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?"

"Yes."

"That's right. I know all about Czar Peter, and that never happened to him. Run along."

I realized that the cook was right, but nevertheless the book pleased me. I bought the "Story" again and read it a second time. To my amazement, I discovered that it was really a bad book. This puzzled me, and I began to regard the cook with even more respect, while he said to me more frequently and more crossly than ever:

"Oh, what a lot you need to be taught! This is no place for you."

I also felt that it was no place for me. Sergei behaved disgustingly to me, and several times I observed him stealing pieces of the tea-service, and giving them to the passengers on the sly. I knew that this was theft. Smouri had warned me more than once:

"Take care. Do not give the attendants any of the cups and plates from your table."

This made life still harder for me, and I often longed to run away from the boat into the forest; but Smouri held me back. He was more tender to me every day, and the incessant movement on the boat held a terrible fascination for me. I did not like it when we stayed in port, and I was always expecting something to happen, and that we should sail from Kama to Byela, as far as Viatka, and so up the Volga, and I should see new places, towns, and people. But this did not happen. My life on the steamer came to an abrupt end. One evening when we were going from Kazan to Nijni the steward called me to him. I went. He shut the door behind me, and said to Smouri, who sat grimly on a small stool:

"Here he is."

Smouri asked me roughly:

"Have you been giving Serejka any of the dinner- and tea-services?"

"He helps himself when I am not looking."

The steward said softly:

"He does not look, yet he knows."

Smouri struck his knee with his fist; then he scratched his knee as he said:

"Wait; take time."

I pondered. I looked at the steward. He looked at me, and there seemed to be no eyes behind his glasses.

He lived without making a noise. He went about softly, spoke in low tones. Sometimes his faded beard and vacant eyes peeped out from some corner and instantly vanished. Before going to bed he knelt for a long time in the buffet before the icon with the ever-burning lamp. I could see him through the chink of the door, looking like a black bundle; but I had never succeeded in learning how the steward prayed, for he simply knelt and looked at the icon, stroking his beard and sighing.

After a silence Smouri asked:

"Has Sergei ever given you any money?"

"No."

"Never?"

"Never."

"He does not tell lies," said Smouri to the steward, who answered at once in his low voice:

"It comes to the same thing, please—"

"Come!" cried the cook to me, and he came to my table, and rapped my crown lightly with his fingers.

"Fool! And I am a fool, too. I ought to have looked after you."

At Nijni the steward dismissed me. I received nearly eight rubles, the first large money earned by me. When Smouri took farewell of me he said roughly:

"Well, here you are. Now keep your eyes open,—do you understand? You mustn't go about with your mouth open."

He put a tobacco-pouch of colored beads into my hand.

"There you are! That is good handwork. My godchild made it for me. Well, good-by. Read books; that is the best thing you can do."

He took me under the arms, lifted me up, kissed me, and placed me firmly on the jetty. I was sorry for him and for myself. I could hardly keep from crying when I saw him returning to the steamer, pushing aside the porters, looking so large, heavy, solitary. So many times since then I have met people like him, kind, lonely, cut off from the lives of other people.

CHAPTER VII

Grandfather and grandmother had again gone into the town. I went to them, prepared to be angry and warlike; but my heart was heavy. Why had they accounted me a thief?

Grandmother greeted me tenderly, and at once went to prepare the samovar. Grandfather asked as mockingly as usual:

"Have you saved much money?"

"What there is belongs to me," I answered, taking a seat by the window. I triumphantly produced a box of cigarettes from my pocket and began to smoke importantly.

"So-o-o," said grandfather, looking at me fixedly—"so that sit! You smoke the devil's poison? Isn't it rather soon?"

"Why, I have even had a pouch given to me," I boasted.

"A pouch?" squeaked grandfather. "What! Are you saying this to annoy me?"

He rushed upon me, with his thin, strong hands outstretched, his green eyes flashing. I leaped up, and stuck my head into his stomach. The old man sat on the floor, and for several oppressive moments looked at me, amazedly blinking, his dark mouth open. Then he asked quietly:

"You knock me down, your grandfather? The father of your mother?"

"You have knocked me about enough in the past," I muttered, not understanding that I had acted abominably.

Withered and light, grandfather rose from the floor, sat beside me, deftly snatched the cigarette from me, threw it out of the window, and said in a tone of fear:

"You mad fool! Don't you understand that God will punish you for this for the rest of your life? Mother,"—he turned to grandmother,—"did you see that? He knocked me down—he! Knocked me down! Ask him!"

She did not wait to ask. She simply came over to me, seized me by the hair, and beat me, saying:

"And for that—take this—and this!"

I was not hurt, but I felt deeply insulted, especially by grandfather's laughter. He jumped on a chair, slapped his legs with his hands, and croaked through his laughter:

"Th-a-t's right! Tha-a-t's right!"

I tore myself away, and ran out to the shed, where I lay in a corner crushed, desolate, listening to the singing of the samovar.

Then grandmother came to me, bent over me, and whispered hardly audibly:

"You must forgive me, for I purposely did not hurt you. I could not do otherwise than I did, for grandfather is an old man. He has to be treated with care. He has fractured some of his small bones, and, besides, sorrow has eaten into his heart. You must never do him any harm. You are not a little boy now. You must remember that. You must, Olesha! He is like a child, and nothing more."

Her words laved me like warm water. That friendly whisper made me feel ashamed of myself, and, light-hearted, I embraced her warmly. We kissed.

"Go to him. Go along. It is all right, only don't smoke before him yet. Give him time to get used to the idea."

I went back to the room, glanced at grandfather, and could hardly keep from laughing. He really was as pleased as a child. He was radiant, twisting his feet, and running his paws through his red hair as he sat by the table.

"Well, goat, have you come to butt me again? Ach, you—brigand! Just like your father! Freemason! You come back home, never cross yourself; and start smoking at once. Ugh, you—Bonaparte! you copeck's worth of goods!"

I said nothing. He had exhausted his supply of words and was silent from fatigue. But at tea he began to lecture me.

"The fear of God is necessary to men; it is like a bridle to a horse. We have no friend except God. Man is a cruel enemy to man." That men were my enemies, I felt was the truth, but the rest did not interest me.

"Now you will go back to Aunt Matrena, and in the spring you can go on a steamboat again. Live with them during the winter. And you need not tell them that you are leaving in the spring."

"Now, why should he deceive people?" said grandmother, who had just deceived grandfather by pretending to give me a beating.

"It is impossible to live without deceit," declared grandfather. "Just tell me now. Who lives without deceiving others?"

In the evening, while grandfather was reading his office, grandmother and I went out through the gate into the fields. The little cottage with two windows in which grandfather lived was on the outskirts of the town, at the back of Kanatni Street, where grandfather had once had his own house.

"So here we are again!" said grandmother, laughing. "The old man cannot find a resting-place for his soul, but must be ever on the move. And he does not even like it here; but I do."

Before us stretched for about three versts fields of scanty herbage, intersected by ditches, bounded by woods and the line of birches on the Kazan highroad. From the ditches the twigs of bushes projected, the rays of a cold sunset reddened them like blood. A soft evening breeze shook the gray blades of grass. From a nearer pathway, also like blades of grass, showed the dark form of town lads and girls. On the right, in the distance, stood the red walls of the burial-ground of the Old Believers. They called it "The Bugrovski Hermitage." On the left, beyond the causeway, rose a dark group of trees; there was the Jewish cemetery. All the surroundings were poor, and seemed to lie close to the wounded earth. The little houses on the outskirts of the town looked timidly with their windows on the dusty road. Along the road wandered small, ill-fed fowl. Toward the Dyevichia Monastery went a herd of lowing cows, from the camp came the sound of martial music. The brass instruments brayed.

A drunken man came along, ferociously holding out a harmonica. He stumbled and muttered:

"I am coming to thee—without fail."

"Fool!" said grandmother, blinking in the red sunlight. "Where are you going? Soon you will fall down and go to sleep, and you will be robbed in your sleep. You will lose your harmonica, your consolation."

I told her all about the life on the boat as I looked about me. After what I had seen I found it dull here; I felt like a fish out of water. Grandmother listened in silence and with attention, just as I liked to listen to her. When I told her about Smouri she crossed herself and said:

"He is a good man, help him, Mother of God; he is good! Take care, you, that you do not forget him! You should always remember what is good, and what is bad simply forget."

It was very difficult for me to tell her why they had dismissed me, but I took courage and told her. It made no impression whatever on her. She merely said calmly:

"You are young yet; you don't know how to live."

"That is what they all say to one another, 'You don't know how to live'—peasants, sailors, Aunt Matrena to her son. But how does one learn?"

She compressed her lips and shook her head.

"I don't know myself."

"And yet you say the same as the others!"

"And why should I not say it?" replied grandmother, calmly. "You must not be offended. You are young; you are not expected to know. And who does know, after all? Only rogues. Look at your grandfather. Clever and well educated as he is, yet he does not know."

"And you—have you managed your life well?"

"I? Yes. And badly also; all ways."

People sauntered past us, with their long shadows following them. The dust rose like smoke under their feet, burying those shadows. Then the evening sadness became more oppressive. The sound of grandfather's grumbling voice flowed from the window:

"Lord, in Thy wrath do not condemn me, nor in Thy rage punish me!"

Grandmother said, smiling:

"He has made God tired of him. Every evening he has his tale of woe, and about what? He is old now, and he does not need anything; yet he is always complaining and working himself into a frenzy about something. I expect God laughs when He hears his voice in the evening. There's Vassili Kashirin grumbling again!' Come and go to bed now." . . . . . . . .

I made up my mind to take up the occupation of catching singing-birds. I thought it would be a good way of earning a living. I would catch them, and grandmother would sell them. I bought a net, a hoop, and a trap, and made a cage. At dawn I took my place in a hollow among the bushes, while grandmother went in the woods with a basket and a bag to find the last mushrooms, bulbs, and nuts.

The tired September sun had only just risen. Its pale rays were now extinguished by clouds, now fell like a silver veil upon me in the causeway. At the bottom of the hollow it was still dusk, and a white mist rose from it. Its clayey sides were dark and bare, and the other side, which was more sloping, was covered with grass, thick bushes, and yellow, brown, and scarlet leaves. A fresh wind raised them and swept them along the ditch.

On the ground, among the turnip-tops, the goldfinch uttered its cry. I saw, among the ragged, gray grass, birds with red caps on their lively heads. About me fluttered curious titmouses. They made a great noise and fuss, comically blowing out their white cheeks, just like the young men of Kunavin Street on a Sunday. Swift, clever, spiteful, they wanted to know all and to touch everything, and they fell into the trap one after the other. It was pitiful to see how they beat their wings, but my business was strictly commerce. I changed the birds over into the spare cage and hid them in a bag. In the dark they kept quiet.

A flock of siskins settled on a hawthorn-bush. The bush was suffused by sunlight. The siskins were glad of the sun and chirped more merrily than ever. Their antics were like those of schoolboys. The thirsty, tame, speckled magpie, late in setting out on his journey to a warmer country, sat on the bending bough of a sweetbriar, cleaning his wing feathers and insolently looking at his prey with his black eyes. The lark soared on high, caught a bee, and, carefully depositing it on a thorn, once more settled on the ground, with his thievish head alert. Noiselessly flew the talking-bird,—the hawfinch,—the object of my longing dreams, if only I could catch him. A bullfinch, driven from the flock, was perched on an alder-tree. Red, important, like a general, he chirped angrily, shaking his black beak.

The higher the sun mounted, the more birds there were, and the more gayly they sang. The hollow was full of the music of autumn. The ceaseless rustle of the bushes in the wind, and the passionate songs of the birds, could not drown that soft, sweetly melancholy noise. I heard in it the farewell song of summer. It whispered to me words meant for my ears alone, and of their own accord they formed themselves into a song. At the same time my memory unconsciously recalled to my mind pictures of the past. From somewhere above grandmother cried:

"Where are you?"

She sat on the edge of the pathway. She had spread out a handkerchief on which she had laid bread, cucumber, turnips, and apples. In the midst of this display a small, very beautiful cut-glass decanter stood. It had a crystal stopper, the head of Napoleon, and in the goblet was a measure of vodka, distilled from herbs.

"How good it is, O Lord!" said grandmother, gratefully.

"I have composed a song."

"Yes? Well?"

I repeated to her something which I thought was like poetry.

"That winter draws near the signs are many;
Farewell to thee, my summer sun!"

But she interrupted without hearing me out.

"I know a song like that, only it is a better one."

And she repeated in a singsong voice:

"Oi, the summer sun has gone
To dark nights behind the distant woods!
Ekh! I am left behind, a maiden,
Alone, without the joys of spring.
Every morn I wander round;
I trace the walks I took in May.
The bare fields unhappy look;
There it was I lost my youth.
Oi, my friends, my kind friends,
Take my heart from my white breast,
Bury my heart in the snow!"

My conceit as an author suffered not a little, but I was delighted with this song, and very sorry for the girl.

Grandmother said:

"That is how grief sings. That was made up by a young girl, you know. She went out walking all the springtime, and before the winter her dear love had thrown her over, perhaps for another girl. She wept because her heart was sore. You cannot speak well and truly on what you have not experienced for yourself. You see what a good song she made up."

When she sold a bird for the first time, for forty copecks, she was very surprised.

"Just look at that! I thought it was all nonsense, just a boy's amusement; and it has turned out like this!"

"You sold it too cheaply."

"Yes; well?"

On market-days she sold them for a ruble, and was more surprised than ever. What a lot one might earn by just playing about!

"And a woman spends whole days washing clothes or cleaning floors for a quarter of a ruble, and here you just catch them! But it is n't a nice thing to do, you know, to keep birds in a cage. Give it up, Olesha!"

But bird-catching amused me greatly; I liked it. It gave me my independence and inconvenienced no one but the birds. I provided myself with good implements. Conversations with old bird-catchers taught me a lot. I went alone nearly three versts to catch birds: to the forest of Kstocski, on the banks of the Volga, where in the tall fir-trees lived and bred crossbills, and most valuable to collectors, the Apollyon titmouse, a long-tailed, white bird of rare beauty.

Sometimes I started in the evening and stayed out all night, wandering about on the Kasanski high-road, and sometimes in the autumn rains and through deep mud. On my back I carried an oilskin bag in which were cages, with food to entice the birds. In my hand was a solid cane of walnut wood. It was cold and terrifying in the autumn darkness, very terrifying. There stood by the side of the road old lightning-riven birches; wet branches brushed across my head. On the left under the hill, over the black Volga, floated rare lights on the masts of the last boats and barges, looking as if they were in an unfathomable abyss. The wheels splashed in the water, the sirens shrieked.

From the hard ground rose the huts of the road-side villages. Angry, hungry dogs ran in circles round my legs. The watchman collided with me, and cried in terror:

"Who is that? He whom the devils carry does not come out till night, they say."

I was very frightened lest my tackle should be taken from me, and I used to take five-copeck pieces with me to give to the watchmen. The watchman of the village of Thokinoi made friends with me, and was always groaning over me.

"What, out again? O you fearless, restless night-bird, eh?"

His name was Niphront. He was small and gray, like a saint. He drew out from his breast a turnip, an apple, a handful of peas, and placed them in my hand, saying:

"There you are, friend. There is a little present for you. Eat and enjoy it." And conducting me to the bounds of the village, he said, "Go, and God be with you!"

I arrived at the forest before dawn, laid my traps, and spreading out my coat, lay on the edge of the forest and waited for the day to come. It was still. Everything was wrapped in the deep autumn sleep. Through the gray mist the broad meadows under the hill were hardly visible. They were cut in two by the Volga, across which they met and separated again, melting away in the fog. In the distance, behind the forest on the same side as the meadows, rose without hurry the bright sun. On the black mane of the forest lights flashed out, and my heart began to stir strangely, poignantly. Swifter and swifter the fog rose from the meadows, growing silver in the rays of the sun, and, following it, the bushes, trees, and hayricks rose from the ground. The meadows were simply flooded with the sun's rays and flowed on each side, red-gold. The sun just glanced at the still water by the bank, and it seemed as if the whole river moved toward the sun as it rose higher and higher, joyfully blessed and warmed the denuded, chilled earth, which gave forth the sweet smell of autumn. The transparent air made the earth look enormous, boundlessly wide. Everything seemed to be floating in the distance, and to be luring one to the farthest ends of the world. I saw the sunrise ten times during those months, and each time a new world was born before my eyes, with a new beauty.

I loved the sun so much that its very name delighted me. The sweet sound of it was like a bell hidden in it. I loved to close my eyes and place my face right in the way of its hot rays to catch it in my hands when it came, like a sword, through the chinks of the fence or through the branches. Grandfather had read over and over again "Prince Mikhail Chemigovski and the Lady Theodora who would not Worship the Sun," and my idea of these people was that they were black, like Gipsies, harsh, malignant, and always had bad eyes, like poor Mordovans. When the sun rose over the meadows I involuntarily smiled with joy.

Over me murmured the forest of firs, shaking off the drops of dew with its green paws. In the shadows and on the fern-leaves glistened, like silver brocade, the rime of the morning frost. The reddening grass was crushed by the rain; immovable stalks bowed their heads to the ground: but when the sun's rays fell on them a slight stir was noticeable among the herbs, as if, may be, it was the last effort of their lives.

The birds awoke. Like gray balls of down, they fell from bough to bough. Flaming crossbills pecked with their crooked beaks the knots on the tallest firs. On the end of the fir-branches sang a white Apollyon titmouse, waving its long, rudder-like tail, looking askance suspiciously with its black, beady eyes at the net which I had spread. And suddenly the whole forest, which a minute ago had been solemnly pensive, was filled with the sound of a thousand bird-voices, with the bustle of living beings, the purest on the earth. In their image, man, the father of earthly beauty, created for his own consolation, elves, cherubim, and seraphim, and all the ranks of angels.

I was rather sorry to catch the little songsters, and had scruples about squeezing them into cages. I would rather have merely looked at them; but the hunter's passion and the desire to earn money drove away my pity.

The birds mocked me with their artfulness. The blue titmouse, after a careful examination of the trap, understood her danger, and, approaching sidewise without running any risk, helped herself to some seed between the sticks of the trap. Titmouses are very clever, but they are very curious, and that is their undoing. The proud bullfinches are stupid, and flocks of them fall into the nets, like over-fed citizens into a church. When they find themselves shut up, they are very astonished, roll their eyes, and peck my fingers with their stout beaks. The crossbill entered the trap calmly and seriously. This grasping, ignorant bird, unlike all the others, used to sit for a long time before the net, stretching out his long beak, and leaning on his thick tail. He can run up the trunk of trees like the woodpecker, always escorting the titmouse. About this smoke-gray singing-bird there is something unpleasant. No one loves it. And it loves no one. Like the magpie, it likes to steal and hide bright things.

Before noon I had finished my catch, and went home through the forest. If I had gone by the high-road past the villages, the boys and young men would have taken my cages away from me and broken up my tackle. I had already experienced that once.

I arrived home in the evening tired and hungry, but I felt that I had grown older, had learned something new, and had gained strength during that day. This new strength gave me the power to listen calmly and without resentment to grandfather's jeers; seeing which, grandfather began to speak sensibly and seriously.

"Give up this useless business! Give it up! No one ever got on through birds. Such a thing has never happened that I know of. Go and find another place, and let your intelligence grow up there. Man has not been given life for nothing; he is God's grain, and he must produce an ear of corn. Man is like a ruble; put out at good interest it produces three rubles. You think life is easy to live? No, it is not all easy. The world of men is like a dark night, but every man must make his own light. To every person is given enough for his ten fingers to hold, but every one wants to grasp by handfuls. One should be strong, but if one is weak, one must be artful. He who has little strength is weak, and he is neither in heaven nor in hell. Live as if you are with others, but remember that you are alone. Whatever happens, never trust any one. If you believe your own eyes, you will measure crookedly. Hold your tongue. Neither town or house was built by the tongue, but rubles are made by the ax. You are neither a fool nor a Kalmuck, to whom all riches are like lice on sheep."

He could talk like this all the evening, and I knew his words by heart. The words pleased me, but I distrusted their meaning. From what he said it was plain that two forces hindered man from doing as he wished, God and other people.

Seated at the window, grandmother wound the cotton for her lace. The spindle hummed under her skilful hands. She listened for a long time to grandfather's speech in silence, then she suddenly spoke.

"It all depends upon whether the Mother of God smiles upon us."

"What's that?" cried grandfather. "God! I have not forgotten about God. I know all about God. You old fool, has God sown fools on the earth, eh?"

*

In my opinion the happiest people on earth were Cossacks and soldiers. Their lives were simple and gay. On fine mornings they appeared in the hollow near our house quite early. Scattering over the bare fields like white mushrooms, they began a complicated, interesting game. Agile and strong in their white blouses, they ran about the field with guns in their hands, disappeared in the hollow, and suddenly, at the sound of the bugle, again spread themselves over the field with shouts of "Hurrah!" accompanied by the ominous sounds of the drum. They ran straight at our house with fixed bayonets, and they looked as if they would knock it down and sweep it away, like a hayrick, in a minute. I cried "Hurrah!" too, and ran with them, quite carried away. The wicked rattle of the drum aroused in me a passionate desire to destroy something, to break down the fence, to hit other boys. When they were resting, the soldiers used to give me a treat by teaching me how to signal and by showing me their heavy guns. Sometimes one of them would stick his bayonet into my stomach and cry, with a pretense of anger:

"Stick the cockroach!"

The bayonet gleamed; it looked as if it were alive, and seemed to wind about like a snake about to coil itself up. It was rather terrifying, but more pleasant.

The Mordovan drummer taught me to strike the drum with my fingers. At first he used to take me by the wrist, and, moving them so that he hurt me, would thrust the sticks into my crushed fingers.

"Hit it—one, two-one-tw-o-o! Rum te—tum! Beat it—left—softly, right—loudly, rum te—!" he shouted threateningly, opening wide his bird-like eyes.

I used to run about the field with the soldiers, almost to the end of the drill, and after it was finished, I used to escort them across the town to the barracks, listening to their loud songs, looking into their kind faces, all as new as five-ruble pieces just coined. The close-packed mass of happy men passing up the streets in one united body aroused a feeling of friendliness in me, a desire to throw myself in among them as into a river, to enter into them as into a forest. These men were frightened of nothing; they could conquer anything; they were capable of anything; they could do anything they liked; and they were all simple and good.

But one day during the time they were resting a young non-commissioned officer gave me a fat cigarette.

"Smoke this! I would not give them to any one. In fact I hardly like to give you one, my dear boy, they are so good."

I smoked it. He moved away a few steps, and suddenly a red flame blinded me, burning my fingers, my nose, my eyebrows. A gray, acrid smoke made me splutter and cough. Blinded, terrified, I stamped on the ground, and the soldiers, who had formed a ring around me, laughed loudly and heartily. I ran away home. Whistles and laughter followed me; something cracked like a shepherd's whip. My burned fingers hurt me, my face smarted, tears flowed from my eyes; but it was not the pain which oppressed me, only a heavy, dull amazement. Why should this amuse these good fellows?

When I reached home I climbed up to the attic and sat there a long time brooding over this inexplicable cruelty which stood so repulsively in my path. I had a peculiarly clear and vivid memory of the little soldier from Sarapulia standing before me, as large as life, and saying:

"Well, do you understand?"

Soon I had to go through something still more depressing and disgusting.

I had begun to run about in the barracks of the Cossacks, which stood near the Pecherski Square. The Cossacks seemed different from the soldiers, not because they rode so skilfully oh horseback and were dressed more beautifully, but because they spoke in a different way, sang different songs, and danced beautifully. In the evening, after they had seen to their horses, they used to gather in a ring near the stables, and a little red-haired Cossack, shaking his tufts of hair, sang softly in a high-pitched voice, like a trumpet. The long-drawn-out, sad song flowed out upon the Don and the blue Dounia. His eyes were closed, like the eyes of a linnet, which often sings till it falls dead from the branch to the ground. The collar of his Cossack shirt was undone. His collar-bone was visible, looking like a copper band. In fact, he was altogether metallic, coppery. Swaying on his thin legs, as if the earth under him were rocking, spreading out his hands, he seemed sightless, but full of sound. He, as it were, ceased to be a man, and became a brass instrument. Sometimes it seemed to me that he was falling, that he would fall on his back to the ground, and die like the linnet, because he put into the song all his soul and all his strength.

With their hands in their pockets or behind their broad backs, his comrades stood round in a ring, sternly looking at his brassy face. Beating time with their hands, softly spitting into space, they joined in earnestly, softly, as if they were in the choir in church. All of them, bearded and shaven, looked like icons, stern and set apart from other people. The song was long, like a long street, and as level, as broad and as wide. When I listened to him I forgot everything else, whether it was day or night upon the earth, whether I was an old man or a little boy. Everything else was forgotten. The voice of the singer died away. The sighs of the horses were audible as they grieved for their native steppes, and gently, but surely, the autumn night crept up from the fields. My heart swelled and almost burst with a multitude of extraordinary feelings, and a great, speechless love for human creatures and the earth.

The little copper-colored Cossack seemed to me to be no man, but something much more significant—a legendary being, better and on a higher plane than ordinary people. I could not talk to him. When he asked me a question I smiled blissfully and remained shyly silent. I was ready to follow him anywhere, silently and humbly, like a dog. All I wanted was to see him often, and to hear him sing.

CHAPTER VIII

When the snows came, grandfather once more took me to grandmother's sister.

"It will do you no harm," he said to me.

I seemed to have had a wonderful lot of experience during the summer. I felt that I had grown older and cleverer, and the dullness of my master's house seemed worse than ever. They fell ill as often as ever, upsetting their stomachs with offensive poisons, and giving one another detailed accounts of the progress of their illnesses. The old woman prayed to God in the same terrible and malignant way. The young mistress had grown thin, but she moved about just as pompously and slowly as when she was expecting her child. When she stitched at the baby-clothes she always sang the same song softly to herself:

"Spiria, Spiria, Spiridon,
Spiria, my little brother,
I will sit in the sledge myself
And Spiria on the foot-board."

If any one went into the room she left off singing at once and cried angrily:

"What do you want?"

I fully believed that she knew no other song but that.

In the evenings they used to call me into the sitting-room, and the order was given:

"Now tell us how you lived on the boat."

I sat on a chair near the door and spoke. I liked to recall a different life from this which I was forced to lead against my will. I was so interested that I forgot my audience, but not for long.

The women, who had never been on a boat, asked me:

"But it was very alarming, was n't it?"

I did not understand. Why should it be alarming?

"Why, the boat might go down any moment, and every one would be drowned."

The master burst out laughing, and I, although I knew that boats did not sink just because there were deep places, could not convince the women. The old woman was certain that the boat did not float on the water, but went along on wheels on the bottom of the river, like a cart on dry land.

"If they are made of iron, how can they float? An ax will not float; no fear!"

"But a scoop does not sink in the water."

"There's a comparison to make! A scoop is a small thing, nothing to speak of."

When I spoke of Smouri and his books they regarded me with contempt. The old lady said that only fools and heretics wrote books.

"What about the Psalms and King David?"

"The Psalms are sacred writings, and King David prayed God to forgive him for writing the Psalms."

"Where does it say so?"

"In the palms of my hands; that's where! When I get hold of you by the neck you will learn where."

She knew everything; she spoke on all subjects with conviction and always savagely.

"A Tatar died on the Pechorka, and his soul came out of his mouth as black as tar."

"Soul? Spirit?" I said, but she cried contemptuously:

"Of a Tatar! Fool!"

The young mistress was afraid of books, too.

"It is very injurious to read books, and especially when you are young," she said. "At home, at Grebeshka, there was a young girl of good family who read and read, and the end of it was that she fell in love with the deacon, and the deacon's wife so shamed her that it was terrible to see. In the street, before everybody."

Sometimes I used words out of Smouri's books, in one of which, one without beginning or end, was written, "Strictly speaking, no one person really invented powder; as is always the case, it appeared at the end of a long series of minor observations and discoveries." I do not know why I remembered these words so well. What I liked best of all was the joining of two phrases, "strictly speaking, no one person really invented powder." I was aware of force underlying them; but they brought me sorrow, ludicrous sorrow. It happened thus.

One day when my employers proposed that I should tell them about something which had happened on the boat I answered:

"I have n't anything left to tell, strictly speaking." This amazed them. They cried:

"What? What's that you said?"

And all four began to laugh in a friendly fashion, repeating:

"'Strictly speaking,'—ah, Lord!"

Even the master said to me:

"You have thought that out badly, old fellow." And for a long time after that they used to call me:

"Hi, 'strictly speaking,' come here and wipe up the floor after the baby, strictly speaking."

This stupid banter did not offend, but it greatly surprised, me. I lived in a fog of stupefying grief, and I worked hard in order to fight against it. I did not feel my inefficiencies when I was at work. In the house were two young children. The nurses never pleased the mistresses, and were continually being changed. I had to wait upon the children, to wash baby-clothes every day, and every week I had to go to the Jandarmski Fountain to rinse the linen. Here I was derided by the washerwomen:

"Why are you doing women's work?"

Sometimes they worked me up to such a pitch that I slapped them with the wet, twisted linen. They paid me back generously for this, but I found them merry and interesting.

The Jandarmski Fountain ran along the bottom of a deep causeway and fell into the Oka. The causeway cut the town off from the field which was called, from the name of an ancient god, Yarilo. On that field, near Semika, the inhabitants of the town had made a promenade. Grandmother had told me that in the days of her youth people still believed in Yarilo and offered sacrifices to him. They took a wheel, covered it with tarred tow, and let it roll down the hill with cries and songs, watching to see if the burning wheel would roll as far as the Oka. If it did, the god Yarilo had accepted the sacrifice; the summer would be sunny and happy.

The washerwomen were for the most part from Yarilo, bold, headstrong women who had the life of the town at their finger-ends. It was very interesting to hear their tales of the merchants, chinovniks, and officers for whom they worked. To rinse the linen in winter in the icy water of the river was work for a galley-slave. All the women had their hands so frost-bitten that the skin was broken. Bending over the stream, inclosed in a wooden trough, under an old penthouse full of crevices, which was no protection against either wind or snow, the women rinsed the linen. Their faces were flushed, pinched by the frost. The frost burned their wet fingers; they could not bend them. Tears trickled from their eyes, but they chatted all the time, telling one another different stories, bearing themselves with a peculiar bravery toward every one and everything.

The best of all the stories were told by Natalia Kozlovski, a woman of about thirty, fresh-faced, strong, with laughing eyes and a peculiarly facile and sharp tongue. All her companions had a high regard for her; she was consulted on all sorts of affairs, and much admired for her skill in work, for the neatness of her attire, and because she had been able to send her daughter to the high school. When, bending under the weight of two baskets of wet linen, she came down the hill on the slippery footpath, they greeted her gladly, and asked solicitously:

"Well, and how is the daughter?"

"Very well, thank you; she is learning well, thank God!"

"Look at that now! She will be a lady."

"That's why I am having her taught. Where do the ladies with the painted faces come from? They all come from us, from the black earth. And where else should they come from? He who has the most knowledge has the longest arms and can take more, and the one who takes the most has the honor and glory. God sends us into the world as stupid children and expects to take us back as wise old people, which means that we must learn!"

When she spoke every one was silent, listening attentively to her fluent, self-confident speech. They praised her to her face and behind her back, amazed at her cleverness, her intellect; but no one tried to imitate her. She had sewn brown leather from the leg of a boot, over the sleeve of her bodice which saved her from the necessity of baring her arms to the elbow, and prevented her sleeves from getting wet. They all said what a good idea it was, but not one of them followed her example. When I did so they laughed at me.

"Ekh, you? Letting a woman teach you!"

With reference to her daughter she said:

"That is an important affair. There will be one more young lady in the world. Is that a small thing? But of course she may not be able to finish her studies; she may die. And it is not an easy life for those who are students, you see. There was that daughter of the Bakhilovs. She studied and studied, and even became a teacher herself. Once you become a teacher, you know, you are settled for life."

"Of course, if they marry, they can do without education; that is, if they have something else to recommend them."

"A woman's wit lies not in her head."

It was strange and embarrassing to hear them speak about themselves with such lack of reticence. I knew how sailors, soldiers, and tillers of the soil spoke about women. I heard men always boasting among themselves of their skill in deceiving women, of cunning in their relations with them. I felt that their attitude toward "females" was hostile, but generally there was a ring of something in these boastings which led me to suppose that these stories were merely brag, inventions, and not the truth.

The washerwomen did not tell one another about their love adventures, but in whatever they said about men I detected an undercurrent of derision, of malice, and I thought it might be true that woman was strength.

"Even when they don't go about among their fellows and make friends, they come to women, every one of them!" said Natalia one day, and an old woman cried to her in a rheumy voice:

"And to whom else should they go? Even from God monks and hermits come to us."

These conversations amid the weeping splash of the water, the slapping of wet clothes on the ground, or against the dirty chinks, which not even the snow could hide with its clean cover—these shameless, malicious conversations about secret things, about that from which all races and peoples have sprung, roused in me a timid disgust, forced my thoughts and feelings to fix themselves on "the romances" which surrounded and irritated me. For me the understanding of the "romances" was closely intertwined with representations of obscure, immoral stories.

However, whether I was with the washerwomen, or in the kitchen with the orderlies or in cellars where lived the field laborers, I found it much more interesting than to be at home, where the stilted conversations were always on the same lines, where the same things happened over and over again, arousing nothing but a feeling of constraint and embittered boredom. My employers dwelt within the magic circle of food, illness, sleep, and the anxieties attendant on preparing for eating and sleeping. They spoke of sin and of death, of which they were much afraid. They rubbed against one another as grains of corn are rubbed against the grindstone, which they expect every moment to crush them. In my free time I used to go into the shed to chop wood, desiring to be alone. But that rarely happened. The orderlies used to come and talk about the news of the yard.

Ermokhin and Sidorov came more often than the others. The former was a long, bow-backed Kalougan, with thick, strong veins all over him, a small head, and dull eyes. He was lazy and irritatingly stupid; he moved slowly and clumsily, and when he saw a woman he blinked and bent forward, just as if he were going to throw himself at her feet. All the yard was amazed by his swift conquest of the cooks and the maids, and envied him. They were all afraid of his bear-like strength. Sidorov, a lean, bony native of Tula, was always sad, spoke softly, and loved to gaze into dark corners. He would relate some incident in a low voice, or sit in silence, looking into the darkest corner.

"What are you looking at?"

"I thought I saw a mouse running about. I love mice; they run to and fro so quietly."

I used to write letters home for these orderlies—love-letters. I liked this, but it was pleasanter to write letters for Sidorov than for any of the others. Every Saturday regularly he sent a letter to his sister at Tula.

He invited me into his kitchen, sat down beside me at the table, and, rubbing his close-cropped hair hard, whispered in my ear:

"Well, go on. Begin it as it ought to be begun. 'My dearest sister, may you be in good health for many years'—you know how it ought to go. And now write, 'I received the ruble; only you need not have sent it. But I thank you. I want for nothing; we live well here.' As a matter of fact, we do not live at all well, but like dogs; but there is no need to write that. Write that we live well. She is little, only fourteen years old. Why should she know? Now write by yourself, as you have been taught."

He pressed upon me from the left side, breathing into my ear hotly and odorously, and whispered perseveringly:

"Write 'if any one speaks tenderly to you, you are not to believe him. He wants to deceive you, and ruin you.'"

His face was flushed by his effort to keep back a cough. Tears stood in his eyes. He leaned on the table and pushed against me.

"You are hindering me!"

"It is all right; go on! 'Above all, never believe gentlemen. They will lead a girl wrong the first time they see her. They know exactly what to say. And if you have saved any money, give it to the priest to keep for you, if he is a good man. But the best thing, is to bury it in the ground, and remember the spot.'"

It was miserable work trying to listen to this whisper, which was drowned by the squeaking of the tin ventilator in the fortochka. I looked at the blackened front of the stove, at the china cupboard covered with flies. The kitchen was certainly very dirty, overrun with bugs, redolent with an acrid smell of burnt fat, kerosene, and smoke. On the stove, among the sticks of wood, cockroaches crawled in and out. A sense of melancholy stole over my heart. I could have cried with pity for the soldier and his sister. Was it possible, was it right that people should live like this?

I wrote something, no longer listening to Sidorov's whisper. I wrote of the misery and repulsiveness of life, and he said to me, sighing:

"You have written a lot; thank you. Now she will know what she has to be afraid of."

"There is nothing for her to be afraid of," I said angrily, although I was afraid of many things myself.

The soldier laughed, and cleared his throat.

"What an oddity you are! How is there nothing to be afraid of? What about gentlemen, and God? Is n't that something?"

When he received a letter from his sister he said restlessly:

"Read it, please. Be quick!"

And he made me read the badly scrawled, insultingly short, and nonsensical letter three times.

He was good and kind, but he behaved toward women like all the others; that is, with the primitive coarseness of an animal. Willingly and unwillingly, as I observed these affairs, which often went on under my eyes, beginning and ending with striking and impure swiftness, I saw Sidorov arouse in the breast of a woman a kind feeling of pity for him in his soldier's life, then intoxicate her with tender lies, and then tell Ermokhin of his conquest, frowning and spitting his disgust, just as if he had been taking some bitter medicine. This made my heart ache, and I angrily asked the soldiers why they all deceived women, lied to them, and then, jeering among themselves at the woman they had treated so, gave her away and often beat her.