges which weregliding to and fro over the blaze. Ever and anon night-moths subsidedinto the flames with a plop, crackled, and became changed into lumps ofblack. For my own part, I constructed a couch on a pile of pine boughs, and there lay down. And as I listened to the ex-soldier's familiarstory, I recalled persons whom I had on one and another occasionremembered, and speeches which on one and another occasion had made animpression upon me. 

"But at last, " the ex-soldier continued, "I took heart of grace, andcaught her in a barn. Pressing her into a corner, I said: 'Now let itbe yes or no. Of, course it shall be as you wish, but remember that Iam a soldier with a small stock of patience. ' Upon that she began tostruggle and exclaim: 'What do you want? What do you want?' until, bursting into tears like a girl, she said through her sobs: 'Do nottouch me. I am not the sort of woman for you. Besides, I loveanother--not our master, but another, a workman, a former lodger ofours. Before he departed he said to me: "Wait for me until I have foundyou a nice home, and returned to fetch you"; and though it is seventeenyears since I heard speech or whisper of him, and maybe he has sinceforgotten me, or fallen in love with someone else, or come to grief, orbeen murdered, you, who are a map, will understand that I must bide alittle while longer. ' True, this offended me (for in what respect was Iany worse than the other man?); yet also I felt sorry for her, andgrieved that I should have wronged her by thinking her frivolous, whenall the time there had been THIS at her heart. I drew back, therefore--I could not lay a finger upon her, though she was in mypower. And at last I said: 'Good-bye! I am going away. ' 'Go, ' shereplied. 'Yes, go for the love of Christ!'. .. Wherefore, on thefollowing evening I settled accounts with our master, and at dawn of aSunday morning packed my wallet, took with me this pipe, and departed. 'Yes, take the pipe, Paul Ivanovitch, ' she said before my departure. 'Perhaps it will serve to keep you in remembrance of me--you whomhenceforth I shall regard as a brother, and whom I thank. '. .. As Iwalked away I was very nigh to tears, so keen was the pain in my heart. Aye, keen it was indeed!"

"You did right, " Vasili remarked softly after a pause. 

"Things must always so befall. Always must it be a case either of'Yes?' 'Yes, ' and of folk coming together, or of 'No' 'No, ' and of folkparting. And invariably the one person in the case grieves the other. Why should that be?"

Emitting a cloud of grey smoke, the ex-soldier replied thoughtfully:

"Yes, I know I did right; but that right was done only at a great cost. "

"And always that too is the case, " Vasili agreed. Then he added:

"Generally such fortune falls to the lot of people who have tenderconsciences. He who values himself also values his fellows; but, unfortunately a man all too seldom values even himself. "

"To whom are you referring? To you and myself?"

"To our Russian folk in general. "

"Then you cannot have very much respect for Russia. " The ex-soldier'stone had taken on a curious note. He seemed to be feeling bothastonished at and grieved for his companion. 

The other, however, did not reply; and after a few moments theex-soldier softly concluded:

"So now you have heard my story. "

By this time the carpenters had ceased singing around the barraque, andlet their fire die down until quivering on the wall of the edificethere was only a fiery-red patch, a patch barely sufficient to rendervisible the shadows of the rocks; while beside the fire there wasseated only a tall figure with a black beard which had, grasped in itshands, a heavy cudgel, and, lying near its right foot, an axe. Thefigure was that of a watchman set by the carpenters to keep an eye uponourselves, the appointed watchmen; though the fact in no way offendedus. 

Over the defile, in a ragged strip of sky, there were gleaming stars, while the rivulet was bubbling and purling, and from the obscurity ofthe forest there kept coming to our ears, now the cautious, rustlingtread of some night animal, and now the mournful cry of an owl, untilall nature seemed to be instinct with a secret vitality the sweetbreath of which kept moving the heart to hunger insatiably for thebeautiful. 

Also, as I lay listening to the voice of the ex-soldier, a voicereminiscent of a distant tambourine, and to Vasili's pensive questions, I conceived a liking for the men, and began to detect that in theirrelations there was dawning something good and human. At the same time, the effect of some of Vasili's dicta on Russia was to arouse in memingled feelings which impelled me at once to argue with him and toinduce him to speak at greater length, with more clarity, on thesubject of our mutual fatherland. Hence always I have loved that nightfor the visions which it brought to me--visions which still come backto me like a dear, familiar tale. 

I thought of a student of Kazan whom I had known in the days of thepast, of a young fellow from Viatka who, pale-browed, and sententiousof diction, might almost have been brother to the ex-soldier himself. And once again I heard him declare that "before all things must I learnwhether or not there exists a God; pre-eminently must I make abeginning there. "

And I thought, too, of a certain accoucheuse named Velikova who hadbeen a comely, but reputedly gay, woman. And I remembered a certainoccasion when, on a hill overlooking the river Kazan and the ArskiPlain, she had stood contemplating the marshes below, and the far blueline of the Volga; until suddenly turning pale, she had, with tears ofjoy sparkling in her fine eyes, cried under her breath, butsufficiently loudly for all present to hear her:

"Ah, friends, how gracious and how fair is this land of ours! Come, letus salute that land for having deemed us worthy of residence therein!"

Whereupon all present, including a deacon-student from theEcclesiastical School, a Morduine from the Foreign College, a studentof veterinary science, and two of our tutors, had done obeisance. Atthe same time I recalled the fact that subsequently one of the partyhad gone mad, and committed suicide. 

Again, I recalled how once, on the Piani Bor [Liquor Wharf] by theriver Kama, a tall, sandy young fellow with intelligent eyes and theface of a ne'er-do-well had caught my attention. The day had been ahot, languorous Sunday on which all things had seemed to be exhibitingtheir better side, and telling the sun that it was not in vain that hewas pouring out his brilliant potency, and diffusing his living gold;while the man of whom I speak had, dressed in a new suit of blue serge, a new cap cocked awry, and a pair of brilliantly polished boots, beenstanding at the edge of the wharf, and gazing at the brown waters ofthe Kama, the emerald expanse beyond them and the silver-scaled poolsleft behind by the tide. Until, as the sun had begun to sink towardsthe marshes on the other side of the river, and to become dissolvedinto streaks, the man had smiled with increasing rapture, and his facehad glowed with creasing eagerness and delight; until finally he hadsnatched the cap from his head, flung it, with a powerful throw far outinto the russet waters, and shouted: "Kama, O my mother, I love you, and never will desert you!"

And the last, and also the best, recollection of things seen before thenight of which I speak was the recollection of an occasion when, onelate autumn, I had been crossing the Caspian Sea on an old two-mastedschooner laden with dried apricots, plums, and peaches. Sailing on heralso she had had some hundred fishermen from the Bozhi Factory, menwho, originally forest peasants of the Upper Volga, had beenwell-built, bearded, healthy, goodhumoured, animal-spirited youngfellows, youngsters tanned with the wind, and salted with the seawater; youngsters who, after working hard at their trade, had beenrejoicing at the prospect of returning home. And careering about thedeck like youthful bears as ever and anon lofty, sharp-pointed waveshad seized and tossed aloft the schooner, and the yards had cracked, and the taut-run rigging had whistled, and the sails had bellied intoglobes, and the howling wind had shaved off the white crests ofbillows, and partially submerged the vessel in clouds of foam. 

And seated on the deck with his broad back resting against the mainmastthere had been one young giant in particular. Clad in a white linenshirt and a pair of blue serge trousers, and innocent alike of beardand moustache, this young fellow had had full, red lips, blue, boyish, and exceedingly translucent eyes, and a face intoxicated in excelsiswith the happiness of youth; while leaning across his knees as they hadrested sprawling over the deck there had been a young female trimmer offish, a wench as massive and tall as the young man himself, and a wenchwhose face had become tanned to roughness with the sun and wind, eyebrows dark, full, and as large as the wings of a swallow, breasts asfirm as stone, and teats around which, as they projected from the foldsof a red bodice, there had lain a pattern of blue veins. 

The broad, iron-black palm of the young fellow's long, knotted hand hadbeen resting on the woman's left breast, with the arm bare to theelbow; while in his right hand, as he had sat gazing pensively at thewoman's robust figure, there had been grasped a tin mug from which someof the red liquor had scattered stains over the front of his linenshirt. 

Meanwhile, around the pair there had been hovering some of theyoungster's comrades, who, with coats buttoned to the throat, and capsgripped to prevent their being blown away by the wind, had employedthemselves with scanning the woman's figure with envious eyes, andviewing her from either side. Nay, the shaggy green waves themselveshad been stealing occasional glimpses at the picture as clouds hadswirled across the sky, gulls had uttered their insatiable scream, andthe sun, dancing on the foam-flecked waters, had vested the billows, now in tints of blue, now in natural tints as of flaming jewels. 

In short, all the passengers on the schooner had been shouting andlaughing and singing, while the great bearded peasants had also beenpaying assiduous court to a large leathern bottle which had lainensconced on a heap of peach-sacks, with the result that the scene hadcome to have about it something of the antique, legendary air of thereturn of Stepan Razin from his Persian campaign. 

At length the buffeting of the wind had caused an old man with acrooked nose set on a hairy, faun-like face to stumble over one of thewoman's feet; whereupon he had halted, thrown up his head withnonsenile vigour, and exclaimed:

"May the devil fly away with you, you shameless hussy! Why liesprawling about the deck like this? See, too, how exposed you are!"

The woman had not stirred at the words--she had not even opened an eye;only over her lips there had passed a faint tremor. Whereas the youngfellow had straightened himself, deposited his tin mug upon the deck, and cried loudly as he laid his disengaged hand upon the woman's breast. 

"Ah, you envy me, do you, Yakim Petrov? Never mind, though you havedone no great harm. But run no risks; do not look for needless trouble, for your day for sucking sugarplums is past. "

Whereafter, raising both his hands, the young fellow had softly letthem sink again upon the woman's bosom as he added triumphantly:

"These breasts could feed all Russia!"

Then, and only then, had the woman smiled a long, slow smile. And asshe had done so everything in the vicinity had seemed to smile inunison, and to rise and fall in harmony with her bosom--yes, the wholevessel, and the vessel's freight. And at the moment when a particularlylarge wave had struck the bulwarks, and besprinkled all on board withspray, the woman had opened her dark eyes, looked kindly at the oldman, and at the young fellow, and at the scene in general--then setherself to recover her bosom. 

"Nay, " the young fellow had cried as he interposed to remove her hands. "There is no need for that, there is no need for that. Let them ALLlook. "

 * * * * *

Such the memories that came back to my recollection that night. GladlyI would have recounted them to my companions, but, unfortunately, thesehad, by now, succumbed to slumber. The ex-soldier, resting in a sittingposture, and snoring loudly, had his back prised against his wallet, his head sloped sideways, and his hands clasped upon his knees, whileVasili was lying on his back with his face turned upwards, his handsclasped behind his head, his dark, finely moulded brows raised alittle, and his moustache erect. Also, he was weeping in hissleep--tears were coursing down his brown, sunburnt cheeks; tearswhich, in the moonlight, had in them something of the greenish tint ofa chrysolite or sea water, and which, on such a manly face, lookedstrange indeed!

Still the rivulet was purling as it flowed, and the fire crackling;while bathed in the red glow of the flames there was sitting, bentforward, the dark, stonelike figure of the Molokans' watchman, with theaxe at his feet reflecting the radiant gleam of the moon in the skyabove us. 

All the earth seemed to be sleeping as ever the waning stars seemed todraw nearer and nearer. .. . 

The slow length of the next day was dragged along amid an inertia bornof the moist heat, the song of the river, and the intoxicating scentsof forest and flowers. In short, one felt inclined to do nothing, frommorn till night, save roam the defile without the exchanging of a word, the conceiving of a desire, or the formulating of a thought. 

At sunset, when we were engaged in drinking tea by the fire, theex-soldier remarked:

"I hope that life in the next world will exactly resemble life in thisspot, and be just as quiet and peaceful and immune from work. Here oneneeds but to sit and melt like butter and suffer neither from wrong noranxiety. "

Then, as carefully he withdrew his pipe from his lips, and sighed, headded:

"Aye! If I could but feel sure that life in the next world will be likelife here, I would pray to God: 'For Christ's sake take my soul at theearliest conceivable moment. '"

"What might suit YOU would not suit ME, " Vasili thoughtfully observed. "I would not always live such a life as this. I might do so for a time, but not in perpetuity. "

"Ah, but never have you worked hard, " grunted the ex-soldier. 

In every way the evening resembled the previous one; there were to beobserved the same luscious flooding of the defile with dove-colouredmist, the same flashing of the silver crags in the roseate twilight, the same rocking of the dense, warm forest's soft, leafy tree-tops, thesame softening of the rocks' outlines in the gloom, the same gradualuplift of shadows, the same chanting of the "matchmaking" river, thesame routine on the part of the big, sleek carpenters around thebarraque--a routine as slow and ponderous in its course as themovements of a drove of wild boars. 

More than once during the off hours of the day had we sought to makethe carpenters' acquaintance, to start a conversation with them, butalways their answers had been given reluctantly, in monosyllables, andnever had a discussion seemed likely to get under way without thewhiteheaded foreman shouting to the particular member of the gangconcerned: "Hi, you, Pavlushka! Get back to work, there!" Indeed, he, the foreman, had outdone all in his manifestations of dislike for ourfriendship, and as monotonously as though he had been minded to rivalthe rivulet as a songster, he had hummed his pious ditties, or elseraised his snuffling voice to sing them with an ever-importunatemeasure of insistence, so that all day long those ditties had beencoursing their way in a murky, melancholy-compelling flood. Indeed, asthe foreman had stepped cautiously on thin legs from stone to stoneduring his ceaseless inspection of the work of his men, he had come toseem to have for his object the describing of an invisible, circularpath, as a means of segregating us more securely than ever from thesociety of the carpenters. 

Personally, however, I had no desire to converse with him, for hisfrozen eyes chilled and repelled me and from the moment when I hadapproached him, and seen him fold his hands behind him, and recoil astep as he inquired with suppressed sternness, "What do you want?"there had fallen away from me all further ambition to learn the natureof the songs which he sang. 

The ex-soldier gazed at him resentfully, then said with an oath:

"The old wizard and pilferer! Take my word for it that a lump of pietylike that has got a pretty store put away somewhere. "

Whereafter, as he lit his pipe and squinted in the direction of thecarpenters, he added with stifled wrath:

"The airs that the 'elect' give themselves--the sons of bitches!"

"It is always so, " commented Vasili with a resentment equal to the lastspeaker's. "Yes, no sooner, with us, does a man accumulate a littlemoney than he sticks his nose in the air, and falls to thinking himselfa real barin. "

"Why is it that you always say 'With us, ' and 'Among us, ' and so on?"

"Among us Russians, then, if you like it better. "

"I do like it better. For you are not a German, are you, nor a Tartar?"

"No. It is merely that I can see the faults in our Russian folk. "

Upon that (not for the first time) the pair plunged into a discussionwhich had come so to weary them that now they spoke only indifferently, without effort. 

"The word 'faults' is, I consider, an insult, " began the ex-soldier ashe puffed at his pipe. "Besides, you don't speak consistently. Onlythis moment I observed a change in your terms. "

"To what?"

"To the term 'Russians. '"

"What should you prefer?"

A new sound floated into the defile as from some point on the steppethe sound of a bell summoning folk to the usual Saturday vigil service. Removing his pipe from his mouth, the ex-soldier listened for a momentor two. Then, at the third and last stroke of the bell, he doffed hiscap, crossed himself with punctilious piety, and said:

"There are not very many churches in these parts. "

Whereafter he threw a glance across the river, and added venomously:

"Those devils THERE don't cross themselves, the accursed Serbs!"

Vasili looked at him, twisted a left-hand moustache, smoothed it again, regarded for a moment the sky and the defile, and sank his head. 

"The trouble with me, " he remarked in an undertone, "is that I cannever remain very long in one place--always I keep fancying that Ishall meet with better things elsewhere, always I keep hearing a birdsinging in my heart, 'Do you go further, do you go further. '"

"That bird sings in the heart of EVERY man, " the ex-soldier growledsulkily. 

With a glance at us both, Vasili laughed a subdued laugh. 

"'In the heart of every man'?" he repeated. "Why, such a statement isabsurd. For it means, does it not, that every one of us is an idler, every one of us is constantly waiting for something to turn up--that, in fact, no one of us is any better than, or able to do any betterthan, the folk whose sole utterance is 'Give unto us, pray give untous'? Yes, if that be the case, it is an unfortunate case indeed!"

And again he laughed. Yet his eyes were sorrowful, and as the fingersof his right hand lay upon his knee they twitched as though they werelonging to grasp something unseen. 

The ex-soldier frowned and snorted. For my own part, however, I felttroubled for, and sorry for, Vasili. Presently he rose, broke into asoft whistle, and moved away by the side of the stream. 

"His head is not quite right, " muttered the ex-soldier as he winked inthe direction of the retreating figure. "Yes, I tell you that straight, for from the first it was clear to me. Otherwise, what could his wordsin depredation of Russia mean, when of Russia nothing the least hard ordefinite can be said? Who really knows her? What is she in reality, seeing that each of her provinces is a soul to itself, and no one couldstate which of the two Holy Mothers stands nearest to God--the HolyMother of Smolensk, or the Holy Mother of Kazan?"

For a while the speaker sat scraping greasy deposit from the bottom andsides of the kettle; and all that while he grumbled as though he had agrudge against someone. At length, however, he assumed an attitude ofattention, with his neck stretched out as though to listen to somesound. 

"Hist!" was his exclamation. 

What then followed, followed as unexpectedly as when, like an evilbird, a summer whirlwind suddenly sweeps up from the horizon, anddischarges a bluish-black cloud in torrents of rain and hail, untileverything is overwhelmed and battered to mud. 

That is to say, with much din of whistling and other sounds there nowcame pouring into the defile, and began to ascend the trail beside thestream, a straggling procession of some thirty workmen with, gleamingdully in the hands of their leading files, flagons of vodka, and, suspended on the backs and shoulders of others, wallets and bags ofbread and other comestibles, and, in two instances, poised on the headsof yet other processionists, large black cauldrons the effect of whichwas to make their bearers look like mushrooms. 

"A vedro [2 3/4 gallons] and a half to the cauldron!" whispered theex-soldier with a computative grunt as he gained his feet. 

"Yes, a vedro and a half, " he repeated. As he spoke the tip of histongue protruded until it rested on the under-lip of his half-openedmouth. In his face there was a curiously thirsty, gross expression, andhis attitude, as he stood there, was that of one who had just receiveda blow, and was about to cry out in consequence. 

Meanwhile the defile rumbled like a barrel into which heavy weights arebeing dropped, for one of the newcomers was beating an empty tin pail, and another one whistling in a manner the tossed echoes of whichdrowned even the rivulet's murmur as nearer and nearer came the mob ofmen, a mob clad variously in black, grey, or russet, with sleevesrolled up, and heads, in many cases, bare save for their own towsled, dishevelled locks, and bodies bent with fatigue, or carried stumblinglyalong on legs bowed outwards. Meanwhile, as the dull, polyphonous roarof voices swept through the neck of the defile, a man shouted inbroken, but truculent, accents:

"I say no! Fiddlesticks! Not a man is there who could drink more than avedro of 'blood-and-sweat' in a day. "

"A man could drink a lake of it. "

"No, a vedro and a half. That is the proper reckoning. "

"Aye, a vedro and a half. " And the ex-soldier, as he repeated thewords, spoke both as though he were an expert in the matter and asthough he felt for the matter a touch of respect. Then, lurchingforward like a man pushed by the scruff of the neck, he crossed therivulet, intercepted the crowd, and became swallowed up in its midst. 

Around the barraque the carpenters (the foreman ever glimmering amongthem) were hurriedly collecting tools. Presently Vasili returned--hisright hand thrust into his pocket, and his left holding his cap. 

"Before long those fellows will be properly drunk!" he said with afrown. "Ah, that vodka of ours! It is a perfect curse!" Then to me: "DoYOU drink?"

"No, " I replied. 

"Thank God for that! If one does not drink one will never really getinto trouble. "

For a moment he gazed gloomily in the direction of the newcomers. Thenhe said without moving, without even looking at me:

"You have remarkable eyes, young fellow. Also, they seem familiar tome--I have seen them somewhere before. Possibly that happened in adream, though I cannot be sure. Where do you come from?"

I answered, but, after scanning me perplexedly, he shook his head. 

"No, " he remarked. "I have never visited that part of the country, orindeed, been so far from home. "

"But this place is further still?"

"Further still?"

"Yes--from Kursk. "

He laughed. 

"I must tell you the truth, " he said. "I am not a Kurskan at all, but aPskovian. The reason why I told the ex-soldier that I was from Kurskwas that I neither liked him nor cared to tell him the whole truth-hewas not worth the trouble. And as for my real name, it is Paul, notVasili--Paul Nikolaev Silantiev--and is so marked on my passport (for apassport, and a passport quite in order, I have got). "

"And why are you on your travels?"

"For the reason that I am so--I can say no more. I look back from agiven place, and wave my hand, and am gone again as a feather floatsbefore the wind. "

 * * * * *

"Silence!" a threatening voice near the barraque broke in. "I am theforeman here. "

The voice of the ex-soldier replied:

"What workmen are these of yours? They are mere sectarians, fellows whoare for ever singing hymns. "

To which someone else added:

"Besides, old devil that you are, aren't you bound to finish allbuilding work before the beginning of a Sunday?"

"Let us throw their tools into the stream. "

"Yes, and start a riot, " was Silantiev's comment as he squatted beforethe embers of the fire. 

Around the barraque, picked out against the yellow of its framework, anumber of dark figures were surging to and fro as around aconflagration. Presently we heard something smashed to pieces--at allevents, we heard the cracking and scraping of wood against stone, andthen the strident, hilarious command:

"Hold on there! I'LL soon put things to rights! Carpenters, just handover the saw!"

Apparently there were three men in charge of the proceedings: the one ared-bearded muzhik in a seaman's blouse; the second a tall man withhunched shoulders, thin legs, and long arms who kept grasping theforeman by the collar, shaking him, and bawling, "Where are yourlathes? Bring them out!" (while noticeable also was a broad-shoulderedyoung fellow in a ragged red shirt who kept thrusting pieces ofscantling through the windows of the barraque, and shouting, "Catchhold of these! Lay them out in a row!"); and the third the ex-soldierhimself. The last-named, as he jostled his way among the crowd, keptvociferating, viciously, virulently, and with a curious system ofdivision of his syllables:

"Aha-a, ra-abble, secta-arians. Yo-ou would have nothing to say to me, you Se-erbs! Yet I say to YOU: Go along, my chickens, for the re-est ofus are ti-ired of you, and come to sa-ay so!"

"What does he want?" asked Silantiev quietly as he lit a cigarette. "Vodka? Oh, THEY'LL give him vodka!. .. Yet are you not sorry forfellows of that stamp?"

Through the blue tobacco-smoke he gazed into the glowing embers; untilat last he took a charred stick, and collected the embers into a heapglowing red-gold like a bouquet of fiery poppies; and as he did so, hishandsome eyes gleamed with just such a reverent affection, such aprayerful kindliness, as must have lurked in the eyes of primeval, nomadic man in the presence of the dancing, beneficent source of lightand heat. 

"At least I am sorry for such fellows, " Vasili continued. "Aye, thevery thought of the many, many folk who have come to nothing! The verythought of it! Terrible, terrible!"

A touch of daylight was still lingering on the tops of the mountains, but in the defile itself night was beginning to loom, and to lull allthings to sleep--to incline one neither to speak oneself nor to listento the dull clamour of those others on the opposite bank, where even tothe murmur of the rivulet the distasteful din seemed to communicate anote of anger. 

There the crowd had lit a huge bonfire, and then added to it a secondone which, crackling, hissing, and emitting coils of bluish-tintedsmoke, had fallen to vying with its fellow in lacing the foam of therivulet with muslin-like patterns in red. As the mass of dark figuressurged between the two flares an hilarious voice shouted to us theinvitation:

"Come over here, you! Don't be backward! Come over here, I say!"

Upon which followed a clatter as of the smashing of a drinking-vessel, while from the red-bearded muzhik came a thick, raucous shout of:

"These fellows needed to be taught a lesson!"

Almost at the same moment the foreman of the carpenters broke his wayclear of the crowd, and, carefully crossing the rivulet by thestepping-stones which we had constructed, squatted down upon his heelsby the margin, and with much puffing and blowing fell to rinsing hisface, a face which in the murky firelight looked flushed and red. 

"I think that someone has given him a blow, " hazarded Silantiev sottovoce. 

And when the foreman rose to approach us this proved to be the case, for then we saw that dripping from his nose, and meandering over hismoustache and soaked white beard, there was a stream of dark bloodwhich had spotted and streaked his shirt-front. 

"Peace to this gathering!" he said gravely as, pressing his left handto his stomach, he bowed. 

"And we pray your indulgence, " was Silantiev's response, though he didnot raise his eyes as he spoke. "Pray be seated. "

Small, withered, and, for all but his blood-stained shirt, scrupulouslyclean, the old man reminded me of certain pictures of old-time hermits, and the more so since either pain or shame or the gleam of thefirelight had caused his hitherto dead eyes to gather life and growbrighter--aye, and sterner. Somehow, as I looked at him, I felt awkwardand abashed. 

A cough twisted his broad nose. Then he wiped his beard on the palm ofhis hand, and his hand on his knee; whereafter, as he stretched forththe pair of senile, dark-coloured hands, and held them over the embers, he said:

"How cold the water of the rivulet is! It is absolutely icy. "

With a glance from under his brows Silantiev inquired:

"Are you very badly hurt?"

"No. Merely a man caught me a blow on the bridge of the nose, where theblood flows readily. Yet, as God knows, he will gain nothing by hisact, whereas the suffering which he has caused me will go to swell myaccount with the Holy Spirit. "

As the man spoke he glanced across the rivulet. On the opposite banktwo men were staggering along, and drunkenly bawling the tipsy refrain:

"In the du-u-uok let me die, In the au-autumn time!"

"Aye, long is it since I received a blow, " the old man continued, scanning the two revellers from under his hand. "Twenty years it mustbe since last I did so. And now the blow was struck for nothing, for noreal fault. . You see, I have been allowed no nails for the doing of thework, and have been obliged to make use of wooden clamps for most ofit, while battens also have not been forthcoming; and, this being so, it was through no remissness of mine that the work could not befinished by sunset tonight. I suspect, too, that, to eke out its wages, that rabble has been thieving, with the eldest leading the rest. Andthat, again, is not a thing for which I can be held responsible. True, this is a Government job, and some of those fellows are young, andyoung, hungry fellows such as they will (may they be forgiven!) steal, since everyone hankers to get something in return for a very little. But, once more, how is that my fault? Yes, that rabble must be aregular set of rascals! Just now they deprived my eldest son of a saw, of a brand-new saw; and thereafter they spilt my blood, the blood of agreybeard!"

Here his small, grey face contracted into wrinkles, and, closing hiseyes, he sobbed a dry, grating sob. 

Silantiev fidgeted--then sighed. Presently the old man looked at him, blew his nose, wiped his hand upon his trousers, and said quietly:

"Somewhere, I think, I have seen you before. "

"That is so. You saw me one evening when I visited your settlement forthe mending of a thresher. "

"Yes, yes. That is where I DID see you. It was you, was it not? Well, do you still disagree with me?"

To which the old man added with a nod and a smile:

"See how well I remember your words! You are, I imagine, still of thesame opinion?"

"How should I not be?" responded Silantiev dourly. 

"Ah, well! Ah, well!"

And the old man stretched his hands over the fire once more, discoloured hands the thumbs of which were curiously bent outwards andsplayed, and, seemingly, unable to move in harmony with the fingers. 

The ex-soldier shouted across the river:

"The land here is easy to work, and makes the people lazy. Who wouldcare to live in such a region? Who would care to come to it? Muchrather would I go and earn a living on difficult land. "

The old man paid no heed, but said to Silantiev--said to him with anaustere, derisive smile:

"Do you STILL think it necessary to struggle against what has beenordained of God? Do you STILL think that long-suffering is bad, andresistance good? Young man, your soul is weak indeed: and remember thatit is only the soul that can overcome Satan. "

In response Silantiev rose to his feet, shook his fist at the old man, and shouted in a rough, angry voice, a voice that was not his own:

"All that I have heard before, and from others besides yourself. Thetruth is that I hold all you father-confessors in abhorrence. Moreover, " (this last was added with a violent oath) "it is not Satanthat needs to be resisted, but such devil's ravens, such devil'svampires, as YOU. "

Which said, he kicked a stone away from the fire, thrust his hands intohis pockets, and turned slowly on his heel, with his elbows pressedclose to his sides. Nevertheless the old man, still smiling, said to mein an undertone:

"He is proud, but that will not last for long. "

"Why not?"

"Because I know in advance that--"

Breaking off short, he turned his head upon his shoulder, and satlistening to some shouting that was going on across the river. Everyonein that quarter was drunk, and, in particular, someone could be heardbawling in a tone of challenge:

"Oh? I, you say? A-a-ah! Then take that!"

Silantiev, stepping lightly from stone to stone, crossed the river. Then he mingled--a conspicuous figure (owing to his apparenthandlessness)--with the crowd. Somehow, on his departure, I felt ill atease. 

Twitching his fingers as though performing a conjuring trick, the oldman continued to sit with his hands stretched over the embers. By thistime his nose had swollen over the bridge, and bruises risen under hiseyes which tended to obscure his vision. Indeed, as he sat there, satmouthing with dark, bestreaked lips under a covering of hoary beard andmoustache, I found that his bloodstained, disfigured, wrinkled, as itwere "antique" face reminded me more than ever of those of greatsinners of ancient times who abandoned this world for the forest andthe desert. 

"I have seen many proud folk, " he continued with a shake of his hatlesshead and its sparse hairs. "A fire may burn up quickly, and continue toburn fiercely, yet, like these embers, become turned to ashes, and solie smouldering till dawn. Young man, there you have something to thinkof. Nor are they merely my words. They are the words of the Holy Gospelitself. "

Ever descending, ever weighing more heavily upon us, the night was asblack and hot and stifling as the previous one had been, albeit askindly as a mother. Still the two fires on the opposite bank of therivulet were aflame, and sending hot blasts of vapour across a seemingbrook of gold. 

Folding his arms upon his breast, the old man tucked the palms of hishands into his armpits, and settled himself more comfortably. Nevertheless, when I made as though to add more twigs and shavings tothe embers he exclaimed imperiously:

"There is no need for that. "

"Why is there not?"

"Because that would cause the fire to be seen, and bring some of thosemen over here. "

Again, as he kicked away some boughs which I had just broken up, herepeated:

"There is no need for that, I tell you. "

Presently, there approached us through the shimmering fire light on theopposite bank two carpenters with boxes on their backs, and axes intheir hands. 

"Are all the rest of our men gone?" inquired the foreman of thenewcomers. 

"Yes, " replied one of them, a tall man with a drooping moustache and nobeard. 

"Well, 'shun evil, and good will result. '"

"Aye, and we likewise wish to depart. "

"But a task ought not to be left unfinished. At dinner-time I sentOlesha to say that none of those fellows had better be released fromwork; but released they have been, and now the result is apparent!Presently, when they have drunk a little more of their poison, theywill fire the barraque. "

Every time that the first of the two carpenters inhaled the smoke of mycigarette he spat into the embers, while the other man, a young fellowas plump as a female baker, sank his towsled head upon his breast assoon as he sat down, and fell asleep. 

Next, the clamour across the rivulet subsided for awhile. But suddenlyI heard the ex-soldier exclaim in drunken, singsong accents which camefrom the very centre of the tumult:

"Hi, do you answer me! How comes it that you have no respect forRussia? Is not Riazan a part of Russia? What is Russia, then, I shouldlike to know?"

"A tavern, " the foreman commented quietly; whereafter, turning to me, he added more loudly:

"I say this of such fellows--that a tavern. .. But what a noise thoseroisterers are making, to be sure!"

The young fellow in the red shirt had just shouted:

"Hi, there, soldier! Seize him by the throat! Seize him, seize him!"

While from Silantiev had come the gruff retort:

"What? Do you suppose that you are hunting a pack of hounds?"

"Here, answer me!" was the next shouted utterance--it came from theex-soldier--whereupon the old man remarked to me in an undertone:

"It would seem that a fight is brewing. "

Rising, I moved in the direction of the uproar. As I did so, I heardthe old man say softly to his companions:

"He too is gone, thank God!"

Suddenly there surged towards me from the opposite bank a crowd of men. Belching, hiccuping, and grunting, they seemed to be carrying ordragging in their midst some heavy weight. Presently a woman's voicescreamed, "Ya-av-sha!" and other voices raised mingled shouts of "Throwhim in! Give him a thrashing!" and "Drag him along!"

The next moment we saw Silantiev break out of the crowd, straightenhimself, swing his right fist in the air, and hurl himself at the crowdagain. As he did so the young fellow in the red shirt raised a giganticarm, and there followed the sound of a muffled, grisly blow. Staggeringbackwards, Silantiev slid silently into the water, and lay there at myfeet. 

"That's right!" was the comment of someone. 

For a moment or two the clamour subsided a little, and during thatmoment or two one's ears once more became laved with the sweet singsongof the river. Shortly afterwards someone threw into the water a hugestone, and someone else laughed in a dull way. 

As I was bending to look at Silantiev some of the men jostled me. Nevertheless, I continued to struggle to raise him from the spot where, half in and half out of the water, he lay with his head and breastresting against the stepping-stones. 

"You have killed him!" next I shouted--not because I believed thestatement to be true, but because I had a mind to frighten intosobriety the men who were impeding me. 

Upon this someone exclaimed in a faltering, sobered tone:

"Surely not?"

As for the young fellow in the red shirt, he passed me by with abraggart, resentful shout of:

"Well? He had no right to insult me. Why should he have said that I wasa nuisance to the whole country?"

And someone else shouted:

"Where is the ex-soldier? Who is the watchman here?"

"Bring a light, " was the cry of a third. 

Yet all these voices were more sober, more subdued, more restrainedthan they had been, and presently a little muzhik whose poll wasswathed in a red handkerchief stooped and raised Silantiev's head. Butalmost as instantly he let it fall again, and, dipping his hands intothe water, said gravely:

"You have killed him. He is dead. "

At the moment I did not believe the words; but presently, as I stoodwatching how the water coursed between Silantiev's legs, and turnedthem this way and that, and made them stir as though they were strivingto divest themselves of the shabby old boots, I realised with all mybeing that the hands which were resting in mine were the hands of acorpse. And, true enough, when I released them they slapped down uponthe surface like wet dish-cloths. 

Until now, about a dozen men had been standing on the bank to observewhat was toward, but as soon as the little muzhik's words rang outthese men recoiled, and, with jostlings, began to vent, in subdued, uneasy tones, cries of:

"Who was it first struck him?"

"This will lose us our jobs. "

"It was the soldier that first started the racket. "

"Yes, that is true. "

"Let us go and denounce him. "

As for the young fellow in the red shirt, he cried:

"I swear on my honour, mates, that the affair was only a quarrel. "

"To hit a man with a bludgeon is more than a quarrel. "

"It was a stone that was used, not a bludgeon. "

"The soldier ought to--"

A woman's high-pitched voice broke in with a plaintive cry of:

"Good Lord! Always something happens to us!"

As for myself, I felt stunned and hurt as I seated myself upon thestepping-stones; and though everything was plain to my sight, nothingwas plain to my understanding, while in my breast a strange emptinesswas present, save that the clamour of the bystanders aroused me to acertain longing to outshout them all, to send forth my voice into thenight like the voice of a brazen trumpet. 

Presently two other men approached us. In the hand of the first was atorch which he kept waving to and fro to prevent its beingextinguished, and whence, therefore, he kept strewing showers of goldensparks. A fair-headed little fellow, he had a body as thin as a pikewhen standing on its tail, a grey, stonelike countenance that wasdeeply sunken between the shoulders, a mouth perpetually half-agape, and round, owlish-looking eyes. 

As he approached the corpse he bent forward with one hand upon his kneeto throw the more light upon Silantiev's bruised head and body. Thathead was resting turned upon the shoulder, and no longer could Irecognise the once handsome Cossack face, so buried was the jauntyforelock under a clot of black-red mud, and concealed by a swellingwhich had made its appearance above the left ear. Also, since the mouthand moustache had been bashed aside the teeth lay bared in a twisted, truly horrible smile, while, as the most horrible point of all, theleft eye was hanging from its socket, and, become hideously large, gazing, seemingly, at the inner pocket of the flap of Silantiev'spea-jacket, whence there was protruding a white edging of paper. 

Slowly the torch holder described a circle of fire in the air, andthereby sprinkled a further shower of sparks over the poor mutilatedface, with its streaks of shining blood. Then he muttered with a smackof the lips:

"You can see for yourselves who the man is. "

As he spoke a few more sparks descended upon Silantiev's scalp and wetcheeks, and went out, while the flare's reflection so played in theball of Silantiev's eye as to communicate to it an added appearance ofdeath. 

Finally the torch holder straightened his back, threw his torch intothe river, expectorated after it, and said to his companion as hesmoothed a flaxen poll which, in the darkness, looked almost greenish:

"Do you go to the barraque, and tell them that a man has been done todeath. "

"No; I should be afraid to go alone. "

"Come, come! Nothing is there to be afraid of. Go, I tell you. "

"But I would much rather not. "

"Don't be such a fool!"

Suddenly there sounded over my head the quiet voice of the foreman. 

"I will accompany you, " he said. Then he added disgustedly as hescraped his foot against a stone:

"How horrible the blood smells! It would seem that my very foot issmeared with it. "

With a frown the fair-headed muzhik eyed him, while the foremanreturned the muzhik's gaze with a scrutiny that never wavered. Finallythe elder man commented with cold severity:

"All the mischief has come of vodka and tobacco, the devil's drugs. "

Not only were the pair strangely alike, but both of them strangelyresembled wizards, in that both were short of stature, assharp-finished as gimlets, and as green-tinted by the darkness as tuftsof lichen. 

"Let us go, brother, " the foreman said. "Go we with the Holy Spirit. "

And, omitting even to inquire who had been killed, or even to glance atthe corpse, or even to pay it the last salute demanded of custom, theforeman departed down the stream, while in his wake followed themessenger, a man who kept stumbling as he picked his way from stone tostone. Amid the gloom the pair moved as silently as ghosts. 

The narrow-chested, fair-headed little muzhik then raked me with hiseyes; whereafter he produced a cigarette from a tin box, snapped-to thelid of the box, struck a match (illuminating once more the face of thedead man), and applied the flame to the cigarette. Lastly he said:

"This is the sixth murder which I have seen one thing and anothercommit. "

"One thing and another commit?" I queried. 

The reply came only after a pause; when the little muzhik asked: "Whatdid you say? I did not quite catch it. "

I explained that human beings, not inanimate entities, murdered humanbeings. 

"Well, be they human beings or machinery or lightning or anything else, they are all one. One of my mates was caught in some machinery atBakhmakh. Another one had his throat cut in a brawl. Another one wascrushed against the bucket in a coal mine. Another one was--"

Carefully though the man counted, he ended by erring in his reckoningto the extent of making his total "five. " Accordingly he re-computedthe list--and this time succeeded in making the total amount to "seven. "

"Never mind, " he remarked with a sigh as he blew his cigarette into ared glow which illuminated the whole of his face. "The truth is that Icannot always repeat the list correctly, just as I should like. Were Iolder than I am, I too should contrive to get finished off; for old-ageis a far from desirable thing. Yes, indeed! But, as things are, I amstill alive, nor, thank the Lord, does anything matter very much. "

Presently, with a nod towards Silantiev, he continued:

"Even now HIS kinsfolk or his wife may be looking for news of him, or aletter from him. Well, never again will he write, and as likely as nothis kinsfolk will end by saying to themselves: 'He has taken to badways, and forgotten his family. ' Yes, good sir. "

By this time the clamour around the barraque had ceased, and the twofires had burnt themselves out, and most of the men dispersed. From thesmooth yellow walls of the barraque dark, round, knot-holes were gazingat the rivulet like eyes. Only in a single window without a frame wasthere visible a faint light, while at intervals there issued thencefragmentary, angry exclamations such as:

"Look sharp there, and deal! Clubs will be the winners. "

"Ah! Here is a trump!"

"Indeed? What luck, damn it!"

The fair-headed muzhik blew the ashes from his cigarette, and observed:

"No such thing is there at cards as luck--only skill. "

At this juncture we saw approaching us softly from across the rivulet ayoung carpenter who wore a moustache. He halted beside us, and drew adeep breath. 

"Well, mate?" the fair-headed muzhik inquired. 

"Would you mind giving me something to smoke?" the carpenter asked. Theobscurity caused him to look large and shapeless, though his manner ofspeaking was bashful and subdued. 

"Certainly. Here is a cigarette. "

"Christ reward you! Today my wife forgot to bring my tobacco, and mygrandfather has strict ideas on the subject of smoking. "

"Was it he who departed just now? It was. "

As the carpenter inhaled a whiff he continued:

"I suppose that man was beaten to death?"

"He was--to death. "

For a while the pair smoked in silence. The hour was past midnight. 

Over the defile the jagged strip of sky which roofed it looked like ariver of blue flowing at an immense height above the night-envelopedearth, and bearing the brilliant stars on its smooth current. 

Quieter and quieter was everything growing; more and more waseverything becoming part of the night. .. . 

One might have thought that nothing particular had happened. 

KALININ

Whistling from off the sea, the wind was charged with moist, saltspray, and dashing foaming billows ashore with their white manes fullof snakelike, gleaming black ribands of seaweed, and causing the rocksto rumble angrily in response, and the trees to rustle with a dry, agitated sound as their tops swayed to and fro, and their trunks bentearthwards as though they would fain reeve up their roots, and betakethem whither the mountains stood veiled in a toga of heavy, dark mist. 

Over the sea the clouds were hurrying towards the land as ever and anonthey rent themselves into strips, and revealed fathomless abysses ofblue wherein the autumn sun burned uneasily, and sent cloud-shadowsgliding over the puckered waste of waters, until, the shore reached, the wind further harried the masses of vapour towards the sharp flanksof the mountains, and, after drawing them up and down the slopes, relegated them to clefts, and left them steaming there. 

There was about the whole scene a louring appearance, an appearance asthough everything were contending with everything, as now all thingsturned sullenly dark, and now all things emitted a dull sheen whichalmost blinded the eyes. Along the narrow road, a road protected fromthe sea by a line of wave-washed dykes, some withered leaves of oak andwild cherry were scudding in mutual chase of one another; with thegeneral result that the combined sounds of splashing and rustling andhowling came to merge themselves into a single din which issued as asong with a rhythm marked by the measured blows of the waves as theystruck the rocks. 

"Zmiulan, the King of the Ocean, is abroad!" shouted my fellowtraveller in my ear. He was a tall, round-shouldered man of childishlychubby features and boyishly bright, transparent eyes. 

"WHO do you say is abroad?" I queried. 

"King Zmiulan. "

Never having heard of the monarch, I made no reply. 

The extent to which the wind buffeted us might have led one to supposethat its primary objective was to deflect our steps, and turn them inthe direction of the mountains. Indeed, at times its pressure was sostrong that we had no choice but to halt, to turn our backs to the sea, and, with feet planted apart, to prise ourselves against our sticks, and so remain, poised on three legs, until we were past any risk ofbeing overwhelmed with the soft incubus of the tempest, and having ourcoats torn from our shoulders. 

At intervals such gasps would come from my companion that he might wellhave been standing on the drying-board of a bath. Nor, as they did so, was his appearance aught but comical, seeing that his ears, appendageslarge and shaggy like a dog's, and indifferently shielded with a shabbyold cap, kept being pushed forward by the wind until his small headbore an absurd resemblance to a china bowl. And that, to complete theresemblance, his long and massive nose, a feature grosslydisproportionate to the rest of his diminutive face, might equally wellhave passed for the spout of the receptacle indicated. 

Yet a face out of the common it was, like the whole of his personality. And this was the fact which had captivated me from the moment when Ihad beheld him participating in a vigil service held in theneighbouring church of the monastery of New Athos. There, spare, butwith his withered form erect, and his head slightly tilted, he had beengazing at the Crucifix with a radiant smile, and moving his thin lipsin a sort of whispered, confidential, friendly conversation with theSaviour. Indeed, so much had the man's smooth, round features (featuresas beardless as those of a Skopetz [A member of the Skoptzi, anon-Orthodox sect the members of which "do make of themselves eunuchsfor the Lord's sake. "], save for two bright tufts at the corners of themouth) been instinct with intimacy, with a consciousness of actuallybeing in the presence of the Son of God, that the spectacle, transcending anything of the kind that my eyes had before beheld, hadled me, with its total absence of the customary laboured, servile, pusillanimous attitude towards the Almighty which I had generally foundto be the rule, to accord the man my whole interest, and, as long asthe service had lasted, to keep an eye upon one who could thus conversewith God without rendering Him constant obeisance, or again and againmaking the sign of the cross, or invariably making it to theaccompaniment of groans and tears which had always hitherto obtrudeditself upon my notice. 

Again had I encountered the man when I had had supper at the workmen'sbarraque, and then proceeded to the monastery's guest-chamber. Seatedat a table under a circle of light falling from a lamp suspended fromthe ceiling, he had gathered around him a knot of pilgrims and theirwomen, and was holding forth in low, cheerful tones that yet had inthem the telling, incisive note of the preacher, of the man whofrequently converses with his fellow men. 

"One thing it may be best always to disclose, " he was saying, "andanother thing to conceal. If aught in ourselves seems harmful orsenseless, let us put to ourselves the question: 'Why is this so?'Contrariwise ought a prudent man never to thrust himself forward andsay: 'How discreet am I!' while he who makes a parade of his hard lot, and says, 'Good folk, see ye and hear how bitter my life is, ' also doeswrong. "

Here a pilgrim with a black beard, a brigand's dark eyes, and thewasted features of an ascetic rose from the further side of the table, straightened his virile frame, and said in a dull voice:

"My wife and one of my children were burnt to death through the fallingof an oil lamp. On THAT ought I to keep silence?"

No answer followed. Only someone muttered to himself:

"What? Again?": until the first speaker, the speaker seated near thecorner of the table, launched into the oppressive lull the unhesitatingreply:

"That of which you speak may be taken to have been a punishment by Godfor sin. "

"What? For a sin committed by one three years of age (for, indeed, mylittle son was no more)? The accident happened of his pulling down alamp upon himself, and of my wife seizing him, and herself being burntto death. She was weak, too, for but eleven days had passed since herconfinement. "

"No. What I mean is that in that accident you see a punishment for sinscommitted by the child's father and mother. "

This reply from the corner came with perfect confidence. Theblack-bearded man, however, pretended not to hear it, but spread outhis hands as though parting the air before him, and proceededhurriedly, breathlessly to detail the manner in which his wife andlittle one had met their deaths. And all the time that he was doing soone had an inkling that often before had he recounted his narrative ofhorror, and that often again would he repeat it. His shaggy blackeyebrows, as he delivered his speech, met in a single strip, while thewhites of his eyes grew bloodshot, and their dull, black pupils neverceased their nervous twitching. 

Presently the gloomy recital was once more roughly, unceremoniouslybroken in upon by the cheerful voice of the Christ-loving pilgrim. 

"It is not right, brother, " the voice said, "to blame God for untowardaccidents, or for mistakes and follies committed by ourselves. "

"But if God be God, He is responsible for all things. "

"Not so. Concede to yourself the faculty of reason. "

"Pah! What avails reason if it cannot make me understand?"

"Cannot make you understand WHAT?"

"The main point, the point why MY wife had to be burnt rather than myneighbour's?"

Somewhere an old woman commented in spitefully distinct tones:

"Oh ho, ho! This man comes to a monastery, and starts railing as soonas he gets there!"

Flashing his eyes angrily, the black-bearded man lowered his head likea bull. Then, thinking better of his position, and contenting himselfwith a gesture, he strode swiftly, heavily towards the door. Upon thisthe Christ-loving pilgrim rose with a swaying motion, bowed to everyonepresent, and set about following his late interlocutor. 

"It has all come of a broken heart, " he said with a smile as he passedme. Yet somehow the smile seemed to lack sympathy. 

With a disapproving air someone else remarked:

"That fellow's one thought is to enlarge and to enlarge upon his tale. "

"Yes, and to no purpose does he do so, " added the Christ-loving pilgrimas he halted in the doorway. "All that he accomplishes by it is toweary himself and others alike. Such experiences are far better putbehind one. "

Presently I followed the pair into the forecourt, and near theentrance-gates heard a voice say quietly:

"Do not disturb yourself, good father. "

"Nevertheless" (the second voice was that of the porter of themonastery, Father Seraphim, a strapping Vetlugan) "a spectre walks herenightly. "

"Never mind if it does. As regards myself, no spectre would touch me. "

Here I moved in the direction of the gates. 

"Who comes there?" Seraphim inquired as he thrust a hairy and uncouth, but infinitely kindly, face close to mine. "Oh, it is the young fellowfrom Nizhni Novgorod! You are wasting your time, my good sir, for thewomen have all gone to bed. "

With which he laughed and chuckled like a bear. 

Beyond the wall of the forecourt the stillness of the autumn night wasthe languid inertia of a world exhausted by summer, and the witheredgrass and other objects of the season were exhaling a sweet and bracingodour, and the trees looking like fragments of cloud where motionlessthey hung in the moist, sultry air. Also, in the darkness thehalf-slumbering sea could be heard soughing as it crept towards theshore while over the sky lay a canopy of mist, save at the point wherethe moon's opal-like blur could be descried over the spot where thatblur's counterfeit image glittered and rocked on the surface of thedark waters. 

Under the trees there was set a bench whereon I could discern there tobe resting a human figure. Approaching the figure, I seated myselfbeside it. 

"Whence, comrade?" was my inquiry. 

"From Voronezh. And you?"

A Russian is never adverse to talking about himself. It would seem asthough he is never sure of his personality, as though he is everyearning to have that personality confirmed from some source otherthan, extraneous to, his own ego. The reason for this must be that weRussians live diffused over a land of such vastness that, the more wegrasp the immensity of the same, the smaller do we come to appear inour own eyes; wherefore, traversing, as we do, roads of a length of athousand versts, and constantly losing our way, we come to let slip noopportunity of restating ourselves, and setting forth all that we haveseen and thought and done. 

Hence, too, must it be that in conversations one seems to hear less ofthe note of "I am I" than of the note of "Am I really and truly myself?"

"What may be your name?" next I inquired of the figure on the bench. 

"A name of absolute simplicity--the name of Alexei Kalinin. "

"You are a namesake of mine, then. "

"Indeed? Is that so?"

With which, tapping me on the knee, the figure added:

"Come, then, namesake. 'I have mortar, and you have water, so togetherlet us paint the town. '"

Murmuring amid the silence could be heard small, light waves that wereno more than ripples. Behind us the busy clamour of the monastery haddied down, and even Kalinin's cheery voice seemed subdued by theinfluence of the night--it seemed to have in it less of the note ofself-confidence. 

"My mother was a wet-nurse, " he went on to volunteer, "and I her onlychild. When I was twelve years of age I was, owing to my height, converted into a footman. It happened thus. One day, on General Stepan(my mother's then employer) happening to catch sight of me, heexclaimed: 'Evgenia, go and tell Fedor' (the ex-soldier who was thenserving the General as footman) 'that he is to teach your son to waitat table! The boy is at least tall enough for the work. ' And for nineyears I served the General in this capacity. And then, and then--oh, THEN I was seized with an illness. .. . Next, I obtained a post undera merchant who was then mayor of our town, and stayed with himtwenty-one months. And next I obtained a situation in an hotel atKharkov, and held it for a year. And after that I kept changing myplaces, for, steady and sober though I was, I was beginning to lacktaste for my profession, and to develop a spirit of the kind whichdeemed all work to be beneath me, and considered that I had beencreated to serve only myself, not others. "

Along the high road to Sukhum which lay behind us there were proceedingsome invisible travellers whose scraping of feet as they walkedproclaimed the fact that they were not over-used to journeying on foot. Just as the party drew level with us, a musical voice hummed out softlythe line "Alone will I set forth upon the road, " with the word "alone"plaintively stressed. Next, a resonant bass voice said with a sort ofindolent incisiveness:

"Aphon or aphonia means loss of speech to the extent of, to the extentof--oh, to WHAT extent, most learned Vera Vasilievna?"

"To the extent of total loss of power of articulation, " replied a voicefeminine and youthful of timbre. 

Just at that moment we saw two dark, blurred figures, with a palerfigure between them, come gliding into view. 

"Strange indeed is it that, that--"

"That what?"

"That so many names proper to these parts should also be so suggestive. Take, for instance, Mount Nakopioba. Certainly folk hereabouts seem tohave "amassed" things, and to have known how to do so. " [The verbnakopit means to amass, to heap up. ]

"For my part, I always fail to remember the name of Simon theCanaanite. Constantly I find myself calling him 'the Cainite. '"

"Look here, " interrupted the musical voice in a tone of chastenedenthusiasm. "As I contemplate all this beauty, and inhale thisrestfulness, I find myself reflecting: 'How would it be if I were tolet everything go to the devil, and take up my abode here for ever?'"

At this point all further speech became drowned by the sound of themonastery's bell as it struck the hour. The only utterance that cameborne to my ears was the mournful fragment:

 Oh, if into a single word I could pour my inmost thoughts!

To the foregoing dialogue my companion had listened with his headtilted to one side, much as though the dialogue had deflected it inthat direction: and now, as the voices died away into the distance, hesighed, straightened himself, and said:

"Clearly those people were educated folk. And see too how, as theytalked of one thing and another, there cropped up the old andever-persistent point. "

"To what point are you referring?"

My companion paused a moment before he replied. Then he said:

"Can it be that you did not hear it? Did you not hear one of thosepeople remark: 'I have a mind to surrender everything '?"

Whereafter, bending forward, and peering at me as a blind man would do, Kalinin added in a half-whisper:

"More and more are folk coming to think to themselves: 'Now must Iforsake everything. ' In the end I myself came to think it. For many ayear did I increasingly reflect: 'Why should I be a servant? What willit ever profit me? Even if I should earn twelve, or twenty, or fiftyroubles a month, to what will such earnings lead, and where will theman in me come in? Surely it would be better to do nothing at all, butjust to gaze into space (as I am doing now), and let my eyes starestraight before me?'"

"By the way, what were you talking to those people about?"

"Which people do you mean?"

"The bearded man and the rest, the company in the guest-chamber?"

"Ah, THAT man I did not like--I have no fancy at all for fellows whostrew their grief about the world, and leave it to be trampled upon byevery chance-comer. For how can the tears of my neighbour benefit me?True, every man has his troubles; but also has every man such apredilection for his particular woe that he ends by deeming it the mostbitter and remarkable grief in the universe--you may take my word forthat. "

Suddenly the speaker rose to his feet, a tall, lean figure. 

"Now I must seek my bed, " he remarked. "You see, I shall have to leavehere very early tomorrow. "

"And for what point?"

"For Novorossisk. "

Now, the day being a Saturday, I had drawn my week's earnings from themonastery's pay-office just before the vigil service. Also, Novorossiskdid not really lie in my direction. Thirdly, I had no particular wishto exchange the monastery for any other lodging. Nevertheless, despiteall this, the man interested me to such an extent (of persons whogenuinely interest one there never exist but two, and, of them, oneselfis always one) that straightway I observed:

"I too shall be leaving here tomorrow. "

"Then let us travel together. "

 * * * * *

At dawn, therefore, we set forth to foot the road in company. At timesI mentally soared aloft, and viewed the scene from that vantage-point. Whenever I did so, I beheld two tall men traversing a narrow track by aseashore--the one clad in a grey military overcoat and a hat with abroken crown, and the other in a drab kaftan and a plush cap. At theirfeet the boundless sea was splashing white foam, salt-dried ribands ofseaweed were strewing the path, golden leaves were dancing hither andthither, and the wind was howling at, and buffeting, the travellers asclouds sailed over their heads. Also, to their right there laystretched a chain of mountains towards which the clouds kept wearily, nervelessly tending, while to their left there lay spread a white-lacedexpanse over the surface of which a roaring wind kept ceaselesslydriving transparent columns of spray. 

On such stormy days in autumn everything near a seashore looksparticularly cheerful and vigorous, seeing that, despite the soughingof wind and wave, and the swift onrush of cloud, and the fact that thesun is only occasionally to be seen suspended in abysses of blue, andresembles a drooping flower, one feels that the apparent chaos haslurking in it a secret harmony of mundane, but imperishable, forces--somuch so that in time even one's puny human heart comes to imbibe theprevalent spirit of revolt, and, catching fire, to cry to all theuniverse: "I love you!"

Yes, at such times one desires to taste life to the full, and so tolive that the ancient rocks shall smile, and the sea's white horsesprance the higher, as one's mouth acclaims the earth in such a paeanthat, intoxicated with the laudation, it shall unfold its riches withadded bountifulness and display more and more manifest beauty under thespur of the love expressed by one of its creatures, expressed by ahuman being who feels for the earth what he would feel for a woman, andyearns to fertilise the same to ever-increasing splendour. 

Nevertheless, words are as heavy as stones, and after felling fancy tothe ground, serve but to heap her grey coffin-lid, and cause one, asone stands contemplating the tomb, to laugh in sheer self-derision. .. . 

Suddenly, plunged in dreams as I walked along, I heard through theplash of the waves and the sizzle of the foam the unfamiliar words:

"Hymen, Demon, Igamon, and Zmiulan. Good devils are these, not bad. "

"How does Christ get on with them?" I asked. 

"Christ? He does not enter into the matter. "

"Is He hostile to them?"

"Is He HOSTILE to them? How could He be? Devils of that kind are devilsto themselves-devils of a decent sort. Besides, to no one is Christhostile" . .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. . . . . . . 

[In the Russian this hiatus occurs as marked. ]

As though unable any longer to brave the assault of the billows, thepath suddenly swerved towards the bushes on our right, and, in doingso, caused the cloud-wrapped mountains to shift correspondingly to ourimmediate front, where the masses of vapour were darkening as thoughrain were probable. 

Kalinin's discourse proved instructive as with his stick he from timeto time knocked the track clear of clinging tendrils. 

"The locality is not without its perils, " once he remarked. "Forhereabouts there lurks malaria. It does so because long ago Maliar ofKostroma banished his evil sister, Fever, to these parts. Probably hewas paid to do so, but the exact circumstances escape my memory. "

So thickly was the surface of the sea streaked with cloud-shadows thatit bore the appearance of being in mourning, of being decked in thefuneral colours of black and white. Afar off, Gudaout lay lashed withfoam, while constantly objects like snowdrifts kept gliding towards it. 

"Tell me more about those devils, " I said at length. 

"Well, if you wish. But what exactly am I to tell you about them?"

"All that you may happen to know. "

"Oh, I know EVERYTHING about them. "

To this my companion added a wink. Then he continued:

"I say that I know everything about those devils for the reason thatfor my mother I had a most remarkable woman, a woman cognisant of eachand every species of proverb, anathema, and item of hagiology. You mustknow that, after spreading my bed beside the kitchen stove each night, and her own bed on the top of the stove (for, after her wet-nursing ofthree of the General's children, she lived a life of absolute ease, anddid no work at all)--"

Here Kalinin halted, and, driving his stick into the ground, glancedback along the path before resuming his way with firm, lengthy strides. 

"I may tell you that the General had a niece named ValentinaIgnatievna. And she too was a most remarkable woman. "

"Remarkable for what?"

"Remarkable for EVERYTHING. "

At this moment there came floating over our heads through thedamp-saturated air a cormorant--one of those voracious birds which somarkedly lack intelligence. And somehow the whistling of its powerfulpinions awoke in me an unpleasant reminiscent thought. 

"Pray continue, " I said to my fellow traveller. 

"And each night, as I lay on the floor (I may mention that never did Iclimb on to the stove, and to this day I dislike the heat of one), itwas her custom to sit with her legs dangling over the edge of the top, and tell me stories. And though the room would be too dark for me tosee her face, I could yet see the things of which she would bespeaking. And at times, as these tales came floating down to me, Iwould find them so horrible as to be forced to cry out, 'Oh, Mamka, Mamka, DON'T!. .. ' To this hour I have no love for the bizarre, andam but a poor hand at remembering it. And as strange as her stories wasmy mother. Eventually she died of an attack of blood-poisoning and, though but forty, had become grey-headed. Yes, and so terribly did shesmell after her death that everyone in the kitchen was constrained toexclaim at the odour. "

"Yes, but what of the devils?"

"You must wait a minute or two. "

Ever as we proceeded, clinging, fantastic branches kept closing in uponthe path, so that we appeared to be walking through a sea of murmuringverdure. And from time to time a bough would flick us as though to say:"Speed, speed, or the rain will be upon you!"

If anything, however, my companion slackened his pace as in measured, sing-song accents he continued:

"When Jesus Christ, God's Son, went forth into the wilderness tocollect His thoughts, Satan sent devils to subject Him to temptation. Christ was then young; and as He sat on the burning sand in the middleof the desert, He pondered upon one thing and another, and played witha handful of pebbles which He had collected. Until presently from afar, there descried Him the devils Hymen, Demon, Igamon, and Zmiulan--devilsof equal age with the Saviour. 

"Drawing near unto Him, they said, 'Pray suffer us to sport with Thee. 'Whereupon Christ answered with a smile: 'Pray be seated. ' Then all ofthem did sit down in a circle, and proceed to business, which businesswas to see whether or not any member of the party could so throw astone into the air as to prevent it from falling back upon the burningsand. 

 . .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 

[In the original Russian this hiatus occurs as given. ]

"Christ Himself was the first to throw a stone; whereupon His stonebecame changed into a six-winged dove, and fluttered away towards theTemple of Jerusalem. And, next, the impotent devils strove to do thesame; until at length, when they saw that Christ could not in any wisebe tempted, Zmiulan, the senior of the devils, cried:

"'Oh Lord, we will tempt Thee no more; for of a surety do we avail not, and, though we be devils, never shall do so!'

"'Aye, never shall ye!' Christ did agree. 'And, therefore, I will nowfulfil that which from the first I did conceive. That ye be devils Iknow right well. And that, while yet afar off, ye did, on beholding me, have compassion upon me I know right well. While also ye did not in anywise seek to conceal from me the truth as concerning yourselves. Henceshall ye, for the remainder of your lives, be GOOD devils; so that atthe last shall matters be rendered easier for you. Do thou, Zmiulan, become King of the Ocean, and send the winds of the sea to cleanse theland of foul air. And do thou, Demon, see to it that the cattle shalleat of no poisonous herb, but that all herbs of the sort be coveredwith prickles. Do thou, Igamon, comfort, by night, all comfortlesswidows who shall be blaming God for the death of their husbands? And dothou, Hymen, as the youngest devil of the band, choose for thyselfwherein shall lie thy charge. '

"'Oh Lord, ' replied Hymen, 'I do love but to laugh. '

"And the Saviour replied:

"'Then cause thou folk to laugh. Only, mark thou, see to it that theylaugh not IN CHURCH. '

"'Yet even in church would I laugh, Oh Lord, ' the devil objected. 

"'Jesus Christ Himself laughed. 

"'God go with you!' at length He said. 'Then let folk laugh even inchurch--but QUIETLY. '

"In such wise did Christ convert those four evil devils into devils ofgoodness. "

Soaring over the green, bushy sea were a number of old oaks. On themthe yellow leaves were trembling as though chilled; here and there asturdy hazel was doffing its withered garments, and elsewhere a wildcherry was quivering, and elsewhere an almost naked chestnut waspolitely rendering obeisance to the earth. 

"Did you find that story of mine a good one?" my companion inquired. 

"I did, for Christ was so good in it. "

"Always and everywhere He is so, " Kalinin proudly rejoined. "But do youalso know what an old woman of Smolensk used to sing concerning Him?"

"I do not. "

Halting, my strange traveller chanted in a feignedly senile andtremulous voice, as he beat time with his foot:

 In the heavens a flow'r doth blow, It is the Son of God. From it all our joys do flow, It is the Son of God. In the sun's red rays He dwells He, the Son of God. His light our every ill dispels. Praised be the Son of God!

Each successive line seemed to inspire Kalinin's voice with addedyouthfulness, until, indeed, the concluding words--"The One and OnlyGod"--issued in a high, agreeable tenor. 

Suddenly a flash of lightning blazed before us, while dull thundercrashed among the mountains, and sent its hundred-voiced echoes rollingover land and sea. In his consternation, Kalinin opened his mouth untila set of fine, even teeth became bared to view. Then, with repeatedcrossings of himself, he muttered. 

"Oh dread God, Oh beneficent God, Oh God who sittest on high, and on agolden throne, and under a gilded canopy, do Thou now punish Satan, lest he overwhelm me in the midst of my sins!"

Whereafter, turning a small and terrified face in my direction, andblinking his bright eyes, he added with hurried diction:

"Come, brother! Come! Let us run on ahead, for thunderstorms are mybane. Yes, let us run with all possible speed, run ANYWHERE, for soonthe rain will be pouring down, and these parts are full of lurkingfever. "

Off, therefore, we started, with the wind smiting us behind, and ourkettles and teapots jangling, and my wallet, in particular, thumping meabout the middle of the body as though it had been wielding a large, soft fist. Yet a far cry would it be to the mountains, nor was anydwelling in sight, while ever and anon branches caught at our clothes, and stones leapt aloft under our tread, and the air grew steadilydarker, and the mountains seemed to begin gliding towards us. 

Once more from the black cloud-masses, heaven belched a fiery dartwhich caused the sea to scintillate with blue sapphires in response, and, seemingly, to recoil from the shore as the earth shook, and themountain defiles emitted a gigantic scrunching sound of their rock-hewnjaws. 

"Oh Holy One! Oh Holy One! Oh Holy One!" screamed Kalinin as he divedinto the bushes. 

In the rear, the waves lashed us as though they had a mind to arrestour progress; from the gloom to our front came a sort of scraping andrasping; long black hands seemed to wave over our heads; just at thepoint where the mountain crests lay swathed in their dense coverlet ofcloud, there rumbled once more the deafening iron chariot of thethunder-god; more and more frequently flashed the lightning as theearth rang, and rifts cleft by the blue glare disclosed, amid theobscurity, great trees that were rustling and rocking and, to allappearances, racing headlong before the scourge of a cold, slantingrain. 

The occasion was a harassing but bracing one, for as the fine bands ofrain beat upon our faces, our bodies felt filled with a heady vigour ofa kind to fit us to run indefinitely--at all events to run until thisstorm of rain and thunder should be outpaced, and clear weather bereached again. 

Suddenly Kalinin shouted: "Stop! Look!"

This was because the fitful illumination of a flash had just shown upin front of us the trunk of an oak tree which had a large black hollowlet into it like a doorway. So into that hollow we crawled as two micemight have done--laughing aloud in our glee as we did so. 

"Here there is room for THREE persons, " my companion remarked. "Evidently it is a hollow that has been burnt out--though rascalsindeed must the burners have been to kindle a fire in a living tree!"

However, the space within the hollow was both confined and redolent ofsmoke and dead leaves. Also, heavy drops of rain still bespattered ourheads and shoulders, and at every peal of thunder the tree quivered andcreaked until the strident din around us gave one the illusion of beingafloat in a narrow caique. Meanwhile at every flash of the lightning'sglare, we could see slanting ribands of rain cutting the air with anetwork of blue, glistening, vitreous lines. 

Presently, the wind began to whistle less loudly, as though now it feltsatisfied at having driven so much productive rain into the ground, andwashed clean the mountain tops, and loosened the stony soil. 

"U-oh! U-oh!" hooted a grey mountain owl just over our heads. 

"Why, surely it believes the time to be night!" Kalinin commented in awhisper. 

"U-oh! U-u-u-oh!" hooted the bird again, and in response my companionshouted:

"You have made a mistake, my brother!"

By this time the air was feeling chilly, and a bright grey fog hadstreamed over us, and wrapped a semi-transparent veil about thegnarled, barrel-like trunks with their outgrowing shoots and the fewremaining leaves still adhering. 

Far and wide the monotonous din continued to rage--it did so untilconscious thought began almost to be impossible. Yet even as onestrained one's attention, and listened to the rain lashing the fallenleaves, and pounding the stones, and bespattering the trunks of thetrees, and to the murmuring and splashing of rivulets racing towardsthe sea, and to the roaring of torrents as they thundered over therocks of the mountains, and to the creaking of trees before the wind, and to the measured thud-thud of the waves; as one listened to allthis, the thousand sounds seemed to combine into a single heaviness ofhurried clamour, and involuntarily one found oneself striving todisunite them, and to space them even as one spaces the words of a song. 

Kalinin fidgeted, nudged me, and muttered:

"I find this place too close for me. Always I have hated confinement. "

Nevertheless he had taken far more care than I to make himselfcomfortable, for he had edged himself right into the hollow, and, bysquatting on his haunches, reduced his frame to the form of a ball. Moreover, the rain-drippings scarcely or in no wise touched him, while, in general, he appeared to have developed to the full an aptitude forvagrancy as a permanent condition, and for the allowing of nounpleasant circumstance to debar him from invariably finding the mostconvenient vantage-ground at a given juncture. Presently, in fact, hecontinued:

"Yes; despite the rain and cold and everything else, I consider life tobe not quite intolerable. "

"Not quite intolerable in what?"

"Not quite intolerable in the fact that at least I am bound to theservice of no one save God. For if disagreeablenesses have to beendured, at all events they come better from Him than from one's ownspecies. "

"Then you have no great love for your own species?"

"One loves one's neighbour as the dog loves the stick. " To which, aftera pause, the speaker added:

"For WHY should I love him?"

It puzzled me to cite a reason off-hand, but, fortunately, Kalinin didnot wait for an answer--rather, he went on to ask:

"Have you ever been a footman?"

"No, " I replied. 

"Then let me tell you that it is peculiarly difficult for a footman tolove his neighbour. "

"Wherefore?"

"Go and be a footman; THEN you will know. In fact, it is never the casethat, if one serves a man, one can love that man. .. . How steadilythe rain persists!"

Indeed, on every hand there was in progress a trickling and a splashingsound as though the weeping earth were venting soft, sorrowful sobsover the departure of summer before winter and its storms should arrive. 

"How come you to be travelling the Caucasus?" I asked at length. 

"Merely through the fact that my walking and walking has brought mehither, " was the reply. "For that matter, everyone ends by heading forthe Caucasus. "

"Why so?"

"Why NOT, seeing that from one's earliest years one hears of nothingbut the Caucasus, the Caucasus? Why, even our old General used to harpupon the name, with his moustache bristling, and his eyes protruding, as he did so. And the same as regards my mother, who had visited thecountry in the days when, as yet, the General was in command but of acompany. Yes, everyone tends hither. And another reason is the factthat the country is an easy one to live in, a country which enjoys muchsunshine, and produces much food, and has a winter less long and severethan our own winter, and therefore presents pleasanter conditions oflife. "

"And what of the country's people?"

"What of the country's people? Oh, so long as you keep yourself toyourself they will not interfere with you. "

"And why will they not?"

Kalinin paused, stared at me, smiled condescendingly, and, finally, said:

"What a dullard you are to ask about such simple things! Were you nevergiven any sort of an education? Surely by this time you ought to beable to understand something?"

Then, with a change of subject, and subduing his tone to one ofsnuffling supplication, he added in the sing-song chant of a personreciting a prayer:

"'Oh Lord, suffer me not to become bound unto the clergy thepriesthood, the diaconate, the tchinovstvo, [The official class] or theintelligentsia!' This was a petition which my mother used often torepeat. "

The raindrops now were falling more gently, and in finer lines and moretransparent network, so that one could once more descry the greattrunks of the blackened oaks, with the green and gold of their leaves. Also, our own hollow had grown less dark, and there could be discernedits smoky, satin-bright walls. From those walls Kalinin picked a bit ofcharcoal with finger and thumb, saying:

"It was shepherds that fired the place. See where they dragged in hayand dead leaves! A shepherd's fife hereabouts must be a truly gloriousone!"

Lastly, clasping his head as though he were about to fall asleep, hesank his chin between his knees, and relapsed into silence. 

Presently a brilliant, sinuous little rivulet which had long beenlaving the bare roots of our tree brought floating past us a red andfawn leaf. 

"How pretty, " I thought, "that leaf will look from a distance whenreposing on the surface of the sea! For, like the sun when he is insolitary possession of the heavens, that leaf will stand out againstthe blue, silky expanse like a lonely red star. "

After awhile my companion began, catlike, to purr to himself a song. Its melody, the melody of "the moon withdrew behind a cloud, " wasfamiliar enough, but not so the words, which ran:

 Oh Valentina, wondrous maid, More comely thou than e'er a flow'r! The nurse's son doth pine for thee, And yearn to serve thee every hour!

"What does that ditty mean?" I inquired. 

Kalinin straightened himself, gave a wriggle to a form that was aslithe as a lizard's, and passed one hand over his face. 

"It is a certain composition, " he replied presently. "It is acomposition that was composed by a military clerk who afterwards diedof consumption. He was my friend his life long, and my only friend, anda true one, besides being a man out of the common. "

"And who was Valentina?"

"My one-time mistress, " Kalinin spoke unwillingly. 

"And he, the clerk--was he in love with her?"

"Oh dear no!"

Evidently Kalinin had no particular wish to discuss the subject, for hehugged himself together, buried his face in his hands, and muttered:

"I should like to kindle a fire, were it not that everything in theplace is too damp for the purpose. "

The wind shook the trees, and whistled despondently, while the fine, persistent rain still whipped the earth. 

"I but humble am, and poor, Nor fated to be otherwise, "

sang Kalinin softly as, flinging up his head with an unexpectedmovement, he added meaningly:

"Yes, it is a mournful song, a song which could move to tears. Only totwo persons has it ever been known; to my friend the clerk and tomyself. Yes, and to HER, though I need hardly add that at once sheforgot it. "

And Kalinin's eyes flashed into a smile as he added:

"I think that, as a young man, you had better learn forthwith where thegreatest danger lurks in life. Let me tell you a story. "

And upon that a very human tale filtered through the silken monotonousswish of the downpour, with, for listeners to it, only the rain andmyself. 

"Lukianov was NEVER in love with her, " he narrated. "Only I was that. All that Lukianov did in the matter was to write, at my request, someverses. When she first appeared on the scene (I mean ValentinaIgnatievna) I was just turned nineteen years of age; and the instantthat my eyes fell upon her form I realised that in her alone lay myfate, and my heart almost stopped beating, and my vitality stretchedout towards her as a speck of dust flies towards a fire. Yet all this Ihad to conceal as best I might; with the result that in the company'spresence I felt like a sentry doing guard duty in the presence of hiscommanding officer. But at last, though I strove to pull myselftogether, to steady myself against the ferment that was raging in mybreast, something happened. Valentina Ignatievna was then aged abouttwenty-five, and very beautiful--marvellous, in fact! Also, she was anorphan, since her father had been killed by the Chechentzes, and hermother had died of smallpox at Samarkand. As regards her kinship withthe General, she stood to him in the relation of niece by marriage. Golden-locked, and as skin-fair as enamelled porcelain, she had eyeslike emeralds, and a figure wholly symmetrical, though as slim as awafer. For bedroom she had a little corner apartment situated next tothe kitchen (the General possessed his own house, of course), while, inaddition, they allotted her a bright little boudoir in which shedisposed her curios and knickknacks, from cut-glass bottles and gobletsto a copper pipe and a glass ring mounted on copper. This ring, whenturned, used to emit showers of glittering sparks, though she was in noway afraid of them, but would sing as she made them dance:

 "Not for me the spring will dawn! Not for me the Bug will spate! Not for me love's smile will wait! Not for me, ah, not for me!

"Constantly would she warble this. 

"Also, once she flashed an appeal at me with her eyes, and said:

"'Alexei, please never touch anything in my room, for my things are toofragile. '

"Sure enough, in HER presence ANYTHING might have fallen from my hands!

"Meanwhile her song about 'Not for me' used to make me feel sorry forher. 'Not for you?' I used to say to myself. 'Ought not EVERYTHING tobe for you?' And this reflection would cause my heart to yearn andstretch towards her. Next, I bought a guitar, an instrument which Icould not play, and took it for instruction to Lukianov, the clerk ofthe Divisional Staff, which had its headquarters in our street. Inpassing I may say that Lukianov was a little Jewish convert with darkhair, sallow features, and gimlet-sharp eyes, but beyond all things afellow with brains, and one who could play the guitar unforgettably. 

"Once he said: 'In life all things are attainable--nothing need we losefor want of trying. For whence does everything come? From the plainestof mankind. A man may not be BORN in the rank of a general, but atleast he may attain to that position. Also, the beginning and ending ofall things is woman. All that she requires for her captivation ispoetry. Hence, let me write you some verses, that you may tender themto her as an offering. '

"These, mind you, were the words of a man in whom the heart wasabsolutely single, absolutely dispassionate. "

Until then Kalinin had told his story swiftly, with animation; butthereafter he seemed, as it were, to become extinguished. After a pauseof a few seconds he continued--continued in slower, to all appearancesmore unwilling, accents--

"At the time I believed what Lukianov said, but subsequently I came tosee that things were not altogether as he had represented--that womanis merely a delusion, and poetry merely fiddle-faddle; and that a mancannot escape his fate, and that, though good in war, boldness is, inpeace affairs, but naked effrontery. In this, brother, lies the chief, the fundamental law of life. For the world contains certain people ofhigh station, and certain people of low; and so long as these twocategories retain their respective positions, all goes well; but assoon as ever a man seeks to pass from the upper category to theinferior category, or from the inferior to the upper, the fat fallsinto the fire, and that man finds himself stuck midway, stuck neitherhere nor there, and bound to abide there for the remainder of his life, for the remainder of his life. .. . Always keep to your own position, to the position assigned you by fate. .. .. Will the rain NEVER cease, think you?"

By this time, as a matter of fact, the raindrops were falling lessheavily and densely than hitherto, and the wet clouds were beginning toreveal bright patches in the moisture-soaked firmament, as evidencethat the sun was still in existence. 

"Continue, " I said. 

Kalinin laughed. 

"Then you find the story an interesting one, " he remarked. 

Presently he resumed:

"As I have said, I trusted Lukianov implicitly, and begged of him towrite the verses. And write them he did--he wrote them the very nextday. True, at this distance of time I have forgotten the words in theirentirety, but at least I remember that there occurred in them a phraseto the effect that 'for days and weeks have your eyes been consuming myheart in the fire of love, so pity me, I pray. ' I then proceeded tocopy out the poem, and tremblingly to leave it on her table. 

"The next morning, when I was tidying her boudoir, she made anunexpected entry, and, clad in a loose, red dressing-gown, and holdinga cigarette between her lips, said to me with a kindly smile as sheproduced my precious paper of verses:

"'Alexei, did YOU write these?'

"'Yes, ' was my reply. 'And for Christ's sake pardon me for the same. '

"'What a pity that such a fancy should have entered your head! For, yousee, I am engaged already--my uncle is intending to marry me to DoctorKliachka, and I am powerless in the matter. '

"The very fact that she could address me with so much sympathy andkindness struck me dumb. As regards Doctor Kliachka, I may mention thathe was a good-looking, blotchy-faced, heavy-jowled fellow with amoustache that reached to his shoulders, and lips that were for everlaughing and vociferating. 'Nothing has either a beginning or an end. The only thing really existent is pleasure. '

"Nay, even the General could, at times, make sport of the fellow, andsay as he shook with merriment:

"'A doctor-comedian is the sort of man that you are. '

"Now, at the period of which I am speaking I was as straight as a dart, and had a shock of luxuriant hair over a set of ruddy features. Also, Iwas living a life clean in every way, and maintaining a cautiousattitude towards womenfolk, and holding prostitutes in a contempt bornof the fact that I had higher views with regard to my life's destiny. Lastly, I never indulged in liquor, for I actually disliked it, andgave way to its influence only in days subsequent to the episode whichI am narrating. Yes, and, last of all, I was in the habit of taking abath every Saturday. 

"The same evening Kliachka and the rest of the party went out to thetheatre (for, naturally, the General had horses and a carriage of hisown), and I, for my part, went to inform Lukianov of what had happened. 

"He said: 'I must congratulate you, and am ready to wager you twobottles of beer that your affair is as good as settled. In a fewseconds a fresh lot of verses shall be turned out, for poetryconstitutes a species of talisman or charm. '

"And, sure enough, he then and there composed the piece about 'thewondrous Valentina. ' What a tender thing it is, and how full ofunderstanding! My God, my God!"

And, with a thoughtful shake of his bead, Kalinin raised his boyisheyes towards the blue patches in the rain-washed sky. 

"Duly she found the verses, " he continued after a while, and with avehemence that seemed wholly independent of his will. "And thereuponshe summoned me to her room. 

"'What are we to do about it all?' she inquired. 

"She was but half-dressed, and practically the whole of her bosom wasvisible to my sight. Also, her naked feet had on them only slippers, and as she sat in her chair she kept rocking one foot to and fro in amaddening way. 

"'What are we to do about it all?' she repeated. 

"'What am I to say about it, at length I replied, 'save that I feel asthough I were not really existing on earth?'

"'Are you one who can hold your tongue?' was her next question. 

"I nodded--nothing else could I compass, for further speech had becomeimpossible. Whereupon, rising with brows puckered, she fetched a coupleof small phials, and, with the aid of ingredients thence, mixed apowder which she wrapped in paper, and handed me with the words:

"'Only one way of escape offers from the Plagues of Egypt. Here I havea certain powder. Tonight the doctor is to dine with us. Place thepowder in his soup, and within a few days I shall be free!--yes, freefor you!'

"I crossed myself, and duly took from her the paper, whilst a mistrose, and swam before my eyes, as I did so, and my legs becameperfectly numb. What I next did I hardly know, for inwardly I wasswooning. Indeed, until Kliachka's arrival the same evening I remainedpractically in a state of coma. "

Here Kalinin shuddered--then glanced at me with drawn features andchattering teeth, and stirred uneasily. 

"Suppose we light a fire?" he ventured. "I am growing shivery all over. But first we must move outside. "

The torn clouds were casting their shadows wearily athwart the soddenearth and glittering stones and silver-dusted herbage. Only on a singlemountain top had a blur of mist settled like an arrested avalanche, andwas resting there with its edges steaming. The sea too had grown calmerunder the rain, and was splashing with more gentle mournfulness, evenas the blue patches in the firmament had taken on a softer, warmerlook, and stray sunbeams were touching upon land and sea in turn, and, where they chanced to fall upon herbage, causing pearls and emeralds tosparkle on every leaf, and kaleidoscopic tints to glow where thedark-blue sea reflected their generous radiance. Indeed, so goodly, sofull of promise, was the scene that one might have supposed autumn tohave fled away for ever before the wind and the rain, and beneficentsummer to have been restored. 

Presently through the moist, squelching sound of our footsteps, and thecheerful patter of the rain-drippings, Kalinin's narrative resumed itslanguid, querulous course:

"When, that evening, I opened the door to the doctor I could not bringmyself to look him in the face--I could merely hang my head; whereupon, taking me by the chin, and raising it, he inquired:

"Why is your face so yellow? What is the matter with you?'

"Yes, a kind-hearted man was he, and one who had never failed to tip mewell, and to speak to me with as much consideration as though I had notbeen a footman at all. 

"'I am not in very good health, ' I replied. 'I, I--'

"'Come, come!' was his interjection. 'After dinner I must look youover, and in the meanwhile, do keep up your spirits. '

"Then I realised that poison him I could not, but that the powder mustbe swallowed by myself--yes, by myself! Aye, over my heart a flash oflightning had gleamed, and shown me that now I was no longer followingthe road properly assigned me by fate. 

"Rushing away to my room, I poured out a glass of water, and emptiedinto it the powder; whereupon the water thickened, fizzed, and becametopped with foam. Oh, a terrible moment it was!. .. Then I drank themixture. Yet no burning sensation ensued, and though I listened to myvitals, nothing was to be heard in that quarter, but, on the contrary, my head began to lighten, and I found myself losing the sense ofself-pity which had brought me almost to the point of tears. .. . Shall we settle ourselves here?"

Before us a large stone, capped with green moss and climbing plants, was good-humouredly thrusting upwards a broad, flat face beneath whichthe body had, like that of the hero Sviatogov, sunken into the earththrough its own weight until only the face, a visage worn with aeons ofmeditation, was now visible. On every side, also, had oak-treesovergrown and encompassed the bulk of the projection, as though theytoo had been made of stone, with their branches drooping sufficientlylow to brush the wrinkles of the ancient monolith. Kalinin seatedhimself on his haunches under the overhanging rim of the stone, andsaid as he snapped some twigs in half:

"This is where we ought to have been sitting whilst the rain was comingdown. "

"And so say I, " I rejoined. "But pray continue your story. "

"Yes, when you have put a match to the fire. "

Whereafter, further withdrawing his spare frame under the stone, sothat he might stretch himself at full length, Kalinin continued:

"I walked to the pantry quietly enough, though my legs were totteringbeneath me, and I had a cold sensation in my breast. Suddenly I heardthe dining-room echo to a merry peal of laughter from ValentinaIgnatievna, and the General reply to that outburst:

"'Ah, that man! Ah, these servants of ours! Why, the fellow would doANYTHING for a piatak '[A silver five-kopeck piece, equal in value to 21/4 pence. ]

"To this my beloved one retorted:

"'Oh, uncle, uncle! Is it only a piatak that I am worth?

And then I heard the doctor put in:

"'What was it you gave him?'

"'Merely some soda and tartaric acid. To think of the fun that we shallhave!'"

Here, closing his eyes, Kalinin remained silent for a moment, whilstthe moist breeze sighed as it drove dense, wet mist against the blackbranches of the trees. 

"At first my feeling was one of overwhelming joy at the thought that atleast not DEATH was to be my fate. For I may tell you that, so far frombeing harmful, soda and tartaric acid are frequently taken as a remedyagainst drunken headache. Then the thought occurred to me: 'But, sinceI am not a tippler, why should such a joke have been played upon ME?'However, from that moment I began to feel easier, and when the companyhad sat down to dinner, and, amid a general silence, I was handinground the soup, the doctor tasted his portion, and, raising his headwith a frown, inquired:

"'Forgive me, but what soup is this?'

"'Ah!' I inwardly reflected. 'Soon, good gentlefolk, you will see howyour jest has miscarried. '

"Aloud I replied--replied with complete boldness:

"'Do not fear, sir. I have taken the powder myself. '

Upon this the General and his wife, who were still in ignorance thatthe jest had gone amiss, began to titter, but the others said nothing, though Valentina Ignatievna's eyes grew rounder and rounder, until inan undertone she murmured:

"'Did you KNOW that the stuff was harmless?'

"'I did not, ' I replied. 'At least, not at the moment of my drinkingit. '

"Whereafter falling headlong to the floor, I lost consciousness. "

Kalinin's small face had become painfully contracted, and grown old andhaggard-looking. Rolling over on to his breast before the languishingfire, he waved a hand to dissipate the smoke which was lazily driftingslant-wise. 

"For seventeen days did I remain stretched on a sick-bed, and wasattended by the doctor in person. One day, when sitting by my side, heinquired:

"'I presume your intention was to poison yourself, you foolish fellow?'

"Yes, merely THAT was what he called me--a 'foolish fellow. ' Yetindeed, what was I to him? Only an entity which might become food fordogs, for all he cared. Nor did Valentina Ignatievna herself pay me asingle visit, and my eyes never again beheld her. Before long she andDr. Kliachka were duly married, and departed to Kharkov, where he wasassigned a post in the Tchuguerski Camp. Thus only the Generalremained. Rough and ready, he was, nevertheless, old and sensible, andfor that reason, did not matter; wherefore I retained my situation asbefore. On my recovery, he sent for me, and said in a tone of reproof:

"'Look here. You are not wholly an idiot. What has happened is thatthose vile books of yours have corrupted your mind' (as a matter offact, I had never read a book in my life, since for reading I have nolove or inclination). 'Hence you must have seen for yourself that onlyin tales do clowns marry princesses. You know, life is like a game ofchess. Every piece has its proper move on the board, or the game couldnot be played at all. '"

Kalinin rubbed his hands over the fire (slender, non-workmanlike handsthey were), and winked and smiled. 

"I took the General's words very seriously, and proceeded to askmyself: 'To what do those words amount? To this: that though I may notcare actually to take part in the game, I need not waste my wholeexistence through a disinclination to learn the best use to which thatexistence can be put. '"

With a triumphant uplift of tone, Kalinin continued:

"So, brother, I set myself to WATCH the game in question; with theresult that soon I discovered that the majority of men live surroundedwith a host of superfluous commodities which do but burden them, andhave in themselves no real value. What I refer to is books, pictures, china, and rubbish of the same sort. Thought I to myself: 'Why should Idevote my life to tending and dusting such commodities while risking, all the time, their breakage? No more of it for me! Was it for thetending of such articles that my mother bore me amid the agonies ofchildbirth? Is it an existence of THIS kind that must be passed untilthe tomb be reached? No, no--a thousand times no! Rather will I, withyour good leave, reject altogether the game of life, and subsist as maybe best for me, and as may happen to be my pleasure. '"

Now, as Kalinin spoke, his eyes emitted green sparks, and as he wavedhis hands over the fire, as though to lop off the red tongues of flame, his fingers twisted convulsively. 

"Of course, not all at a stroke did I arrive at this conclusion; I didso but gradually. The person who finally confirmed me in my opinion wasa friar of Baku, a sage of pre-eminent wisdom, through his saying tome: 'With nothing at all ought a man to fetter his soul. Neither withbond-service, nor with property, nor with womankind, nor with any otherconcession to the temptations of this world ought he to constrain itsaction. Rather ought he to live alone, and to love none but Christ. Only this is true. Only this will be for ever lasting. '

"And, " added Kalinin with animation and inflated cheeks and flushed, suppressed enthusiasm, "many lands and many peoples have I seen, andalways have I found (particularly in Russia) that many folk alreadyhave reached an understanding of themselves, and, consequently, refusedany longer to render obeisance to absurdities. 'Shun evil, and you willevolve good. ' That is what the friar said to me as a partingword--though long before our encounter had I grasped the meaning of theaxiom. And that axiom I myself have since passed on to other folk, as Ihope to do yet many times in the future. "

At this point the speaker's tone reverted to one of querulous anxiety. 

"Look how low the sun has sunk!" he exclaimed. 

True enough, that luminary, large and round, was declininginto--rather, towards--the sea, while suspended between him and thewater were low, dark, white-topped cumuli. 

"Soon nightfall will be overtaking us, " continued Kalinin as he fumbledin his kaftan. "And in these parts jackals howl when darkness is come. "

In particular did I notice three clouds that looked like Turks in whiteturbans and robes of a dusky red colour. And as these cloud Turks benttheir heads together in private converse, suddenly there swelled up onthe back of one of the figures a hump, while on the turban of a secondthere sprouted forth a pale pink feather which, becoming detached fromits base, went floating upwards towards the zenith and the now rayless, despondent, moonlike sun. Lastly the third Turk stooped forward overthe sea to screen his companions, and as he did so, developed a hugered nose which comically seemed to dip towards, and sniff at, thewaters. 

"Sometimes, " continued Kalinin's even voice through the crackling andhissing of the wood fire, "a man who is old and blind may cobble a shoebetter than cleverer men than he, can order their whole lives. "

But no longer did I desire to listen to Kalinin, for the threads whichhad drawn me, bound me, to his personality had now parted. All that Idesired to do was to contemplate in silence the sea, while thinking ofsome of those subjects which at eventide never fail to stir the soul togentle, kindly emotion. Bombers, Kalinin's words continued drippinginto my ear like belated raindrops. 

"Nowadays everybody is a busybody. Nowadays everyone inquires of hisfellow-man, 'How is your life ordered?' To which always there is addeddidactically, 'But you ought not to live as you are doing. Let me showyou the way. ' As though anyone can tell me how best my life may attainfull development, seeing that no one can possibly have such a matterwithin his knowledge! Nay, let every man live as best he pleases, without compulsion. For instance, I have no need of you. In return, itis not your business either to require or to expect aught of me. Andthis I say though Father Vitali says the contrary, and avers thatthroughout should man war with the evils of the world. "

In the vague, wide firmament a blood-red cluster of clouds was hanging, and as I contemplated it there occurred to me the thought, "May notthose clouds be erstwhile righteous world-folk who are following anunseen path across that expanse, and dyeing it red with their goodblood as they go, in order that the earth may be fertilised?"

To right and left of that strip of living flame the sea was of acurious wine tint, while further off, rather, it was as soft and blackas velvet, and in the remote east sheet-lightning was flashing even asthough some giant hand were fruitlessly endeavouring to strike a matchagainst the sodden firmament. 

Meanwhile Kalinin continued to discourse with enthusiasm on the subjectof Father Vitali, the Labour Superintendent of the monastery of NewAthos, while describing in detail the monk's jovial, clever featureswith their pearly teeth and contrasting black and silver beard. Inparticular he related how once Vitali had knitted his fine, almostwomanlike eyes, and said in a bass which stressed its "o's":

"On our first arrival here, we found in possession only prehistoricchaos and demoniacal influence. Everywhere had clinging weeds grown torankness; everywhere one found one's feet entangled among bindweed andother vegetation of the sort. And now see what beauty and joy andcomfort the hand of man has wrought!"

And, having thus spoken, the monk had traced a great circle with hiseye and doughty hand, a circle which had embraced as in a frame themount, and the gardens fashioned and developed by ridgings of the rock, and the downy soil which had been beaten into those ridgings, and thesilver streak of waterfall playing almost at Vitali's feet, and thestone-hewn staircase leading to the cave of Simeon the Canaanite, andthe gilded cupolas of the new church where they had stood flashing inthe noontide sun, and the snow-white, shimmering blocks of theguesthouse and the servants' quarters, and the glittering fishponds, and the trees of uniform trimness, yet a uniformly regal dignity. 

"Brethren, " the monk had said in triumphant conclusion, "wheresoeverman may be, he will, as he so desires, be given power to overcome thedesolation of the wilds. "

"And then I pressed him further, " Kalinin added. "Yes, I said to him:'Nevertheless Christ, our Lord, was not like you, for He was homelessand a wanderer. He was one who utterly rejected your life of intensivecultivation of the soil'" (as he related the incident Kalinin gave hishead sundry jerks from side to side which made his ears flap, to andfro). "'Also neither for the lowly alone nor for the exalted alone didChrist exist. Rather, He, like all great benefactors, was one who hadno particular leaning. Nay, even when He was roaming the Russian Landin company with Saints Yuri and Nikolai, He always forbore to intrudeHimself into the villages' affairs, just as, whenever His companionsengaged in disputes concerning mankind, He never failed to maintainsilence on the subject. ' Yes, thus I plagued Vitali until he shouted atmy head, 'Ah, impudence, you are a heretic!'"

By this time, the air under the lee of the stone was growing smoky andoppressive, for the fire, with its flames looking like a bouquetcompounded of red poppies or azaleas and blooms of an aureate tint, hadbegun fairly to live its beautiful existence, and was blazing, anddiffusing warmth, and laughing its bright, cheerful, intelligent laugh. Yet from the mountains and the cloud-masses evening was descending, asthe earth emitted profound gasps of humidity, and the sea intoned itsvague, thoughtful, resonant song. 

"I presume we are going to pass the night here?" Kalinin at lengthqueried. 

"No, for my intention is, rather, to continue my journey. "

"Then let us make an immediate start. "

"But my direction will not be the same as yours, I think?"

Previously to this, Kalinin had squatted down upon his haunches, andtaken some bread and a few pears from his wallet; but now, on hearingmy decision, he replaced the viands in his receptacle, snapped--to thelid of it with an air of vexation--and asked:

"Why did you come with me at all?"

"Because I wanted to have a talk with you--I had found you aninteresting character. "

"Yes. At least I am THAT; many like me do not exist. "

"Pardon me; I have met several. "

"Perhaps you have. " After which utterance, doubtfully drawled, thespeaker added more sticks to the fire. 

Eventide was falling with tardy languor, but, as yet, the sun, thoughbecome a gigantic, dull, red lentil in appearance, was not hidden, andthe waves were still powerless to besprinkle his downward road of fire. Presently, however, he subsided into a cloud bank; whereupon darknessflooded the earth like water poured from an empty basin, and the greatkindly stars shone forth, and the nocturnal profundity, enveloping theworld, seemed to soften it even as a human heart may be rendered gentle. 

"Good-bye!" I said as I pressed my companion's small, yielding hand:whereupon he looked me in the eyes in his open, boyish way, and replied:

"I wish I were going with you!"

"Well, come with me as far as Gudaout. "

"Yes, I will. "

So we set forth once more to traverse the land which I, so alien to itsinhabitants, yet so at one with all that it contained, loved so dearly, and of which I yearned to fertilise the life in return for the vitalitywith which it had filled my own existence. 

For daily, the threads with which my heart was bound to the world atlarge were growing more numerous; daily my heart was storing upsomething which had at its root a sense of love for life, of interestin my fellow-man. 

And that evening, as we proceeded on our way, the sea was singing itsvespertinal hymn, the rocks were rumbling as the water caressed them, and on the furthermost edge of the dark void there were floating dimwhite patches where the sunset's glow had not yet faded--though alreadystars were glowing in the zenith. Meanwhile every slumbering treetopwas aquiver, and as I stepped across the scattered rain-pools, theirwater gurgled dreamily, timidly under my feet. 

Yes, that night I was a torch unto myself, for in my breast a red flamewas smouldering like a living beacon, and leading me to long that somefrightened, belated wayfarer should, as it were, sight my little speckof radiancy amid the darkness. 

THE DEAD MAN

One evening I was sauntering along a soft, grey, dusty track betweentwo breast-high walls of grain. So narrow was the track that here andthere tar-besmeared cars were lying--tangled, broken, and crushed--inthe ruts of the cartway. 

Field mice squeaked as a heavy car first swayed--then bent forwardstowards the sun-baked earth. A number of martins and swallows wereflitting in the sky, and constituting a sign of the immediate proximityof dwellings and a river; though for the moment, as my eyes roved overthe sea of gold, they encountered naught beyond a belfry rising toheaven like a ship's mast, and some trees which from afar looked likethe dark sails of a ship. Yes, there was nothing else to be seen savethe brocaded, undulating steppe where gently it sloped awaysouth-westwards. And as was the earth's outward appearance, so was thatof the sky--equally peaceful. 

Invariably, the steppe makes one feel like a fly on a platter. Invariably, it inclines one to believe, when the centre of the expanseis reached, that the earth lies within the compass of the sky, with thesun embracing it, and the stars hemming it about as, half-blinded, theystare at the sun's beauty. 

 * * * * *

Presently the sun's huge, rosy-red disk impinged upon the blue shadowsof the horizon before preparing to sink into a snow-white cloud-bank;and as it did so it bathed the ears of grain around me in radiance andcaused the cornflowers to seem the darker by comparison; and thestillness, the herald of night, to accentuate more than ever the burdenof the earth's song. 

Fanwise then spread the ruddy beams over the firmament; and, in sodoing, they cast upon my breast a shaft of light like Moses' rod, andawoke therein a flood of calm, but ardent, sentiments which set melonging to embrace all the evening world, and to pour into its eargreat, eloquent, and never previously voiced, utterances. 

Now, too, the firmament began to spangle itself with stars; and sincethe earth is equally a star, and is peopled with humankind, I foundmyself longing to traverse every road throughout the universe, and tobehold, dispassionately, all the joys and sorrows of life, and to joinmy fellows in drinking honey mixed with gall. 

Yet also there was upon me a feeling of hunger, for not since themorning had my wallet contained a morsel of food. Which circumstancehindered the process of thought, and intermittently vexed me with thereflection that, rich though is the earth, and much thence thoughhumanity has won by labour, a man may yet be forced to walk hungry. .. . 

Suddenly the track swerved to the right, and as the walls of grainopened out before me, there lay revealed a steppe valley, with, flowingat its bottom, a blue rivulet, and spanning the rivulet, anewly-constructed bridge which, with its reflection in the water, looked as yellow as though fashioned of rope. On the further side ofthe rivulet some seven white huts lay pressed against a small declivitythat was crowned with a cattle-fold, and amid the silver-grey trunks ofsome tall black poplars whose shadows, where they fell upon the hamlet, seemed as soft as down a knee-haltered horse, was stumping withswishing tail. And though the air, redolent of smoke and tar and hempensilage, was filled with the sounds of poultry cackling and a babycrying during the process of being put to bed, the hubbub in no wayserved to dispel the illusion that everything in the valley was butpart of a sketch executed by an artistic hand, and cast in soft tintswhich the sun had since caused, in some measure, to fade. 

In the centre of the semi-circle of huts there stood a brick-kiln, andnext to it, a high, narrow red chapel which resembled a one-eyedwatchman. And as I stood gazing at the scene in general, a cranestooped with a faint and raucous cry, and a woman who had come out todraw water looked as though, as she raised bare arms to stretch herselfupwards--cloud-like, and white-robed from head to foot--she were aboutto float away altogether. 

Also, near the brick-kiln there lay a patch of black mud in theglistening, crumpled-velvet blue substance of which two urchins of fiveand three were, breechless, and naked from the waist upwards, kneadingyellow feet amid a silence as absorbed as though their one desire inlife had been to impregnate the mud with the red radiance of the sun. And so much did this laudable task interest me, and engage my sympathyand attention, that I stopped to watch the strapping youngsters, seeingthat even in mire the sun has a rightful place, for the reason that thedeeper the sunlight's penetration of the soil, the better does thatsoil become, and the greater the benefit to the people dwelling on itssurface. 

Viewed from above, the scene lay, as it were, in the palm of one'shand. True, by no manner of means could such lowly farm cots provide mewith a job, but at least should I, for that evening, be able to enjoythe luxury of a chat with the cots' kindly inhabitants. Hence, with, inmy mind, a base and mischievous inclination to retail to thoseinhabitants tales of the marvellous kind of which I knew them to standwellnigh as much in need as of bread, I resumed my way, and approachedthe bridge. 

As I did so, there arose from the ground-level an animated clod ofearth in the shape of a sturdy individual. Unwashed and unshaven, hehad hanging on his frame an open canvas shirt, grey with dust, andbaggy blue breeches. 

"Good evening, " I said to the fellow. 

"I wish you the same, " he replied. "Whither are you bound?"

"First of all, what is the name of this river?"

"What is its name? Why, it is the Sagaidak, of course. "

On the man's large, round head there was a shock of bristling, grizzledcurls, while pendent to the moustache below it were ends like those ofthe moustache of a Chinaman. Also, as his small eyes scanned me with anair of impudent distrust, I could detect that they were engaged incounting the holes and dams in my raiment. Only after a long intervaldid he draw a deep breath as from his pocket he produced a clay pipewith a cane mouthpiece, and, knitting his brows attentively, fell topeering into the pipe's black bowl. Then he said:

"Have you matches?"

I replied in the affirmative. 

"And some tobacco?"

For awhile he continued to contemplate the sun where that luminary hungsuspended above a cloud-bank before finally declining. Then he remarked:

"Give me a pinch of the tobacco. As for matches, I have some. "

So both of us lit up; after which he rested his elbows upon thebalustrade of the bridge, leant back against the central stanchions, and for some time continued merely to emit and inhale blue coils ofsmoke. Then his nose wrinkled, and he expectorated. 

"Muscovite tobacco is it?" he inquired. 

"No--Roman, Italian. "

"Oh!" And as the wrinkles of his nose straightened themselves again headded: "Then of course it is good tobacco. "

To enter a dwelling in advance of one's host is a breach of decorum;wherefore, I found myself forced to remain standing where I was untilmy interlocutor's tale of questions as to my precise identity, my exactplace of origin, my true destination, and my real reasons fortravelling should tardily win its way to a finish. Greatly the processvexed me, for I was eager, rather, to learn what the steppe settlementmight have in store for my delectation. 

"Work?" the fellow drawled through his teeth. "Oh no, there is no workto be got here. How could there be at this season of the year?"

Turning aside, he spat into the rivulet. 

On the further bank of the latter, a goose was strutting importantly atthe head of a string of round, fluffy, yellow goslings, whilst drivingthe brood were two little girls--the one a child but little larger thanthe goose itself, dressed in a red frock, and armed with a switch; andthe other one a youngster absolutely of a size with the bird, pale offeature, plump of body, bowed of leg, and grave of expression. 

"Ufim!" came at this moment in the strident voice of a woman unseen, but incensed; upon which my companion bestowed upon me a sidelong nod, and muttered with an air of appreciation:

"THERE'S lungs for you!"

Whereafter, he fell to twitching the toes of a chafed and blackenedfoot, and to gazing at their nails. His next question was:

"Are you, maybe, a scholar?"

"Why do you ask?"

"Because, if you are, you might like to read the Book over a corpse. "

And so proud, apparently, was he of the proposal that a faint smilecrossed his flaccid countenance. 

"You see, it would be work, " he added with his brown eyes veiled, "whilst, in addition, you would be paid ten kopecks for your trouble, and allowed to keep the shroud. "

"And should also be given some supper, I suppose?"

"Yes--and should also be given some supper. "

"Where is the corpse lying?"

"In my own hut. Shall we go there?"

Off we set. En route we heard once more a strident shout of:

"Ufi-i-im!"

As we proceeded, shadows of trees glided along the soft road to meetus, while behind a clump of bushes on the further bank of the rivuletsome children were shouting at their play. Thus, what with thechildren's voices, and the purling of the water, and the noise ofsomeone planing a piece of wood, the air seemed full of tremulous, suspended sound. Meanwhile, my host said to me with a drawl:

"Once we did have a reader here. An old woman she was, a regular oldwitch who at last had to be removed to the town for amputation of thefeet. They might well have cut off her tongue too whilst they wereabout it, since, though useful enough, she could rail indeed!"

Presently a black puppy, a creature of about the size of a toad, cameambling, three-legged fashion, under our feet. Upon that it stiffenedits tail, growled, and snuffed the air with its tiny pink nose. 

Next there popped up from somewhere or another a barefooted youngwoman. Clapping her hands, she bawled:

"Here, you Ufim, how I have been calling for you, and calling for you!"

"Eh? Well, I never heard you. "

"Where were you, then?"

By way of reply, my conductor silently pointed in my direction with thestem of his pipe. Then he led me into the forecourt of the hut next tothe one whence the young woman had issued, whilst she proceeded toproject fresh volleys of abuse, and fresh expressions of accentuatednon-amiability. 

In the little doorway of the dwelling next to hers, we found seated twoold women. One of them was as rotund and dishevelled as a battered, leathern ball, and the other one was a woman bony and crooked of back, swarthy of skin, and irritable of feature. At the women's feet lay, lolling out a rag-like tongue, a shaggy dog which, red and pathetic ofeye, could boast of a frame nearly as large as a sheep's. 

First of all, Ufim related in detail how he had fallen in with myself. Then he stated the purpose for which he conceived it was possible thatI might prove useful. And all the time that he was speaking, two pairsof eyes contemplated him in silence; until, on the completion of hisrecital, one of the old women gave a jerk to a thin, dark neck, and theother old dame invited me to take a seat whilst she prepared somesupper. 

Amid the tangled herbage of the forecourt, a spot overgrown with mallowand bramble shoots, there was standing a cart which, lacking wheels, had its axle-points dark with mildew. Presently a herd of cattle wasdriven past the hut, and over the hamlet there seemed to arise, drift, and float, a perfect wave of sound. Also, as evening descended, I couldsee an ever-increasing number of grey shadows come creeping forth fromthe forecourt's recesses, and overlaying and darkening the turf. 

"One day all of us must die, " remarked Ufim, with empressement as hetapped the bowl of his pipe against a wall. 

The next moment the barefooted, red-cheeked young woman showed herselfat the gate, and asked in tones rather less vehement than recently:

"Are you coming, or are you not?"

"Presently, " replied Ufim. "One thing at a time. "

For supper I was given a hunch of bread and a bowl of milk; whereuponthe dog rose, laid its aged, slobbering muzzle upon my knee, and gazedinto my face with its dim eyes as though it were saying, "May I toohave a bite?"

Next, like an eventide breeze among withered herbage, there floatedacross the forecourt the hoarse voice of the crook-backed old woman. 

"Let us pray, " she said. "Oh God, take away from us all sorrow, andreceive therefore requitement in twofold measure!"

As she recited the prayer with a mien as dark as fate, the supplicantrolled her long neck from side to side, and nodded her ophidian-shapedhead in accordance with a sort of regular, lethargic rhythm. Next Iheard sink to earth, at my feet, some senile words uttered in a sort ofsingsong. 

"Some folk need work just as much as they wish, and others need do nowork at all. Yet OUR folk have to work beyond their strength, and towork without any recompense for the toil which they undergo. "

Upon this the smaller of the old crones whispered:

"But the Mother of God will recompense them. She recompenses everyone. "

Then a dead silence fell--a weighty silence, a silence seeminglyfraught with matters of import, and inspiring in one an assurance thatpresently there would be brought forth impressive reflections--therewould reach the ear words of mark. 

"I may tell you, " at length the crook-backed old woman remarked as sheattempted to straighten herself, "that though my husband was notwithout enemies, he also had a particular friend named Andrei, and thatwhen failing strength was beginning to make life difficult for us inour old home on the Don, and folk took to reviling and girding at myhusband, Andrei came to us one day, and said: 'Yakov, let not yourhands fail you, for the earth is large, and in all parts has been givento men for their use. If folk be cruel, they are so through stupidityand prejudice, and must not be judged for being so. Live your own life. Let theirs be theirs, and yours yours, so that, dwelling in peace, while yielding to none, you shall in time overcome them all. '"

"That is what Vasil too used to say. He used to say: 'Let theirs betheirs, and ours ours. '"

"Aye, never a good word dies, but, wheresoever it be uttered, fliesthence through the world like a swallow. "

Ufim corroborated this with a nod. 

"True indeed!" he remarked. "Though also it has been said that a goodword is Christ's, and a bad word the priest's. "

One of the old women shook her head vigorously at this, and croaked:

"The badness lies not in any word of a priest, but in what you yourselfhave just said. You are greyheaded, Ufim, yet often you speak withoutthought. "

Presently Ufim's wife reappeared, and, waving her hands as though shewere brandishing a sieve, began to vent renewed volleys of virulentabuse. 

"My God, " she cried, "what sort of a man is that? Why, a man whoneither speaks nor listens, but for ever keeps baying at the moon likea dog!"

"NOW she's started!" Ufim drawled. 

Westward there were arising, and soaring skyward, clouds of such asimilarity to blue smoke and blood-red flame that the steppe seemedalmost to be in danger of catching fire thence. Meanwhile a softevening breeze was caressing the expanse as a whole, and causing thegrain to bend drowsily earthward as golden-red ripples skimmed itssurface. Only in the eastern quarter whence night's black, sultryshadow was stealthily creeping in our direction had darkness yetdescended. 

At intervals there came vented from the window above my head the hotodour of a dead body; and, whenever that happened, the dog's greynostrils and muzzle would quiver, and its eyes would blink pitifully asit gazed aloft. Glancing at the heavens, Ufim remarked with conviction:

"There will be no rain tonight. "

"Do you keep such a thing as a Psalter here?" I inquired. 

"Such a thing as a what?"

"As a Psalter--a book?"

No answer followed. 

Faster and faster the southern night went on descending, and wiping theland clean of heat, as though that heat had been dust. Upon me therecame a feeling that I should like to go and bury myself in somesweet-smelling hay, and sleep there until sunrise. 

"Maybe Panek has one of those things?" hazarded Ufim after a longpause. "At any rate he has dealings with the Molokans. "

After that, the company held further converse in whispers. Then allsave the more rotund of the old women left the forecourt, while itsremaining occupant said to me with a sigh:

"You may come and look at him if you wish. "

Small and gentle looked the woman's meekly lowered head as, folding herhands across her breast, she added in a whisper:

"Oh purest Mother of God! Oh Thou of spotless chastity!"

In contrast to her expression, that on the face of the dead man wasstem and, as it were, fraught with importance where thick grey eyebrowslay parted over a large nose, and the latter curved downwards towards amoustache which divided introspective, partially closed eyes from amouth that was set half-open. Indeed, it was as though the man werepondering something of annoyance, so that presently he would make shiftto deliver himself of a final and urgent injunction. The blue smoke ofa meagre candle quivered meanwhile, over his head, though the wickdiffused so feeble a light that the death blurs under the eyes and inthe cheek furrows lay uneffaced, and the dark hands and wrists, disposed, lumplike, on the front of the greyish-blue shroud, seemed tohave had their fingers twisted in a manner which even death had failedto rectify. And ever and anon, streaming from door to window, came adraught variously fraught with the odours of wormwood, mint, andcorruption. 

Presently the old woman's whispering grew more animated andintelligible, while constantly, amid the wheezed mutterings, sheetlightning cut the black square of the window space with menacingflashes, and seemed, with their blue glare, as it shot through thetomblike hut, to cause the candle's flickering flame to undergo atemporary extinction, a temporary withdrawal, and the grey bristles onthe dead man's face to gleam like the scales of a fish, and hisfeatures to gather themselves into a grim frown. Meanwhile, like astream of cold, bitter water dripping upon my breast, the old woman'swhispered soliloquy maintained its uninterrupted flow. 

At length there recurred, somehow, to my mind the words which, impressive though they be, never can assuage sorrow--the words:

"Weep not for me, Martha, nor gaze into the tomb, for, lo, I am risen!"

Nay, and never would THIS man rise again. .. . 

Presently the bony old woman returned with a report that nowhere amongthe huts could a Psalter be found, but only a book of another kind. Would it do?

The other book turned out to be a grammar of the Church Slavonicdialect, with the first pages torn out, and beginning with the words, "Drug, drugi, druzhe. " ["A friend, of a friend, O friend. "]

"What, then, are we to do?" vexedly asked the smaller of the dames whenI had explained to her that a grammar could work no benefit to acorpse. As she put the query, her small, childlike face quivered withdisappointment, and her eyes swelled and overflowed with tears. 

"My man has lived his life, " she said with a sob, "and now he cannoteven be given proper burial!"

And, similarly, when next I offered to recite over her husband each andevery prayer and psalm that I could contrive to recall to myrecollection, on condition that all present should meanwhile leave thehut (for I felt that, since the task would be one novel to me, theattendance of auditors might hinder me from mustering my entire stockof petitions), she so disbelieved me, or failed to understand me, thatfor long enough she could only stand tottering in the doorway as, withtwitching nose, she drew her sleeve across her worn, diminutivefeatures. 

Nevertheless she did, at last, take her departure. 

 * * * * *

Low over the steppe, stray flashes of summer lightning still gleamedagainst the jet black sky as they flooded the hut with their luridshimmer; and each time that the darkness of the sultry night swept backinto the room, the candle flickered, and the corpse's prone figureseemed to open its half-closed eyes and glance at the shadows whichpalpitated on its breast, and danced over the white walls and ceiling. 

Similarly did I glance from time to time at HIM, yet glance with aguarded eye, and with a feeling in me that when a corpse is presentanything may happen; until finally I rallied conscience to my aid, andrecited under my breath:

"Pardon Thou all who have sinned, whether they be men, or whether they, being not men, do yet stand higher than the beasts of the field. "

However, the only result of the recitation was to bring to my mind athought directly at variance with the import of the words, the thoughtthat "it is not sin that is hard and bitter to ensue, butrighteousness. "

"Sins wilful and of ignorance, " I continued. "Sins known and unknown. Sins committed through imprudence and evil example. Sins committedthrough forwardness and sloth. "

"Though to YOU, brother, " mentally I added to the corpse, "none ofthis, of course, applies. "

Again, glancing at the blue stars, where they hung glittering in thefathomless obscurity of the sky, I reflected:

"Who in this house is looking at them save myself?"

Presently, with a pattering of claws over the beaten clay of the floor, there entered the dog. Once or twice it paced the length of the room. Then, with a sniff at my legs, and a grumble to itself, it departed asit had come. Perhaps the creature felt too old to bay a dirge to itsmaster after the manner of its kind. In any case, as it vanishedthrough the doorway, the shadows--so I fancied--sought to slip outafter it, and, floating in that direction, fanned my face with a breathas of ice, while the flame of the candle flickered the more--as thoughit too were seeking to wrest itself from the candlestick, and gofloating upwards to join the band of stars--a band of luminaries whichit might well have deemed to be of a brilliance as small and as pitifulas its own. And I, for my part, since I had no wish to see what lightthere was disappear, followed the struggles of the tiny flame with atense anxiety which made my eyes ache. Oppressed and uneasy all over asI stood by the dead man's shoulder, I strained my ears and listened, listened ever, to the silence encompassing the hut. 

Eventually, drowsiness began to steal over me, and proved a feelinghard to resist. Yet still with an effort did I contrive to recall thebeautiful prayers of Saints Makari Veliki, Chrysostom, and Damarkin, while at the same time something resembling a swarm of mosquitosstarted to hum in my head, the words wherein the Sixth Precept issuesits injunction to: "all persons about to withdraw to a couch of rest. "

And next, to escape falling asleep, I fell to reciting the kondak [Hymnfor the end of the day] which begins:

"Oh Lord, refresh my soul thus grievously made feeble with wrong doing. "

Still engaged in this manner, suddenly I heard something rustle outsidethe door. Then a dry whisper articulated:

"Oh God of Mercy, receive unto Thyself also my soul!"

Upon that, the fancy occurred to me that probably the old woman's soulwas as grey and timid as a linnet, and that when it should fly up tothe throne of the Mother of God, and the Mother should extend to thatlittle soul her tender, white, and gracious hand, the newcomer wouldtremble all over, and flutter her gentle wings until well nigh deathshould supervene. 

And then the Mother of God would say to Her Son:

"Son, pray see the fearfulness of Thy people on earth, and theirestrangement from joy! Oh Son, is that well?"

And He would make answer to Her--

He would make answer to Her, and say I know not what. 

 * * * * *

And suddenly, so I fancied, a voice answered mine out of the broodinghush, as though it too were reciting a prayer. Yet so complete, soprofound, was the stillness, that the voice seemed far away, submerged, unreal--a mere phantom of an echo, of the echo of my own voice. Until, on my desisting from my recital, and straining my cars yet more, thesound seemed to approach and grow clearer as shuffling footsteps alsoadvanced in my direction, and there came a mutter of:

"Nay, it CANNOT be so!"

"Why is it that the dogs have failed to bark?" I reflected, rubbing myeyes, and fancying as I did so that the dead man's eyebrows twitched, and his moustache stirred in a grim smile. 

Presently a deep, hoarse, rasping voice vociferated in the forecourt:

"What do you say, old woman? Yes, that he must die--I knew allalong, --so you can cease your chattering? Men like him keep up to thelast, then lay them down to rise to more. .. WHO is with him? Astranger? A-ah!"

And, the next moment, a bulk so large and shapeless that it might wellhave been the darkness of the night embodied, stumbled against theouter side of the door, grunted, hiccuped, and lurching head foremostinto the hut, grew wellnigh to the ceiling. Then it waved a gigantichand, crossed itself in the direction of the candle, and, bendingforward until its forehead almost touched the feet of the corpse, queried under its breath:

"How now, Vasil?"

Thereafter, the figure vented a sob whilst a strong smell of vodkaarose in the room, and from the doorway the old woman said in anappealing voice:

"Pray give HIM the book, Father Demid. "

"No indeed! Why should I? I intend to do the reading myself. "

And a heavy hand laid itself upon my shoulder, while a great hairy facebent over mine, and inquired:

"A young man, are you not? A member of the clergy, too, I suppose?"

So covered with tufts of auburn hair was the enormous head aboveme--tufts the sheen of which even the semi-obscurity of the palecandlelight failed to render inconspicuous--that the mass, as a whole, resembled a mop. And as its owner lurched to and fro, he made me lurchresponsively by now drawing me towards himself, now thrusting me away. Meanwhile he continued to suffuse my face with the hot, thick odour ofspirituous liquor. 

"Father Demid!" again essayed the old woman with an imploring wail, buthe cut her short with the menacing admonition:

"How often have I told you that you must not address a deacon as'Father'? Go to bed! Yes, be off with you, and let me mind my affairsmyself! GO, I say! But first light me another candle, for I cannot seea single thing in front of me. "

With which, throwing himself upon a bench, the deacon slapped his kneewith a book which he had in his hands, and put to me the query:

"Should you care to have a dram of gorielka? [Another name for vodka. ]

"No, " I replied. "At all events, not here. "

"Indeed?" the deacon cried, unabashed. "But come, a bottle of the stuffis here, in my very pocket. "

"This is no place in which to be drinking. "

For a moment the deacon said nothing. Then he muttered:

"True, true. So let us adjourn to the forecourt. .. . Yes, what yousay is no more than the truth. "

"Had you not better remain seated where you are, and begin the reading?"

"No, I am going to do no such thing. YOU shall do the reading. TonightI, I--well I am not very well, for I have been drinking a little. "

And, thrusting the book into my stomach, he sank his head upon hisbreast, and fell to swaying it ponderously up and down. 

"Folk die, " was his next utterance, "and the world remains as full ofgrief as ever. Yes, folk die even before they have seen a little goodaccrue to themselves. "

"I see that your book is not a Psalter, " here I interposed after aninspection of the volume. 

"You are wrong. "

"Then look for yourself. "

He grabbed the book by its cover, and, by dint of holding the candleclose to its pages, discovered, eventually, that matters were as I hadstated. 

This took him aback completely. 

"What can the fact mean?" he exclaimed. "Oh, I know what has happened. The mistake has come of my being in such a hurry. The other book, thetrue Psalter, is a fat, heavy volume, whereas this one is--"

For a moment he seemed sobered by the shock. At all events, he roseand, approaching the corpse, said, as he bent over the bed with hisbeard held back:

"Pardon me, Vasil, but what is to be done?"

Then he straightened himself again, threw back his curls, and, drawinga bottle from his pocket, and thrusting the neck of the bottle into hismouth, took a long draught, with a whistling of his nostrils as he didso. 

"Well?" I said. 

"Well, I intend to go to bed--my idea is to drink and enjoy myselfawhile. "

"Go, then. "

"And what of the reading?"

"Who would wish you to mumble words which you would not becomprehending as you uttered them?"

The deacon reseated himself upon the bench, leaned forward, buried hisface in his hands and remained silent. 

Fast the July night was waning. Fast its shadows were dissolving intocorners, and allowing a whiff of fresh dewy morningtide to enter at thewindow. Already was the combined light of the two candles growingpaler, with their flames looking like the eyes of a frightened child. 

"You have lived your life, Vasi, " at length the deacon muttered, "andthough once I had a place to which to resort, now I shall have none. Yes, my last friend is dead. Oh Lord--where is Thy justice?"

For myself, I went and took a seat by the window, and, thrusting myhead into the open air, lit a pipe, and continued to listen with ashiver to the deacon's wailings. 

"Folk used to gird at my wife, " he went on, "and now they are gnawingat me as pigs might gnaw at a cabbage. That is so, Vasil. Yes that isso. "

Again the bottle made its appearance. Again the deacon took a draught. Again he wiped his beard. Then he bent over the dead man once more, andkissed the corpse's forehead. 

"Good-bye, friend of mine!" he said. Then to myself he added withunlooked-for clarity and vigour:

"My friend here was but a plain man--a man as inconspicuous among hisfellows as a rook among a flock of rooks. Yet no rook was he. Rather, he was a snow-white dove, though none but I realised the fact. And nowhe has been withdrawn from the 'grievous bondage of Pharaoh. ' Only I amleft. Verily, after my passing, shall my soul torment and vomit spittleupon his adversaries!"

"Have you known much sorrow?"

The deacon did not reply at once. When he did so he said dully:

"All of us have known much sorrow. In some cases we have known morethan was rightfully our due. I certainly, have known much. But go tosleep, for only in sleep do we recover what is ours. "

And he added as he tripped over his own feet, and lurched heavilyagainst me:

"I have a longing to sing something. Yet I feel that I had best not, for song at such an hour awakens folk, and starts them bawling. .. But beyond all things would I gladly sing. "

With which he buzzed into my ear:

 "To whom shall I sing of my grief? To whom resort for relief? To the One in whose ha-a-and--"

At this point the sharp bristles of his beard so tickled my neck as tocause me to edge further away. 

"You do not like me?" he queried. "Then go to sleep, and to the deviltoo!"

"It was your beard that was tickling me. "

"Indeed? Ought I to have shaved for your benefit before I came?"

He reflected awhile--then subsided on to the floor with a sniff and anangry exclamation of:

"Read, you, whilst I sleep. And see to it that you do not make off withthe book, for it belongs to the church, and is very valuable. Yes. Iknow you hard-ups! Why do you go roaming about as you do--what is ityou hope to gain by your tramping?. .. However, tramp as much as youlike. Yes, be off, and tell people that a deacon has come bymisfortune, and is in need of some good person to take pity upon hisplight. .. . Diomid Kubasov my name is--that of a man lost beyondrecall. "

With which he fell asleep. Opening the book at random, I read the words:

"A land unapportioned that shall produce a nourisher of humanity, abeing that shall put forth the bounty of his hand to feed everycreature. "

"A nourisher of humanity. " Before my eyes that "nourisher" layoutspread, a nourisher overlaid with dry and fragrant herbage. And as Igazed, in the haze of a vision, upon that nourisher's dark andenigmatical face, I saw also the thousands of men who have seamed thisearth with furrows, to the end that dead things should become things oflife. And in particular, there uprose before me a picture strangeindeed. In that picture I saw marching over the steppe, where theexpanse lay bare and void--yes, marching in circles that increasinglyembraced a widening area--a gigantic, thousand-handed being in whosetrain the dead steppe gathered unto itself vitality, and became swathedin juicy, waving verdure, and studded with towns and villages. Andever, as the being receded further and further into the distance, couldI see him sowing with tireless hands that which had in it life, and waspart of himself, and human as, with thoughts intent upon the benefitingof humanity, he summoned all men to put forth the mysterious force thatis in them, and thus to conquer death, and eternally and invincibly toconvert, dead things into things of life, while traversing in companythe road of death towards that which has no knowledge of death, andensuring that, in swallowing up mankind, the jaws of death should notclose upon death's victims. 

And this caused my heart to beat with emotions the pulsing wings ofwhich at once gladdened me, and cooled my fervour. .. And how greatly, at that moment, did I feel the need of someone able to respond to myquestions without passion, yet with truth, and in the language ofsimplicity! For beside me there lay but a man dead and a man drunken, while without the threshold there was stationed one who had faroutlived her span of years. No matter, however. If not today, thentomorrow, should I find a fellow-creature with whom my soul mightcommune. 

Mentally I left the hut, and passed on to the steppe, that I mightcontemplate thence the little dwelling in which alone, though lost amidthe earth's immensity, the windows were not blind and black as in itsfellow huts, but showed, burning over the head of a dead human being, the fire which humanity had conquered for humanity's benefit. 

And that heart which had ceased to beat in the dead man--had everythingconceived in life by that heart found due expression in a worldpoverty, stricken of heart-conceived ideas? I knew that the man justpassed away had been but a plain and insignificant mortal, yet as Ireflected upon even the little that he had done, his labour loomedbefore me as greater than prowess of larger magnitude. Yes, to my mindthere recurred the immature, battered ears of corn lying in the ruts ofthe steppe track, the swallows traversing the blue sky above thegolden, brocaded grain, the kite hovering in the void over thelandscape's vast periphery. .. .. 

And along with these thoughts, there struck upon my ears a whistling ofpinions as the shadow of a bird flitted across the brilliant, dew-bespangled green of the forecourt, and five cocks crowed insuccession, and a flock of geese announced the fact of their awakening, and a cow lowed, and the gate of the cattle-pen creaked. 

And with that I fell to thinking how I should like really to go out onto the steppe, and there to fall asleep under a warm, dry bank. 

As for the deacon, he was still slumbering at my feet--slumbering withhis breast, the breast of a prize-fighter, turned uppermost, and hisfine, golden shock of hair falling like a nimbus around his head, andhot, fat, flushed red features and gaping mouth and ceaselesslytwitching moustache. In passing, I had noticed that his hands werelong, and that they were set upon shovel-shaped wrists. 

Next I found myself imagining the scene as the powerful figure of thisman embraced a woman. Probably her face would become lost to sight inhis beard, until nothing of her features remained visible. Then, whenthe beard began to tickle her, she would throw back her head, andlaugh. And the children that such a man might have begotten!

All this only made it the more painful and disagreeable to me toreflect that the breast of a human being of such a type should bebearing a burden of sorrow. Surely naught but joy should have beenpresent therein!

Meanwhile, the old woman's gentle face was still peering at me throughthe doorway, and presently the first beam of sunlight came glancingthrough the window-space. Above the rivulet's silky glimmer, atransparent mist lay steaming, while trees and herbage alike werepassing through that curiously inert stage when at any moment (so onefancied) they might give themselves a shake, and burst into song, andin keys intelligible to the soul alone, set forth the wondrous mysteryof their existence. 

"What a good man he is!" the old woman whispered plaintively as shegazed at the deacon's gigantic frame. Whereafter, as though readingaloud from a book invisible to my sight, she proceeded quietly andsimply to relate the story of his wife. 

"You see, " she went on "his lady committed a certain sin with a certainman; and folk remarked this, and, after setting the husband on to thecouple, derided him--yes, him, our Demid!--for the reason that hepersisted in forgiving the woman her fault. At length the jeers madeher take to her room and him to liquor, and for two years past he hasbeen drinking, and soon is going to be deprived of his office. One whoscarcely drank at all, my poor husband, used to say: 'Ah, Demid, yieldnot to these folk, but live your own life, and let theirs be theirs, and yours, yours. '"

With the words, tears welled from the old woman's dim, small eyes, andbecame merged with the folds and wrinkles on her grief-stained cheeks. And in the presence of that little head, a head shaking like a deadleaf in the autumn time, and of those kindly features so worn with ageand sorrow, my eyes fell, and I felt smitten with shame to find that, on searching my soul for at least a word of consolation to offer to thepoor fellow-mortal before me, I could discover none that seemedsuitable. 

But at length there recurred to my mind some strange words which I hadencountered in I know not what antique volume--words which ran:

"Let not the servants of the Gods lament but, rather, rejoice, in thatweeping and lamentation grieve both the Gods and mankind. "

Thereafter, I muttered confusedly:

"It is time that I was going. "

"What?" was her hasty exclamation, an exclamation uttered as though thewords had affrighted her. Whereafter, with quivering lips, she beganhesitantly and uncertainly to fumble in her bodice. 

"No, I have no need of money, " I interposed. "Only, if you should be sowilling, give me a piece of bread. "

"You have no need of money?" she re-echoed dubiously. 

"No, none. For that matter, of what use could it be to me?"

"Well, well!" she said after a thoughtful pause. "Then be it as youwish, and--and I thank you. "

 * * * * *

The sun, as he rose and ascended towards the blue of the firmament, wasspreading over the earth a braggart, peacock-like tail of beams. And ashe did so, I winked at him, for by experience I knew that some twohours later his smiles would be scorching me with fire. Yet for thetime being he and I had no fault to find with one another. Wherefore, Iset myself to search for a bank whence I might sing to him, as to theLord of Life:

 Oh Thou of intangible substance, Reveal now that substance to me! Enwrap me within the great vestment Of light which encompasseth Thee! That with Thy uprising, my substance May Come all-prevailing to be!

 * * * * *

"Let us live our lives unto ourselves. Let theirs be theirs, and ours, ours. "