In the World
At that time my head was full of grandmother's poetry, as full as a beehive of honey. I used even to think in verse.
I did not pray in church. I felt ashamed to utter the angry prayers and psalms of lamentation of grandfather's God in the presence of grandmother's God, Who, I felt sure, could take no more pleasure in them than I did myself, for the simple reason that they were all printed in books, and of course He knew them all by heart, as did all people of education. And this is why, when my heart was oppressed by a gentle grief or irritated by the petty grievances of every day, I tried to make up prayers for myself. And when I began to think about my uncongenial work, the words seemed to form themselves into a complaint without any effort on my part:
"Lord, Lord! I am very miserable! Oh, let me grow up quickly, For this life I can't endure. O Lord, forgive! From my studies I get no benefit, For that devil's puppet, Granny Matrena, Howls at me like a wolf, And my life is very bitter!"
To this day I can remember some of these prayers. The workings of the brain in childhood leave a very deep impression; often they influence one's whole life.
I liked being in church; I could rest there as I rested in the forests and fields. My small heart, which was already familiar with grief and soiled by the mire of a coarse life, laved itself in hazy, ardent dreams. But I went to church only during the hard frosts, or when a snow-storm swept wildly up the streets, when it seemed as if the very sky were frozen, and the wind swept across it with a cloud of snow, and the earth lay frozen under the snow-drifts as if it would never live again.
When the nights were milder I used to like to wander through the streets of the town, creeping along by all the darkest corners. Sometimes I seemed to walk as if I had wings, flying along like the moon in the sky. My shadow crept in front of me, extinguishing the sparkles of light in the snow, bobbing up and down comically. The night watchman patrolled the streets, rattle in hand, clothed in a heavy sheepskin, his dog at his side. Vague outlines of people came out of yards and flitted along the streets, and the dog gave chase. Sometimes I met gay young ladies with their escorts. I had an idea that they also were playing truant from vespers.
Sometimes through a lighted _fortochka_[1] there came a peculiar smell, faint, unfamiliar, suggestive of a kind of life of which I was ignorant. I used to stand under the windows and inhale it, trying to guess what it was to live like the people in such a house lived. It was the hour of vespers, and yet they were singing merrily, laughing, and playing on a sort of guitar. The deep, stringy sound flowed through the _fortochka._
[Footnote 1: A small square of glass in the double window which is set on hinges and serves as a ventilator.]
Of special interest to me were the one-storied, dwarfed houses at the corners of the deserted streets, Tikhonovski and Martinovski. I stood there on a moonlight night in mid-Lent and listened to the weird sounds--it sounded as if some one were singing loudly with his mouth closed--which floated out through the _fortochka_ together with a warm steam. The words were indistinguishable, but the song seemed to be familiar and intelligible to me; but when I listened to that, I could not hear the stringy sound which languidly interrupted the flow of song. I sat on the curbstone thinking what a wonderful melody was being played on some sort of insupportable violin--insupportable because it hurt me to listen to it. Sometimes they sang so loudly that the whole house seemed to shake, and the panes of the windows rattled. Like tears, drops fell from the roof, and from my eyes also.
The night watchman had come close to me without my being aware of it, and, pushing me off the curbstone, said:
"What are you stuck here for?"
"The music," I explained.
"A likely tale! Be off now!"
I ran quickly round the houses and returned to my place under the window, but they were not playing now. From the _fortochka_ proceeded sounds of revelry, and it was so unlike the sad music that I thought I must be dreaming. I got into the habit of running to this house every Saturday, but only once, and that was in the spring, did I hear the violoncello again, and then it played without a break till midnight. When I reached home I got a thrashing.
These walks at night beneath the winter sky through the deserted streets of the town enriched me greatly. I purposely chose streets far removed from the center, where there were many lamps, and friends of my master who might have recognized me. Then he would find out how I played truant from vespers. No "drunkards," "street-walkers," or policemen interfered with me in the more remote streets, and I could see into the rooms of the lower floors if the windows were not frozen over or curtained.
Many and diverse were the pictures which I saw through those windows. I saw people praying, kissing, quarreling, playing cards, talking busily and soundlessly the while. It was a cheap panoramic show representing a dumb, fish-like life.
I saw in one basement room two women, a young one and another who was her senior, seated at a table; opposite them sat a school-boy reading to them. The younger woman listened with puckered brows, leaning back in her chair; but the elder, who was thin, with luxuriant hair, suddenly covered her face with her hands, and her shoulders heaved. The school-boy threw down the book, and when the younger woman had sprung to her feet and gone away, he fell on his knees before the woman with the lovely hair and began to kiss her hands.
Through another window I saw a large, bearded man with a woman in a red blouse sitting on his knee. He was rocking her as if she had been a baby, and was evidently singing something, opening his mouth wide and rolling his eyes. The woman was shaking with laughter, throwing herself backward and swinging her feet. He made her sit up straight again, and again began to sing, and again she burst out laughing. I gazed at them for a long time, and went away only when I realized that they meant to keep up their merriment all night.
There were many pictures of this kind which will always remain in my memory, and often I was so attracted by them that I was late in returning home. This aroused the suspicions of my employers, who asked me:
"What church did you go to? Who was the officiating priest?"
They knew all the priests of the town; they knew what gospel would be read, in fact, they knew everything. It was easy for them to catch me in a lie.
Both women worshiped the wrathful God of my grandfather--the God Who demanded that we should approach Him in fear. His name was ever on their lips; even in their quarrels they threatened one another:
"Wait! God will punish you! He will plague you for this! Just wait!"
On the Sunday in the first week of Lent, the old woman cooked some butters and burned them all. Flushed with the heat of the stove, she cried angrily:
"The devil take you!" And suddenly, sniffing at the frying-pan, her face grew dark, and she threw the utensil on the floor and moaned: "Bless me, the pan has been used for flesh food! It is unclean! It did not catch when I used it clean on Monday."
Falling on her knees, she entreated with tears: "Lord God, Father, forgive me, accursed that I am! For the sake of Thy sufferings and passion forgive me! Do not punish an old fool, Lord!"
The burned fritters were given to the dog, the pan was destroyed, but the young wife began to reproach her mother-in-law in their quarrels.
"You actually cooked fritters in Lent in a pan which had been used for flesh-meat."
They dragged their God into all the household affairs, into every corner of their petty, insipid lives, and thus their wretched life acquired outward significance and importance, as if every hour was devoted to the service of a Higher Power. The dragging of God into all this dull emptiness oppressed me, and I used to look involuntarily into the corners, aware of being observed by invisible beings, and at night I was wrapped in a cloud of fear. It came from the corner where the ever-burning lamp flickered before the icon.
On a level with this shelf was a large window with two sashes joined by a stanchion. Fathomless, deep-blue space looked into the window, and if one made a quick movement, everything became merged in this deep-blue gulf, and floated out to the stars, into the deathly stillness, without a sound, just as a stone sinks when it is thrown into the water.
I do not remember how I cured myself of this terror, but I did cure myself, and that soon. Grandmother's good God helped me, and I think it was then that I realized the simple truth, namely, that no harm could come to me; that I should not be punished without fault of my own; that it was not the law of life that the innocent should suffer; and that I was not responsible for the faults of others.
I played truant from mass too, especially in the spring, the irresistible force of which would not let me go to church. If I had a seven-copeck piece given me for the collection, it was my destruction. I bought hucklebones, played all the time mass was going on, and was inevitably late home. And one day I was clever enough to lose all the coins which had been given me for prayers for the dead and the blessed bread, so that I had to take some one else's portion when the priest came from the altar and handed it round.
I was terribly fond of gambling, and it became a craze with me. I was skilful enough, and strong, and I swiftly gained renown in games of hucklebones, billiards, and skittles in the neighboring streets.
During Lent I was ordered to prepare for communion, and I went to confession to our neighbor Father Dorimedont Pokrovski. I regarded him as a hard man, and had committed many sins against him personally. I had thrown stones at the summer-house in his garden, and had quarreled with his children. In fact he might call to mind, if he chose, many similar acts annoying to him. This made me feel very uneasy, and when I stood in the poor little church awaiting my turn to go to confession my heart throbbed tremulously.
But Father Dorimedont greeted me with a good-natured, grumbling exclamation.
"Ah, it is my neighbor! Well, kneel down! What sins have you committed?"
He covered my head with a heavy velvet cloth. I inhaled the odor of wax and incense. It was difficult to speak, and I felt reluctant to do so.
"Have you been obedient to your elders?"
"No."
"Say, 'I have sinned.'"
To my own surprise I let fall:
"I have stolen."
"How was that? Where?" asked the priest, thoughtfully and without haste.
"At the church of the three bishops, at Pokrov, and at Nikoli."
"Well, that is in all the churches. That was wrong, my child; it was a sin. Do you understand?"
"I understand."
"Say, 'I have sinned.' What did you steal for? Was it for something to eat?"
"Sometimes and sometimes it was because I had lost money at play, and, as I had to take home some blessed bread, I stole it."
Father Dorimedont whispered something indistinctly and wearily, and then, after a few more questions, suddenly inquired sternly:
"Have you been reading forbidden books?"
Naturally I did not understand this question, and I asked:
"What books do you mean?"
"Forbidden books. Have you been reading any?"
"No; not one."
"Your sins are remitted. Stand up!"
I glanced at his face in amazement. He looked thoughtful and kind. I felt uneasy, conscience-stricken. In sending me to confession, my employers had spoken about its terrors, impressing on me to confess honestly even my slightest sins.
"I have thrown stones at your summer-house," I deposed.
The priest raised his head and, looking past me, said:
"That was very wrong. Now go!"
"And at your dog."
"Next!" called out Father Dorimedont, still looking past me.
I came away feeling deceived and offended. To be put to all that anxiety about the terrors of confession, and to find, after all, that it was not only far from terrible, but also uninteresting! The only interesting thing about it was the question about the forbidden books, of which I knew nothing. I remembered the school-boy reading to the women in that basement room, and "Good Business," who also had many black, thick books, with unintelligible illustrations.
The next day they gave me fifteen copecks and sent me to communion. Easter was late. The snow had been melted a long time, the streets were dry, the roadways sent up a cloud of dust, and the day was sunny and cheerful. Near the church was a group of workmen gambling with hucklebones. I decided that there was plenty of time to go to communion, and asked if I might join in.
"Let me play."
"The entrance-fee is one copeck," said a pock-marked, ruddy-faced man, proudly.
Not less proudly I replied:
"I put three on the second pair to the left."
"The stakes are on!" And the game began.
I changed the fifteen-copeck piece and placed my three copecks on the pair of hucklebones. Whoever hit that pair would receive that money, but if he failed to hit them, he had to give me three copecks. I was in luck. Two of them took aim and lost. I had won six copecks from grown-up men. My spirits rose greatly. But one of the players remarked:
"You had better look out for that youngster or he will be running away with his winnings."
This I regarded as an insult, and I said hotly: "Nine copecks on the pair at the extreme left." However, this did not make much impression on the players. Only one lad of my own age cried:
"See how lucky he is, that little devil from the Zvezdrinki; I know him."
A thin workman who smelt like a furrier said maliciously:
"He is a little devil, is he? Goo-oo-ood!"
Taking a sudden aim, he coolly knocked over my stake, and, bending down to me, said:
"Will that make you howl?"
"Three copecks on the pair to the right!"
"I shall have another three," he said, but he lost.
One could not put money on the same "horse" more than three times running, so I chose other hucklebones and won four more copecks. I had a heap of hucklebones. But when my turn came again, I placed money three times, and lost it all. Simultaneously mass was finished, the bell rang, and the people came out of church.
"Are you married?" inquired the furrier, intending to seize me by the hair; but I eluded him, and overtaking a lad in his Sunday clothes I inquired politely:
"Have you been to communion?"
"Well, and suppose I have; what then?" he answered, looking at me contemptuously.
I asked him to tell me how people took communion, what words the priest said, and what I ought to have done.
The young fellow shook me roughly and roared out in a terrifying voice:
"You have played the truant from communion, you heretic! Well, I am not going to tell you anything. Let your father skin you for it!"
I ran home expecting to be questioned, and certain that they would discover that I had not been to communion; but after congratulating me, the old woman asked only one question:
"How much did you give to the clerk? Much?"
"Five copecks," I answered, without turning a hair.
"And three copecks for himself; that would leave you seven copecks, animal!"
It was springtime. Each succeeding spring was clothed differently, and seemed brighter and pleasanter than the preceding one. The young grass and the fresh green birch gave forth an intoxicating odor. I had an uncontrollable desire to loiter in the fields and listen to the lark, lying face downward on the warm earth; but I had to clean the winter coats and help to put them away in the trunks, to cut up leaf tobacco, and dust the furniture, and to occupy myself from morning till night with duties which were to me both unpleasant and needless.
In my free hours I had absolutely nothing to live for. In our wretched street there was nothing, and beyond that I was not allowed to go. The yard was full of cross, tired workmen, untidy cooks, and washerwomen, and every evening I saw disgusting sights so offensive to me that I wished that I was blind.
I went up into the attic, taking some scissors and some colored paper with me, and cut out some lacelike designs with which I ornamented the rafters. It was, at any rate, something on which my sorrow could feed. I longed with all my heart to go to some place where people slept less, quarreled less, and did not so wearisomely beset God with complaints, and did not so frequently offend people with their harsh judgments.
On the Saturday after Easter they brought the miraculous icon of Our Lady of Vlandimirski from the Oranski Monastery to the town. The image became the guest of the town for half of the month of June, and blessed all the dwellings of those who attended the church. It was brought to my employers' house on a week-day. I was cleaning the copper things in the kitchen when the young mistress cried out in a scared voice from her room:
"Open the front door. They are bringing the Oranski icon here."
I rushed down, very dirty, and with greasy hands as rough as a brick opened the door. A young man with a lamp in one hand and a thurible in the other grumbled gently:
"Are you all asleep? Give a hand here!"
Two of the inhabitants carried the heavy icon-case up the narrow staircase. I helped them by supporting the edge, of it with my dirty hands and my shoulder. The monk came heavily behind me, chanting unwillingly with his thick voice:
"Holy Mother of God, pray for us!"
I thought, with sorrowful conviction:
"She is angry with me because I have touched her with dirty hands, and she will cause my hands to wither."
They placed the icon in the corner of the antichamber on two chairs, which were covered with a clean sheet, and on each side of it stood two monks, young and beautiful like angels. They had bright eyes, joyful expressions, and lovely hair.
Prayers were said.
"O, Mother Renowned," the big priest chanted, and all the while he was feeling the swollen lobe of his ear, which was hidden in his luxuriant hair.
"Holy Mother of God, pray for u-u-us!" sang the monks, wearily.
I loved the Holy Virgin. According to grandmother's stories it was she who sowed on the earth, for the consolation of the poor, all the flowers, all the joys, every blessing and beauty. And when the time came to salute her, without observing how the adults conducted themselves toward her, I kissed the icon palpitatingly on the face, the lips. Some one with powerful hands hurled me to the door. I do not remember seeing the monks go away, carrying the icon, but I remember very well how my employers sat on the floor around me and debated with much fear and anxiety what would become of me.
"We shall have to speak to the priest about him and have him taught," said the master, who scolded me without rancor.
"Ignoramus! How is it that you did not know that you should not kiss the lips? You must have been taught that at school."
For several days I waited, resigned, wondering what actually would happen to me. I had touched the icon with dirty hands; I had saluted it in a forbidden manner; I should not be allowed to go unpunished.
But apparently the Mother of God forgave the involuntary sin which had been prompted by sheer love, or else her punishment was so light that I did not notice it among the frequent punishments meted out to me by these good people.
Sometimes, to annoy the old mistress, I said compunctiously:
"But the Holy Virgin has evidently forgotten to punish me."
"You wait," answered the old woman, maliciously. "We shall see."
While I decorated the rafters of the attic with pink tea-wrappers, silver paper, leaves from trees, and all kinds of things, I used to sing anything that came into my head, setting the words to church melodies, as the Kalmucks do on the roads.
"I am sitting in the attic With scissors in my hand, Cutting paper--paper. A dunce am I, and dull. If I were a dog, I could run where'er I wished; But now they all cry out to me: 'Sit down! Be silent, rogue, While your skin is whole!'"
The old woman came to look at my work, and burst out laughing.
"You should decorate the kitchen like that."
One day the master came up to the attic, looked at my performance, and said, with a sigh:
"You are an amusing fellow, Pyeshkov; the devil you are? I wonder what you will become, a conjurer or what? One can't guess." And he gave me a large Nikolaivski five-copeck piece.
By means of a thin wire I fastened the coin in the most prominent position among my works of art. In the course of a few days it disappeared. I believe that the old woman took it.
CHAPTER V
However, I did run away in the spring. One morning when I went to the shop for bread the shopkeeper, continuing in my presence a quarrel with his wife, struck her on the forehead with a weight. She ran into the street, and there fell down. People began to gather round at once. The woman was laid on a stretcher and carried to the hospital, and I ran behind the cab which took her there without noticing where I was going till I found myself on the banks of the Volga, with two _grevens_ in my hand.
The spring sun shone caressingly, the broad expanse of the Volga flowed before me, the earth was full of sound and spacious, and I had been living like a mouse in a trap. So I made up my mind that I would not return to my master, nor would I go to grandmother at Kunavin; for as I had not kept my word to her, I was ashamed to go and see her, and grandfather would only gloat over my misfortunes.
For two or three days I wandered by the river-side, being fed by kind-hearted porters, and sleeping with them in their shelters. At length one of them said to me:
"It is no use for you to hang about here, my boy. I can see that. Go over to the boat which is called _The Good._ They want a washer-up."
I went. The tall, bearded steward in a black silk skullcap looked at me through his glasses with his dim eyes, and said quietly:
"Two rubles a month. Your passport?"
I had no passport. The steward pondered and then said:
"Bring your mother to see me."
I rushed to grandmother. She approved the course I had taken, told grandfather to go to the workman's court and get me a passport, and she herself accompanied me to the boat.
"Good!" said the steward, looking at us. "Come along."
He then took me to the stern of the boat, where sat at a small table, drinking tea and smoking a fat cigar at the same time, an enormous cook in white overalls and a white cap. The steward pushed me toward him.
"The washer-up."
Then he went away, and the cook, snorting, and with his black mustache bristling, called after him:
"You engage any sort of devil as long as he is cheap."
Angrily tossing his head of closely cropped hair, he opened his dark eyes very wide, stretched himself, puffed, and cried shrilly:
"And who may you be?"
I did not like the appearance of this man at all. Although he was all in white, he looked dirty. There was a sort of wool growing on his fingers, and hairs stuck out of his great ears.
"I am hungry," was my reply to him.
He blinked, and suddenly his ferocious countenance was transformed by a broad smile. His fat, brick-red cheeks widened to his very ears; he displayed his large, equine teeth; his mustache drooped, and all at once he had assumed the appearance of a kind, fat woman.
Throwing the tea overboard out of his glass, he poured out a fresh lot for me, and pushed a French roll and a large piece of sausage toward me.
"Peg away! Are your parents living? Can you steal? You needn't be afraid; they are all thieves here. You will soon learn."
He talked as if he were barking. His enormous, blue, clean-shaven face was covered all round the nose with red veins closely set together, his swollen, purple nose hung over his mustache. His lower lip was disfiguringly pendulous. In the corner of his mouth was stuck a smoking cigarette. Apparently he had only just come from the bath. He smelt of birch twigs, and a profuse sweat glistened on his temples and neck.
After I had drunk my tea, he gave me a ruble-note.
"Run along and buy yourself two aprons with this. Wait! I will buy them for you myself."
He set his cap straight and came with me, swaying ponderously, his feet pattering on the deck like those of a bear.
At night the moon shone brightly as it glided away from the boat to the meadows on the left. The old red boat, with its streaked funnel, did not hurry, and her propeller splashed unevenly in the silvery water. The dark shore gently floated to meet her, casting its shadow on the water, and beyond, the windows of the peasant huts gleamed charmingly. They were singing in the village. The girls were merry-making and singing--and when they sang "Aie Ludi," it sounded like "Alleluia."
In the wake of the steamer a large barge, also red, was being towed by a long rope. The deck was railed in like an iron cage, and in this cage were convicts condemned to deportation or prison. On the prow of the barge the bayonet of a sentry shone like a candle. It was quiet on the barge itself. The moon bathed it in a rich light while behind the black iron grating could be seen dimly gray patches. These were the convicts looking out on the Volga. The water sobbed, now weeping, now laughing timidly. It was as quiet here as in church, and there was the same smell of oil.
As I looked at the barge I remembered my early childhood; the journey from Astrakhan to Nijni, the iron faces of mother and grandmother, the person who had introduced me to this interesting, though hard, life, in the world. And when I thought of grandmother, all that I found so bad and repulsive in life seemed to leave me; everything was transformed and became more interesting, pleasanter; people seemed to be better and nicer altogether.
The beauty of the nights moved me almost to tears, and especially the barge, which looked so like a coffin, and so solitary on the broad expanse of the flowing river in the pensive quietness of the warm night. The uneven lines of the shore, now rising, now falling, stirred the imagination pleasantly. I longed to be good, and to be of use to others.
The people on our steamboat had a peculiar stamp. They seemed to me to be all alike, young and old, men and women. The boat traveled slowly. The busy folk traveled by fast boat, and all the lazy rascals came on our boat. They sang and ate, and soiled any amount of cups and plates, knives and forks and spoons from morning to night. My work was to wash up and clean the knives and forks, and I was busy with this work from six in the morning till close on midnight. During the day, from two till six o'clock, and in the evening, from ten till midnight, I had less work to do; for at those times the passengers took a rest from eating, and only drank, tea, beer, and vodka. All the buffet attendants, my chiefs, were free at that time, too. The cook, Smouri, drank tea at a table near the hatchway with his assistant, Jaakov Ivanich; the kitchen-man, Maxim; and Sergei, the saloon steward, a humpback with high cheek-bones, a face pitted with smallpox, and oily eyes. Jaakov told all sorts of nasty stories, bursting out into sobbing laughs and showing his long, discolored teeth. Sergei stretched his frog-like mouth to his ears. Frowning Maxim was silent, gazing at them with stern, colorless eyes.
"Asiatic! Mordovan!" said the old cook now and again in his deep voice.
I did not like these people. Fat, bald Jaakov Ivanich spoke of nothing but women, and that always filthily. He had a vacant-looking face covered with bluish pimples. On one cheek he had a mole with a tuft of red hair growing from it. He used to pull out these hairs by twisting them round a needle. Whenever an amiable, sprightly passenger of the female sex appeared on the boat, he waited upon her in a peculiar, timid manner like a beggar. He spoke to her sweetly and plaintively, he licked her, as it were, with the swift movements of his tongue. For some reason I used to think that such great fat creatures ought to be hang-men.
"One should know how to get round women," he would teach Sergei and Maxim, who would listen to him much impressed, pouting their lips and turning red.
"Asiatics!" Smouri would roar in accents of disgust, and standing up heavily, he gave the order, "Pyeshkov, march!"
In his cabin he would hand me a little book bound in leather, and lie down in his hammock by the wall of the ice-house.
"Read!" he would say.
I sat on a box and read conscientiously:
"'The _umbra_ projected by the stars means that one is on good terms with heaven and free from profanity and vice.'"
Smouri, smoking a cigarette, puffed out the smoke and growled:
"Camels! They wrote--"
"'Baring the left bosom means innocence of heart.'" "Whose bosom?"
"It does not say."
"A woman's, it means. Eh, and a loose woman."
He closed his eyes and lay with his arms behind his head. His cigarette, hardly alight, stuck in the corner of his mouth. He set it straight with his tongue, stretched so that something whistled in his chest, and his enormous face was enveloped in a cloud of smoke. Sometimes I thought he had fallen asleep and I left off reading to examine the accursed book, which bored me to nauseation. But he said hoarsely: "Go on reading!"
"'The venerable one answered, "Look! My dear brother Suvyerin--"'"
"Syevyeverin--"
"It is written Suvyerin."
"Well, that's witchcraft. There is some poetry at the end. Run on from there."
I ran on.
"Profane ones, curious to know our business, Never will your weak eyes spy it out, Nor will you learn how the fairies sing."
"Wait!" said Smouri. "That is not poetry. Give me the book."
He angrily turned over the thick, blue leaves, and then put the book under the mattress.
"Get me another one."
To my grief there were many books in his black trunk clamped with iron. There were "Precepts of Peace," "Memories of the Artillery," "Letters of Lord Sydanhall," "Concerning Noxious Insects and their Extinction, with Advice against the Pest," books which seemed to have no beginning and no end. Sometimes the cook set me to turn over all his books and read out their titles to him, but as soon as I had begun he called out angrily:
"What is it all about? Why do you speak through your teeth? It is impossible to understand you. What the devil has Gerbvase to do with me? Gervase! _Umbra_ indeed!"
Terrible words, incomprehensible names were wearily remembered, and they tickled my tongue. I had an incessant desire to repeat them, thinking that perhaps by pronouncing them I might discover their meaning. And outside the port-hole the water unweariedly sang and splashed. It would have been pleasant to go to the stern, where the sailors and stokers were gathered together among the chests, where the passengers played cards, sang songs, and told interesting stories. It would have been pleasant to sit among them and listen to simple, intelligible conversation, to gaze on the banks of the Kama, at the fir-trees drawn out like brass wires, at the meadows, wherein small lakes remained from the floods, looking like pieces of broken glass as they reflected the sun.
Our steamer was traveling at some distance from the shore, yet the sound of invisible bells came to us, reminding us of the villages and people. The barks of the fishermen floated on the waves like crusts of bread. There, on the bank a little village appeared, here a crowd of small boys bathed in the river, men in red blouses could be seen passing along a narrow strip of sand. Seen from a distance, from the river, it was a very pleasing sight; everything looked like tiny toys of many colors.
I felt a desire to call out some kind, tender words to the shore and the barge. The latter interested me greatly; I could look at it for an hour at a time as it dipped its blunt nose in the turbid water. The boat dragged it along as if it were a pig: the tow-rope, slackening, lashed the water, then once more drew taut and pulled the barge along by the nose. I wanted very much to see the faces of those people who were kept like wild animals in an iron cage. At Perm, where they were landed, I made my way to the gangway, and past me came, in batches of ten, gray people, trampling dully, rattling their fetters, bowed down by their heavy knapsacks. There were all sorts, young and old, handsome and ugly, all exactly like ordinary people except that they were differently dressed and were disfiguringly close-shaven. No doubt these were robbers, but grandmother had told me much that was good about robbers. Smouri looked much more like a fierce robber than they as he glanced loweringly at the barge and said loudly:
"Save me, God, from such a fate!"
Once I asked him:
"Why do you say that? You cook, while those others kill and steal."
"I don't cook; I only prepare. The women cook," he said, bursting out laughing; but after thinking a moment he added: "The difference between one person and another lies in stupidity. One man is clever, another not so clever, and a third may be quite a fool. To become clever one must read the right books--black magic and what not. One must read all kinds of books and then one will find the right ones."
He was continually impressing upon me:
"Read! When you don't understand a book, read it again and again, as many as seven times; and if you do not understand it then, read it a dozen times."
To every one on the boat, not excluding the taciturn steward, Smouri spoke roughly. Sticking out his lower lip as if he were disgusted, and, stroking his mustache, he pelted them with words as if they were stones. To me he always showed kindness and interest, but there was something about his interest which rather frightened me. Sometimes I thought he was crazy, like grandmother's sister. At times he said to me:
"Leave off reading."
And he would lie for a long time with closed eyes, breathing stertorously, his great stomach shaking. His hairy fingers, folded corpse-like on his chest, moved, knitting invisible socks with invisible needles. Suddenly he would begin growling:
"Here are you! You have your intelligence. Go and live! Rut intelligence is given sparingly, and not to all alike. If all were on the same level intellectually--but they are not. One understands, another does not, and there are some people who do not even wish to understand!"
Stumbling over his words, he related stories of his life as a soldier, the drift of which I could never manage to catch. They seemed very uninteresting to me. Besides, he did not tell them from the beginning, but as he recollected them.
"The commander of the regiment called this soldier to him and asked: 'What did the lieutenant say to you?' So he told everything just as it had happened--a soldier is bound to tell the truth--but the lieutenant looked at him as if he had been a wall, and then turned away, hanging his head. Yes--"
He became indignant, puffed out clouds of smoke, and growled:
"How was I to know what I could say and what I ought not to say? Then the lieutenant was condemned to be shut up in a fortress, and his mother said--ah, my God! I am not learned in anything."
It was hot. Everything seemed to be quivering and tinkling. The water splashed against the iron walls of the cabin, and the wheel of the boat rose and fell. The river flowed in a broad stream between the rows of lights. In the distance could be seen the line of the meadowed bank. The trees drooped. When one's hearing had become accustomed to all the sounds, it seemed as if all was quiet, although the soldiers in the stern of the boat howled dismally, "Se-e-even! Se-e-ven!"
I had no desire to take part in anything. I wanted neither to listen nor to work, but only to sit somewhere in the shadows, where there was no greasy, hot smell of cooking; to sit and gaze, half asleep, at the quiet, sluggish life as it slipped away on the water.
"Read!" the cook commanded harshly.
Even the head steward was afraid of him, and that mild man of few words, the dining-room steward, who looked like a _sandre_, was evidently afraid of Smouri too.
_"Ei!_ You swine!" he would cry to this man. "Come here! Thief! Asiatic!"
The sailors and stokers were very respectful to him, and expectant of favors. He gave them the meat from which soup had been made, and inquired after their homes and their families. The oily and smoke-dried White Russian stokers were counted the lowest people on the boat. They were all called by one name, Yaks, and they were teased, "Like a Yak, I amble along the shore."
When Smouri heard this, he bristled up, his face became suffused with blood, and he roared at the stokers:
"Why do you allow them to laugh at you, you mugs? Throw some sauce in their faces."
Once the boatswain, a handsome, but ill-natured, man, said to him:
"They are the same as Little Russians; they hold the same faith."
The cook seized him by the collar and belt, lifted him up in the air, and said, shaking him:
"Shall I knock you to smithereens?"
They quarreled often, these two. Sometimes it even came to a fight, but Smouri was never beaten. He was possessed of superhuman strength, and besides this, the captain's wife, with a masculine face and smooth hair like a boy's, was on his side.
He drank a terrible amount of vodka, but never became drunk. He began to drink the first thing in the morning, consuming a whole bottle in four gulps, and after that he sipped beer till close on evening. His face gradually grew brown, his eyes widened.
Sometimes in the evening he sat for hours in the hatchway, looking large and white, without breaking his silence, and his eyes were fixed gloomily on the distant horizon. At those times they were all more afraid of him than ever, but I was sorry for him. Jaakov Ivanich would come out from the kitchen, perspiring and glowing with the heat. Scratching his bald skull and waving his arm, he would take cover or say from a distance:
"The fish has gone off."
"Well, there is the salted cabbage."
"But if they ask for fish-soup or boiled fish?"
"It is ready. They can begin gobbling."
Sometimes I plucked up courage to go to him. He looked at me heavily.
"What do you want?"
"Nothing."
"Good.".
On one of these occasions, however, I asked him:
"Why is every one afraid of you? For you are good."
Contrary to my expectations, he did not get angry.
"I am only good to you."
But he added distinctly, simply, and thoughtfully:
"Yes, it is true that I am good to every one, only I do not show it. It does not do to show that to people, or they will be all over you. They will crawl over those who are kind as if they were mounds in a morass, and trample on them. Go and get me some beer."
Having drunk the bottle, he sucked his mustache and said:
"If you were older, my bird, I could teach you a lot. I have something to say to a man. I am no fool. But you must read books. In them you will find all you need. They are not rubbish--books. Would you like some beer?"
"I don't care for it."
"Good boy! And you do well not to drink it. Drunkenness is a misfortune. Vodka is the devil's own business. If I were rich, I would spur you on to study. An uninstructed man is an ox, fit for nothing but the yoke or to serve as meat. All he can do is to wave his tail."
The captain's wife gave him a volume of Gogol. I read "The Terrible Vengeance" and was delighted with it, but Smouri cried angrily:
"Rubbish! A fairy-tale! I know. There are other books."
He took the book away from me, obtained another one from the captain's wife, and ordered me harshly:
"Read Tarass'--what do you call it? Find it! She says it is good; good for whom? It may be good for her, but not for me, eh? She cuts her hair short. It is a pity her ears were not cut off too."
When _Tarass_ called upon _Ostap_ to fight, the cook laughed loudly.
"That's the way! Of course! You have learning, but I have strength. What do they say about it? Camels!"
He listened with great attention, but often grumbled:
"Rubbish! You could n't cut a man in half from his shoulders to his haunches; it can't be done. And you can't thrust a pike upward; it would break it. I have been a soldier myself."
Andrei's treachery aroused his disgust.
'There's a mean creature, eh? Like women! _Tfoo!_
But when _Tarass_ killed his son, the cook let his feet slip from the hammock, bent himself double, and wept. The tears trickled down his cheeks, splashed upon the deck as he breathed stertorously and muttered:
"Oh, my God! my God!"
And suddenly he shouted to me:
"Go on reading, you bone of the devil!"
Again he wept, with even more violence and bitterness, when I read how _Ostap_ cried, out before his death, "Father, dost thou hear?"
"Ruined utterly!" exclaimed Smouri. "Utterly! Is that the end? _Ekh!_ What an accursed business! He was a man, that _Tar ass._ What do you think? Yes, he was a man."
He took the book out of my hands and looked at it with attention, letting his tears fall on its binding.
"It is a fine book, a regular treat."
After this we read "Ivanhoe." Smouri was very pleased with Richard Plantagenet.
"That was a real king," he said impressively.
To me the book had appeared dry. In fact, our tastes did not agree at all. I had a great liking for "The Story of Thomas Jones," an old translation of "The History of Tom Jones, Foundling," but Smouri grumbled:
"Rubbish! What do I care about your Thomas? Of what use is he to me? There must be some other books."
One day I told him that I knew that there were other books, forbidden books. One could read them only at night, in underground rooms. He opened his eyes wide.
"Wha-a-t's that? Why do you tell me these lies?"
"I am not telling lies. The priest asked me about them when I went to confession, and, for that matter, I myself have seen people reading them and crying over them."
The cook looked sternly in my face and asked:
"Who was crying?"
"The lady who was listening, and the other actually ran away because she was frightened."
"You were asleep. You were dreaming," said Smouri, slowly covering his eyes, and after a silence he muttered: "But of course there must be something hidden from me somewhere. I am not so old as all that, and with my character--well, however that may be--"
He spoke to me eloquently for a whole hour.
Imperceptibly I acquired the habit of reading, and took up a book with pleasure. What I read therein was pleasantly different from life, which was becoming harder and harder for me.
Smouri also recreated himself by reading, and often took me from my work.
"Pyeshkov, come and read."
"I have a lot of washing up to do."
"Let Maxim wash up."
He coarsely ordered the senior kitchen-helper to do my work, and this man would break the glasses out of spite, while the chief steward told me quietly:
"I shall have you put off the boat."
One day Maxim on purpose placed several glasses in a bowl of dirty water and tea-leaves. I emptied the water overboard, and the glasses went flying with it.
"It is my fault," said Smouri to the head steward. "Put it down to my account."
The dining-room attendants began to look at me with lowering brows, and they used to say:
_"Ei!_ you bookworm! What are you paid for?"
And they used to try and make as much work as they could for me, soiling plates needlessly. I was sure that this would end badly for me, and I was not mistaken.
One evening, in a little shelter on the boat, there sat a red-faced woman with a girl in a yellow coat and a new pink blouse. Both had been drinking. The woman smiled, bowed to every one, and said on the note O, like a church clerk:
"Forgive me, my friends; I have had a little too much to drink. I have been tried and acquitted, and I have been drinking for joy."
The girl laughed, too, gazing at the other passengers with glazed eyes. Pushing the woman away, she said:
"But you, you plaguy creature--we know you."
They had berths in the second-class cabin, opposite the cabin in which Jaakov Ivanich and Sergei slept.
The woman soon disappeared somewhere or other, and Sergei took her place near the girl, greedily stretching his frog-like mouth.
That night, when I had finished my work and had laid myself down to sleep on the table, Sergei came to me, and seizing me by the arm, said:
"Come along! We are going to marry you."
He was drunk. I tried to tear my arm away from him, but he struck me.
"Come along!"
Maxim came running in, also drunk, and the two dragged me along the deck to their cabin, past the sleeping passengers. But by the door of the cabin stood Smouri, and in the doorway, holding on to the jamb, Jaakov Ivanich. The girl stuck her elbow in his back, and cried in a drunken voice:
"Make way!"
Smouri got me out of the hands of Sergei and Maxim, seized them by the hair, and, knocking their heads together, moved away. They both fell down.
"Asiatic!" he said to Jaakov, slamming the door on him. Then he roared as he pushed me along:
"Get out of this!"
I ran to the stern. The night was cloudy, the river black. In the wake of the boat seethed two gray lines of water leading to the invisible shore; between these two lines the barge dragged on its way. Now on the right, now on the left appeared red patches of light, without illuminating anything. They disappeared, hidden by the sudden winding of the shore. After this it became still darker and more gruesome.
The cook came and sat beside me, sighed deeply, and pulled at his cigarette.
"So they were taking you to that creature? _Ekh!_ Dirty beasts! I heard them trying."
"Did you take her away from them?"
"Her?" He abused the girl coarsely, and continued in a sad tone:
"It is all nastiness here. This boat is worse than a village. Have you ever lived in a village?"
"No."
"In a village there is nothing but misery, especially in the winter."
Throwing his cigarette overboard, he was silent. Then he spoke again.
"You have fallen among a herd of swine, and I am sorry for you, my little one. I am sorry for all of them, too. Another time I do not know what I should have done. Gone on my knees and prayed. What are you doing, sons of ----? What are you doing, blind creatures? Camels!"
The steamer gave a long-drawn-out hoot, the tow-rope splashed in the water, the lights of lanterns jumped up and down, showing where the harbor was. Out of the darkness more lights appeared.
"Pyani Bor [a certain pine forest]. Drunk," growled the cook. "And there is a river called Pyanaia, and there was a captain called Pyenkov, and a writer called Zapivokhin, and yet another captain called Nepei-pivo.[1] I am going on shore."
The coarse-grained women and girls of Kamska dragged logs of wood from the shore in long trucks. Bending under their load-straps, with pliable tread, they arrived in pairs at the stoker's hold, and, emptying their sooty loads into the black hole, cried ringingly:
"Logs!"
[Footnote 1: Pyanaia means "drunk," and the other names mentioned come from the same root. Nepei-pivo means, "Do not drink beer."]
When they brought the wood the sailors would take hold of them by the breasts or the legs. The women squealed, spat at the men, turned back, and defended themselves against pinches and blows with their trucks. I saw this a hundred times, on every voyage and at every land-stage where they took in wood, and it was always the same thing.
I felt as if I were old, as if I had lived on that boat for many years, and knew what would happen in a week's time, in the autumn, in a year.
It was daylight now. On a sandy promontory above the harbor stood out a forest of fir-trees. On the hills and through the forests women went laughing and singing. They looked like soldiers as they pushed their long trucks.
I wanted to weep. The tears seethed in my breast; my heart was overflowing with them. It was painful. But it would be shameful to cry, and I went to help the sailor Blyakhin wash the deck.
Blyakhin was an insignificant-looking man. He had a withered, faded look about him, and always stowed himself away in corners, whence his small, bright eyes shone.
"My proper surname is not Blyakhin, but----because, you see, my mother was a loose woman. I have a sister, and she also. That happened to be their destiny. Destiny, my brother, is an anchor for all of us. You want to go in one direction, but wait!"
And now, as he swabbed the deck, he said softly to me:
"You see what a lot of harm women do! There it is? Damp wood smolders for a long time and then bursts into flame. I don't care for that sort of thing myself; it does not interest me. And if I had been born a woman, I should have drowned myself in a black pool. I should have been safe then with Holy Christ, and could do no one any harm. But while one is here there is always the chance of kindling a fire. Eunuchs are no fools, I assure you. They are clever people, they are good at divination, they put aside all small things and serve God alone--cleanly."
The captain's wife passed us, holding her skirts high as she came through the pools of water. Tall and well built, she had a simple, bright face. I wanted to run after her and beg her from my heart:
"Say something to me! Say something!"
The boat drew slowly away from the pier. Blyakhin crossed himself and said:
"We are off!"
CHAPTER VI
At Sarapulia, Maxim left the boat. He went away in silence, saying farewell to no one, serious and calm. Behind him, laughing, came the gay woman, and, following her, the girl, looking disheveled, with swollen eyes. Sergei was on his knees a long time before the captain's cabin, kissing the panel of the door, knocking his forehead against it, and crying:
"Forgive me! It was not my fault, but Maxim's."
The sailors, the stewards, and even some of the passengers knew that he was lying, yet they advised:
"Come, forgive him!"
But the captain drove him away, and even kicked him with such force that he fell over. Notwithstanding, he forgave him, and Sergei at once rushed on deck, carrying a tray of tea-things, looking with inquiring, dog-like expression into the eyes of the passengers.
In Maxim's place came a soldier from Viatski, a bony man, with a small head and brownish red eyes. The assistant cook sent him first to kill some fowls. He killed a pair, but let the rest escape on deck. The passengers tried to catch them, but three hens flew overboard. Then the soldier sat on some wood near the fowl-house, and cried bitterly.
"What's the matter, you fool?" asked Smouri, angrily. "Fancy a soldier crying!"
"I belong to the Home Defense Corps," said the soldier in a low voice.
That was his ruin. In half an hour every one on the boat was laughing at him. They would come quite close to him, fix their eyes on his face, and ask:
"Is this the one?"
And then they would go off into harsh, insulting, absurd laughter.
At first the soldier did not see these people or hear their laughter; he was drying his tears with the sleeve of his old shirt, exactly as if he were hiding them up his sleeve. But soon his brown eyes flashed with rage, and he said in the quick speech of Viatski:
"What are you staring at me for? _Oi_, may you be torn to bits!"
But this only amused the passengers the more, and they began to snap their fingers at him, to pluck at his shirt, his apron, to play with him as if he had been a goat, baiting him cruelly until dinner-time. At dinner some one put a piece of squeezed lemon on the handle of a wooden spoon, and tied it behind his back by the strings of his apron. As he moved, the spoon waggled behind him, and every one laughed, but he was in a fluster, like an entrapped mouse, ignorant of what had aroused their laughter.
Smouri sat behind him in silence. His face had become like a woman's. I felt sorry for the soldier, and asked:
"May I tell him about the spoon?"
He nodded his head without speaking.
When I explained to the soldier what they were laughing at, he hastily seized the spoon, tore it off, threw it on the floor, crushed it with his foot, and took hold of my hair with both hands. We began to fight, to the great satisfaction of the passengers, who made a ring round us at once.
Smouri pushed the spectators aside, separated us, and, after boxing my ear, seized the soldier by the ear. When the passengers saw how the little man danced under the hand of the cook they roared with excitement, whistled, stamped their feet, split their sides with laughter.
"Hurrah! Garrison! Butt the cook in the stomach!"
This wild joy on the part of others made me feel that I wanted to throw myself upon them and hit their dirty heads with a lump of wood.
Smouri let the soldier go, and with his hands behind his back turned upon the passengers like a wild boar, bristling, and showing his teeth terrifyingly.
"To your places! March! March!"
The soldier threw himself upon me again, but Smouri seized him round the body with one hand and carried him to the hatchway, where he began to pump water on his head, turning his frail body about as if he were a rag-doll.
The sailors came running on the scene, with the boatswain and the captain's mate. The passengers crowded about again. A head above the others stood the head-steward, quiet, dumb, as always.
The soldier, sitting on some wood near the kitchen door, took off his boots and began to wring out his leggings, though they were not wet. But the water dripped from his greasy hair, which again amused the passengers.
"All the same," said the soldier, "I am going to kill that boy."
Taking me by the shoulder, Smouri said something to the captain's mate. The sailors sent the passengers away, and when they had all dispersed, he asked the soldier:
"What is to be done with you?"
The latter was silent, looking at me with wild eyes, and all the while putting a strange restraint upon himself.
"Be quiet, you devilskin!" said Smouri.
"As you are not the piper, you can't call the tune," answered the soldier.
I saw that the cook was confused. His blown-out cheeks became flabby; he spat, and went away, taking me with him. I walked after him, feeling foolish, with backward glances at the soldier. But Smouri muttered in a worried tone:
"There's a wild creature for you! What? What do you think of him?"
Sergei overtook us and said in a whisper:
"He is going to kill himself."
"Where is he?" cried Smouri, and he ran.
The soldier was standing at the door of the steward's cabin with a large knife in his hand. It was the knife which was used for cutting off the heads of fowls and for cutting up sticks for the stoves. It was blunt, and notched like a saw. In front of the cabin the passengers were assembled, looking at the funny little man with the wet head. His snub-nosed face shook like a jelly; his mouth hung wearily open; his lips twitched. He roared:
"Tormentors! Tormentors!"
Jumping up on something, I looked over the heads of people into their faces. They were smiling, giggling, and saying to one another:
"Look! Look!"
When he pushed his crumpled shirt down into his trousers with his skinny, childish hand, a good-looking man near me said:
"He is getting ready to die, and he takes the trouble to hitch up his trousers."
The passengers all laughed loudly. It was perfectly plain that they did not think it probable that the soldier would really kill himself, nor did I think so; but Smouri, after one glance at him, pushed the people aside with his stomach, saying:
"Get away, you fools!"
He called them fools over and over again, and approaching one little knot of people, said:
"To your place, fool!"
This was funny; but, however, it seemed to-be true, for they had all been acting like one big fool from the first thing in the morning. When he had driven the passengers-off, he approached the soldier, and, holding out his hand, said:
"Give me that knife."
"I don't care," said the soldier, holding out the handle of the knife.
The cook gave the knife to me, and pushed the soldier into the cabin.
"Lie down and go to sleep. What is the matter with you, eh?"
The soldier sat on a hammock in silence.
"He shall bring you something to eat and some vodka. Do you drink vodka?"
"A little sometimes."
"But, look you, don't you touch him. It was not he who made fun of you, do you hear? I tell you that it was not he."
"But why did they torment me?" asked the soldier, softly.
Smouri answered gruffly after a pause:
"How should I know?"
As he came with me to the kitchen he muttered:
"Well, they have fastened upon a poor wretch this time, and no mistake! You see what he is? There you are! My lad, people can be sent out of their minds; they can really. Stick to them like bugs, and the thing is done. In fact, there are some people here like bugs--worse than bugs!"
When I took bread, meat, and vodka to the soldier he was still sitting in the hammock, rocking himself and crying softly, sobbing like a woman.
I placed the plate on the table, saying:
"Eat."
"Shut the door."
"That will make it dark."
"Shut it, or they will come crawling in here."
I went away. The sight of the soldier was unpleasant to me. He aroused my commiseration and pity and made me feel uncomfortable. Times without number grandmother had told me:
"One must have pity on people. We are all unhappy. Life is hard for all of us."
"Did you take it to him?" asked the cook. "Well, how is he--the soldier?"
"I feel sorry for him."
"Well, what's the matter now, eh?"
"One can't help being sorry for people."
Smouri took me by the arm, drew me to him, and said:
"You do not pity in vain, but it is waste of time to chatter about it. When you are not accustomed to mix jellies, you must teach yourself the way."
And pushing me away from him, he added gruffly: "This is no place for you. Here, smoke."
I was deeply distressed, quite crushed by the behavior of the passengers. There was something inexpressibly insulting and oppressive in the way they had worried the soldier and had laughed with glee when Smouri had him by the ear. What pleasure could they find in such a disgusting, pitiful affair? What was there to cause them to laugh so joyfully?
There they were again, sitting or lying under the awning, drinking, making a buzz of talk, playing cards, conversing seriously and sensibly, looking at the river, just as if they had never whistled and hooted an hour ago. They were all as quiet and lazy as usual. From morning to night they sauntered about the boat like pieces of fluff or specks of dust in the sunbeams. In groups of ten they would stroll to the hatchway, cross themselves, and leave the boat at the landing-stage from which the same kind of people embarked as they landed, bending their backs under the same heavy wallets and trunks and dressed in the same fashion.
This continual change of passengers did not alter the life on the boat one bit. The new passengers spoke of the same things as those who had left: the land, labor, God, women, and in the same words. "It is ordained by the Lord God that we should suffer; all we can do is to be patient. There is nothing else to be done. It is fate."
It was depressing to hear such words, and they exasperated me. I could not endure dirt, and I did not wish to endure evil, unjust, and insulting behavior toward myself. I was sure that I did not deserve such treatment. And the soldier had not deserved it, either. Perhaps he had meant to be funny.
Maxim, a serious, good-hearted fellow, had been dismissed from the ship, and Sergei, a mean fellow, was left. And why did these people, capable of goading a man almost to madness, always submit humbly to the furious shouts of the sailors, and listen to their abuse without taking offense?
"What are you rolling about on the deck for?" cried the boatswain, blinking his handsome, though malevolent, eyes. "If the boat heeled, it would be the end of you, you devils."
The "devils" went peaceably enough to the other deck, but they chased them away from there, too, as if they had been sheep.
"Ah, accursed ones!"
On hot nights, under the iron awning, which had been made red-hot by the sun during the day, it was suffocating. The passengers crawled over the deck like beetles, and lay where they happened to fall. The sailors awoke them at the landing-stages by prodding them with marlinespikes.
"What are you sprawling in the way for? Go away to your proper place!"
They would stand up, and move sleepily in the direction whither they were pushed. The sailors were of the same class as themselves, only they were dressed differently; but they ordered them about as if they were policemen. The first thing which I noticed about these people was that they were so quiet, so timid, so sadly meek. It was terrible when through that crust of meekness burst the cruel, thoughtless spirit of mischief, which had very little fun in it. It seemed to me that they did not know where they were being taken; it was a matter of indifference to them where they were landed from the boat. Wherever they went on shore they stayed for a short time, and then they embarked again on our boat or another, starting on a fresh journey. They all seemed to have strayed, to have no relatives, as if all the earth were strange to them. And every single one of them was senselessly cowardly.
Once, shortly after midnight, something burst in the machinery and exploded like a report from a cannon. The deck was at once enveloped in a cloud of steam, which rose thickly from the engine-room and crept through every crevice. An invisible person shouted deafeningly:
"Gavrilov, some red lead--and some felt!"
I slept near the engine-room, on the table on which the dishes were washed up, and the explosion and shaking awoke me. It was quiet on deck. The engine uttered a hot, steamy whisper; a hammer sounded repeatedly. But in the course of a few minutes all the saloon passengers howled, roared with one voice, and suddenly a distressing scene was in progress.
In a white fog which swiftly rarefied, women with their hair loose, disheveled men with round eyes like fishes' eyes, rushed about, trampling one another, carrying bundles, bags, boxes, stumbling, falling, calling upon God and St. Nicholas, striking one another. It was very terrible, but at the same time it was interesting. I ran after them to see what they would do next.
This was my first experience of a night alarm, yet I understood at once that the passengers had made a mistake. The boat had not slowed down. On the right hand, quite near, gleamed the life-belts. The night was light, the full moon stood high. But the passengers rushed wildly about the deck, and now those traveling in the other classes had come up, too. Some one jumped overboard. He was followed by another, and yet a third. Two peasants and a monk with heavy pieces of wood broke off a bench which was screwed to the desk. A large cage of fowls was thrown into the water from the stern. In the center of the deck, near the steps leading to the captain's bridge, knelt a peasant who prostrated himself before the people as they rushed past him, and howled like a wolf:
"I am Orthodox and a sinner--"
"To the boats, you devils!" cried a fat gentleman who wore only trousers and no shirt, and he beat his breast with his fist.
The sailors came running, seized people by the collars, knocked their heads together, and threw them on the deck. Smouri approached heavily, wearing his overcoat over his night-clothes, addressed them all in a resounding voice:
"Yes, you ought to be ashamed of yourselves. What are you making all this fuss for? Has the steamer stopped, eh? Are we going slower? There is the shore. Those fools who jumped into the water have caught the life-belts, they have had to drag them out. There they are. Do you see? Two boats--"
He struck the third-class passengers on the head with his fist, and they sank like sacks to the deck.
The confusion was not yet hushed when a lady in a cloak flew to Smouri with a tablespoon in her hand, and, flourishing it in his face, cried:
"How dare you?"
A wet gentleman, restraining her, sucked his mustache and said irritably:
"Let him alone, you imbecile!"
Smouri, spreading out his hands, blinked with embarrassment, and asked me:
"What's the matter, eh? What does she want with me? This is nice, I must say! Why, I never saw her before in my life!"
And a peasant, with his nose bleeding, cried:
"Human beings, you call them? Robbers!"
Before the summer I had seen two panics on board the steamboat, and on both occasions they were caused not by real danger, but by the mere possibility of it. On a third occasion the passengers caught two thieves, one of them was dressed like a foreigner, beat them for almost an hour, unknown to the sailors, and when the latter took their victims away from them, the passengers abused them.
"Thieves shield thieves. That is plain. You are rogues yourselves, and you sympathize with rogues."
The thieves had been beaten into unconsciousness. They could not stand when they were handed over to the police at the next stopping-place.
There were many other occasions on which my feelings were aroused to a high pitch, and I could not make up my mind as to whether people were bad or good, peaceful or mischief-making, and why they were so peculiarly cruel, lusting to work malevolence, and ashamed of being kind.
I asked the cook about this, but he enveloped his face in a cloud of smoke, and said briefly in a tone of vexation:
"What are you chattering about now? Human creatures are human creatures. Some are clever, some are fools. Read, and don't talk so much. In books, if they are the right sort, you will find all you want to know."
I wanted to please him by giving him a present of some books.
In Kazan I bought, for five copecks, "The Story of how a Soldier Saved Peter the Great"; but at that time the cook was drinking and was very cross, so I began to read it myself. I was delighted with it, it was so simple, easy to understand, interesting, and short. I felt that this book would give great pleasure to my teacher; but when I took it to him he silently crushed it in his hand into a round ball and threw it overboard.
"That for your book, you fool!" he said harshly. "I teach you like a dog, and all you want to do is to gobble up idle tales, eh?" He stamped and roared. "What kind of book is that? Do I read nonsense? Is what is written there true? Well, speak!"
"I don't know."
"Well, I do know. If a man's head were cut off, his body would fall down the staircase, and the other man would not have climbed on the haystack. Soldiers are not fools. He would have set fire to the hay, and that would have been the end. Do you understand?"