The Steppe and Other Stories

'Yes,' whispered the old woman. ' 'Tis a proper botheration. Bang, crash, bang—no end to it.'

'It'll soon be over,' wheezed Panteley, sitting do^. 'It's quieter now. The lads have gone to different huts, and a couple have stayed with the horses. Aye, the lads. Have to do it, or else the horses ^^ be stolen. Well, I'll stay a while, and then take my ^m. Have to do it, or they'll be stolen.'

Panteley and the old woman sat side by side at Yegorushka's feet, ^^mg in sibilant whispers punctuated by sighs and yawnwns. But the boy just could not get warm. He had a warm, heavy sheepskin over him, but his whole body shivered, his hands and legs were convulsed with cramps, his inndes trembled. He undressed under the sheepskin, but it made no difference. The shivering bec^e more and more pronounced.

Panteley left to take his t^ with the horses and then came back again, but still could not sleep, and was stiU shivering all

over. His head and ^est felt ^mhed and oppresed by—by what he did not know. Was it the old people whispering or the strong smeU of the shee^^m? The melons had left a ^^ metalic taste in his mouth, besides which he was being bitten by fleas. 'I'm cold, Grandad,' he said, not reco^^rng his voice.

'Sleep, son, sleep,' sighed the old woman.

Titus approached the bed on his thin legs, waved his ^rn, and then grew as tall as the ceiling and ^med into a windmill. Father Christo- pher—not as he had been in the brit:zka, but in full vestments and carrying his aspergiJl^m, walked around the mill, sp^^^g it with holy water and it stopped ^^g. Knowing he was delirious, the boy opened his eyes. He called to the old 'Water!'

No answer. Finding it unbearably close and uncomfortable lying there, Yegorushka stood up, dr^&d and went out of the hut. It was morning now and the sky was overcast, but the ^m had stopped. Trembling, wrapping his wet overcoat round ^m, he walked up and downwn the muddy yard, ^^g to catch a sound amid the silence. Then his eyes lighted on a smaU shed with a half-open door made of thatch. He looked in, entered and sat in a dark comer on a heap of dry dung.

His head felt heavy, his mind was in a whirl and there was a dry, unple^^t s^ration in his mouth owing to the metallic taste. He looked at his hat, straightened its peacock feather, and remembered going to buy it with his mother. Putting his hand in his pocket, he took out a liump of bro^wn, sticky paste. How did that stuff get in there? He thought, he sniffed it. A smeU of honey. Ah, yo—the Jewish cake. How sodden the poor thing was!

The boy looked at his overcoat—grey with big bone buttons, cut like a frock-

A big white dog, sopping wet and with woolly tufts like curling papers on its muzzle, came into the shed and stared quizzically at the boy. It was obviously wondering whether to bark or not, but decided that there was no need, cautiously approached the boy, ate the lump of paste and went out.

'Them's Varlamov's men,' someone shouted in the street.

Having cried his eyes out, the boy left the shed, skirted a puddle and made his way to the street, where some wagons stood immediately in front ofthe gates. Wet carters with muddy feet, listless and drowsy as autu^ flies, drifted near by or sat on the shafts. Looking at them, Yegorushka thought what a boring, uncomfortable business it was, being a peasant. He went up to Panteley and sat downwn on the shaft beside him. 'I'm cold, Grandad.' He shivered and thrust his hands into his sleeves.

'Never mind, we'll be there soon,' yawnwned Panteley. 'You'll get warm, never fear.'

It was quite cool, and the convoy made an early start. Yegorushka lay on his bale, trembling with cold, though the sun soon came out and dried his clothes, the bale and the ground. Barely had he closed his eyes when he saw Titus and the windmill again. Nauseated, feeling heavy all over, he fought to dispel these images, but as soon as they disappeared the bullying Dymov would pounce on him—roaring, red-eyed, his fists raised, or would be heard lamenting how 'bored' he was. Varlamov rode past on his Cossack pony, and happy Con- stantine walked by with his smile and his bustard. How depressing, intolerable and tiresome they all were!

In the late afternoon the boy once raised his head to ask for a drink. The wagons had halted on a large bridge over a wide river. Downwn below the river was shrouded in smoke through which a steamer could be seen towing a barge. Ahead, beyond the river, was a huge vari- coloured mountain dotted with houses and churches. At its foot a railway engine was being shunted round some goods wagons.

Never had the boy seen steamers, railway trains or wide rivers before, but as he glanced at them now he was neither frightened nor surprised. Nor did his face even express any semblance of curiosity. Nauseated, he quickly lay downwn with his chest on the bale's edge, feeling ready to vomit. Panteley saw him, grunted and shook his head.

'Our little lad's poorly,' said he. ' 'Tis a chill on the stomach, I'll be bound. Aye, and that far from home like. 'Tis a bad business.'

VIII

The wagons had stopped at a large commercial inn not far from the harbour. Climbing downwn from the wagon, Yegorushka heard a familiar voice and someone gave him a hand. 'We arrived yesterday evening. We've been cxpecting you all day. Wc meant to catch you up yestcrday, but it didn't work out and we took a different route. Hey, what a mess you've made of your coat! Your uncle will give you what for!'

Gazing at the speaker's mottled face, Yegorushka remembered it as Deniska's.

'Your uncle and Father Christopher are in their room at the inn having tea. Come on.'

He took the boy to a big two-storey building—dark, gloomy, resembling the almshouse at N. By way of a lobby, a dark staircase and a long, narrow corridor Yegorush.ka and Deniska came to a small room where Ivan Kuzmichov and Father Christopher indeed were seated at a tea table. Both old men showed surprise and joy at seeing the boy.

'Aia, young sir! Master Lomonosov in person!' intoned Father Christopher.

'So it's the gentleman of the family,' said Kuzmichov. 'Pleased to see you.'

Taking his overcoat off, the boy kissed his uncle's hand and Father Christopher's, and sat do-wn at the table.

'Well, how was thejo^rcey, puer bone?' Father Christopher showered him with questions, pouring him tea and smiling his habitual radiant smile. 'Sick of it, I'll be bound? Never travel with a wagon train or by ox-cart, God forbid. You go on, on, on, Lord help us, you glance ahead and the steppe's just as Iong-windedly elongated as ever, no end or limit to it. It's not travel, it's a do^right travesty of it. But why don't you drink your tea? Go on! Well, while you were trailing along with the wagons we fixed things up to a tee here, thank God. We've sold our wool to Cherepakhin at tip-top prices—done pretty well, we have.'

On first seeing his people, the boy felt an irresistible urge to complain. Not listening to Father Christopher, he wondered where to start and what exactly to complain oЈ But Father Christopher's voice, seeming harsh and disagrceable, prevented him from concentrating and confused his thoughts. Aftcr sitting for less than five minutes, he got up from table, wcnt to the sofa and lay do^.

Fathcr Christophcr was amazed. 'Well, I never! What about your tea?'

Still wondering what to complain of, Yegorushka preaed his fore- head against the back of his sofa and burst into sobs.

'Well, I never!' repeated Father Christopher, getting up and going over to him. 'What's the matter with you, boy? Why the tears?'

1-I'm ill.'

'Ill, eh?' Father Christopher was rather put out. 'Now, that's quite wrong, old son. You mustn't fall ill on a journey. Oh dear me, what a t^^ to do, old son, eh ?'

He placed his hand on the boy's head and touied his cheek.

'Yes, your head's hot. You must have caught a chill, or else you've eaten something. You must pray to God.'

'We might try quinine.' Kuzmichov was somewhat abashed.

'No, he should eat something nice and hot. How about a nice bowl of soup, boy?'

'No—1 don't want any,' answered Yegorushka.

'Feeling shivery, eh?'

'I was, but now I feel hot. I ache all over.'

Kuzmichov went over, tou^ed the boy's head, cleared his throat in perplexity, and went back to the table.

'Well, you'd better get undresed and go to sleep,' said Father Christopher. 'What you need is a good rest.'

He helped the boy undres, gave him a pillow, covered him with a quilt Ku^zmichov's topcoat over it, and then tiptoed off and sat at the table. Closing his eyes, Yegorushka i^mediately imagined that he was not in an in room but on the high road by the camp-fire. Yemelyan swung his invisible baton while red-eyed Dymov lay on his stomach looking sarcastically at Yegorushka.

'Hit ^m, hit him!' the boy shouted.

'He's delirious,' said Father Christopher in an undertone.

Kuzmichov sighed. 'Oh, what a nuisance!'

'We ought to rub him with oil and vinegar. Let's hope to God he'll be better tomorrow.'

Trying to shake off his irksome fancies, Yegorushka opened his eyes and looked at the light. Father Christopher and Kuzmichov had fnished their tea and were having a whispered di^^sion. The former smiled happily, obviously unable to forget that he had netted a good profit on his wool. It was lew the actual profit that ^eered him than the prospect of auembling all his large family on his re^m, and of giving a knowing ^^ and a mighty chuckle. First he would mislead them, claiming to have sold the wool below its value, but then he'd give his son-in-law Michael a fat wallet. 'There you are,' he'd say. 'That's how to do a deal.' But Kuzmichov did not seem pleased, reuining his old air of busineslike r^^e and anxiety. 'If only I'd kno^ Cherepakhin would pay that much!' He spoke in an under- tone. 'I wouldn't have sold Makarov that five tons at home, drat it. But who could have kno^ that the price had gone up here?'

A white-shirted waiter cleared the samovar away, and lit the lamp before the icon in the comer. Father Christopher whispered something in his ear. He gave an enigmatic, conspiratorial look as if to say he understood, went out, came back a little later and placed a bowl under the sofa. Kuzmichov made up a bed on the floor, ya^ed several times, lazily said his prayers and lay do^.

'I'm thinking of going to the cathedral tomorrow,' said Father Christopher. 'I know a sacristan there. I ought to go and see the Bishop after the service, but he's said to be il.' He ya^wned and put out the lamp. Now only the icon lamp was b^ing. 'They say he doesn't see anyone.' Father Christopher was removing his robes. 'So I shall just leave without meeting him.'

When he took off his caftan he seemed just like Robinson Crusoe to Yegorushka. Crusoe mixed something in a dish, and went up to the boy. 'Asleep, are we, Master Lomonosov? Just sit up and I'll rub you with oil and vinegar. It'll do you good, but you must say a prayer.'

Yegorushka quickly raised himself and sat up. Father Christopher took the boy's shirt off and began rubbing his chest, cowering and breathing jerkily, as if it was he that was being tickled.

'In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost,' he whis- pered. 'Now tum on to your face. That's the idea. You'll be well to- morrow, but don't let it happen again. Why, he's almost on fire! I suppose you were on the road in the storm.'

'Yes.'

'No wonder you're poorly. In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost. No wonder at all.'

When the rubbing was finished Father Christopher put Yegorushka's shirt back on, covered him, made the sign of the cross over him, and went away. Then the boy saw him praying. The old man must know a lot of prayers because he stood whispering before the icon for quite a time. His devotions completed, he made the sign of the crou over the windows, the door, Yegormlka and Kuzmichov. Then he lay on a divan without a pillow, covering himself with his caftan. The cor- ridor clock struck ten. Remembering how much time was left before morning, the boy miserably pressed his forehead against the sofa back, no longer ^^ng to shake off his hazy, irksome fancies. But morning came much sooner than he expected.

He seemed to have been lying there with his forehead against the sofa back for only a short time, but when he opened his eyes sun- beams were slanting to the floor from the room's two windows. Father Christopher and Kuzmichov had gone out, and the place had been tidied. It was bright, comfortable and redolent of Father Christopher, who always smelt ofcypress and dried co^^owers—at home he made his holy-water sprinklers out of cornflowen, also decorating icon cases with them, and that was why he had become saturated with their scent. Looking at the piUow, the slanting sunbeams and his boots— now cleaned and standing side by side near the sofa—the boy laughed. He found it odd that he was not on the bale of wool, that all around him was dry, and that there was no thunder or lightning on the ceiling.

J^ping up, he began to dress. He felt wonderful. Nothing remained ofyesterday's illness but a slight weakness ofthe legs and neck. Thc oil and vinegar must have done the trick. Remembering the steamer, the railway engine and the wide river that he had dimly glimpsed yester- day, he was in a hurry to dress so that he could run to the quayside and look at them. He washed, and the door catch suddenly clicked as he was putting on his red shirt. On the threshold appeared the top-hatted Father Christopher wearing a bro^ silk cassock over his canvas caft^ and carrying his staff. Smiling and beaming—old men are always radiant when just ret^rong from church—he placed a piece of com- munion bread and a parcel on the table and prayed to the icon.

'God has been merciful,' he addcd. 'Better, are we?'

'Al right now.' The boy kiued his hand.

'Thank God. I'm just back from service. I went to see my friend the sacristan. He asked me in for breakfast, but I didn't go. I don't like calling on people too early in the mo^rng, dash it.'

He took his cauock off, stroked his chest and unhuriedly undid the bundle. The boy saw a tin of unpressed caviare, a piece of smoked sturgeon and a French loaЈ

'I bought these as I was passing the fishmonger's,' said Father Christopher. 'It's an ordinary weekday and no occasion for a treat, but there's a sick person back there, thinks I to meself, so it may be forgiven. And the caviare is good—real sturgeon's roe.'

The waiter in the white shirt brought a samovar and a tray of crockery.

'Have some.' Father Christopher spread caviare on a piece of bread and gave it to the boy. 'Eat now and enjoy yourself, and in fullneu of time you will study. But mind you do so with attention and zeal, that good may come of it. What you need to learn by heart, you learn by heart. And when you have to describe a basic concept in your o^ words without touching on its outer form, then you do it in your o^ words. And try to master all subjects. Some know mathematics well, but they've never heard of Peter Mogila, and there's those as know about Peter Mogila but can't tell you about the moon. No, you study so you understand everything. Learn Latin, French, German— geography, of course, and history, theology, philosophy and mathe- matics. And when you've mastered everything—slowly, prayerfully and zealously—then you go and take up a profesion. When you know everything things will be easier for you in every walk of life. Do but study and acquire grace, and God will show you your path in life—a doctor it might be, or a judge or an engineer.'

Father Christopher spread a little caviare on a small piece of bread and put it in his mouth. 'The Apostle Paul says: "Be not carried about with divers and strange doctrines." Of course if so be you study the black arts, blasphemy, conjuring up spirits from the other world like Saul, or such-like lore—which is no good to you nor to anyone else, either—then better not study at all. You must apprehend only that which God has blessed. Take good thought. The holy apostles spoke in all tongues, so you learn languages. Basil the Great studied mathema- tics and philosophy, so you study them too. St. Nestor wrote history, so you study and write history. Take example from the saints.'

Father Christopher sipped tea from his saucer, wiped his whiskers, flexed his neck. 'Good,' said he. 'I'm one of the old school. I've for- gotten a lot, but even so my way of life is different from others'— there's no comparison. For instance, in company—at dinner, say, or at a meeting—one may pass a remark in Latin, or bring in history or philosophy. It gives other people ple.'ISure and me too. Or, again, when the assizes come round and you have to administer the oath, the other priests are all a bit bashful like, but me—I'm completely at home with the judges, prosecutors and iawyers. You say something in the learned line, you have tea with them, you have a laugh, and you ask them things you don't know. And they like it. That's the way of it, old son. Learning is light and ignorance is darkness. So you study. It won't be easy, mind, for it doesn't come cheap nowadays, learning doesn't. Your mother's a widow on a pension. And, well, obviously '

Father Christopher looked fearfully at the door. 'Your Uncle Ivan will help,' he went on in a whisper. 'He won't abandon you. He has no children of his o^ and he'll take care of you, never fear.' He looked grave and began whispering even more quietly. 'Now, boy, as God may pres^e you, see you never forget your mother and your Uncle Ivan. The co^rnandment bids us honour our mother, and Mr. Kuzmichov's your benefactor and guardian. If you go in for book- learning and then—God forbid !—get irked with folks and look do^ on them because they're stupider than you, then woe, woe unto you!'

Father Christopher raised his hand aloft. 'Woe, woe unto you!' he repeated in a reedy voice. Having warmed to his theme, he was reaUy getting into his stride, as they say, and would have gone on till dinner- time. But the door opened, and in came Uncle Ivan, who hastily greeted them, sat do"wn at table and began rapidly gulping tea.

'Well, I've settled all my business,' said he. 'We might have gone home today, but there's more bother with Yegorushka here. I must fi.x him up. My sister says her friend Nastasya Toskunov lives some- where round about, and she might put him up.'

He felt inside his wallet, removed a cr^pled letter and read it. ' "Mrs. Nastasya Toskunov, at her o^ house in Little Nizhny Street.'' I must go and look her up at once. What a nuisance!'

Soon after breakfast Uncle Ivan and Yegorushka left the in. 'A nuisance,' muttered Uncle. 'Here I am stuck with you, confound you. It's studying to be a gentleman for you and your mother, and nothing but trouble for me.'

When they crossed the yard the wagons and carters were not there, having all gone off to the quay early in the morning. In a far corner of the yard was the dark shape of the familiar britzka. Near it stood the bays, eating oats.

'Good-bye, carriage,' thought the boy.

First came a long climb up a broad avenue, and then they cro^ed a big market square, where Uncle Ivan asked a policeman the way to Little Nizhny Street. The policeman grinned. '.Ar! That be far away. Out towards the common, that be.'

They met several cabs on the way, but Uncle Ivan permitted himself such weaknesses as cab drives only on exceptional occasions and major holidays. He and the boy walked along paved streets for a long time, and then along unpaved streets with paved sidewalks until they finally reached streets lacking both amenities. When their legs and tongues had got them to Little Nizhny Street both were red in the face, and they took their hats off to wipe away the sweat.

'Tell me, please!' Uncle Ivan was addresing a little old man sitting on a bench by a gate. 'Where is Nastasya Toskunov's house here- abouts?'

'No Toskunovs round here,' the old man answered, after some thought. 'Perhaps it's the Timoshenkos you want?'

'No, Mrs. Toskunov.'

'Sorry, there ain't no such miuus.'

Uncle Ivan shrugged his shoulders and trudged on.

'No need to go a-looking,' the old man shouted from behind. 'When I say ain't I mean ain't.'

Uncle Ivan spoke to an old woman who was standing on a comer selling s^^ower seeds and pears from a tray. 'Tell me, my dear, where's Nastasya Toskunov's house hereabouts?'

The old woman looked at him in surprise. 'Why, does Nastasya live in a house of her o^ then?' she laughed. 'Lord, it be seven years since she married off her daughter and gave the house to the son-in- law. It's him lives there now.' And her eyes asked how they could be such imbeciles as not to know a simple thing like that.

'And where does she live now?' Kuzmichov asked.

'Lord love us!' The old woman threw up her arms in surprise. 'She moved into lodgings ever so long ago. Nigh on eight years it be. Ever since she made her house over to the son-in-law. What a thing to ask!'

She probably expected that Kuzmichov would be equally sur- prised, and would exclaim that it was 'out of the question'. But he asked very calmly where her lodgings were.

The fruit-seller rolled up her sleeves, and pointed with her bare arm. 'You walk on, on, on,' she shouted in a shriU, piercing voice. 'You'll pass a little red cottage, and then you'll see a little alley on your left. Go downwn the alley and it will be the third gate on the right.'

Kuzmichov and Yegorushka reached the little red cottage, turned left dowi the alley and headed for the third gate on the right. On both sides of this ancient grey gate stretched a grey fence with wide cracks. It had a heavy outward list on the right, threatening to collapse, while the left side was twisted back towards the yard. But the gate itself stood erect, apparently still debating whether it was more convenient to fall forwards or backwards. After Uncle Ivan had opened a small wicket-gate he and the boy saw a big yard overgrownwn with burdock and other coarse weeds. There was a small red-roofed cottage with green shutters a hundred paces from the gate, and in the middle of the yard stood a stout woman with her sleeves rolled up and her apron held out. She was scattering something on the ground, shouting 'Chick, chick, chick!' in a voice as shrill and piercing as the ^mt- seller's.

Behind her sat a red dog with pointed ears. Seeing the visitors, it ran to the wicket-gate and struck up a high-pitched bark—red dogs are all tenors.

'Who do you want?' shouted the woman, shielding her eyes from the sun with a hand.

'Good morning,' Uncle Ivan shouted back, waving his stick to keep off the red dog. 'Tell me, please, does Mrs. Toskunov live here?'

'She does! What do you want with her?'

Kuzmichov and Yegorushka went up to her, and she gave them a suspicious look. 'What do you want with her?' she repeated.

'Perhaps you are Mrs. Toskunov?'

'M right then, I am.'

'Very pleased to meet you. Your old friend Olga Knyazev sends her respects, see? This is her little son. And perhaps you remember me— her brother Ivan. We al come from N , you see. You were born in our to^ and you were married there.'

Silence ensued, and the stout woman stared blankly at Kuzmichov, as if not believing or understanding. But then she flushed all over and flung up her hands. Oats fell from her apron, tears sprang from her eyes. 'Olga!' she shrieked, panting with excitement. 'My darling, my darling! Heavens, why ^ I standing here like an idiot? My pretty little angel!' She embraced the boy, wet his face with her tears and broke do^ completely.

'Heavens!' She wrung her hands. 'Olga's little boy! Now that ii good news! And isn't he like his mother—her very image, he is. But why are you standing out in the yard? Do come inside.' Weeping, gasping, talking as she went, she hurried to the house, with the guests plodding after her. 'It's so untidy here.' She ushered the visitors into a stuffy parlour crammed with icons and pots of flowers. 'Oh, good- ness me! Vasilisa, at least go and open the shutters. The little angel— now, isn't he just lovely! I had no idea dear Olga had such a dear little boy.'

When she had calmed do^wn and got used to the visitors Kuzmichov asked to speak to her in private. The boy went into another room,

S.A.D. S.-5 containing a sewing-machine, a cage with a starling in the window, and just as many icons and flowers as the parlour. A little girl—sun- burnt, chubby-cheeked like Titus, wearing a clean little cotton frock —was standing stock-still near the sewing-machine. She looked at Yegorushka unblinkingly, obviously feeling very awkward. After gazing at her in silence for a moment he asked what her name was.

The little girl moved her lips, looking as if she was going to 'Atka,' she answered softly.

This meant 'Katka'.

'He'll live here, if you ^^ be so kind,' K^michov whispered in the parlour. 'And we'll pay you ten roubles a month. The boy isn't spoilt, he's a quiet lad.'

'I really don't know what to say, Mr. Kuzmichov,' sighed Nastasya plaintively. 'Ten roubles is good money, but I'm afraid of taking on someone else's child, see? He might fall ill or something.'

When they called the boy back into the parlour his Uncle Ivan had stood up and was saying good-bye, hat in hand. 'Very well then, let him stay with you now.' He t^roed to his nephew. 'Good-bye, Yego- rushka, you're to stay here. Mind you behave yourself and do as Mrs. Toskunov says. Good-bye then. I'll come again tomorrow.'

And off he went.

Nastasya embraced the boy again, calling him a little angel and began tearfully laying the table. Three minutes later Yegorushka was sitting next to her, answering her endles questions and eating rich, hot cabbage stew.

In the evening he was back at the same table, resting his head on his hand as he listened to Nastasya. Now laughing, now ^^ng, she talked of his mother's young days, her marriage, her children. A cricket chirped in the stove and the lamp b^roer faintly buzzed. The mistress of the house spoke in a low voice, occasionally dropping her thimble in her excitement, whereupon her granddaughter Katka would crawl under the table after it, always staying downwn there a long time and probably scrutinizing Yegorushka's feet. He listened, he dozed, and he examined the old woman's face, her wart with hairs on it, the tear stains. And he felt sad, very sad. They made him a bed on a trunk, saying that if he was hungry in the night he should go into the corridor and take some of the chicken under a bowl on the win- dow-sill.

Next morning Ivan Kuzmichov and Father Christopher came to say good-bye. Mrs. Toskunov was pleased to see them and was going to bring out the samovar, but Kuzmichov was in a great hurry and dismissed the idea with a gesture.

'We've no time for tea, sugar and the rest of it, we're just leaving.'

Before parting, all sat in silence for a minute. Nastasya gave a deep sigh, gazing with tearful eyes at the icons.

'Well, well,' began Ivan, getting up. 'So you'll be staying here.'

The businesslike reserve suddenly vanished from his face. 'Now, mind you study.' He was a little flushed and smiled sadly. 'Don't forget your mother and obey Mrs. Toskunov. You study wdl, boy, and I'll stand by you.'

He took a purse from his pocket, t^ed his back to the boy, bur- rowed in the small change for a while, found a ten-copeck piece and gave it to him.

Father Christopher sighed and unhurriedly blessed Yegorushka. 'In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost. Study, lad, work hard. Remember me in your prayers if I die. And here's ten copecks from me too.'

Yegorushka kissed his hand and burst into tears. Something inside him whispered that he would never see the old man again.

'I've already applied to the local high school,' Kuzmichov told Nas- tasya in a voice suggesting that there was a dead body laid out in the room. 'You must take him to the examination on the seventh of August. Well, good-bye and God bless you. Farewell, nephew.'

'You might have had a little tea,' groaned Nastasya.

Through the tears blinding his eyes the boy could not see Uncle Ivan and Father Christopher leave. He rushed to the window, but they were gone from the yard. The red hound had just barked, and was ^^^g back from the gate with an air of duty fulfilled. Not knowing why, the boy j^ped up and rushed from the house, and as he ran out of the gate Kuzmichov and Father Christopher—the first swinging his stick with the c^^ed handle and the second his staff—were just rounding the comer. Yegorushka felt that his entire stock of experi- ence had vanished with them like smoke. He sank exhaustedly on a bench, greeting the advent of his new and unknownwn life with bitter tears.

What kind of life would it be?

AN AWKWARD BUSINESS

Grbgory Ovchinnikov was a country doctor of about thirty-five, haggard and nervous. He was kno^ to his colleagues for his modest contributions to medical statistics and keen interest in 'social prob- lems'. One morning he was doing his ward rounds in his hospital, followed as usual by his assistant Michael S^^ovsky—an elderly medical orderly with a fleshy face, plastered-do^ greasy hair and a single ear-ring.

Barely had the doctor begun his rounds when a tr^mg matter aroused his acute suspicions-—his assistant's waistcoat was creased, and persistently rode up even though the man kept jerking and straighten- ing it. His shirt too was cr^pled and creased, and there was white fluff on his long black frock-coat, on his trousers, and even on his tie. The man had obviously slept in his clothes, and—to judge from his expresion as he tugged his waistcoat and adjusted his tie-—those clothes were too tight for him.

The doctor stared at him and grasped the situation. His asistant was not staggering, and he answered questions coherently, but his grim, blank face, his dim eyes, the shivering of his neck and hands, the dis- order of his dreu, and above all his intense efforts to control hi^rclf, together with his desire to conceal his condition—it all testified that he had just got up, had not slept properly and was still drunk, seriously drunk, on what he had taken the night before. He had an ex

The doctor, who had his o^ reasons for disliking the orderly, was strongly inclined to say: 'Drunk, I see.' He was suddenly disgusted by the waistcoat, the long frock-coat and the ear-ring in that meaty ear. But he repr^Kd his rancour, and spoke gently and politely as always.

'Did Gerasim have his milk?'

'Yes, Doctor,' replied Smimovsky, also softly.

While talking to his patient, Gerasim, the doctor glanced at the temperature chart, and felt another surge of hatred. He held his breath to stop himself speaking, but could not help asking in a rude, choking voice why the temperature had not been recorded.

'Oh, it was, Doctor,' said Smimovsky softly. But on looking at the chart and satisfying himself that it indeed was not, he shrugged his shoulders in bewilderment.

'I don't understand, Doctor—it must be Sister's doing,' he mut- tered.

'It wasn't recorded last night either,' the doctor went on. 'All you ever do is get drunk, blast you! You're positively pie-eyed at this moment. Where is Sister?'

Sister Nadezhda Osipovna, the midwife, was not in the wards, though she was supposed to be on duty every morning when the dreuings were changed. The doctor looked around him, and received the impression that the ward had not been tidied and was in an mes, that none of the necewary routine had been carried out, and that everything was as bulging, crumpled and fluff-bedecked as the orderly's odious waistcoat. He felt prompted to tear off his white apron, rant, throw everything over, let it all go to hell, and leave. But he mastered himselfand continued his rounds.

After Gerasim came a patient with a tissue inflammation of the entire right arm. He needed his dreuing changed. The doctor sat by him on a stool and tackled the arm.

'They were celebrating last night—someone's name-day,' he thought, slowly removing the bandage. 'You just wait, I'll give you parties! What can I do about it, though? I can do nothing.'

He felt an abscess on the purple, swollen arm and called: 'Scalpel!'

Trying to show that he was steady on his feet and fit for work, Smirnovsky rushed off and quickly came back with a scalpel.

'Not this—a new one,' said the doctor.

The assistant walked mincingly to the box—which was on a chair— containing material for the dressings, and quickly rummaged about. He kept on whispering to the nurses, moving the box on the chair, rustling it, and he twice dropped something. The doctor sat waiting, and felt a violent irritation in his back from the whispering and rustling.

'How much longer?' he asked. 'You must have left them down- stairs.'

The orderly ran up and handed over two scalpels, while committing the indiscretion of breathing in the doctor's direction.

'Not these!' snapped the doctor. 'I told you quite clearly to get me a new one. Oh, never mind, go and sleep it off—you reek like an ale- house. You're not fit to be trusted.'

'What other knives do you want?' asked the orderly irritably, slowly shrugging his shoulders. Annoyed with hi^^lf, and ashamed to have the patients and nurses staring at him, he forced a smile to conceal his emba^^ment. 'What other knives do you want?' he repeated.

The doctor felt tears in his eyes and a trembling in his fingers. He made another effort to control hi^^lf. 'Go and sleep it off,' he brought out in a quavering voice. 'I don't want to talk to a d^mk.'

'You can't tell me off for what I do off duty,' went on the orderly. 'Suppose I did have a drop—well, it don't mean anyone an order me about. I'm doing me job, ain't I? What more do you want? I'm doing me job.'

The doctor jumped to his feet, swung his arm without realizing what he was doing, and struck his assistant in the face with his full force. Why he did it he did not know, but he derived great pleasure from the punch landing smack on the man's face and from the fact that a dignified, God-fearing family man, a solid citizen with a high opinion of himself, had reeled, bounced like a baU and collapsed on a stool. He felt a wild urge to land a second punch, but the feeling of satisfaction vanished at the sight of the nurses' pale and troubled faces near that other hated face. With a gesture of despair he rushed out of the ward.

In the grounds he encountered the Sister on her way to the hospital —an u^arried woman of about twenty-seven with a sallow face and her hair loose. Her pink cotton dress was very tight in the skirt, which made her take tiny, rapid steps. She rustled her dres, jerking her shoulders in time with each step, and tossing her head as ifhumming a merry tune to herself.

'Aha, the Mermaid!' thought the doctor, recalling that the staff had given the Sister that nickname, and he savoured the prospect of ^^g the mincing, self-ob^ed, fashion-conscious creature do^wn a peg.

'Why are you never to be found?' he shouted as their paths crossed. 'Why aren't you at the hospital? The temperatures haven't been taken, the place is in a mess, my orderly is drunk, and you sleep tiU noon. You'd better find yourself another job—you're not working here any more.'

Reaching his lodgings, the doctor tore off his white apron and the piece of towelling with which it was belted, angrily hurled them both into a corner, and began pacing his study.

'Good grief, what awful people!' he said. 'They're no use, they're only a hindrance. I ^'t carry on, I really an't. I'm getting out.'

His heart was th^ping, he was trembling all over, and on the brink of tears. To banish these sensations he consoled himself by con- sidering how thoroughly justifed he was, and what a good idea it had been to hit his assistant. The odious thing was, he reflected, that the fellow had not got his hospital job in the ordinary way, but through nepotism—his aunt worked for the Council Chairman as a children's nurse. And what a loathsome sight she was when she came in for treat- ment—this high-powered Auntie with her offhand airs and queue- j^ping presumptions! The orderly was undisciplined and ignorant. What he did know he had no understanding of at all. He was drunken, insolent, unclean in his person. He took bribes from the patients and he sold the Council's medicines on the sly. Besides, it was co^mon knowledge that he practised medicine himself on the quiet, treating young to^rafolk for u^entionable complaints with special concoc- tions of his It would have been bad enough had he just been one more quack. But this was a quack militant, a quack with mutiny in his heart! He would cup and bleed out-patients without telling the doc- tor, and he would assist at operations with unwashed hands, digging about in the wounds with a perennially dirty probe—all of which served to demonstrate how profoundly and blatantly he scorned the doctor's medicine with all its lore and regulations.

When his fingers were steady the doctor sat at his desk and wrote a letter to the Chairman of the Council.

'Dear Leo Tro^movich,

'If, on receipt of this note, your Committee does not discharge the hospital orderly Smirnovsky, and if it denies me the right to choose my own assistants, I shall feel obliged—not without regret, I need hardly say—to request you to consider my employment as doctor at N. Hospital terminated, and to concern yourself with seeking my successor. My respects to Lyubov Fyodorovna and Yus.

'Faithfully,

g. ovchinnjkov'

Reading the letter through, the doctor found it too short and not formal enough. Besides, it was highly improper to send his regards to Lyubov Fyodorovna and Yus (nickname of the Chairman's younger son) in an official communication.

'Why the blazes bring in Yus?' wondered the doctor. He tore the letter up, and began planning another. 'Dear Sir,' he thought, sitting at his open ^mdow, and looking at

the duclcs and ducklings which hurried down the road, waddling and st^bling, and which must be on their way to the pond. One duckling picked a piece of offal from the ground, choked and gave a squeak of alarm. Another ran up to it, tore the thing out of itl beak and started choking too. Far away, near the fence, in the lacy shadows cast on the grau by the young limes, Darya the cook was wandering about picking sorrel for a vegetable stew. Voices were heard. Zot the coachman, a bridle in his hand, and the dirty-aproned hospiul odd-job-man Manuylo stood near the shed di^^ing something and laughing.

'They're on about me hitting the orderly,' thought the doctor. 'This ^^dal will be al over the county by tonight. Very well then. "Dear Sir, unles your Committee discharges " '

The doctor was well aware that the Council would never prefer the orderly to ^m, and would rather dispense with every medical assistant in the county than deprive itself of so distinguished an indi- vidual as Doctor Ovchinnikov. Barely would the letter have ^rived before Leo Trofimovich would undoubtedly be rolling up in his troika with his 'What crazy notion is this, old man?'

'My dear chap, what's it all about?' he would ask. 'May you be for- given! Whatever's the idea? What's got into you? Where is the fellow? Bring the blackguard here! He must be fired! Chuck him outl I insist! That swine shan't be here tomorrow!'

Then he would dine with the doctor, and after dinner he would lie belly upwards on this same crimson sofa and more with a newspaper over his face. After a good sleep he would have tea and drive the doctor over to spend the night at his house. The upshot would be that the orderly would keep his job and the doctor would not resign.

But this was not the result that the doctor secretly desired. He wanted the orderly's Auntie to triumph, he wanted the Council to accept his resignation without more ado—with satisfaction, even—and despite his eight years' conscientious service. He imagined leaving the hospital, where he had settled in nicely, and writing a letter to Tht Physidan. He imagined his colleagues presenting him with an addres of ^mpathy.

The Mermaid appeared on the road. With mincing gait and swish- ing dres she came up to the ^mdow.

'Will you see the patientl yourself, Doctor?' she asked. 'Or do you want us to do it on our o^?'

'You lost your temper,' said her eyes. 'And now that you've calmed do^wn you're ashamed ofyourself. But I'm too magnanimous to take any notice.'

'All right, I'll come,' said the doctor. He put on his apron again, belted it with the towelling and went to the hospital.

'I was wrong to run off after hitting him,' he thought on the way. 'It made me look embarrassed or frightened. I acted like a schoolboy. It was all wrong.'

He imagined the patients looking at him with discomfiture when he entered the ward, imagined himself feeling guilty. But when he went in they lay quietly in their beds, hardly paying him any attention. The tubercular Gerasim's face expressed total unconcern.

'He didn't do his job right, so you taught him what's what,' he seemed to be saying. 'That's the way to do things, old man.'

The doctor lanced two abscesses on the purple arm and bandaged it, then went to the women's wards and performed an operation on a peasant woman's eye, while the Mermaid followed him around, helping him as if nothing had happened and all was as it should be. His ward rounds done, he began receiving his out-patients. The win- dow in the small surgery was wide open. You had only to sit on the sill and lean over a little to see young grass a foot or two below. There had been thunder and a heavy do^pour on the previous even- ing, and so the grass was somewhat beaten downwn and glossy. The path ^^ing from just beyond the window to the gully looked washed clean, and the bits ofbroken dispensary jars and bottles stre^ on both sides—they too had been washed clean, and sparkled in the sun, radiat- ing dazzling beams. Farther on, beyond the path, young firs in sump- tuous green robes crowded each other. Beyond chem were birches with paper-white trunks, and through their foliage, as it gently quivered in the breeze, the infmite depths of the azure sky could be seen. As you looked out there were starlings hopping on the path, turning their foolish beaks towards your window and debating whether to take fright or not. Then, having decided on taking fright, they darted up to the tops of the birches, one after the other with happy chirps, as if making fun of the doctor for not knowing how to fly.

Through the heavy smell of iodoform the fresh fragrance of the spring day could be sensed. It was good to breathe.

'Anna Spiridonovna,' the doctor called.

A young peasant woman in a red dress entered the surgery and said a prayer before the icon.

'What's troubling you?' the doctor asked.

Glancing mis^^tfully at the door through which she had come, and at the door to the dispensary, the woman approached the doctor.

'I don't have no children,' she whispered.

'Who else hasn't registered yet?' shouted the Mermaid from the dispensary. 'Report here!'

'What makes him such a swine is compelling me to hit someone for the first time in my life,' thought the doctor as he cxamined the woman. 'I was never involved in fisticuffs before.'

Anna Spiridonovna left. ln came an old man with a venereal com- plaint, and then a pe^^t woman with three children who had scabies, and things began to hum. There was no sign of the orderly. Beyond the dispe^^y door the Mermaid merrily chirped, swishing her dres and clinking her jars. Now and then she came into the surgery to help with a minor operation, or to fetch a prescription—all with that same air of everything being as it should be.

'She's glad I hit the man,' thought the doctor, listening to her voice. 'Those two have always been at loggerheads, and she'll be overjoyed if we get rid of him. The nurses are glad too, I think. How revolting!'

When his surgery was at its busiest he began to feel that the Sister, the nurses, and the very patients, had deliberately assumed carefree, cheerful exprewions. They seemed to realize that he was ashamed and hun, but pretended not to out of delicacy. As for him, wishing to demonstrate that he was no whit disconcerted, he was shouting roughly.

'Hey, you there! Close that door, it's draughty.'

But ashamed and dejected he was, and after seeing forty-five parienc he strolled slowly away from the hospital.

The Sister had already contrived to visit her lodgings. A gaudy crimson shawl round her shoulders, a cigarette between her teeth, and a flower in her flowing tresses, she was hurrying off. probably on a professional or private visit. Patients sat in the hospital porch, silently sunning themselves. Rowdy as ever, the starlings were hunting beetles.

Looking around him, the doctor reflected that among all these stable, serene lives only two stuck out like sore thumbs as obviously useless—the orderly's and his o^. By now the orderly must have gone to bed to sleep it off. but was surely kept awake by knowing that he was in the wrong, had been maltreated, and had lost his job. His pre- dicament was appalling. As for the doctor, having never struck anyone before, he felt as if he had lost his virginity. No longer did he blame his assistant, or seek to exculpate himself. He was merely perplexed. How had a decent man like himself, who had never even kicked a dog, come to strike that blow? Returning to his quarters, he lay on the study sofa with his face to the back.

'He's a bad man and a profesional liability,' he thought. 'During his three years here I've reached the end of my tether. Still, what I did is inexcusable. I took advantage of my position. He's my subordinate, he was at fault and he was drunk to boot, whereas I'm his superior, I had right on my side and I was sober—which gave me the upper hand. Secondly, I struck him in front of people who look up to me, thus setting them a dreadful example.'

The doctor was called to dinner. After eating only a few spoonfuls of cabbage stew he left the table, lay on the sofa again and resumed his meditations.

'So what shall I do now? I must put things right with him as soon as possible. But how? As a practical man he probably thinks duelling stupid or doesn't recognize it. If I apologized to him in the same ward in front of the nurses and patients, that apology would only satisfy me, not him. Being a low type of person, he would put it do^ to cowardice, to fear of his complaining to the authorities. Besides, an apology would mean the end of hospital discipline. Should I offer him money? No, that would be i^moral, and it would smack of bribery. Well, suppose we were to put the problem to our immediate superiors, the County Council, that is. They could reprimand or dis- mia me, but they wouldn't. And, anyway, it wouldn't be quite the thing to involve the Council—which, incidentally, has no jurisdiction —in the hospital's domestic affairs.

Three hours after his meal the doctor was on his way to bathe in the pond, still ^^^ng. 'Should I perhaps do what anyone else would do in the circ^stances—let him sue me? Being unquestionably in the wrong, I shan't try to defend myself, and the judge will send me to gaol. Thus the injured party will receive satisfaction, and those who look up to me will see that I was in the wrong.'

The idea appealed to him. He was pleased, and felt that the problem had been solved in the fairest possible way.

'Well, that's fine!' he thought, wading into the water and watching shoals of golden crucians scurrying away from him. 'Let himsue. It will suit him aU the better in that our professional relationship has been curtailed, and after this scandal one or other of us will have to leave the hospital anyway.'

In the evening the doctor ordered his trap, intending to drive over to the garrison commander's for bridge. When he had his hat and coat on, and stood in his study putting his gloves on ready to leave, the outer door opened creakingly, and someone quietly entered the hall.

'Who's there?' called the doctor.

A hollow voice answered. 'It's me, sir.'

The doctor's heart suddenly thumped. Embarrassment and a mys- terious feeling of panic suddenly chilled him all over. Michael Smir- novsky, the orderly—it was he—coughed softly, and came timidly into the study.

'Please forgive me, Doctor,' he said in a hollow, guilty voice after a brief silence.

The doctor was taken aback, and did not know what to say. He realized that the man's reason for abasing himself and apologizing was neither Christian meekness, nor a wish to heap coals of fire on his ill- user, but simply self-interest. 'I'll make myself apologize, and with luck I won't get the sack and lose my livelihood.' What could be more insulting to human dignity?

'Forgive me,' repeated the man.

'Now then,' said the doctor, trying not to look at him, and still not knowing what to say. 'Very well, I assaulted you, and I, er, must be punished—must give you satisfaction, that is. You're not a duelling man. Nor am I, for that matter. I have given you offence and you, er, you can bring suit against me before the Justices of the Peace and I'll take my punishment. But we can't both stay on here. One of us—you or I—will have to go.'

('Oh God, I'm saying all the wrong things,' thought the doctor, aghast. 'How utterly stupid!')

'In other words, sue me. But we can't go on working together. It's you or me. You'd better start proceedings tomorrow.'

The orderly gazed sullenly at the doctor, and then his dark, dim eyes glinted with blatant contempt. He had always thought the doctor an unpractical, volatile, puerile creature, and he despised him now for being so nervous and talking so much fussy nonsense.

'Well, don't think I won't,' said he grimly and spitefully.

'Then go ahead.'

'You think I won't do it, don't you? Well, you're wrong! You have no right to raise your hand to me. You ought to be ashamed of yourself. Only drunken peasants hit people, and you're an educated man.'

Suddenly the doctor's hatred all boiled up inside him. 'You clear out of here!' he shouted in a voice unlike his

The orderly was reluctant to budge, as if having something else to say, but went into the hall and stood there, plunged in thought. Then, having apparently made up his mind to something, he marched reso- lutely out.

'How utterly stupid!' muttered the doctor after the other had gone. 'How stupid and trite it all is.'

His handling of the orderly had been infantile, he felt, and he was beginning to see that his notions about the lawsuit were all foolish, complicating the problem instead of solving it.

'How stupid!' he repeated as he sat in his carriage, and later while playing bridge at the garrison commander's. 'Am I really so unedu- cated, do I know so little oflife, that I can't solve this simple problem? Oh, what shaU I do?'

Next morning the doctor saw the orderly's wife getting into a ^mage. 'She is off to Auntie's,' he thought. 'Well, let her go!'

The hospital managing without an orderly, and though the Council should have been given notification, the doctor was still unable to frame a letter. It's tenor must now be: 'Kindly dismiss my orderly, though I am to blame, not he.' But to express the idea without it sounding foolish and ignominious—that was almost beyond any decent man.

Two or three days later the doctor was told that his asistant had gone and complained to Leo Trofimovich, the Chairman, who had not let him get a word out, but had stamped his feet and sent him packing.

'I know your sort!' he had shouted. 'Get out! I won't listen!'

From the Chairman the assistant had gone to the to^ hall, and had filed a complaint—neither mentioning the assault nor asking anything for himself—to the effect that the doctor had several times made dis- paraging co^ments about the Council and its Chairman in his presence, that the doctor's method of treating patients was incorrect, that he was neglectful in making his rounds of the district, and so on. Hearing of this, the doctor laughed and thought what a fool the man was. He felt ashamed and sorry for one who behaved so foolishly. The more stupid things a man does in his defence the more defenceles and feeble he must be.

Exactly one week later the doctor received a s^mons from the Justice ofthe Peace.

'Now this is idi^^ ^m riot,' he thought as he signed the pa^rc. 'This is the ultimate in sheer sillines.'

Driving over to the court-house on a calm, overcast morning, he no longer felt embarraued, but was vexed and disgusted. He was furious with himself, with the orderly, with the whole busines. 'I'll just tell the court that the whole lot of them can go to blazes,' he raged. ' "You're all jackasses, and you have no sense", I'U say.'

Driving up to the court-house, he saw three of his n^^ and the Mermaid by the door. They had been called as wimesses. When he saw the nurses and that merry Sister—she was shifting from foot to foot in her excitement, and had even blushed with pleasure on seeing the protagonist of the impending trial—the incensed doctor wanted to pounce on them like a hawk and stun them with a 'Who said you could leave the hospital? Be so good as to return this instant.' But he took a hold on himself, tried to seem calm, and picked his way through the crowd of peasants to the court-house. The chamber was empty, and the judge's chain of office hung on the back of his armchair. Entering the clerk's cubicle, the doctor saw a thin-faced young man in a linen jacket with bulging pockeB—the clerk—and the orderly, who sat at a table idly le^mg through court records. The clerk stood up when the doctor came in. The orderly rose too, looking rather put out.

'Isn't Alexander Arkhipovich here yet?' the doctor asked

'No, Doctor. He's at his house, sir,' the clerk ^wered.

The court-house was in one of the outbuildings of the judge's estate, and the judge himself lived in the manor house. Leaving the court-house, the doctor made his way slowly towards that residence, and found Alexander Arkhipovich in the dining-room, where a samo- var was steaming. The judge wore neither coat nor waistcoat and had his shirt unbuttoned. He was standing by the table, holding a teapot in both hands and pouring tea as dark as coffee into a glau. Seeing his visitor, he quickly pulled up another glau and filled it.

'With or without sugar?' he asked by way of greeting.

A long time ago the judge had been a cavalryman. Now, through long service in elective office, he had attained high rank in the Civil Service, yet had never discarded his military uniform or his military habits. He had long whiskers like a police chief's, trousers with piping, and all his acts and words were military elegance personifed. He spoke with his head thrown slightly back, larding his speech with your retired general's fruity bleats, flexing his shoulders and rolling his eyes.

When greeting someone or giving them a light he scraped his shoes, and when walking he clinked his spurs as carefully and delicately as if every jingle caused him exquisite pain. Having sat the doctor downwn to his tea, he stroked his broad chest and stomach and heaved a sigh.

'H^^rnph!' said he. 'Perhaps you'd like, m'yes, some vodka and a bite to eat, m'yes?'

'No thank you, I'm not hungry.'

Both felt that they were bound to discus the hospital ^^dal, and both felt awkward. The doctor said nothing. With a graceful gesture the judge caught a gnat that had bitten his chest, scrutinized it keenly from all angles, and then let it go. Then he heaved a deep sigh and looked up at the doctor.

'Now then, why don't you get rid of him?' he asked succinctly.

The doctor sensed a note of sympathy in his voice, and suddenly pitied himself, jaded and crushed as he felt by the week's ructions. He rose from the table, frownwned irritably and shrugged his shoulders, his expreuion suggesting that his patience had finally snapped.

'Get rid of him!' he said. 'Ye Gods, the mentality of you people! It really is remarkable! But how can I do that? You sit around here thinking I run my hospital and can act as I please. The mentality of you people certainly is remarkable. Can I really sack an orderly whose aunt is n^my to our Chairman's children, and ifour Chairman has a need for such toadies and blabbermouths as this Smimovsky? What can I do ifthe Council doesn't care tuppence for us doctors, if it trips us up at every t^? I don't want their job, blast them, and that's flat—they can keep it!'

'There there, my dear chap. You're making too much of the thing, in a m^mer of speaking.'

'The Chairman tries his level best to prove we're all revolutio^mes, he spies on us, he treats us as clerks. What right has he to visit the hos- pital when I'm away, and to question the nurses and patients? It's do^^ght insulting. Then there's this pious freak of yours, this Simon Alekseyevich who does his ploughing, rejects medicine because he's as strong as an ox—and eats as much!—vociferously calling us parasites to our faces and begrudging us our livelihood, blast him! I work day and night, I never take a holiday, I'm more necesary than all these prigs, bigots, reformers and buffoons put together! I've worked til I'm il, and instead of any gratitude I'm told I'm a parasite. Thank you very, very much! Then again, everyone thinks himself entitled to poke his nose into other people's business, tell them how to

do their job, order them about. Your pal Coundllor Kamchatsky criticizes us doctors at the annual meeting for wasting pota^ium iodide, and advises us to be careful about using cocaine! What does he know about it, eh? What business is it of his? Why doesn't he teach you how to your coun ?'

'But, but he's such a cad, old son—a bounder. You mustn't let him bother you.'

'He's a cad and a bounder, but it was you who elected this windbag to your Executive Committee, you who let him poke his nose into everything. Al right, smile! These things are all trifles and pinpricks, think you. But so n^nerous are they that one's whole life now con- sists of them, as a mountain may consist of grains of sand—just you get that into your head! I can't on—I'm just about all in,

Alexander Arkhipovich. Any more of this and I won't be punching faces, I'll be taking pot shoc at people, believe you me! My nerves

aren't made of steel, I tell you! I'm a human being like you '

Tears carne to the doctor's eyes, his voice shook. He turned away and looked through the window. Silence fell. 'H^^rnph, old fellow!' muttered the judge pennvely. 'And then

again, if one considers things coolly '

He caught a gnat, squinted hard at it from all angles, squashed it and threw it in the slop-basin.

' then, you see, there's no reason to dismiu him. Get rid of him

and he'll be replaced by someone just like him, or even worse. You could ^m through a hundred of them and you wouldn't find one that was any good. They're all blackguards.' He stroked his ^mpits and slowly lit a cigarette. 'We must learn to put up with this evil. It's only among professional people and peasants-—at the two poles of society, in other words—that one fi.nds honest, sober, reliable workers nowa- days, that's my opinion. A really decent doctor, a fint—la^ teacher, a thoroughly honest ploughman or blacksmith—those you might, in a m^mer ofspeaking, find. But the in-betweeners, what you might call deserters from the peasantry who haven't acquired professional stand- ing—they're the ^veliable element. That's why it's so hard to find an honest, sober hospital orderly, clerk, f^m bailiff and so on—exceed- ingly hard. I've been with the justice department since time immemo- rial, and I've never had one honest, sober clerk tlroughout my career, though I've booted them out by the sackful in my time. These people lack moral discipline, not to mention er, er, principles, in a manner of speaking '

'What's all this in aid of?' wondered the doctor. 'What we're both saying is all beside the point.'

'Here's a trick my clerk, Dyuzhinsky, played me only last Friday,' the judge continued. 'He got hold of some d^—God knows who—and they spent all night boozing in my court-house. What do you say to that, now? I've nothing against drink. Let them guzzle themsdves silly, confound them! But why bring strangers into my chambers? Just think—after all, would it take a second to steal a doc^ent, a promissory note or something, from the files? Well, believe it or not, after that orgy I had to spend two days checking all my files in case anything was missing. Now then, what will you do with this scallywag? Get rid of him? All right. And where's your guarantee that the next one won't be worse?'

'But how can he be got rid of?' the doctor asked. 'It's easy enough to talk, but how can I discharge him and take the bread out of his mouth when I know he's a family man with no resources. What would he and his family do?'

'I'm saying the wrong thing, da^ it!' he thought, marvelling that he simply could not concentrate on any one definite idea or senti- ment. 'That's because I'm shallow and illogical,' he reflected.

'The in-between man, as you call him, is ^u^eliable,' he went on. 'We chase him out, we curse him, we slap his face, but shouldn't we to see his point of view? He's neither peasant nor master, neither fish nor fowl. His past is grim and his present is a mere twenty-five roubles a month, a starving family and being ordered about, while his future is the same twenty-five roubles and the same inferior position even if he holds on for a hundred years. He has neither education nor property, he has no time to read and go to church, and he's deaf to us because we won't let him near us. And so he lives on from day to day till he dies without hoping for anything better, underfed, afraid of being ^med out of his council flat, not knowing where to find a roof for his children. How ^ a man avoid getting drunk and stealing, how can he acquire principles in these conditions?

'Now we seem to be solving social problems,' he thought. 'And, my God, how clumsily! And what's the point ofit all?'

Bells were heard as someone drove into the yard and bowled along to the court-house: first, and then up to the porch of the big house. •

'It's You-know-who,' said the judge, looking through the window. 'Well, you're for it!'

'Let's get it over qui^ly, please,' pleaded the doctor. 'Take my ccase. out of rum if possible. I really can't spare the time.'

'Very well then. But I still don't know if the matter's within my jurisdiction, old man. After all, your relations with your asistant are, in a manner of speaking, official. Besides, you dotted him one when he was on official duty. I don't know for certain, actually, but now we can ask the Chairman.'

Hasty steps and heavy breathing were heard, and Leo Trofimovich, the Chairman, appeared in the doorway—a balding, white-haired old man with a long beard and red eyelids. 'Good day to you,' he panted. 'Phew, I say! Tell them to bring me some kvau, judge. This'll be the death of me.'

He sank into an armchair, but immediately sprang up, trotted over to the doctor, and glared at him furiously. 'Many, thanks to

you, Doctor.' He spoke in a shrill, high-pitched voice. 'You've done me no end of a good turn. Most grateful to you, I'm sure. I shan't forget you in a month of SWldays. But is this the way for friends to behave? Say what you like, but you haven't been all that considerate, have you? Why didn't you let me know? Do you take me for your enemy? For a stranger? Your enemy, am I? Did I ever refuse you any- thing, eh?'

Glaring and twiddling his fingers, the Chairman drank his kvass, quickly wiped his lips and continued.

'Thank you so very, very much! But why didn't you let me know? If you'd had any feelings for me at all you'd have driven over and spoken to me as a friend. "My dear Leo Trofimovich, the facts are this that and the other. What's happened is that et cetera et cetera." I'd have settled it all in two ticks, and there would have been no need for scandal. That imbecile seems to have gone clean off his rocker. He's touring the county muck-raking and gossiping with village women while you, shameful to relate, have stirred up one hell of a witch's brew, if you'll pardon my saying so, and have got this jackass to sue you. You should be do^right ashamed of yourself. Everyone's asking me the rights and wrongs of it, and I—the Chairman!—don't know what you're up to. You have no use for me. Many, many thanks to you, Doctor.'

The Chairman bowed so low that he even turned purple. Then he went up to the window. 'Zhigalov, send Smimovsky here,' he shouted. 'I want him this instant!' Then he came away from the window. 'It's a bad business, sir. Even my wife was upset, and you know how much she's on your side. You're all too clever by half, gentlemen. You're keen on logic, principles and such flapdoodle, but where does it get you? Youjust confuse the issue.'

'Wdl, you're keen on being illogical, and where does that get you?' the doctor asked.

'All right, I'll tell you. Where it gets me is this, that ifl hadn't come here now you'd have disgraced both yoursdf and us. It's lucky for you I did come.'

The orderly entered and stood near the door. The Chairman stood sideways on to him, thrust his hands in his pockets and cleared his throat.

'Apologize to the doctor at once,' he said.

The doctor blushed and ran into another room.

'There, you see, the doctor do^'t want to accept your apology,' went on the Chairman. 'He wants you to show you're sorry in deeds, not words. Will you promise to do what he says and lead a sober life from this day onwards?'

'I will,' the orderly brought out in a deep, grim voice.

'Then watch your step, or heaven hdp you—you'll get the order of the boot double quick! If anything goes wrong you can expect no mercy. All right—off home with you.'

For the orderly, who had already accepted his misfortune, this of events was a delightful surprise. He even went pale with joy. He wanted to say something and put out his hand, but remained silent, smiled foolishly and went out.

'That's that,' said the Chairman. 'No need for a trial either.' He sighed with relief, surveyed the samovar and glasses with the air of one who has just brought off an extremely difficult and important coup, and wiped his hands.

'Blessed are the peacemakers,' said he. 'Pour me another glass, Alexander. Oh yes, and tell them to bring me a bite to eat first. And, well, some vodka '

'I say, this just won't do!' Still flushed, the doctor came into the dining-room, wringing his hands. 'This, er—it's a farce, it's revolting. I can't stand it. Better have twenty trials than settle things in this cock- eyed fashion. I can't stand it, I tell you!'

'What do you want then?' the Chairman snapped back. 'To get rid of him? Very well, I'll fire him.'

'No don't do that. I don't know what I do want, but this attitude to life, gentlemen- God, this is sheer agony!'

The doctor started bustling nervously, looked for his hat, could not find it, and sank exhausted in an armchair. 'Disgusting,' he repeated.

'My dear fellow,' whispered the judge. 'To some extent I fail to understand you, in a manner of speaking. The incident was your fault, after all. Socking folks in the jaw at the end of the nineteenth century! Say what you like, but, in a manner of speaking, it er, quite the thing. The man's a blackguard, but you must admit you acted in- cautiously yourself..'

'Of course,' the Chairman agreed.

Vodka and hors-d'a:uvre were served. On his way out the doctor mechanically drank a glass of vodka and ate a radish. As he drove back to hospital his thoughts were veiled in mist like gras on autu^ mornings.

How could it be, he wondered, that after all tie anguish, all the hean-searching, all the talk of the past week, everything had fizzled out in a finale so banal? How utterly stupid!

He was ashamed of involving strangers in his personal problem, ashamed of what he had said to these people, ashamed of the vodka that he had drunk from the habit of idle drinking and icle living, ashamed of his insensitive, shallow mind.

On returning to hospital, he at once started on his ward rounds. The orderly accompanied him, treading softly as a cat, answering questions gently. The orderly, the Mermaid, the nurses-—all pretended that nothing had happened, that all was as it should be. The doctor too made every effort to appear unaffected. He gave orders, he fumed, he joked with the patients, while one idea kept stirring in his brain.

'The sheer, the crass stupidity ofit all.'

THE BEAUTIES

I

I remember driving with my grandfather from the village of Bolshaya Krepkaya, in the Don Region, to Rostov-on-Don when I was a high-school boy in the fifth or sixth form. It was a sultry August day, exhausting and depretting. Our eyes were practically gu^rned up, and our mouths were parched from the heat and the hot, dry wind that drove clouds of dust towards us. We did not feel like looking, speaking or ^^&ng. When our dozing driver, a Ukrainian called ^upo, caught me on the cap with his whip while lashing at his horse, I neither protested nor uttered a sound, but just opened my eyes, half asleep as I was, and looked dispiritedly and mildly into the distance to see if a village ^^ visible through the dust.

We stopped to feed the horse in the large ^menian settlement of Bakhchi-Salakh, at the house of a rich Armenian whom my grand- father knew. Never in my life have I seen anything more grotesque. Imagine a small, cropped head with thick, beetling eyebrows, a beaked nose, long white whiskers, and a wide mouth with a long cherry- wood chibouk sticking out of it. The smaJl head has been cl^mily tacked to a gaunt, hunched carcase arayed in bizare garb—a short red jacket and gaudy, sky-blue, baggy trousers. The creature walks about splaying its legs, shuffling its slippers, speaking with its pipe in its mouth, yet comporting itself with the dignity of your true Arme- nian—unsmiling, goggle-eyed, and trying to take as little notice of his visitors as po^ible.

The Armenian's dwelling was wind-free and dust-free inside, but it was just as disagreeable, stuffy and depressing as the prairie and the road. I remember sitting on a green chest in a corner, dusty and exhausted by the heat. The unpainted wooden walls, the f^mture and the ochre-stained floorboards reeked of dry sun-baked wood. Wherever I looked there were flies, flies, flies. In low voices Grand- father and the Armenian discussed sheep, pasturage and grazing problems. I knew they would be a good hour getting the samovar going, and that Grandfather would spend at least another hour over his tea, after which he would sleep for two or three hours more. A quarter of my day would be spent waiting, and then there would be

S.A.O.S. -6 more heat, more dust, more jolting roads. Listening to the two mum- bling voices, I felt as if I had long, long ago seen the Armenian, the cupboard full of crockcry, the flies and the windows on which the hot sun beat, and that I should cease to see them only in the far distant future. I conceived a loathing for the steppe, the sun and the flies.

A Ukrainian woman wearing a shawl brought in a tray of tea things and thcn the samovar. The Armenian went slowly out into the lobby.

'Masha, Masha!' he shouted. 'Come and pour the tea! Where are you, Masha ?'

Hurried footsteps were heard, and in came a girl of about sixteen wearing a simple cotton dres and a white shawl. Rinsing the crockery and pouring the tea, she stood with her back to me, and all I noticed was that she was slim-waisted and barefoot, and that her small heels were covered by long trousers.

The master of the house offered me tea. As I sat downwn at table I glanced at the face of the girl who was handing me my glau, and suddenly felt as ifa fresh breeze had blownwn over my spirits and dispelled all the day's impressions, all the dreariness and dust. I saw the enchant- ing features of the loveliest face I have ever encountered either dream- ing or waking. Here was a truly beautiful girl—and I took this in at first glance, like a lightning flash.

Though I am ready to swear that Masha^^r 'Massya', as her father called her in his Armenian accent—was a real beauty, I ^ot prove it. Clouds sometimes jostle each other at random on the horizon, and the hidden sun paints them and the sky every possible hue—crimson, orange, gold, lilac, muddy pink. One cloud resembles a monk, another a fish, a third a turbaned Turk. Embracing a third of the sky, the setting sun glitters on a church cross, and on the windows of the manor house. It is reflected in the river and the ponds, it quivers on the trees. Far, far away, against the sunset a flock of wild ducks flies off to its night's rest. The boy herding his cows, the s^^eyor driving along the mill dam in his chaise, the ladies and gentlemen who are out for a stroll—all gaze at the sunset, all find it awesomely beautiful. But wherein does that beauty lie? No one knows, no one say.

I was not alone in finding the Armenian girl beautiful. My old grandfather, a man of eighty—tough, indifferent to women and the beautics of nature—gazed at her tenderly for a full minute.

'Is that your daughter, Avet Nazarovich?' he asked.

'Yes, she is,' the Armcnian answered.

'A fine-looking young lady.'

An artist would have called the Armenian girl's beauty classic and severe. To contemplate such lovelinett is to be imbued, heaven knows why, with the conviction that the regular features, that the hair, eyes, nose, mouth, neck and figure, together with all the motions of the yowtg body, have been tmerringly combined by nature in a har- monious whole without a single discordant note. You somehow fancy that the ideally beautiful woman must have a nose just like hers, straight but slightly aquiline, the same big, dark eyes, the same long lashes, the same languorous glance. The curly black hair and eye- brows seem ideally suited to the delicate white skin of the forehead and cheeks, just as green reeds and quiet streams go together. Her white neck and youthful bosom are not fully developed, but only a genius could sculpt them, you feel. As you gaze you gradually con- ceive a wish to say something exceedingly pleasant, sincere and beauti- ful to the girl—something as beautiful as herself.

At first I was offended and disconcerted by Masha taking no notice of me, but casting her eyes do^ all the time. It was as ifsome special aura, proud and happy, segregated her from me, and jealously screened her from my gaze.

'It must be because I'm covered with dust, because I'm swtb^nt, because I'm only a boy,' I thought.

But then I gradually forgot myself and surrendered entirely to the sensation of beauty. I no longer remembered the dreary steppe and the dust, no longer heard the flies buzzing, no longer tasted my tea. All I was conscious ofwas the beautiful girl standing on the other side of the table.

My appreciation of her beauty was rather remarkable. It was not desire, not ecstasy, not pleasure that she aroused in me, but an oppres- sive, yet agreeable, melancholia—a sadness vague and hazy as a dream. I somehow felt sorry for myself, for my grandfather, for the Armenian —and even for the girl. I felt as if we had all four lost, irrecoverably, something vitally important. Grandfather too grew sad. He no longer spoke ofsheep and grazing, but was silent, and glanced pensively at the girl.

After tea Grandfather took his nap, and I went out and sat on the porch. This house, like all the others at Bakhchi-Salakh, caught the full heat of the swt. There were no trees, no a-wnings, no shadows. Overgro^ with goose-foot and wild mallow, the Armenian's big yard was lively and cheerful despite the intense heat. Threshing was in progress behind one of the low hurdles intersecting the large expanse at various points. Twelve horses, hameued abreast and forming a single long radius, trotted round a pole fixed in the exact centre of the threshing area. Beside them walked a Ukrainian in a long waistcoat and broad, baggy trousers, cracking his whip and shouting as ifto tease the animals and flaunt his power over them.

'Come on there, da^fi you. Aha! Come on, rot you! Afraid, are you?'

The horses—bay, grey and skewbald—had no idea why they were being forced to rotate in one spot and tread do^ wheat straw. They moved reluctantly, as though with difficulty, lashing their tails olfendedly. The wind raised great clouds of golden chaff from under their hoofs and bore it far away acrou the hurdles. Women with rakes swarmed near the tall new ricks, and carts went to and fro. In a second yard beyond those ricks another dozen such horses trotted round their pole, while a similar Ukrainian cracked his whip and mocked them.

The steps on which I was sitting were hot. Owing to the heat glue was oozing here and there from the wood of the slender banisters and window-frames. In the streaks of shade beneath the steps and shutters tiny red beetles huddled together. The sun baked my head, chest and back, but I paid no attention to it, being conscious only of the rap of bare feet on the wooden floor of the lobby and the other rooms behind me. Having cleared away the tea, Masha ran do-wn the steps, disturbing the air as she pased, and flew like a bird to a small, g^my outhouse—it must be the kitchen—whence proceeded the smell of roast mutton and the sound of angry Armenian voices. She disappeared through the dark doorway, where her place was taken by a bent, red- faced old Armenian woman wearing baggy green trousers, and angrily scolding someone. Then Masha suddenly reappeared in the doorway, flushcd from the kitchen's heat, and carrying a big black loaf on her shoulder. Swaying gracefully under the bread's weight, she ran acrou the yard to the threshing floor, leapt a hurdle, plunged into a golden cloud of chaff, and vanished behind the carts. The Ukrainian in charge of the horses lowered his whip, stopped talking to them, and gazed silcntly towards the carts for a minute. Then, when the girl once more darted past the horses and j^ped the hurdle, he followed her with his eyes, shouting at his horses in a highly aggrieved voice.

'Rot, you hell-hounds!'

After that I continually heard her bare feet, and saw her rushing round the place with a grave, preoccupied air. Now she ran downwn the steps, pauing me in a gust of air, now to the kitchen, now to the threshing floor, now through the gate, and I could hardly turn my head fast enough to watch.

The more often I caught sight of this lovely creature the more melancholy I became. I felt sorry for myself, for her, and for the Ukrainian mournfully watching her as she ran through the chaff to the carts. Did I envy her beauty? Did I regret that the girl was not mine and never would be, that I was a stranger to her? Did I have an inkling that her rare beauty was accidental, superfluous, and—like everything else on earth—transitory? Was my grief that peculiar sen- sation which the contemplation of true beauty arouses in any human being? God only knows.

The three hours of waiting passed unnoticed. I felt that I had not had enough time to feast my eyes on Masha when Karpo rode off to the river, bathed the horse, and began to hitch it up. The wet animal snorted with pleasure and kicked his hoof against the shafts.

'Get back!' Karpo shouted.

Grandfather woke up, Masha opened the creaking gates, and we got into the carriage and drove out of the yard—in silence, as if angry with one another.

Rostov and Nakhichevan appeared in the distance a couple of hours later, Karpo, who had said nothing all that time, looked rotmd quickly.

'Splendid girl, the old Armenian's daughter,' said he, and whipped the horse.

II

On another occasion, after I had become a student, I was travelling south by rail. It was May. At a station—between Belgorod and Kharkov, I think—1 got out of the carriage to stroll on the platform.

Evening shadows had already fallen on the station garden, on the plarform and on the fields. The station building hid the stmset, but you could tell that the stm had not yet vanished completely by the topmost, delicately pink puffs of smoke from the engine.

While pacing the platform, I noticed that, of the other passengers who were taking an airing, the majority were strolling or standing near one of the secona-class carriages, their attitude conveying the impression that someone of consequence must be sitting in it. Among these inquisitive persons I saw the anillery officer who was my travelling companion—an intelligent, cordial, likeable fellow, as is everybody with whom one strikes up a brief acquaintance on one's journeys.

I askcd him what he was looking at.

He said nothing in reply, but just indicated a feminine figure with his eyes. It was a young girl of seventeen or eighteen in Ruuian national costume, bare-headed, with a lace shawl thro^ carelessly over one shoulder. She was not a passenger, and I suppose she was the station- master's daughter or sister. She stood near a carriage window, talking to an elderly female passenger. Before I knew what was happening I was suddenly overwhelmed by the same sensation that I had once experienced in the Armenian village.

That the girl was strikingly beautiful neither I nor the othets gazing at her could doubt.

Were one to describe her appearance item by item, as is co^mon practice, then the only truly lovely feature was her thick, fair, undu- lating hair—loose on her shoulders and held back on her head by a dark ribbon. All her other features were either irregular or very ordinary. Her eyes were screwed up, either as a flirtatious mannerism or through short-sightedness, her nose was faintly retroussi, her mouth was small, her profile was feeble and insipid, her shoulders were narrow for her age. And yet the girl produced the impresion of true loveli- ness. Gazing at her, I realized that a Russian face does not require strict regularity of feature to seem handsome. Indeed, had this young woman's up-tilted nose been replaced by another—regular and impeccably formed, like the Armenian girl's—1 fancy her face would have lost all its charm.

Standing at the window, talking and shivering in the cool of the evening, the girl kept looking round at us. Now she placed her hands on her hips, now raised them to her head to pat her hair. She spoke, she laughed, she expresed surprise at one moment and horror at the next, and I don't recall a moment when her face and body were at rest. It was in these tiny, infmitely exquisite movements, in her smile, in the play of her expression, in her rapid glances at us that the whole mystery and magic of her beauty consisted—and also in the way this subtle grace of movement was combined with the fresh spontaneity and innocence that throbbed in her laughter and speech, together with the helplessness that so appeals to us in children, birds, young

trees.

This was the beauty of a butterfly. It goes with waltzing, fluttering about the garden, laughing and merry-making. It does not go with serious thought, grief and repose. Had a gust of wind blo^ do^ the platform, had it started raining, then the fragile body would suddenly, it seemed, have faded, and the wayward loveliness would have been dispersed like pollen from a flower.

'Ah, well,' muttered the officer, sighing, as we went to our carriage after the second bell, but what his inteijection meant I do not pretend to judge.

Perhaps he felt sad and did not want to leave the girl and the spring evening for the stuffy train. Or perhaps, like me, he was irrationally sorry for the lovely girl, for himself, for me, and for all the passengers as they drifted limply and reluctantly back to their compartments. We walked past a station window behind which a wan, whey-faced telegraphist, with upstanding red curls and high cheek-bones, sat at his apparatus.

Tll bet the telegraph operator is in love with the pretty little miss,' sighed the officer. 'To live out in the wi!ds under the same roof as that ethereal creature and not fall in love—it's beyond the power of man. And what a misfortune, my dear chap, what a mockery to be round- shouldered, unkempt, dreary, respectable and intelligent, and to be in love with that pretty, silly little girl who never pays you a scrap of attention! Or, even worse: suppose the lovesick telegraphist is married, suppose his wife is as round-shouldered, unkempt and respectable as himself. What agony!'

A guard stood on the small open platform between our carriage and the next. Resting his elbows on the railing, he was gazing towards the girl, and his flabby, disagreeably beefy face, exhausted by sleepless nights and the train's jostling, expressed ecstasy combined with the most profound sorrow, as ifhe could see his o^ youth, his happi- ness, his sobriety, his purity, his wife, his children reflected in the girl. He seemed to be repenting his sins, and to be conscious with every fibre of his being that the girl was not his, and that for him—prema- turely aged, clumsy, fat-visaged—the happiness of an ordinary human being and train passenger was as far away as heaven.

The third bell rang, whistles sounded, the train trundled off. Past our window flashed another guard, the station-master, the garden, and then the lovely girl with her marvellous, childishly sly smile.

Putting my head out and looking back, I saw her watching the train as she walked along the platform past the window with the telegraph clerk, then patted her hair and ran into the garden. No longer did the station buildings hide the s^et. We were in open country, but the sun had already set and black pufs of smoke were settling over the green, velvety young com. The spring air, the dark sky, the railway ^rnage—all seemed sad.

Our g^d, that familiar figure, came in and began lighting the

THE COBBLER AND THE DEVIL

It was Christmas Eve. Marya had long been snoring on the stove, and the paraffin in the little lamp had burnt out, but Theodore Nilov still sat over his work. He would have stopped long ago and gone out into the street, but a customer from Kolokolny Road, who had ordered some new vamps for his boots a fortnight ago, had come in on the previous day, sworn at him and told him to finish the work at once without fail, before morning service.

'It's a rotten life,' grumbled Theodore as he worked. 'Some folks have been asleep for ages, others are enjoying themselves, while I'm just a dogsbody cobbling away for every Tom, Dick or Harry.'

To stop hi^^lf falting asleep he kept taking a bottle from under the table and drinking, flexing his neck after each swallow. 'Pray tell me this,' he said in a loud voice. 'Why can my customers enjoy themselves while I'm forced to work for them. What sense is there in it? Is it because they have money and I'm a beggar?'

He hated all his customers, especially the one who lived in Kolokolny Road. This was a personage of lugubrious aspect—long-haired, sallow, with big blue-tinted spectacles and a hoarse voice. He had an unpronounceable German surname. What his calling might be, what he did, was a complete mystery. When Theodore had gone to take his measurements a fortnight ago, he had been sitting on the floor pounding away at a mortar. Before the cobbler could say good day the contents of the mortar suddenly flashed and blazed up with a bright red flame, there was a stench of sulphur and burnt feathers, and the room was filled with dense pink smoke that made Theodore sneeze five times.

'No God-fearing man would meddle with the likes of that,' he reflected on returning home.

When the bottle was empty he put the boots on the table and pondered. Leaning his heavy head on his fist, hc began thiiking ofhis poverty, and ofhis gloomy, cheerless life. Then he thought of the rich widi their big houses, their carriages, their hundred-rouble notes. How nice it would be if the houses of the bloody rich fcll apart, if their horses dicd, if their fur coats and sable caps wore threadbare. How splendid if the rich gradually becamc beggars with nothing to eat, while the poor cobbler t^rcd into a rich man who went round bully- ing poor cobblers on Christmas Eve.

Thus brooding, he suddenly remembered his work and opened his eyes. 'What a business!' he thought, looking at the boots. 'The job was fmished long ago, and here I sit. I must take them to the gentle- man. '

He wrapped his work in a red handkerchief, put his coat on and went into the street. Fine, hard snow was falling and pricked his face like needles. It was cold, slippery and dark, the gas lamps were dim, and there was such a smell of paraffm in the street for some reason that he spluttered and coughed. Rich men drove up and downwn thc road, each with a ham and a bottle of vodka in his hand. From the carriages and sledges rich young ladies peeped at Theodore, putting out their tongues and shouting.

'A beggar! A beggar! Ha ha ha !'

Students, officers, merchants and generals walked behind him, all jeering. 'Boozy bootmaker! Godles welt-stitcher! Pauper! But his soles go marching on, ha ha ha!'

It was al most offensive, but he said nothing and only spat in disgust. Then he met Kuzma Lebyodkin, a master bootmaker from Warsaw. 'I married a rich woman,' Kuzma told him. 'And I have apprentices working for mc. But you're a pauper and have nothing to eat.'

Theodore could not resist r^rning after him. He chased him until he found himself in Kolokolny Road, where his customer lived in a top- floor flat in the fourth house from the corner. To reach him you had to crou a long, dark courtyard, and then climb a very high slippery staircase that vibrated under your feet. When the cobbler entered, the customer was sitting on the floor pounding something in a mortar, just as he had becn a fortnight earlier.

'I've brought your boots, sir,' said Theodore sullenly.

The other stood up without speaking and made to the boots on. Wishing to help him, Theodore went downwn on one knee and pulled one ofhis old boots off, but immediately sprang up, aghast, and backed away to the door. In place of a foot the creature had a hoof like a horse's!

'Dear me!' thought the cobbler. 'What a business!'

The best thing would have been to cross himself, drop everything and run do^rotairs. But he immediately rcflected that this was his ftrst, and would probably be his last, encounter with thc Devil, and that it would be foolish not to take advantage of his good offices.

Puling hi^^lf together, he decided to chance his luck, and clasped his hands behind his back to stop himselfmaking the sign of the crou.

'Folks say there's nothing more diabolical and evil on this earth than the Devil,' he remarked with a respectful cough. 'But to my way of t^^tog, your Reverence, the Prince of Darkness must be highly educated like. The Devil has hoofs and a tail, saving your presence, but he's a sight more brainy than many a scholar.'

'Thank you for those kind words,' said the customer, flattered. 'Thank you, cobbler. What do you desire?'

Losing no time, the cobbler began complaining of his lot, and started with having envied the rich since childhood. He had always resented folk not living alike in big hornes, with fine horses. Why, he wondered, was he poor? How was he worse than Kuzma Lebyodkin from Warsaw who o^ed his o^ house, whose wife wore a hat? He had the same sort of nose, hands, feet, head and back as the rich, so why was he forced to work while others enjoyed themselves? Why was he married to Marya, not to a lady smelling of scent? He had often seen beautiful young ladies in the houses of rich customers, but they had taken no notice of him, except for laughing sometimes and whispering to each other.

'What a red nose that cobbler has!'

True, Marya was a good, kind, hard-working woman, but she was uneducated, wasn't she? She had a heavy hand, she hit hard, and you only had to speak of politics or something brainy in her presence for her to chip in with the most arrant nonsense.

'So what are your wishes?' broke in his customer.

'Well, seeing as how you're so kind, Mr. Devil, sir, I'd like your Reverence to make me rich.'

'Certainly. But you must give me your soul in ret^rc, you know. Before the cocks crow, go and sign ^^ paper assigning your soul to me.'

'Now see here, your Reverence,' said Theodore politely. 'When you ordered the vamps done I didn't take money in advance. You must carry out the order first and ask for payment afterwards.'

'Oh, all right,' agreed the customer.

Bright flame suddenly flared in the mortar, followed by a gust of dense pink smoke and the smell of b^^t feathers and sulphur. When the smoke had dispersed Theodore rubbed his eyes and saw that he was no longer Theodore the shoemaker but quite a different person— one who wore a waistcoat with a watch-chain, and new trousers—and that he was sitting in an armchair at a big table. Two footmen were serving him dishes with low bows and a 'Good appetite, sir'.

What wealth! The footmen served a large slice of roast mutton and a dish of cuc^bers. Then they brought roast goose in a pan followed shortly afterwards by roast pork and horse-radish sauce. And how classy it was, all this—this was rcal politics for you! He ate, gulping a large tumbler of excellent vodka before every course like any general or count. After the pork, buckwheat gruel with goose fat was s^ed, and then an omelette with bacon fat and fried liver, all of which he ate and thoroughly enjoyed. And what else? They also served onion pie and steamed ^mips with kvas.

'I wonder the gentry don't burst with meals like this,' he thought.

Finally a large pot of honey was served, and after the meal the Devil appeared wearing his blue spectacles. 'Was dinner satisfactory, Mr. Cobbler?' he asked with a low bow.

But Theodore could not get a word out, for he was nearly bursting after his meal. He had the disagreeable, stuffed sensation that comes from overeating, and tried to distract himself by s^tinizing the boot on his left foot.

'I never charged less than seven-and-a-half roubles for boots like that,' he thought, and asked which cobbler had made it.

'Kuzma Lebyodkin,' answered a footman.

'Tell that imbecile to come here!'

Soon Kuzma Lebyodkin from Warsaw appeared.

'What are your orders, sir?' He stopped by the door in a respectful attitude.

'Hold your tongue!' cried Theodore, stamping his foot. 'Don't ^wer me back! Know your place, cobbler, and your station in life! Oaf! You don't know how to make boots! I'll smash your face in! Why did you come here?'

'For my money, sir.'

'What money? Be off with you! Come back on Saturday. Clout him one, my man!'

Then he immediately remembered what a life his customers had led him, and he felt sick at heart. To amuse himself he took a fat wallet from his pocket and started counting his money. There was a lot of it, but he wanted even more. The Devil in the blue spectacles brought him another, fatter wallet, but he wanted more still, and the more he countcd the more discontented he grew.

In the evening the Devil brought him a tall, full-bosomed lady in a

red dress, explaining that she was his new wife. He spent the whole evening kissing her and eating gingcrbreads, and at night he lay on a soft feather bed, tossing from side to side. But he just couldn't get to sleep, and he felt as if all was not well.

'We have lots of money,' he told his wife. 'But it might attract burglars. You'd better take a candle and have a look.'

He couldn't sleep all night, and kept getting up to see if his trunk was all right. In the morning he had to go to matins. Now, rich and poor rcceive equal honours in church. When Theodore had been poor he had prayed 'Lord forgive me, sinner that I am,' in church. He said the same prayer now that he was rich, so where was the difference? And when the rich Theodore died he wouldn't be buried in gold and diamonds, but in black earth like the poorest beggar. He would bum in the same fire as cobblers. All this he resented. And then again, he still felt weighed do^ by the meal, and his mind was not on worship, but was assailed by womes about his money chest, about burglars, _; and about his doomed and bartered soul.

He came out ofchurch in a bad temper. To banish evil thoughts he followed his usual procedure of singing at the top of his voice, but barely had he begun when a policeman ran up and saluted.

'Gents mustn't sing in the street, squire. You ain't no cobbler!'

Theodore leant against a fence and began wondering how to amuse himselЈ

'Don't lean too hard on the fence, guv'nor, or you'll dirty your fur coat,' a doorkeeper shouted.

Theodore went into a shop, bought their best concertina, and walked do^ the street playing it. But everyone pointed at him and laughed.

'Cor, look at his lordship!'jeered the cabmen. 'He's carrying on like a cobbler.'

'We can't have the nobs disturbing the peace,' said a policeman. 'You'll be going to the ale-house next!'

'Alms for the love of Christ!' wailed beggars, surrounding Theodore on all sides. 'Give us something, mister.'

Beggars had never paid him any attention when he had been a cobbler, but now they wouldn't leave him alone.

At home he was greeted by his new wife, the lady. She wore a green blouse and a red skirt. He wanted a bit of a cuddle, and had raised his hand to give her a good clout on the back when she spoke angrily.

'Yokel! Bumpkin! You don't know how to treat a lady. Kiss my hand if you love me. Fisticuffs I do not permit.'

'What a bloody life!' thought Theodore. 'What an existence! It's all don't sing, don't play the concertina, don't have fun with your woman. Pshaw!'

No sooner had he sat do^ to tea with his lady than the Devil appeared in his blue spectacles. 'Now, Mr. Cobbler,' said he, 'I've kept my part of the bargain, so sign the paper and come with me. Now you know what being rich means, so that's enough of that!'

He dragged him off to hell, straight to the furnace, and demons flew up, shouting, from all sides.

'Idiot! Blockhead! Jackass!'

There was a fearful smell of paraffin in hell, it was fit to choke yo\L

But suddenly it all vanished. Theodore opened his eyes and saw his table, the boots and the tin lamp. The lamp glass was black, stinking smoke belchcd from the dimly glowing wick as from a chi^ey. The blue-spectacled customer stood near it.

'Idiot! Blockhcad! Jackass!' he was yelling. 'I'll teach you a leson, you rogue! You took my order a fortnight ago, and the boots still aren't ready! Expect me to traipse round here for them half a dozen times a day? Blackguard! Swine!'

Theodore tossed his head and tackled the boots while the customer cursed and threatened him for a rime. When he at last calmed do-wn Theodore sullenly enquired what his occupation was.

'Making Bengal lights and rockets—I'm a manufacturer of fireworks.'

Church bells rang for matins. Theodore handed over the boots, received his money and went to church.

Carriages and sledges with bearskin aprons careered up and downwn the street, whilc merchants, ladies and officers walked the pavement, togcther with humbler folk. But no longer did Theodore envy anyone, or rail against his fate. Rich and poor were equally badly off, he now felt. Some could drive in carriages, others could sing at the top of their voices and play concertinas, but one and the same grave awaited all alike. Nor was therc anything in life to make it wonh giving the Devil even a tiny scrap of your soul.

THE BET

I

Om dark autu^ night an elderly banker was pacing up and do^ his study and recalling the pany that he had given on an autu^ evening fifteen years earlier. It had been attended by a good few clever people, and fascinating discussions had taken place, one of the topics being capital punishment. The guests, including numerous academics and journalists, had been largely opposed to it, considering the death penalty out ofdate, immoral and ^uitable for Christian states. Several of them felt that it should be replaced everywhere by life imprison- ment.

'I disagree,' said their host the banker. 'I've never sampled the death penalty or life imprisonment myself. Still, to judge a priori, I find capital punishment more moral and h^ane than impriso^nent. Execution kills you at once, whereas life impriso^nent does it slowly. Now, which executioner is more h^ane? He who kills you in a few minutes, or he who drags the life out of you over a period of several years?'

A guest remarked that both were equally i^moral. 'Both have the same object—the taking of life. The state isn't God, and it has no right to take what it can't restore if it wishes.'

Among the guests was a young lawyer of about twenty-five. 'The death sentence and the life sentence are equally immoral,' said he when his opinion was canvaued. 'But, if I had to choose between them, I'd certainly choose the second. Any kind of life is better than no life at all.'

A lively argument had ensued. The banker, younger and more excitable in those days, had suddenly got carried away and struck the table with his fist. 'It's not true!' he shouted at the yowig man. 'I bet you two million you wouldn't last five years in solitary confinement.'

Tll take you on if you mean it,' was the reply. 'And I won'tjust do a five-year stretch, I'll do fifteen.'

'Fifteen? Done!' cried the banker. 'Gentlemen, I put up two million.'

'Accepted! You stake your millions and I stake my freedom,' said the yoWlg man.

And so the outrageous, futile wager was made. The banker, then a spoilt and frivolous person, with more millions than he could count, was delighted, and he made fun of the lawyer over supper. 'Think better of it while there's still time,' said he. 'Two million is nothing to me, young man, but you risk losing three or four of the best years of your life, I say three or four because you won't hang on longer. And don't forget, my unfo^^ate friend, that confinement is far harder when it's voluntary than when it's compulsory. The thought that you ^ go free at any moment will poison your whole existence in prison. I'm sorry for you.'

Pacing to and fro, the banker now recalled all 'What was the good of that wager?' he wondered. 'What's the use of the man losing fifteen years of his life? Or of my throwing away two ^^on? Does it prove that the death penalty is better or worse life impriso^ent?

not! Stuff and nonsense! On my part it was a spoilt man's whim, and on his side it was simply greed for money.'

Then he recaUed the sequel to that evening. It had been decided that the young man should serve his term under the strictest supervision in one of the lodges in the banker's garden. For fifteen years he was to be forbidden to ctoh the threshold. to see hu-nan beings, to hear the human voice, to receive letters and newspapers. He was- allowed a musical instrument, and books to read. He could write letters, ^^^ wine, smoke. It was stipulated that his co^rnunications with the out- side world could not be in spoken form, but must take place through a little ^mdow built specially for the p^pose. Anything he needed— books, music, wine and so on—he could receive by sending a note, and in any quantity he liked, but only through the window. The contract covered all the details and minutiae that would make his confinement strictly solitary, and compel him to serve precisely fifteen years from twelve o'clock on the fourteenth of November 1870 until twelve o'clock on the fourteenth of November 1885. The slightest attempt to break the conditions, even two minutes before the end, absolved the banker from all obligation to pay the two million.

So far as could be judged from the prisoner's brief notes, he sufiered greatly from lonelineu and depression in his first year of incarceration. The sound ofhis piano could be heard continually, day and night, from the lodge. He refused strong drink and tobacco. Wine stimulates desires, wrote he, and desires are a prisoner's worst enemy. Besides, is there anything drearier than drinking good wine and seeing nobody? And tobacco spoilt the air of his room. The books that he had sent during the first year were mostly light reading—novels with a complex love plot, thrillers, fantasies, comedies and so on.

In the second year there was no more music from the lodge, and the prisoner's notes demanded only literary classics. In the fifth year music was heard again, and the captive asked for wine. Those who watched him through the window said that he spent all that year just eating, drinking and lying on his bed, often yawnwnmg and talking angrily to himself. He read no books. Sometimes he would sit and write at night. He would spend hoars writing, but would tear up everything he had written by dawnwn. More than once he was heard weeping.

In the second half of the sixth year the captive eagerly embraced the study of languages, philosophy and history. So zealously did he tackle these subjects that the banker could hardly keep up with his book orders-—in four years some six hundred vol^nes were procured at his demand. During the period of this obsession the banker incidentally received the following letter from the prisoner.

'My dearest Gaoler,

'I write these lines in six languages. Show them to those who know about these things. Let them read them. If they can't fmd any mis- takes I beg you to have a shot fired in the garden—it will show me that my efforts have not been wasted. The geniuses of all ages and countries speak different languages, but the same flame bums in them all. Oh, did youbut know what a transcendental happiness my soul now experiences from my ability to understand them!'

The captive's wish was granted—the banker had two shots f red in the garden.

After the tenth year the lawyer sat stock-stili at the table, rcading only the Gospels. The banker marvelled that one who had mastered six hundred obscure tomes in four years should spend some twelve months reading a single slim, easily comprehensible volume. Theology and histories of religion followed the Gospels.

In the last two years of his imprisonment the captive read an enormous amount quite indiscriminately. Now it was the natural sciences, now he wanted Byron or Shakespeare. There were notes in which he would simultaneously demand a work on chemistry, a medi- cal textbook, a novel and a philosophical or theological treatise. His reading suggested somcone swimming in the sea surrounded by the wreckage ofhis ship, and trying to save his life by eagerly grasping first one spar and then another.

II

'He regains his freedom at twelve o'clock tomorrow,' thought the old banker as he remembered all this. 'And I should pay him two million by agreement. But ifl do pay up I'm done for—1'11 be utterly ruined.'

Fifteen years earlier he had had more millions than he could count, but now he feared to ask which were greater, his assets or his debts. Gambling on the stock exchange, wild speculation, the impetuosity that he had never managed to curb, even in old age—these things had gradually brought his fortunes low, and the proud, fearless, self- confident millionaire had become just another ^m-of-the-mill banker trembling at every rise and fall in his holdings.

'Da^ this bet!' muttered the old man, clutching his head in despair. 'Why couldn't the fellow die? He's only forty now. He'll take my last penny, he'll marry, he'll enjoy life, he'll gamble on the Exchange, while I look on enviously, like a pauper, and hear him saying the same thing day in day out: "I owe you all my happiness in life, so let me help you." No, it's too much! My only refuge from ba^^ptcy and disgrace is that man's death.'

Three o'clock struck and the banker cocked an ear. Everyone in the house was asleep, and nothing was heard but the wind rustling the frozcn trees outside. Trying not to make a noise, he took from his fireproof safe the key of the door that had not been opened for ffteen years, put his overcoat on, and went out.

It was dark and cold outside, and rain was falling. A keen, damp wind swooped howling round the whole garden, giving the trees no rest. Straining his eyes, the banker could not see the ground, the white statues, the lodge or the trees. He approached the area of the lodge, and twice called his watchman, but there was no answer. The ^^ was obviously sheltering from the weather, and was asleep somewhere in the kitchen or the greenhouse.

'If I have the courage to carry out my intention the main suspicion will fall on the watchman,' the old man thought.

He found the steps to the lodge and the door by feeling in the dark, entered the hall, groped his way into a small pauage, and lit a match. There was no onc thcre—just a bedstead without bedding on it, and the dark hulk of a cast-iron stove in the corner. The seals on the door leading to the captive's room were intact. When the match went out the old man peered through the small window, trembling with excitement.

In the prisoner's room a candle dimly b^ed. He was sitting near the table, and all that could be seen of him were his back, the hair on his head and his hands. On the table, on two armchairs, and on the carpet near the table, lay open books.

Five minutes passed without the prisoner once stirring—fifteen years ofconfinement had taught him to sit still. The banker tapped the window with a finger, but the captive made no answering movement. Then the banker cautiously broke the seals on the door, and put the key in the keyhole. The rusty lock grated and the door creaked. The banker expected to hear an i^rnediate shout of surprise and footsteps, but three minutes passed and it was as quiet as ever in there. He decided to enter.

At the table a man unlike ordinary men sat motionle». He was all skin and bones, he had long treues like a woman's, and a shaggy beard. The complexion was sallow with an earthy tinge, the cheeks were hollow, the back was long and narrow, and the hand propping the shaggy head was so thin and emaciated that it was painful to look at. His hair was already streaked with silver, and no one looking at his worn, old-man's face would have believed that he was only forty. He was asleep, and on the table in front of his bowed head lay a sheet of paper with something written on it in small letters.

'How pathetic!' thought the banker. 'He's asleep, and is probably drea^mg of his millions. All I have to do is to take this semi-<:orpse, throw it on the bed, smother it a bit with a pillow, and the keenest investigation will fmd no signs of death by violence. But let us first read what he has written.' Taking the page from the table, the banker read as follows.

'At twelve o'clock tomorrow I regain my freedom and the right to associate with others. But I think fit, before I leave this room for the sunlight, to address a few words to you. With a clear con- science, and as God is my wimess, I declare that I despise freedom, life, health and all that your books call the blessings of this world.

'I have spent fifteen years intently studying life on earth. True, I have not set eyes on the earth or its peoples, but in your books I have drunk fragrant wine, sung songs, hunted stags and wild boars in the forests, loved women. Created by the magic of your inspired poets, beautiful girls, ethereal as clouds, have visited me at night, and whispered in my ears magical tales that have made my head reel. In your books I have climbed the peaks of Elbrus and Mont Blanc, whence I have watched the sun rising in the morning, and flooding the sky, the ocean and the mountain peaks with crimson gold in the evening. From there I have watched lightnings flash and cleave the storm-clouds above me. I have sen green forests, fields, rivers, lakes, cities. I have heard the singing of the sirens and the strains of shepherds' pipes. I have touched the wings of beautiful devils who flew to me to converse of God. In your books I have plunged into the bottomles pit, performed miracles, murdered, b^nt wwns, preached new religions, conquered whole kingdoms.

'Your books have given me wisdom. All that man's tireles brain has created over the centuries has been compreued into a small nodule inside my head. I know I'm cleverer than you al.

'I despise your books, I despise all the blesings and the wisdom of this world. Everything is wonhless, fleeting, ghostly, illusory as a mirage. Proud, wise and handsome though you be, death will wipe you from the face of the eanh along with the mice burrowing under the floor. Your posterity, your history, your deathles geniuses-—all will freeze or b^ro along with the terrestrial globe.

'You have lost your se^rc and are on the wrong path. You take lies for truth, and uglines for beauty. You would be surprised if apple and orange trees somehow sprouted with frogs and lizards instead of fruit, or if roses smelt like a sweating horse. No less surprised am I at you who have exchanged heaven for I do not want to understand you.

'To give you a practical demonstration of my contempt for what you live by, I hereby renounce the two million that I once yearned for as one might for paradise, but which I now scorn. To disqualify myself from receiving it I shall leave here five hours before the time fxed, thus breaking the contract.'

After reading this tl1e banker laid the paper on the table, kiued the strange man on the head and left the lodge in tears. At no other time— not even after losing heavily on the stock exchange—had he felt such contempt for himself. Ret^ing to his house, he went to bed, but excitement and tears kept him awake for hours.

Next morning the watchmen ran up, white-faced, and told the banker that they had seen the man from the lodge climb out of his window into the garden, go to the gate and vanish. The banker went over at once with his servants and made sure that the captive had indeed fled. To forestall wmecesary argument he took the document of renunciation from the table, went back to the house and locked it in his fireproof safe.

THIEVES

One evening in Christmas week the medical orderly Yergunov, a nonentity known in his district as a great braggart and drunkard, was returning from the township of Repino where he had been making purchases for his hospital. Since he might be late, the doctor had lent him his best horse to get him home in good time.

The evening was not bad at fi.rst—quite calm—but at about eight o'clock a violent snow-storm blew up, and the orderly completely lost his way only four miles or so from home.

Not knowing the road or how to guide his horse, he was riding at random, haphazardly, hoping that the horse would find its o^ way. Two hours passed, the horse was exhausted, Yerg^ov himself was cold—and now fancied that he was not on his way home any more, but returning to Repino. But then the muffled barking of dogs was heard through the storm's roar, and a vague red blur appeared ahead of him. A high gate gradually emerged in outline, then a long fence surmounted by nails, point uppermost, after which the slanted sweep ofa well jutted out behind the fence. The wind chased away the snowy murk before his eyes, and a small, squat cottage with a high thatched roof loomed up where the red blur had been. There was a light in one of its three small windows, which had something red hanging inside.

What household was this? On the right of the road—four or five miles from the hospital—should be Andrew Chirikov's inn, Yergunov remembered. He remembered, too, that this Chirikov had been murdered by sledge-drivers recently, leaving an elderly widow and a daughter Lyubka, who had come to the hospital for treatment about two years previously. The in h.ad a bad name. Riding up late at night —and on someone else's horse at that—was a risky business, but that could not be helped. Yergunov fumbled for the revolver in his bag, coughed grimly, and rapped his whip butt on the window frame.

'Hey, anyone there?' he shouted. 'For God's sake let me in for a warm, old woman.'

Raucously barking, a black dog whizzed tmder the horse's hoofs, followed by a white one, then another black one—there must have been a dozen. Yergunov singled out the biggest, swung his whip, and lashcd out with all his might, whereupon a small, long-legged tyke raised its sharp muzzle, setting up a shrill, piercing howl.

Yergunov stood by the window for some time, knocking. Then, beyond the fence, hoar-frost glowed pink on the trees by the house, the gate creaked and a muffled woman's figure appeared carrying a lantern.

'Let me in for a warm, old woman,' said Yergunov. 'I'm going back to hospital and I've lost my way. What weather, God help us! Never fear, old woman, we know each other.'

'Them we know's all at home, we've invited no strangers,' said the figure sternly. 'And why knock ? The gate ain't bolted.'

Yergunov rode into the yard and stopped by the porch.

'Ask your man to stable my horse, old woman,' he said.

'I'm no old woman.'

Nor was she, indeed. As she put out the lantern the light fell on her face, and Yergunov knew Lyubka by the black eyebrows.

'None of the men are here now,' she said, going indoors. 'Some are drunk and asleep, the others went off to Repino this morning. Today's a holiday.'

Tethering his horse in an outhouse, Yergunov heard a neigh, and saw another horse in the dark. He felt the saddle—a Cossack's. So there must be someone else about besides the women ofthe house. To be on the safe side, the orderly unsaddled his horse, taking his saddle and purchases with him as he went indoors.

The first room he entered was large and wdl-heated, smelling of newly scrubbed floors. At the table under the icons sat a short, thin peasant, about forty years old, with a small, fair beard and navy-blue shirt. It was Kalashnikov, an arrant rogue and horse-thief whose father and uncle kept the tavern at Bogalyovka, dealing in stolen horses when they had the chance. He too had been to the hospital several times—not as a patient, but to talk horses with the doctor. Was there one for sale ? Would 'Mister Doctor, sir' care to swap a bay mare for a dun gelding ? Now his hair was greased, a silver ear-ring glittered in one ear, and altogether he had a festive look. He was poring over a large, dog-eared picture-book, fro^ing and dropping his lower lip. Stretched on the floor near the stove was another peasant, who had a short fur coat over his face, shoulders and chest, and who must be asleep. Near his new boots with shiny metal heel-plates melted snow had left two dark puddles.

Seeing the orderly, Kalashnikov bade him good day.

'Yes, what weather!' said Yergunov, rubbing his cold knecs with the palms of his hands. 'I have snow inside my collar, I'm soaked—a proper drowned rat, I feel. My revolver too, I think, er '

He took out his revolver, looked it all over and put it back in his bag, but the gun llUde no impreaion at all, and the peasant went on looking at his book.

'Yes, what weather! I lost my way, and I do believe it would have bcen the death of me but for the dogs here. It would have been quite a business. But where are the women of the house?'

'The old woman's gone to Repino, and the girl's cooking supper,' Kalashnikov answered.

Silence followed. Shivering, gulping, Yergunov blew on his palnu and cringed, !1Uking a show of being very cold and exhausted. The dogs, still restless, were heard howling outside. This was becoming boring.

'You a Bogalyovka llUn?' Yergunov asked the peasant sternly.

'Yes, I am.'

To pass the time, Yergunov thought about Bogalyovka—a large village set in a gulley so deep that when you drove along the high road on a moonlit night and looked do^ into the dark ravine, and then up at the sky, the moon seemed to hang above a bottomless pit, and it was like the end of the world. The road do^ was steep, winding, and so narrow that when you went to Bogalyovka during an epidemic or to do vaccinations, you must whistle all the time, or bellow at the top of your voice—for if you met a cart coming up you would never get by. The Bogalyovka peasants are kno^ as expert gardeners and horse-thieves. Their gardens are well-stocked, with the whole village buried iindcr white cherry-blossom in spring, and cherries sold at three copecks the pail in summer—you pay your three copecks and pick your own. The peasants' wives are good-looking and sleek, and they like wearing their best clothes. Even on working days they do nothing biit sit on the banks by their huts searching each others' heads for insects.

Then footsteps were heard, and Lyubka came in—a barefoot girl of about twenty in a red dress.

She gave Yergunov a sidelong glance, and walked from one comer of the room to another a couple of times—in no ordinary manner, but with tiny steps, thrusting hcr bosom forward. She obviously enjoyed padding about in bare fcet on the newly scrubbed floor, having taken off her shoes on purpose.

Laughing at something, Kabshnikov beckoned her with his finger. She came up to the table, and he showed her the prophet Elijah in his book—driving a carriage dra^ by three horses hurtling into the sky. Lyubka leant her clbows on the table. Her hair flew ovcr her shoulder —a long auburn plait tied with red ribbon at the end—and almost touched the floor. She laughed too.

'What a fme picture—marvellous!' said Kalashnikov.

'Marvellous!' he repeated, moving his hands as ifhe wanted to take the reins in Elijah's place.

The wind soughed in the stove. There was a growl and a squeak, as if a big dog had killed a rat.

'Whew! We must be haunted,' Lyubka said.

'It's the wind,' said Kalashnikov. He paused and raised his eyes to the orderly.

'What do you think, Mr. Yergunov, you being a scholar?' he asked. 'Are there such things as devils or aren't there?'

'Now, how can I put it, my dear fellow?' answered the orderly with a shrug of one shoulder. 'Scientifically speaking, there ain't no such thing as devils of course, because that's all superstition. But taking a plain man's view, as you and I are now—yes, devils do exist, to cut a long story short. I've been through a lot in my time. After my training I was posted to the dragoons as medical orderly, and I was in the war, of course—I have a medal and a decoration from the Red Cross. But after San Stefano I came back to Russia and took a job with the rural council. Having been around such a lot in my day, I've seen more things than some have even dreamt of. I've seen devils too sometimes. I don't mean with horns or a tail—that's all rubbish—but ordinary ones, as you might say, or something of the sort.'

'Where?' asked Kalashnikov.

'In various places—no need to go far afield. Last year, between you and me, I met one right here—by this very inn, like. I'm driving to Golyshino, as I recall, to do some vaccinations and all that. Well, you know how it is, I have my racing sulky as usual, my horse, the various trappings I need, besides which I have my watch on me and so forth, so I'm on my guard as I drive along, just in case something happens— there are enough tramps about. I come to that blasted Snake Gulch, and I start going do^. Then, suddenly, I notice someone or other on foot and all that—black hair, black eyes, his whole face seeming smutted with soot. He comes up to my horse and takes the left rein.

"'Stop!" says he.

'He looks the horse over, then me, see? Then he throws do^ the rein, doesn't utter a bad word.

"'Where are you off to?" he asks, his teeth bared and his eyes vicious.

'"Ah," t^^s I, "you devil, you!"

"'I'm going to do smallpox vaccinations," say I. "And what buanes is it of yours?"

"'Well, if that's how it is," he says, "then you can vaccinate me too,"—and he bares his arm and shoves it under my nose.

'I don't stop to argue of course, I just vaccinate to get rid of him. Then I look at my lancet—and it's rusty all over.'

The peasant sleeping by the stove suddenly turned over and threw off his coat. To his amazement, Yergunov recognized the very stranger whom he had met that day in Snake Gulch. The peasant's hair, beard and eyes were black as soot, and his face was swarthy, besides which he had a black spot the size of a lentil on his right cheek. He looked at Yergunov contemptuously.

'I did take hold of your left rein,' said he. 'That's quite true. But about the vaccination you are lying, sir. We never even mentioned vaccination, you and I.'

The orderly was taken aback.

'l wasn't talking about you,' he said. 'So if you're lying dowi, lie down.'

The swarthy peasant had never been to the hospital, and Yergunov did not know who he was or where he came from. Looking at the man now, he decided that he must be a gypsy. The peasant stood up, stretched himself, gave a loud ya^, went up to Lyubka and Kalash- nikov, sat down beside them and also started looking at the book. Rapture and envy appeared on his sleepy face.

'Look, Merik,' said Lyubka to him, 'you bring me horses like that, and I'll drive to heaven.'

'Sinners can't go to heaven,' said Kalashnikov. 'You have to be a saint.'

Then Lyubka laid the table, serving a large hunk of bacon fat, salted gherkins and a wooden platter of stewed meat cut in small pieces, followed by a frying-pan with sausage and cabbage hissing in it. A cut-glass spirits decanter also appeared on the table, wafting a smell of orange peel through the room after everyone had been poured a glass.

Yergunov was annoyed that Kalashnikov and the dark-skinned Merik should talk to each other and ignore him—he might just as well not have been there. And he wanted to talk to them, wanted to brag, have a drink and a good meal—and a spot of fun with Lyubka if possible. While they supped, she sat downwn near him half a dozen times, touching him with her lovely shoulders as if by accident, and stroking her broad hips with her hands. She was a hearty, laughing, flighty, restive girl who kept sitting do^ and standing-up. While sitting, she would keep turning her breast or her back to her neighbour—she was a proper fidget—and was always brushing against him with elbow or knee.

Yergunov was also displeased by the peasants drinking only a glass apiece, and it was somehow awkward for him to drink on his own. But he could not stop himself taking a second glass, then a third, and he ate up all the sausage. Not wanting the peasants to cold-shoulder him, he decided on flattery so as to be accepted as one of the boys.

'You've some great lads in Bogalyovka!' he said with a w:>g of his head.

'Great in what way?' Kalashnikov asked.

'Oh, you know, take that horse business. Great rustlers, that lot are!'

'What's so great about them? They're drunkards and thieves, more like.'

'That's all over and done with,' said Merik after a short pause. 'Old Filya's about the only one of them left now, and he's blind.'

'Yes, there's only Filya,' sighcd Kalashnikov. 'He must be about seventy now, I reckon. Some German settlers put out one of his eyes, and he doesn't see too well with the other. Wall-eyed, he is. There was a time when the police inspector would see him, and—"Hallo there, Sharnil!" he'd shout. And the peasants all said the same. Shamil, they always called him, but now he's only known as One-eyed Filya. He was a proper lad! He and old Andrew—Lyubka's father that was— made their way into Rozhnovo one night when some cavalry regi- ments were stationed there. They stole nine military mounts, the pick of the bunch, and they weren't frightened of the sentries. And that very morning they sold all these horses to Gypsy Afonka for twenty roubles. Aye! But nowadays your thief is more concerned to steal a horse from someone who's drunk or asleep. He's lost to shame, he'll steal the very boots off a drunkard—and thcn he's so grasping he'll take the'horse over a hundred miles away, and try to sell it in a market, haggling like a Jew till the police sergeant arrests him, the fool. That's no fun, it's a thorough disgrace. They're a miserable lot, I must say!'

• 'What about Merik?' .nskcd Lyubka.

'Merik ain't one of us,' s::^id Knlashnikov. 'He comcs from the Kharkov country, from Mizhirich. Rut it's true he's quite a bd -a good man he is, we ain't got no complaints.'

Lyubka gave Merik a sly, gleeful look.

'Yes, no wonder he was ducked in that ice-hole,' she said.

'How was that?' asked Yergunov.

'Wc11, it was this way,' said Merik with a laugh. 'Filya stole three horscs off somc tenant farmers in Samoylovka, and they thought it was me. In Samoylovka there were about ten of these farmers a11 told, and with their labourers that made thirty men, a11 of the Molokan sect.

'"Come and have a look, Merik," says one of them at the market. "We've brought some new horses from the fair".

'We11, I'm interested, natura1ly, so along I go. Then the whole lot of them, a11 thirty, tie my hands behind me and take me to the river.

'"We'll give you horses!" say they.

'There's one holc in the ice already, and they cut another next to it, seven feet away. Then they take a rope, see? They put a noose under my armpits and tie a crooked stick to the other end, so it will go through both holes see? We11, they shove the stick through and haul, while I—just as I am in fur coat and high boots—crash into that ice- hole with them standing there kicking me in or ramming me with a chopper. Then they drag me under the ice and haul me out of the other hole.'

Lyubka shuddered and hunched herself together.

'First thing I felt was the cold shock,' Merik went on. 'But when they pull me out I'm helpless, I just lie on the snow with them Molokans standing by hitting my knees and elbows with their sticks. It doesn't half hurt! When they've beaten me they go away, but everything on me's frozen, my clothes is a11 ice. I stand up, but I ain't got no strength. Then a peasant woman drives past, thank God, and gives me a lift.'

Meanwhile Yergunov had drunk five or six glasses. Feeling light- hearted, he too had an urge to spin some weird and wonderful yam, showing that he was a bit of a lad himself and afraid of nothing.

'Once at home in Penza Province—' he began.

Because he had drunk a lot and was rather tipsy—and perhaps be- cause he had been caught out lying a couple of times—the peasants took not the slightest notice of him, and even stopped answering his questions. What's more, they pernitted themselves such outspoken- ness in his presence—ignoring him, in other words—that a creepy, cold feeling came over him.

Kalashnikov had the dignified bcaring of a solid, respectable citizen. He spoke at length, making the sign of the cross over his mouth whenever he yawned, and no one could have kno^ that he was a thief, a cruel bandit who robbed the poor, had been to prison twice already, and had been sentenced to Siberian exile by his village com- munity, except that his father and uncle—robbers and good-for-nothings like himself—had bought him off. But Merik had a dashing air. Seeing Lyubka and Kalashnikov admiring him, and t^^^g himself no end of a lad, he kept putting his arms akimbo, puffing out his chest, and stretching so violently that the bench creaked.

After supper Kalashnikov faced the icon and said grace without standing up, and shook Merik's hand. Merik said grace too, and shook Kalashnikov's hand. Lyubka cleared away supper, threw some pepper- mint cakes, roast nuts and pumpkin seeds on the table, and served two bottles of sweet wine.

'May old Andrew rest in peace,' said Kalashnikov, clinking glasses with Merik, 'and the Kingdom of Heaven be his. When he was alive we used to meet here, or at his brother Martin's, and—what men those were, heaven help us, what talk we had! Wonderful talk! Martin would be there, with Filya and Theodore Stukotey. It was all right and proper—but what a time we had, we didn't half have fun!'

Lyubka went out and came back a little later wearing a green ker- chief and beads.

'Look, Meri.k,' she said. 'See what Kalashnikov brought me today.'

She looked at herself in the mirror, tossing her head several times to make the beads jingle. Then she opened a chest and began taking out ... first a cotton dress with red and blue polka-dots, then another—red, with flounces, rustling and swishing like paper—then a new kerchief, navy-blue shot with rainbow colours. She displayed all these things, laughing and flinging up her arms as if amazed that such treasures should be hers.

Kalashnikov tuned the balalaika and started playing, and Yergunov simply could not make out what kind of song he was singing, gay or sad—for it was so very sad at times that you felt like crying, but then it would brighten up again. Suddenly Merik shot up and began stamp- ing his heels on one spot. Then he spread his arms and strutted on his heels from table to stove and from stove to chest, after which he flew up as if stung, clicking heel-plates in mid-air and launching himself into a squatting dance. Lyubka threw up both hands with a frantic squeak and followed suit. First she moved sideways—viciously, as if wanting to creep up on someone and hit them from behind. She rapidly clattered her bare heels as Merik had clattered his boot-heels, spun top-like and crouched, her red dress billowing like a bell. Glaring at her angrily and baring his teeth, Merik swooped towards her, doing squat- ting steps, and wanting to destroy her with his terrible legs, but she jumpcd up and tossed back her head. Waving her arms as a big bird flaps its wings, she floated across the room, scarce touching the floor.

'Phew, that girl has spirit!' Yergunov thought, sitting on the chest and observing the dance from there. 'What fire! Nothing's too good for her.'

He regretted being a medical orderly instead of an ordinary peasant. Why must he wear a coat and a watch-chain with a gilt key, and not a navy-blue shirt with a cord belt—in which case, he, like Merik, could have sWlg boldly, danced, drunk and thrown both arns round Lyubka ?

The rat-tat-tat, the shouts, the whoops set crockery jingling in the cupboard and made the candle-light dance. The thread broke, and Lyubka's beads flew all over the floor, the green kerchief slippcd off her head, and she was less like a girl than a red cloud whipping by with dark eyes flashing, while Merik's hands and feet looked ready to fly off at any moment.

Then Merik gave a last stamp and stood like one rootcd to the spot.

Exhausted, scarcely breathing, Lyubka stooped ovcr his chest, lean- ing on him as on a post, while he embraced her, looked into her eyes, and spoke tenderly and affectionately as if in jest.

'I'll fi.nd out where your old mother's money's hidden later on. I'll kill her, I'll cut your little throat with my little knife, and then I'll set fire to the inn. It'll be thought you both died in the fire, and I'll take your money to the Kuban and keep droves ofhorses, and raise sheep.'

Not answering, Lyubka only looked at him guiltily.

'Is it nice in the Kuban, Merik ?' she asked.

He said nothing, but went to the chest and sat down, deep in thought—dreaming about the Kuban, most likely.

'It's time I was going, though,' said Kalaslinikov, standing up. 'Filya must bc expecting me by now. Good-bye, Lyubka.'

YergWlov wcnt out into thc yard to makc surc that Kalashnikov did not takc his horsc. Still thc blizzard raged. Thcir long tails clinging to wccds and bushcs, whitc clouds floatcd about thc yard, whilc in thc ficlds bcyond thc fcncc, giants in broad-slccvcd whitc shrouds whirlcd and fcll, thcn stood up again to wavc thcir arms and fight. And what a galc was blowing! Unablc to cndurc its rudc carcsscs, bare birchcs and chcrry-trccs bowcd down to thc ground.

'Oh Lord,' they wept, 'what sin have we committed that Thou hast bent iis to the growtd and wilt not set us free?'

'Whoa there!' said Kalashnikov sternly, mounting his horse.

One half of the gate was open, and by it lay a deep snowdrift.

'Come on then, gee up!' shouted Kalashnikov.

Starting off, his small, short-legged nag sank belly deep in the drift. White with snow, Kalashnikov and horse soon vanished through the gate.

When Yergwtov came back into the room, Lyubka was crawling about the floor picking up her beads, and Merik was not there.

'A glorious girl,' Yergunov thought, lying on the bench and placing his coat wtder his head. 'Oh, if only Merik wasn't here!'

Lyubka aroused him as she crawled about the floor near the bench. He would most certainly get up and embrace her, he thought, ifMerik wasn't there, and what happened after that would remain to be seen. She was still a girl, admittedly, but hardly a virgin—and even if she were, need one stand on ceremony in this robbers' lair?

Lyubka picked up her beads and went out. The candle was burning low, and the flame caught a piece ofpaper in the candle-stick. Yergwtov placed his revolver and matches beside him, and put out the candle. The icon-lamp was flickering so much that it hurt his eyes. Patches of light danced on ceiling, floor and cupboard, and among them he had visions of Lyubka—a buxom, fuU-breasted girl. Now she spun like a top. Now she panted, exhausted by the dance.

'Oh, if only Merik would go to the devil!' he thought.

The lamp gave a last flicker, sputtered and went out. Someone who could only be Merik came in and sat on the bench. He drew at his pipe, and his dark cheek with its black spot was lit up for a moment. The foul tobacco smoke tickled Yergwtov's throat.

'What filthy tobacco, da^ it!' he said. 'It makes me feel quite sick.'

'I mix my tobacco with oat blooms,' Merik answered after a short pause. 'It's better for the chest.'

He smoked, spat and went out again. About half an hour passed, then a light suddenly flashed in the lobby, and Merik appeared in a short fur coat and cap, followed by Lyubka carrying a candle.

'Don't go away, Merik,' Lyubka implored.

'No, Lyubka. Don't keep me.'

'Listen, Merik,' said Lyubka, her voice growing soft and tender. 'I know you'll find Mother's money, you'll kill us both, you'U go to the

Kuban and you'll love other girls. But I don't care, I ask only one thing of you, darling—stay with me.'

'No, I want to go and celebrate,' said Merik, fastening his belt.

'But you have no mount. You walked here, didn't you ? So what will you ride?'

Merik bent down and whispered in Lyubka's ear. She looked at the door, and laughed through her tears.

'And he's asleep, the pompous swine,' she said.

Merik embraced her, kissed her hard and went out. Yergunov stuck his revolver in his pocket, jumped up quickly and ran after him.

'Get out of my way!' he told Lyubka, who had hurriedly bolted the lobby door and stood across the threshold. 'Let me through, don't stand there!'

'Why go out?'

'To look at my horse.'

Mischievously and fondly, Lyubka gazed up at him.

'Why look at that, when you can look at me?' she asked, bending do^ and touching the gilt key on his watch-chain.

'Let me through or he'll take my horse,' Yergunov said. 'Let go, you bitch!' he shouted, hitting her angrily on the shoulder, and barg- ing as hard as he could with his chest to shove her off the door. But she clung hard to the bolt, and seemed made of iron.

'Let me go!' he shouted, exhausted. 'He'll go off with it, I tell you!'

'Why should he? Not he.'

Panting and rubbing her shoulder, which hurt, she looked up at him again, blushed and laughed.

'Don't leave, darling,' she said. 'I'm bored on my own.'

Yergunov gazed into her eyes, hesitated and then put his arms round her. She did not resist.

'Now, no more silliness, let me go,' he said.

She did not speak.

'I heard you just now,' he said, 'telling Merik you loved him.'

'He's not the only one. Who I love—that's my secret.'

She touched his watch-key again.

'Give me that,' she asked softly.

Unfastening the key, Yergunov gave it her. She suddenly craned her neck, listening with a serious expression, and her look struck the orderly as cold and calculating. Remembering his horse, he now easily pushed her to one side and ran out into the yard. In the shed a sleepy pig grunted in lazy thythm, and a cow banged her horn.

Yergunov lit a match. He saw the pig, the cow, the dogs streaking towards his light from all sides, but of his horse there was no trace. Shouting, shaking his fists at dogs, stumbling into drifts, floundering in snow, he ran through the gate and stared into darkness. He strained his eyes, but could see only the flying snow, its flakes distinctly form- ing various figures. Now the white, laughing face of a corpse peeped through the gloom. Now a white horse galloped past, ridden by an Amazon in a muslin dress. Or a string of white swans flew overhead.

Shaking with rage and cold, baffled, Yergunov fired his revolver at the dogs, hitting none of them, and rushed back indoors.

As he entered the lobby, he distinctly heard someone dart out of the room beyond, banging the door. It was dark in there. Yergunov pushed the door, but it was bolted. Then, lighting match after match, he rushed back to the lobby, and thence to the kitchen, and on from there to a little room where the walls were all draped with petticoats and dresses, where there was a smell of co^^ower and dill, and where, in the corner near the stove, stood someone's bed with a great mound of pillows on it. This must be the old mother's room. He passed through to another room, also a small one, where he saw Lyubka—lying on a chest, covered with a gaudy patchwork cotton quilt and pretending to be asleep. Above the head of her bed an icon-lamp was burning.

'Where's my horse?' asked the orderly grimly.

Lyubka did not stir.

'Where's my horse, I ask you?' Yergunov repeated in an even grimmer voice, and tore the quilt off her. 'I asked you a question, you bitch!' he shouted.

She started up and rose to her knees. She held her shift with one hand, and tried to grasp the quilt with the other, crouching against the wall. She looked at Yergunov with loathing and fear as she warily followed his slightest move with eyes like a trapped animal's.

'Tell me where my horse is,' shouted Yergunov, 'or I'll beat the living daylights out of you!'

'Go away, da^ you!' she wheezed hoarsely.

Seizing her shift near the neck, Yergunov wrenched, then lost control of himself and embraced the girl as hard as he could. Hissing with rage, she slithered in his clutches, freed one arm—the other was caught in the torn shift—and punched him on the top of his head.

Pain numbed his senses, there was a ringing and a banging in his ears. Lurching backwards, he received another blow—on the temple. He reeled, clutched the door-posts to stop himselffalling, made his way to the room where his things were, and lay on the bench. He lay there for a wlule, then took the match-box from his pocket, and began light- ing one match after another quite aimlessly. He would light one, blow it out and throw it under the table—until all the matches were gone.

Outside, meanwhile, the sky was tu^^g blue and the cocks had started crowing. Dut Yergunov's head still ached, and his ears roared as if he was under a railway bridge with a train passing overhead. Somehow he got his coat and hat on. He could not find his saddle and bundle of shopping, and his bag was empty. No wonder someone had scurried out of that room when he had come in from the yard not so long ago.

He picked up a poker in the kitchen to keep off the dogs, and went out into the yard, leaving the door wide open. The blizzard had sub- sided, the weather was calm.

When he had passed through the gate, the white fields seemed dead, there was not one bird in the morning sky. On both sides of the road, and in the far distance, were dark blue copses of small trees.

Yergunov tried to consider his forthcoming reception in the hospi- tal, and what the doctor would say. He must certainly give thought to that and have his answers ready in advance, but such thoughts dissolved and eluded him. Walking along, he could chink only of Lyubka and the peasants that he had spent the night with. He remembered, too, how Lyubka's plait had swung loose to the floor as she bcnt down for the quilt after hitting him for the second time. His mind was in such a muddle. Why are there doctors and medical orderlies, he wondered, why are there merchants, clerks and peasants in chis world? Why aren't there jusc free men? The birds and beasts are free, aren't they? So is Merik. They fear no one, they need no one. Now, whose idea was it—who says we have to get up in the morning, have a meal at midday and go to bed at night? That a doctor is senior to an orderly? That one must live in a room and love no one but one's wife? Why shouldn't things be the other way round—lunch at night and sleep by day? Oh, to leap on a horse, not asking whose it is, and race the wind down fields, woods and dales like some fend out of hell! Oh, to make love to girls, to laugh at everyone!

Yergunov threw the poker in the snow and pressed his forehead on the cold, white trunk of a birch tree, lost in thought. And his grey, monotonous life, his wages, his subordinate position, his dispensary, the everlasting fussing over jars and poultices, seemed contemptible aid sickening.

'Who says it's wrong to have a bit of fun?' he wondered ruefully. 'Those who talk that way have never lived a free life like Merik or Kalaslmikov, they haven't loved Lyubka. They've spent all their lives on their knees, they haven't enjoyed themselves. And they've loved no one but their frog-like wives.'

If he still wasn't a burglar, a swindler—a highway robber, even— that was only through lack of ability or suitable opportunity. Such was his present view of himself.

Some eighteen months passed. In spring, after Easter, Yergunov— long since dismissed from his hospital and drifting around out of work —left the tavern at Repino late one night and wandered aimlessly down the street.

He walked into the country. There was a scent of spring and the breath of a warm, caressing breeze. From the sky the quiet, starlit night gazed do^ on earth. God, how deep that sky is, how infinitely broad its canopy over the world! The world is well enough made, thought Yergunov. But why do people divide each other into sober and drunk, employed and discharged, and so forth. What right have they? Why do the sober and well-fed sleep comfortably in their homes, while the drunken and the starving must roam the country without shelter ? The man who doesn't work, and doesn't earn wages—why must he neces- sarily go hungry, unclothed, without boots? Whose idea was this? Why don't the birds and forest beasts have jobs or earn wages—but enjoy themselves instead?

Unfurled over the horizon, a magnificent crimson glow quivered in the far sky, and Yergunov stood watching it for a long time. Why, he kept wondering, should it be a sin if he had run off with someone's samovar yesterday and drunk the proceeds in the tavern? Why?

Two carts drove past on the road. In one a peasant woman slept, in the other sat a bare-headed old man.

'Where's the fire, old man?' asked Yergunov.

'At Andrew Chirikov's inn,' the old man replied.

Then Yergunov remembered his winter adventure of eighteen months ago in that same inn, remembered Merik's boastful threat. Picturing the old woman and Lyubka with their throats cut, burning, he envied Merik. On his way back to the tavern, he looked at the houses of rich inn-keepers, cattle-dealers and blacksmiths. It would be a good idea to burgle some rich man's house at night, he reflected.

GUSEV

I

It is getting dark, and will soon be night.

Guscv, a discharged private soldier, sits up in his bunk.

'I say, Paul Ivanovich,' he reiarks in a low voice. 'A soldier in Suchan told me their ship ran into a great fish on the way out and broke her bottom.'

The nondescript person whom he addresses, kno^ to everyone in the ship's sick-bay as Paul Ivanovich, acts as if he has not heard, and says nothing.

Once more quietness descends.

Wind plays in the rigging, the screw thuds, waves thrash, bunks creak, but their ears have long been attuned to all that, and they feel as if their surroundings are slumbering silently. It is boring. The three patients—two soldiers and one sailor—who have spent all day playing cards, are already dozing and talking in their sleep.

The sea is growing rough, it seems. Beneath Gusev the bunk slowly rises and falls, as if sighing—once, twice, a third time.

Something clangs on to the floor—a mug must have fallen.

'The wind's broken loose from its chain,' says Gusev, listening.

This time Paul Ivanovich coughs.

'First you have a ship hitting a fish,' he replies irritably. 'Then you have a wind breaking loose from its chain. Is the wind a beast, that it breaks loose, eh ?'

'It's how folk talk.'

'Then folk are as ignorant as you, they'll say anything. A man needs a head on his shoulders—he needs to use his reason, you senseless creature.'

Paul Ivanovich is subject to se.a-sickness, and when the sea is rough he is usually bad-tempered, exasperated by the merest trifle. But there is absolutely nothing to be angry about, in Gusev's opinion. What is there so strange or surprising in that fish, even—or in the wind bursting its bonds? Suppose the fish is mountain-sized, and has a hard back like a sturgeon's. Suppose, too, that there are thick stone walls at the world's end, and that fierce winds arc chained to those walls. If the winds haven't broken loose, then why do they thrash about like mad over the whole sea, tearing away like dogs? What happens to them in calm weather if they aren't chained up?

For some time Gusev considers mountainous fish and stout, rusty chains. Then he grows bored and thinks of the home country to which he is now returning after five years' service in the Far East. He pictures a large, snow-covered pond. On one side of the pond is the red-brick pottery with its tall chi^ey and clouds of black smoke, and on the other side is the village. Out of the fifth yard from the end his brother Alexis drives his sledge with his little son Vanka sitting behind him in his felt over-boots together with his little girl Akulka, also felt-booted. Alexis has been drinking, Vanka is laughing, and Akulka's face cannot be seen because she is all muffled up.

'He'll get them kids frostbitten if he don't watch out,' thinks Gusev. 'O Lord,' he whispers, 'grant them reason and- the sense to honour their parents, and not be cleverer than their mum and dad.'

'Those boots need new soles,' rambles the delirious sailor in his deep voice. 'Yes indeed.'

Gusev's thoughts break olf. Instead of the pond, a large bull's head without eyes appears for no reason whatever, while horse and sledge no longer move ahead, but spin in a cloud of black smoke. Still, he's glad he's seen the folks at home. His happiness takes his breath away. It ripples, tingling, over his whole body, quivers in his fingers.

'We met again, thanks be to God,' he rambles, but at once opens his eyes and tries to fi.nd some water in the darkness.

He drinks and lies back, and again the sledge passes—followed once more by the eyeless bull's head, smoke, clouds.

And so it goes on till daybreak.

II

First a dark blue circle emerges from the blackness—the port-hole. Then, bit by bit, Gusev can m.ake out the man in the next bunk— Paul Ivanovich. Paul sleeps sitting up because lying downwn makes him choke. His face is grey, his nose is long and sharp, and his eyes seem huge because he has grownwn so fearfully thin. His temples are sunken, his beard is wispy, his hair is long.

From his face you cannot possibly tell what class he belongs to—is he gentleman, merchant or peasant? His expression and long hair might be those of a hermit, or of a novice in a monastery, but when he speaks he doesn't sound like a monk, somehow. Coughing, bad air and disease have worn him do\wn and made breathing hard for him as he mumbles with his parched lips.

He sees Gusev watching him, and turns to face him.

'I'm beginning to grasp the point,' says he. 'Y«, now I see it all.'

'See what, Paul Ivanovich ?'

Tll tell you. Why aren't you serious cases kept somewhere quiet, that's what's been puzzling me? Why should you fi.nd yourselves tossing about in a sweltering hot steamship—a place where everything endangers your lives, in other words? Dut now it's all clear, indeed it is. Your doctors put you on the ship to get rid of you. They're sick of messing around with such cattle. You pay them nothing, you only cause them trouble, and you spoil their statistics by dying. Which makes you cattle. And getting rid of you isn't hard. There are two requisites. First, one must lack all conscience and humanity. Second, one must deceive the steamship line. Of the first requisite the le» said the better— we're pastmasters at that. And the second we can always pull off, given a little practice. Five sick men don't stand out in a crowd of four hundred fit soldiers and sailors. So they get you on board, mix you up with the able-bodied, hurriedly count you and find nothing amiss in the confusion. Then, when the ship's already under way, they see paralytics and consumptives in the last stages lying around on deck.'

Not understanding Paul Ivanovich, and thinking he was being told off, Gusev spoke in self-defence.

'I lay around on deck because I was so weak. I was mighty chilly when they unloaded us from the barge.'

'It's a scandal,' Paul Ivanovich goes on. 'The worst thing is, they know perfectly well you can't survive this long journey, don't they? And yet they put you here. Now, let's assume you last out till the Indian Ocean. What happens next doesn't bear thinking o( And such is their gratitude for loyal service and a clean record!'

Paul Ivanovich gives an angry look, fro^ing disdainfully.

'I'd like a go at these people in the newspapers,' he pants. 'I'd make the fur fly all right!'

The two soldier-patients and the sailor are already awake and at their cards. The sailor half lies in his bunk, while the soldiers sit on the floor near him in the most awkward postures. One soldier has his right arm in a sling, with the hand bandaged up in a regular bundle, so he holds his cards in his right armpit or in the crook of his elbow, playing them with his left hand. The sea is pitching and rolling heavily—impossible to stand up, drink tea or take medicine.

'Were you an officer's servant?' Paul Ivanovich asks Gusev.

'Yes sir, a batman.'

'God, God!' says Paul Ivanovich, with a sad shake of his head. 'Uproot a man from home, drag him ten thousand miles, give him tuberculosis and—and where does it all lead, I wonder? To making a batman of him for some Captain Kopeykin or Midshipman Dyrka. Very sensible, I must say!'

'It's not hard work, Paul Ivanovich. You get up ofa morning, clean the boots, put the samovar on, tidy the room—then there's no more to do all day. The lieutcnant spends all day drawing plans, like, and you can say your prayers, read books, go out in the street—whatever you want. God grant everyone such a life.'

'Oh, what could be better! The lieutenant draws his "plans, like", and you spend your day in the kitchcn longing for your home. "Plans, like!" It's not plans that matter, it's human life. You only have one life, and that should be respected.'

'Well, of course, Paul lvanovich, a bad man never gets off lightly, either at homc or in the service. But you live proper and obey orders— and who needs harm you ? Our mastcrs are educated gentlemen, they understand. I was never in the regimental lock-up, not in five years I wasn't, and I wasn't struck—now let me see—not more than once.'

'What was that for?'

'Fighting. I'm a bit too ready with my fists, Paul Ivanovich. Four Chinamen come in our yard, carrying firewood or something—I don't recall. Well, I'm feeling bored, so I, er, knock 'em about a bit, and make one bastard's nose bleed. The lieutenant sees it through the window. Right furious he is, and he gives me one on the ear.'

'You wretched, stupid man,' whispers Paul Ivanovich. 'You don't understand anything.'

Utterly worn out by the pitching and tossing, he closes his eyes. His head keeps falling back, or forward on his chest, and he several times tries to lie flat, but it comes to nothing because the choking stops him.

'Why did you hit those four Chinamen?' he asks a little later.

'Oh, I dunno. They comes in the yard, so I just hits 'em.'

They fall silent.

The card players go on playing for a couple of hours with much enthusiasm and cursing, but the pitching and tossing wear even them out, they abandon thcir cards and lie down. Once more Gusev pictures the large pond, the pottery, the village.

Once more the sledge runs by, and again Vanka laughs, while that silly Akulka has thro^ open her fur and stuck out her legs.

'Look, everyone,' she seems to say. 'I have better mow-boots t^m Vanka. Mine are new.'

'Rve years old, and still she has no sense,' rambles Gusev. 'Instead of kicking your legs, why don't you fetch your soldier uncle a drink? I'll give you something nice.'

Then Andron, a flint-lock gun slung over his shoulder, brings a hare he has killed, followed by that decrepit old Jew Isaiah, who offers a piece of soap in exchange for the hare. There's a black calf just inside the front door of the hut, Domna is sewing a shirt and crying. Then comes the eyeless buB's head again, the black smoke.

Overhead someone gives a loud shout, and several sailors past— dragging something bulky over the deck, it seems, or else something has fallen with a crash. Then they run past again.

Has there been an accident? Gusev lifts his head, listening, and sees the two soldiers and the sailor playing cards again. Paul Ivanovich is sitting up, moving his lips. He chokes, he feels too weak to breathe, and he is thirsty, but the water is warm and nasty.

The boat is still pitching.

Suddenly something strange happens to one of the card-playing soldiers.

He calls hearts diamonds, he muddles the score and drops his cards, then he gives a silly, scared smile and looks round at everyone.

'One moment, lads,' says he and lies on the floor.

Everyone is aghast. They call him, but he doesn't respond.

'Maybe you feel bad, eh, Stephen?' asks the soldier with his arm in a sling. 'Should we call a priest perhaps?'

'Have some water, Stephen,' says the sailor. 'Come on, mate, you drink this.'

'Now, why bang his teeth with the mug?' asks Gusev angrily. 'Can't you see, you fool?'

'What is it?'

'What is it?' Gusev mimics him. 'He has no breath in him, he's dead. That's what it is. What senseless people, Lord help us!'

III

The ship is no longer heaving, and Paul Ivanovich has cheered up. He is no longer angry, and his expression is boastful, challenging and mocking.

'Yes,' he seems about to say, 'I'm going to tell you something to make you all split your sides laughing.'

The port-hole is open and a soft breeze blows on Paul Ivanovich. Voices are heard, and the plashing of oars.

Just beneath the port-hole someone sets up an unpleasant, shrill droning—a Chinese singing, that must be.

'Yes, we're in the roadstead now,' Paul Ivanovich says with a sardonic smile. 'Another month or so and we'll be in Russia. Yes indeed, sirs, gentlemen and barrack-room scum. I'll go to Odessa, and then straight on to Kharkov. I have a friend in Kharkov, a literary man. I'll go and see him.

'"Now, old boy," I'll say, "you can drop your loathsome plots about female amours and the beauties of nature for the time being, and expose these verminous bipeds. Here are some subjects for

m i

you.

He ponders for a minute.

'Know how I fooled them, Gusev ?' he asks.

'Fooled who, Paul Ivanovich ?'

'Why, those people we were talking about. There are only two classes on this boat, see, frst and third. And no one's allowed to travel third class except peasants—the riff'-raff, in other words. Wear a jacket and look in the least like a gentleman or bourgeois—then you must go fi.rst class, if you please! You must fork out your five hundred roubles if it kills you.

'"Now why," I ask, "did you make such a rule? Trying to raise the prestige of the Russian intelligentsia, I assume?"

'"Not at all. We don't allow it because no respectable person should travel third—it's very nasty and messy in there."

"'Oh yes? Grateful for your concern on behalf of respectable per- sons, I'm sure! But nice or nasty, I haven't got five hundred roubles either way. I've never embezzled public funds, I haven't exploited any natives. I've not done any smuggling—nor have I ever flogged anyone to death. So judge for yourself—have I any right to travel first class, let alone reckon myself a member of the Russian intelligentsia ?"

'But logic gets you nowhere with these people, so I'm reduced to deception. I put on a worknun's coat and high boots, I assume the facial expression of a drunken brute, and off"I go to the agent. "Gimme one o' them tickets, kind sir!"'

'And what might your station be in life?' asks the sailor.

'The clerical. My father was an honest priest who always told the powers that be the truth to their faces—and no little did he sufffer for it.'

S.A.O.S.-8

Paul Ivanovich is tired of speaking. He gasps for breath, but still goes on.

'Yes, I never mince my words, I fear nothing and no one—there's a vast difference between me and you in this respect. You're a blind, benighted, downwn-trodden lot. You see nothing—and what you do see you don't understand. People tell you the wind's broken loose from its chain—that you're cattle, savages. And you believe them. They punch you on the neck—you kiss their hand. Some animal in a racoon coat robs you, then tips you fifteen copecks—and, "Oh, let me kiss your hand, sir," say you. You're pariahs, you're a pathetic lot, but me— that's another matter. I live a conscious life, and I see everything as an eagle or hawk sees it, soaring above the earth. I understand it all. I am protest incarnate. Ifl see tyranny, I protest. Ifl see a canting hypocrite, I protest. If I see swine triumphant, I protest. I can't be put downwn, no Spanish Inquisition can silence me. No sir. Cut out my tongue and I'll protest in mime. Wall me up in a cellar and I'll shout so loud, I'll be heard a mile off. Or I'll starve myself to death, and leave that extra weight on their black consciences. Kill me—my ghost will still haunt you. "You're quite insufferable, Paul Ivanovich"—so say all who know me, and I glory in that reputation. I've served three years in the Far East, and I'll be remembered there for a century. I've had rows with everyone. "Don't come back," my friends write from European Russia. So I da^ well will come back and show them, indeed I will. That's life, the way I see it—that's what I call living.'

Not listening, Gusev looks through the port-hole. On limpid water of delicate turquoise hue a boat tosses, bathed in blinding hot sunlight. In it stand naked Chinese, holding up cages of canaries.

'Sing, sing,' they shout.

Another boat bangs into the first, and a steam cutter dashes past. Then comes yet another boat with a fat Chinese sitting in it, eating rice with chopsticks. The water heaves lazily, with lazy white gulls gliding above it.

'That greasy one needs a good clout on the neck,' thinks Gusev, gazing at the fat Chinese and yawning.

He is dozing, and feels as if all nature is dream-bound too. Time passes swiftly. The day goes by unnoticed, unnoticed too steals on the dark.

No longer at anchor, the ship forges on to some further destina- tion.

IV

Two days pass. Paul Ivanovich no longer sits up. He is l ying down with his eyes shut, and his nose seems to have grown sharper.

'Paul Ivanovich!' Gusev shouts. 'Hey, Paul Ivanovich!'

Paul Ivanovich opens his eyes and moves his lips.

'Feeling unwell?'

'It's nothing, nothing,' gasps Paul Ivanovich in answer. 'On the contrary, I feel better, actually. I can lie down now, see ? I feel easier.'

'Well, thank God for that, Paul Ivanovich.'

'Comparing myself with you poor lads, I feel sorry for you. My lungs are all right, this is only a stomach cough. I can endure hell, let alone the Red Sea. I have a critical attitude to my illness and medicines, what's more. But you—you benighted people, you have a rotten time, you really do.'

There is no motion and the sea is calm, but it is sweltering hot, like a steam bath. It was hard enough to listen, let alone speak. Gusev hugs his knees, rests his head on them and thinks of his homcland. Heavens, what joy to think about snow and cold in this stifling hcat! You're sledging along, when the horses suddenly shy and bolt.

Roads, ditches, gulleys—it's all one to them. Along they hurtle like mad, right down the village, over pond, past pottery, out through open country.

'Hold him!' shout pottery hands and peasants at the top of their voices. 'Hold hard!'

But why hold? Let the keen, cold gale lash your face and bite your hands. Those clods of snow kicked up by horses' hooves—let them fall on cap, down collar, on neck and chest. Runners may squeak, traces and swingletrees snap—to hell with them! And what joy when the sledge overturns and you fly full tilt into a snowdrift, face buried in snow— then stand up, white all over, with icicles hanging from your moustache, no cap, no mittens, your belt undone.

People laugh, dogs bark.

Paul Ivanovich half opens one eye and looks at Gusev.

'Did your commanding officer steal, Gusev?' he asks softly.

'Who can tell, Paul Ivanovich? We know nothing, it don't come to our ears.'

A long silence follows. Gusev broods, rambles deliriously, keeps drinking water. He finds it hard to speak, hard to listen, and he is afraid of being talked to. One hour passes, then a second, then a third.

Evening comes on, then night, but he noticcs nothing, and still sits dreaming of thc frost.

It sounds as if somconc has come into the sick-bay, and voices are heard—but five minutes later everything is silent.

'God be with him,' says the soldicr with his arm in a sling. 'May he rest in peace, he was a rcstless man.'

'What ?' Gusev asks. 'Who?'

'He's dead, they've just carried him up.'

'Ah well,' mumbles Gusev with a ya^. 'May the Kingdom of Heaven be his.'

'What do you think, Gusev ?' asks the soldier with the sling after a short pause. 'Will he go to heaven or not?'

'Who?'

'Paul Ivanovich.'

'Yes, he will—he suffered so long. And then he's from thc clergy, and priests always have a lot of relations—their prayers will save him.'

The soldier with the sling sits on Gusev's bunk.

'You're not long for this world either, Gusev,' hc says in an under- tone. 'You'll never get to Russia.'

'Did the doctor or his assistant say so?' Gusev asks.

'It's not that anyone said so, it's just obvious—you can always tell when someone's just going to die. You don't cat, you don't drink, and you're so thin—you're a frightful sight. It's consumption, in fact. I don't say this to upset you, but you may want to have the sacrament and the last rites. And if you have :^ny money you'd better give it to the senior officer.'

'I never wrote home,' sighs Gusev. 'They won't even know I'm dead.'

'They will,' says the sick sailor in a deep voice. 'When you're dead an entry will be made in the ship's log, they'll give a note to the Army Commander in Odessa, and he'll send a message to your parish or whatever it is.'

This talk makes Gusev uneasy, and a vague urge disturbs him. He drinks water, but that isn't it. He stretches towards the port-hole and breathes in the hot, dank air, but that isn't it either. He tries to think of homc and frost—and it still isn't right.

He feels in the end that one more minute in the sick-bay will surely choke him to dcath.

'I'm real bad, mates,' says hc. 'I'm going on deck—help me up, for Christ's sakc.'

'All right.' agrees the soldier with the sling. 'You'll never do it on your o^, I'll carry you. Hold on to my neck.'

Gusev puts his arms round the soldier's neck, while the soldier puts his able arm round Gusev and carries him up. Sailors and discharged soldiers are sleeping all over the place on deck—so many of them that it is hard to pass.

'Get do^,' the soldier with the sling says quietly. 'Follow me slowly, hold on to my shirt.'

It is dark. There are no lights on deck or masts, or in the sea around them. Still as a statue on the tip of the bow stands the man on watch, but he too looks as ifhe is sleeping. Left to its o^ devices, apparently, the ship seems to be sailing where it lists.

'They're going to throw Paul Ivanovich in the sea now,' says the soldier with the sling. 'They'll put him in a sack and throw him in.'

'Yes. That's the way of it.'

'But it's better to lie in the earth at home. At least your mother will come and cry over your grave.'

'Very true.'

There is a smell of dung and hay. Bullocks with lowered heads are standing by the ship's rail. One, two, three—there are eight of them. There is a small pony too. Gusev puts his hand out to stroke it, but it tosses its head, bares its teeth, and tries to bite his sleeve.

'Blasted thing!' says Gusev angrily.

The two of them, he and the sailor, quietly thread their way to the bows, then stand by the rail and look up and do^ without a word. Overhead are deep sky, bright stars, peace, quiet—and it is just like being at home in your village. But do^ below are darkness and dis- order. The tall waves roar for no kno^ reason. Whichever wave you watch, each is trying to lift itself above the others, crushing them and chasing its neighbour, while on it, with a growling flash of its white mane, pounces a third roller no less wild and hideous.

The sea has no sense, no pity. Were the ship smaller, were it not made of stout iron, the waves would snap it without the slightest compunction and devour all the people, saints and sinners alike. The ship shows the same mindless cruelty. That beaked monster drives on, cutting millions of waves in her path, not fearing darkness, wind, void, solitude. She cares for nothing, and if the ocean had its people this juggernaut would crush them too, saints and sinners alike.

'Where are we now?' Gusev asks.

'I don't know. In the ocean, we must be.' 'Can't see land.'

'Some hope! We shan't see that for a week, they say.'

Silently reflecting, both soldiers watch the white foam with its phosphorescent glint. The first to break silence is Gusev.

'It ain't frightening,' says he. 'It does give you the creeps a bit, though—like sitting in a dark forest. But if they was to lower a dinghy into the water now, say, and an officer told me to go sixty miles over the sea and fish—1'd go. Or say some good Christian was to fall over- board, I'd go in after him. A German or a Chinaman I wouldn't save, but I'd go in after a Christian.'

'Are you afeared of dying?'

'Aye. It's the old home that worries me. My brother's none too steady, see? He drinks, he beats his wife when he didn't ought to, and he don't look up to his parents. It'll all go to rack and ruin without me, and my father and my old mother will have to beg for their bread, very like. But I can't rightly stand up, mate, and it's so stuffy here. Let's go to bed.'

v

Gusev goes back to the sick-bay and gets in his Some vague

urge still disturbs him, but what it is he wants he just can't reckon. His chest feels tight, his head's pounding, and his mouth's so parched, he can hardly move his tongue. He dozes and rambles. Tormented by nightmares, cough and sweltering atmosphere, he falls fast asleep by morning. He dreams that they havejust taken the bread out of the oven in his barracks. He has climbed into the stove himself, and is having a steam bath, lashing himself with a birch switch. He sleeps for two days. At noon on the third, two soldiers come do^ and carry him out of the sick-bay.

They sew him up in sail-cloth and put in two iron bars to weigh him do^. Se^ in canvas, he looks like a carrot or radish—broad at the head and narrow at the base.

They carry him on deck before sundo^, and place him on a plank. One end of the plank rests on the ship's rail, the other on a box set on a stool. Heads bare, discharged soldiers and crew stand by.

'Blessed is the Lord's name,' begins the priest. 'As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be.'

'Amen,' chant three sailors.

Soldiers and crew cross themselves, glancing sideways at the waves.

Strange that a man has been sewn into that sail-cloth and will shortly fly into those waves. Could that really happen to any of them?

The priest scatters earth over Gusev and makes an obeisance. Eternal Memory is sung.

The officer of the watch tilts one end of the plank. Gusev slides down it, flies off head first, does a somersault in the air and—in he splashes! Foam envelops him, and he seems swathed in lace for a second, but the second passes and he vanishes beneath the waves.

He moves swiftly towards the bottom. Will he reach it? It is said to be three miles do^. He sinks eight or nine fathoms, then begins to move more and more slowly, swaying rhythmically as if trying to make up his mind. Caught by a current, he is swept sideways more swiftly than do^wards.

Now he meets a shoal of little pilot-fsh. Seeing the dark body, the fish stop dead. Suddenly all t^rc tail at once and vanish. Less than a minute later they again pounce on Gusev like arrows and stitch the water round him with zig-zags.

Then another dark hulk looms—a shark. Ponderous, reluctant and apparently ignoring Gusev, it glides under him and he sinks on to its back. Then it turns belly upwards, basking in the warm, translucent water, and languidly opening its jaw with the two rows of fangs. The pilot-fish are delighted, waiting to see what will happen next. After playing with the body, the shark nonchalantly puts itsjaws underneath, cautiously probing with its fangs, and the sail-cloth tears along the body's whole length from head to foot. One iron bar falls out, scares the pilot-fi.sh, hits the shark on the flank and goes swiftly to the bottom.

Overhead, meanwhile, clouds are massing on the sunset side—one like a triumphal arch, another like a lion, a third like a pair of scissors.

From the clouds a broad, green shaft of light breaks through, spanning out to the sky's very centre. A little later a violet ray settles alongside, then a gold one by that, and then a pink one.

The sky turns a delicate mauve. Gazing at this sky so glorious and magical, the ocean scowls at first, but soon it too takes on tender, joyous, ardent hues for which human speech hardly has a name.

PEASANT WOMEN

JusT opposite the church in the village of Raybuzh stands an iron- roofed, two-storey house with a stone foundation. The o^er, Philip Kashin, also kno^ as Dyudya, lives on the ground floor with his faiily, while on the upper storey^

His elder son Theodore is foreman mechanic in a factory—having gone up in the world, as the locals say, and left the rest of them stand- ing. Theodore's wife Sophia, a plain woman in poor health, makes her home with her father-in-law, is always crying, and drives over to hospital for treatment every Sunday. Dyudya's second son, hunch- backed Alyoshka, lives at home with his father, and was recently married to a girl from a poor family called Barbara—a pretty young thing who enjoys the best of health and likes to dress smartly. When officials and merchants put up at the house, they always insist on Barbara serving the samovar and making their beds.

One June evening—the sun was setting and a scent of hay, warm dung and fresh milk filled the air—a plain cart with three occupants drove into Dyudya's yard. There was a man of about thirty in a sail- cloth suit sitting beside a boy of seven or eight in a long, black coat with big bone buttons, and there was a red-shirted youth as driver.

The youth unhitched the horses and walked them up and do^ the street, while the man washed, faced the church to say a prayer, spread out a rug by the can, and sat do^ with the boy to have supper.

He ate with leisurely dignity. Having seen plenty of travellen in his day, Dyudya recognized his bearing as that of a biisinesslike, serious man who knows his o^ worth.

Dyudya sat in his porch in his waistcoat, without a cap, waiting for the traveller to speak—he was used to visiton telling various bed-time stories of an evening, and liked listening to them. His wife, old Afana- syevna, and his daughter-in-law, Sophia, were milking in the cow- shed, while Barbara—the other daughter-in-law—sat upstain by an open window eating sunflower seeds.

'Would the little boy be your son, then ?' Dyudya asked the traveller.

'No, he's adopted—an orphan. I took him in for my soul's salvation.'

They fell into conversation, and the visitor turned out a talkative man with quite a tum of phrase. From what he said Dyudya learnt that he was a local to^sman of the lower sort and a householder, that he went by the name of Matthew Savvich, that he was now on his way to look at some allotments which he had rented from some German settlers, and that the boy was called Kuzka. It was a hot, stifling evening, and no one felt like sleep. When it was dark, and pale stars twinkled here and there in the sky, Matthew Savvich began telling the story of how Kuzka had come into his care. Afanasyevna and Sophia stood a little way off listening, and Kuzka went to the gate.

'It's a complicated story in the extreme, old man,' Matthew began. 'To tell you all of it would take all night and more. Ten years ago there lived in our street, in the cottage next to mine—where the chand- lery and dairy now are—an old widow called Martha Kapluntsev, who had two sons. One was a railway guard. The other, Vasya, was about my age, and lived at home with his mother. Old Kapluntsev had kept horses, about five pair, and had a carting business in town. The widow carried on her husband's business, and was as good at managing her carriers as the old man, so that the carting cleared about five roubles' profit some days. The lad made a bit of money too, breeding pedigree pigeons and selling them to fanciers. He was for- ever standing on the roof, throwing up a broom and whistling, while his tumblers flew right up in the sky—but not high enough for him, he wanted them higher still. He caught goldfnches and starlings, and made them cages.

'It seemed a waste of time, but his time-wasting was soon bringing in ten roubles a month. Well now, in course of time the old lady loses the use ofher legs and takes to her bed, for which reason the house has no woman to run it, and that's about as good as a man having no eyes! So the old lady bestirs herself and decides to get Vasya married. They call in the matchmaker at once, one thing leads to another, there's lots of women's talk, and Vasya goes to inspect the local girls. He picks on Mashenka, Widow Samokhvalikha's daughter. They're betrothed without much ado, and it's all fixed up in one week. She's a young girl of about seventeen, a small, short little thing, but fair-<:omplexioned and attractive, with all the makings of a high-class young lady, and her dowry isn't bad—about five hundred roubles in cash, a cow and a bed. But the old lady knew what was coming, and two days after the wedding she departs for that heavenly Jerusalem where there's neither illness nor sighing. The young couple bury her and settle do^. For six months everything's fine, but then disaster suddenly strikes again— it never rains but it pours. Vasya's summoned to an office for the con- scription balloting, and they take him for a soldier, poor boy—won't even grant him any exemptions, but shave his head and pack him off to Poland. God's will it was, it couldn't be helped. He's all right as he says good-bye to the wife in his yard, but when he takes his last look at his pigeon-loft he weeps buckets—a sorry sight he is. At first Mashenka gets her mother to live with her to keep her company, and the mother stays on till the confinement, when this boy Kuzka is born. But then she goes to another married daughter in Oboyan, leaving Mashenka alone with her baby. There are the five carters—a drunken, rowdy crew. She has the horses and drays on her hands, besides which there's her fence falling do^, or her chi^ey catching fi.re, see? It's not woman's work, so she turns to me for every little thing, since we're neighbours. I go and fix things up, give her a few tips.

'Well, of course, all this means going indoors, having tea and a chat. I'm a young chap—a bit brainy, like, fond of talking about this and that—and she's a cultured, polite girl too. She dresses nicely and carries a parasol in summer. I'll start talking religion or politics, which flatters her and she'll give me tea and jam.

'In fact, old man, to cut a long story short, within a twelve-month the devil, the adversary of mankind, has me in a proper muddle, I can tell you. I notice that if I don't go and see her, I never feel right that day—I'm bored. And I keep thinking of excuses to call.

'"It's time to put in your window-frames for winter," I say. And I hang around all day with her—putting in her frames, but taking care to leave a couple over for next day.

"'I'd better count Vasya's pigeons," I say, "and see that none of them gets lost''—and so on.

'I keep talking to her over the fcnce, and end by making a little gate in it as a short cut. There's a lot of evil and nastiness in this world from the fcmale sex—even saints have been led astray, let alone us sinners. Mashenka doesn't keep me at arm's length, and instead of thinking of her husband and keeping herself for him, she falls in love with me. I begin noticing that she misses me too, and is always walking near the fence and looking into my yard through the cracks. My mind reels at the thought of her. Early one moriing, at dawn on a Thursday in Easter Week, I'm going past her gate on my way to market when up pops the Evil One. I look through the trellis thing at the top of her gate, and there she is—already awake and feeding her ducks in the middle of the yard. I can't resist calling her. She comes and looks at me through the trellis, her little face all pale, her eyes soft and sleepy- looking.

'I find her very attractive and begin complimenting her, like as if we were at a party instead of standing by that gate, while she blushes, laughs and looks me straight in the eye without blinking. I lose all sense and begin declaring my amorous feelings.

'She opens the gate to let me in, and we live together as man and wife from that morning on.'

Hunchbacked Alyoshka came into the yard from the street, and ran gasping into the house without looking at anyone. A minute later he ran out of doors again with his accordion and vanished through the gate, jingling copper coins in his pocket and cracking sunflower seeds on his way.

'Who's that?' asked Matthew Savvich.

'It's my son Alyoshka,' answered Dyudya. 'The rascal's off on a spree. He's a hunchback, God having afflicted him that way, so we don't ask much of him.'

'He's always with the lads, always having his bit of fun,' sighed Afanasyevna. 'We married him offjust before Shrovetide, and thought he'd improve—but he's even worse, I do declare.'

'It didn't work out,' Dyudya said. 'We only made a strange girl's fortune when we didn't need to.'

Beyond the church someone began singing a magnificent, sad song. The words were inaudible, and only the voices could be heard—two tenors and a bass. While everyone listened, the yard grew as quict as can be.

Two of the singers suddenly broke off with a peal of laughter, but the third—a tenor—went on singing, taking so high a note that all felt impelled to gaze upwards as if the voice had reached the very height of heaven. Barbara came out of doors and looked at the church, shading her eyes with her hand as if blinded by sunlight.

'It's the priest's sons and the schoolmaster,' she said.

The three voices once more sang in unison. Matthew Savvich sighed.

'Well, that's the way of it, old man,' he went on. 'Two years later we get a letter from Vasya in Warsaw. He's being invalided out of the army, he writes—he isn't well. Dy this time I've banished all that nonsense from my head, and arrangements are undcr way to marry me to a decent young woman, but what I don't know is how to be rid of this wretched love affair. I make up my mind to speak to Mashenka every day, but I don't know how I ^ do it without a lot of female squawking. The letter frees my hands. Mashenka and I read it together, and she turns white as a sheet.

' "Thank God," says I. "This means you can be an honest woman again."

' "I won't live with him," she tells me.

"'He's your husband, ain't he?" says I.

'"It ain't so simple. I never loved him—I married him against my will because Mother made me."

'"Now don't try and wriggle out of it, you little fool," I say. "Just tell me this—were you married in church or weren't you?"

' "Yes I was," says she. "But it's you I love, and I'll live with you till my dying day. People may laugh at me, but I don't care."

'"You're a God-fearing woman," say I. "You've read what the Scripture says, haven't you?"'

'If she's married, she should cleave to her husband,' said Dyudya.

'Yes, husband and wife arc one flesh.

'"You and I have sinned," I tell her, "and we must stop. We must repent and fear God. Let's beg Vasya's pardon," say I. "He's a quiet, mild fellow—he won't kill us. And it's better," I say, "to suffer agonies from a lawful husband in this world than gnash your teeth on the Day ofJudgement."

'The woman won't listen, she's set on having her o^ way, and takes no notice.

'"I love you,'' says she, and that was that.

'Vasya arrives home on the Saturday before Trinity Sunday, early in the morning—I can see everything through the fence. He runs into the house, and comes out a minute later with Kuzka in his arms, laugh- ing and crying. He kisses Kuzka and looks at his pigeon loft—he wants to go to his pigeons, but hasn't the heart to put Kuzka down. A soft, sentimental sort of fellow, he was. The day passes off all right, quietly and uneventfully. The bells are rung for evening service.

'"Tomorrow's Trinity Sunday,'' I think. "So why don't they deco- rate their gate and fence with green boughs? Somcthing's wrong," thinks I.

'So I go over. I look, and there he is sitting on the floor in the middle of thc room, rolling his eyes as if he was drunk, with tears streaming Jown his cheeks and his hands trcmbling. He takes somc cracknels, necklaces, gingerbread and various sweets out ofhis bundle, and throws them all over the floor. Kuzka, about three years old at the time, crawls around munching gingerbread, while Mashenka stands by the stove, pale and shuddering.

"'I'm no wife to you, I don't want to live with you," she mutters, and all sorts of silly rubbish.

'I bow low to Vasya.

'"We have done you wrong, Vasya," I say. "Forgive us, for Christ's sake!"

'Then I get up and speak to Mashenka.

'"You, Mashenka, must now wash Vasya's feet and drink the dirty water. Be his obedient wife, and pray God for me that He may forgive my transgressions in His mercy."

'As if inspired by an angel in heaven, I read her a lecture and speak with such feeling that I actually break do-wn and cry. Well, two days later Vasya comes to see me.

'"I'll forgive you, Matthew, and forgive my wife too," he says. "God help you both. She's a soldier's wife, it's a common way of behaving for a young female, it's hard to keep yourself to yourself. She ain't the first and she won't be the last. The only thing is," says he, "I ask you to act as if there had never been anything between you— don't let on. And I," says he, "will try to please her every way I can, so she'll love me again."

'He shakes hands with me, has some tea and goes away looking happy. Well, thinks I, thank God for that, and I'm glad it's all turned out so well. But no sooner is Vasya out of my yard than in comes Mashenka—something terrible, it was. She hangs on my neck, crying.

'"Don't leave me, for Christ's sake," she begs. "I can't live without t>»

you.

'The shameless hussy!' sighed Dyudya.

'I shout at her, I stamp my feet, I drag her out in the lobby, and I put the door on the latch.

'"Go to your husband," I shout. "Don't shame me in public. Have some fear of God in your heart."

'So it goes on every day. One morning I'm standing in my yard by the stable, mending a bridle, and suddenly I see her run in through the gate, barefoot, just as she was in her petticoat, coming straight towards me. She picks up the bridle and gets tarall over her, trembling and crying.

'"I can't live with that hateful creature, I can't bear it. If you don't love me, kill me."

'I get angry and hit her twice with the bridle, and meanwhile Vasya runs in through the gate.

'"Don't hit her, don't hit her!" he shouts, quite frantic.

'But he runs up himself and lashes out like a maniac, punching her with all his might. then throws her on the ground and starts kicking her. I try to protect her, but he picks up the reins and goes for her with those. And all the time he's thrashing her, he's squealing and whinny- ing like a foal.'

'I'd give you reins if I had my way!' muttered Barbara, moving ofl". 'Torturing us women, you rotten swine!'

'Shut up, bitch!' shouted Dyudya.

'Squealing away he was,' Matthew Savvich went on. 'One of the carters runs out ofhis yard, 1 call my own workman, and the three of us take Mashenka away from him and lead her home by the arms. Dis- graceful, it was! That evening I go along to see how she is, and she's lying in bed all wrapped up with fomentations on her. Only her eyes and nose can be seen, and she's looking at the ceiling.

'"Hello, Mashenka," I say. No answer.

'Vasya's sitting in the next room clutching his head.

"Tm a wicked man, I've ruined my life!" he weeps. "Let me die, O Lord!"

'I sit with Mashcnka for halfan hour and read her a lecture—put the fear of God into her.

' "The righteous will go to heaven in the next world," say I. "But you'll go into the fiery Gehenna along with all the other whores. Don't disobey your husband—down on your knees to him!"

'But not a word does she answer, she doesn't even wink an eye—I might have been talking to a stone. Next day Vasya sickens with something like cholera, and by evening I hear he's dead. They bury him.

'Not wanting to show people her shameless face and bruises, Mashenka doesn't go to the cemetery. And soon the rumour spreads among the townsfolk that Vasya's death wasn't natural, and that Mashenka did him in. The story reaches the authorities, who dig up Vasya, slit his guts and fmd arsenic in his belly—an open and shut case, it was. The police come and take Mashenka away together with that little innocent Kuzka, and put them in prison. That's where her flighty ways got her, it was punishment from God.

'They tried her eight months later. I remember her sitting in the dock wearing a white kerchief and grey prison coat. She was thin, pale, sharp-eyed—a pathetic sight. Behind her was a soldier with a gun. She wouldn't plead not guilty. There were some in court who said she'd poisoned her husband, while others argued that her husband had taken the poison himself in his grieЈ I was one witness. When they cross- examined me, I told the whole truth.

"'She done it, the sinful creature," said I. "She didn't love her husband, you can't get away from it—and she was used to having her o^ way."

'They began the trial in the morning, and that night they sentenced her to thirteen yeaxs' hard labour in Siberia. After the sentence, Mashenka was in the local prison for three months, and I used to go and see her—take her tea and sugar out of common humanity. But when she sees me she trembles all over and throws her arms about.

"'Go away," she mutters. "Go away!"

'And she clasps Kuzka to her as if afraid I might take him off her.

'"Now," I say, "see what you've sunk to! Oh Mashenka, Mashenka, you lost soul! You wouldn't listen when I tried to talk sense into you, and now you must pay for it. It's your fault," say I, "you'vc only yourself to blame."

'I read her a lecture, and she kecps telling me to go away, go away, huddling against the w;ill with Kuzka and shivering. When they're taking her to our county town, I go to see her off at the railway station and slip a rouble in her bundle to save my soul. Dut she never got to Siberia—she fell sick of a fever in the county to^ and died in gaol.'