Never to this sturdy, inveterate rascal does it seem to occur to insinuate that he has been doing work of any kind, or that he in the least cares to do any; while at the same time all self-pity is eschewed in his narrative, and he relates his experiences much as though they are 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 broad nose, 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, he wipes 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 here are far less amiable than our own folk in Russia. . . But hark! What is that?"
To our ears there have come from behind the corner of the churchyard wall a woman's scream and the sound of dull blows. Rushing thither, we behold the fair-headed peasant seated on the prostrate form of the young fellow from Penza, and methodically, gruntingly delivering blow after blow upon the young fellow's ears with his ponderous fists, while counting the blows as he does so. Vainly, at the same time, the woman from Riazan is prodding the assailant in the back, whilst her female companion 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, oh dear!"
The smacking, smashing blows fall in regular cadence as, prone on his face, 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 one onlooker to another, and exclaiming in suppressed, cautious tones:
"Stop it, pray stop it, or we shall be arrested for creating a disturbance!"
Presently the tall man strides towards the fair-headed peasant, deals him 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 over the young fellow. Her cheeks are livid, and as she wipes the flushed face of the beaten youth with the hem of her gown, her dark eyes are flashing with dry wrath, and her lips quivering so painfully as to disclose 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 fist towards 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 was actually the beginner of the disturbance, while the lithe young fellow continues to wring his hands, and cry imploringly:
"DON'T make so much noise about it! Remember that we are in a strange land, and that the folk hereabouts are strict."
So queerly do his ears project from his head that he would seem to be able, 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 Cossack with a face studded with freckles, and, in his hands, a cudgel, makes his 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 she does 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, to the Ataman [Cossack headman or mayor], and you will be billeted among the huts."
"It is a matter of no consequence," Konev remarks as he paces beside me. "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 laid to our charge. Caution decides always that a stranger is a thief."
In front of us walks the woman from Riazan, in company with the young fellow of the bloated features. He is downcast of mien, and at length mutters something which I cannot catch, but in answer to which she tosses 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 keep coming neat old men and women who make the hitherto deserted street assume 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 the hamlet, and the mountain peaks blushing until they seem, thawing, to be sending streams of golden, liquid fire on to the steppes, where, as though 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 led away to a night's lodging in a dark storehouse in a corner of the premises. Everything is executed quietly enough, and without the least fuss, purely as a matter of routine; yet Konev mutters, as dejectedly he 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 travel WITHOUT a passport? So long as he be harmless, let him--"
"You are not harmless," with angry emphasis the woman from Riazan interposes.
Konev closes his eyes with a smile, and says nothing more.
Almost until the vigil service is over are we kept kicking our heels about that forecourt, like sheep in a slaughter-house. Then Konev, myself, the two women, and the fat-faced young fellow are led away towards the outskirts of the village, and allotted an empty hut with broken-down walls and a cracked window.
"No going out will be permitted," says the Cossack who has conducted us thither. "Else you will be arrested."
"Then give us a morsel of bread," Konev says with a stammer. "Have you done 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 of the yard.
"What else was to be expected?" grumbles Konev with his eyebrows elevated to the middle of his forehead. "The folk hereabouts are knaves. Ah, well!"
As for the women, they withdraw to the darkest corner of the hut, and lie down, while the young fellow disappears after probing the walls and floor, and returns with an armful of straw which he strews upon the hard, beaten clay. Then he stretches himself thereon with hands clasped behind his battered head.
"See the resourcefulness of that fellow from Penza!" comments Konev enviously. "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, and discoursing on the subject of certain needy folk who do but desire to go 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 in common, I tell you that this is not so--that, on the contrary, we Russian strangers find it a hard matter here to get looked upon as respectable."
With which he slips out quietly into the street, and disappears from view.
The young fellow's sleep is restless--he keeps tossing about, with his fat arms and legs sprawling over the floor, and grunting, and snoring. Under him the straw makes a crackling sound, while the two women whisper together in the darkness, and the reeds of the dry thatch on the roof rustle (the wind is still drawing an occasional breath), and ever and anon a twig brushes against an outside wall. The scene is like a scene in a dream.
Out of doors the myriad tongues of the pitch-black, starless night seem to be debating something in soft, sad, pitiful tones which ever keep growing fainter; until, when the hour of ten has been struck on the watchman's gong, and the metal ceases to vibrate, the world grows quieter still, much as though all living things, alarmed by the clang in the night, have concealed themselves in the invisible earth or the equally invisible heavens.
I seat myself by the window, and watch how the earth keeps exhaling darkness, and the darkness enveloping, drowning the grey, blurred huts in black, tepid vapour, though the church remains invisible--evidently something stands interposed between it and my viewpoint. And it seems to me that the wind, the seraph of many pinions which has spent three days in harrying the land, must now have whirled the earth into a blackness, a denseness, in which, exhausted, and panting, and scarcely moving, it is helplessly striving to remain within the encompassing, all- pervading obscurity where, helpless and weary in like degree, the wind has sloughed its thousands of wing-feathers--feathers white and blue and golden of tint, but also broken, and smeared with dust and blood.
And as I think of our petty, grievous human life, as of a drunkard's tune on a sorry musical instrument, or as of a beautiful song spoilt by a witless, voiceless singer, there begins to wail in my soul an insatiable longing to breathe forth words of sympathy with all mankind, words of burning love for all the world, words of appreciation of, for example, the sun's beauty as, enfolding the earth in his beams, and caressing and fertilising her, he bears her through the expanses of blue. Yes, I yearn to recite to my fellow-men words which shall raise their heads. And at length I find myself compounding the following jejune 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, intermittent whispering; and as it continues to filter through the darkness, I strain 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 companion replies:
"Ye-es-so long as one can bear it."
"Ah, but never mind. PRETEND. That is to say, when he beats you, make light 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 what it is like."
"Oh, but I have, my dear--I do know what it is like, for my experience of 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 angrily than ever. Upon that other dogs reply, and for a moment or two I am annoyed to find that I cannot overhear the women's conversation. In time, however, the dogs cease their uproar, for want of breath, and the suppressed dialogue filters once more to my ears.
"Never forget, my dear, that a muzhik's life is a hard one. Yes, for us plain 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 her everything depends. For one thing, let her take to herself, in place of her mother, a husband or a sweetheart. Yes, try that, and see. And though, at first, your husband may find fault with you, he will afterwards take to boasting to other muzhiks that he has a wife who can do everything, and remain ever as bright and loving as the month of May. Never does she give in; never WOULD she give in--no, not if you were 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 the sound of uncertain footsteps in the street without. Thus the next words of 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 about it, 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 lost my way after stirring up a lot of dogs, and being forced to use my fists upon them. Here, you! Catch hold!"
With which, handing me a large watermelon, he clambers through the window 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 one steal 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? It happened like this. When I went out I saw a fire glowing in a hut, and folk seated at supper. And since, wherever many people are present, one of them at least has a kind heart, I ate and drank my fill, and then managed to make off with provender for you as well. Hi, you women!"
