I
The burning July sun blazed dazzlingly over Smolkena, pouring down upon the old huts a generous stream of resplendent rays. A goodly share of the sunlight fell to the roof of the Starosta’s[2] hut, newly recovered with smoothly-planed, yellow, fragrant planks. It was Sunday, and almost the entire population of the village had gone out into the street, thickly overgrown with grass and bespattered in spots with quantities of dry mud. A large group of peasants—men and women—had gathered in front of the Starosta’s hut. Some sat on the earthwork around the house, others simply stood; while the children chased one another in and out of the throng, calling forth from the elders rebukes and blows.
The centre of the crowd was a tall man, with large, drooping mustaches. To judge from his swarthy face, covered with thick gray bristles and a network of deep wrinkles, as well as from the gray tufts of hair which forced their way from under the dirty straw hat, he might have been fifty years of age. He was gazing on the ground, and the nostrils of his large, gristly nose were quivering; and when he raised his head, throwing his glance upon the windows of the Starosta’s hut, his eyes—large, melancholy, and even morose—became visible; they were sunk deep within their orbits, and the bushy brows cast shadows over their dark pupils. He was dressed in the brown under-cassock of a lay-brother, worse for the wear; it hardly covered his knees, and was girt with cord. Over his back was flung a bag; in his right hand he carried a long stick with iron ferrule; his left hand he held in his bosom. The people eyed him suspiciously, derisively, with contempt; and with evident joy in having caught a wolf before he had had time to do hurt to their flock. He was passing through the village, and had asked for a drink at the window of the Starosta’s hut. The Starosta gave him cider and entered into conversation with him. The wayfarer, however, unlike his kind, answered unwillingly. The Starosta asked him for his passport, but none was forthcoming. It was decided to send him to the local magistrate. The Starosta chose as the man’s escort the village deputy, and was now in the hut giving him directions, having in the meantime left the prisoner in the midst of the mob which made sport of him.
The prisoner stood near the trunk of a willow and rested against it his stooped back.
Presently there appeared on the staircase of the hut a dim-eyed old man, with a foxy face and a gray, wedge-shaped beard. He lowered his booted feet step by step, measuredly, and his round stomach moved from side to side solidly under the long calico shirt. Just over his shoulder came to view the bearded, four-cornered face of the deputy.
“Do you understand me, Efimushka?” the Starosta questioned the deputy.
“Why shouldn’t I understand? It’s easy enough. Simply means I am to take this man to the magistrate—and there’s an end of it!” The deputy, pronouncing his speech with measured emphasis and with comical dignity, winked at the public.
“And the papers?”
“The papers are stuck away in my bosom.”
“Well, all right, then,” said the Starosta, and, scratching his sides energetically, he added:
“Go, and God be with you!”
“Well, shall we march on, father?” said the deputy to the prisoner.
“You might furnish a conveyance,” grumbled the prisoner at the deputy’s proposition.
The Starosta smiled.
“A con—vey—ance? The idea! There are lots of you fellows tramping across fields and villages. Where are all the horses to come from? You’ve got to make it on foot; that’s all there’s to it!”
“That’s nothing, father; let us go,” said the deputy cheerfully. “Do you think it so far? Can’t be more than twenty versts! You’ll be there before you know it. We shall make a nice trip of it. And afterwards you shall have a rest.”
“In a cool place,” explained the Starosta.
“That’s nothing,” the deputy hastened to say. “A man, when he is very tired, will find rest even in jail. And especially after a hot day you will find it cool and comfortable there.”
The prisoner eyed his escort sharply; the latter smiled good-naturedly and frankly.
“Well, come along, honest father! Good-bye, Vasil Gavrilich! Let’s go!”
“God be with you, Efimushka! Use both your eyes.”
“Yes, you’ll have to look sharp!” was the suggestion thrown at the deputy by a young peasant in the crowd.
“What, do you think I’m an infant?”
They started, keeping close to the huts, so as to be within the strip of shadow. The man in the cassock walked in front, with the loose but rapid gait of a being accustomed to roaming. The deputy, with a sturdy stick in his hand, followed.
Efimushka was a little peasant, low in stature, but built strongly, with a broad, good-natured face framed in an unkempt red beard beginning just below his bright gray eyes. He nearly always smiled at something, showing his healthy yellow teeth, and wrinkling his nose as if he wanted to sneeze. He was dressed in a long garment whose folds were caught up at the waist with a belt, so that they might not hamper his feet; on his head was stuck a dark green cap, without a visor, reminding one of a prisoner’s cap.
His companion moved on as if oblivious of another presence. They walked along by a narrow by-path, which wound its way through a billowy sea of rye; and the shadows of the travellers glided along against the gold of the corn.
Looking towards the horizon, the crest of a wood appeared blue against the sky. To the left stretched endlessly field upon field; in their midst, like a dark patch, lay a village; and beyond the village again fields, losing themselves finally in the bluish haze.
To the right, from behind a group of willows, a church spire covered with tin-plate, as yet unpainted, pierced the blue sky. It glistened so strongly in the sun that it was painful to look at.
Up high the larks twittered; and in the rye the cornflowers smiled; and it was hot—almost stifling. From under the feet of the travellers the dust flew up.
Efimushka, clearing his throat, began to sing in falsetto voice.
“It’s no use. I can’t make my voice carry! And yet—there was a time when I could sing.... The Vishensky teacher would say, ‘Well, Efimushka, make a start!’ And we would sing together! A fine fellow he was, too!”
“Who was he?”, asked the man in the cassock, in a dull bass voice.
“The Vishensky teacher.”
“Was Vishensky his name?”
“No, brother; that’s the name of the village. The teacher’s name was Pavel Mikhalich. A first-rate sort he was. Died three years ago.”
“Was he young?”
“He wasn’t thirty.”
“What did he die of?”
“Of grief, I take it.”
Efimushka’s companion glanced at him askance and smiled.
“You see, my dear fellow, this is how it happened. He taught—seven years at a stretch he taught. Well, he began to cough. He coughed and he coughed, and then got to grieving.... Well, you know how it is—grief drove him to drink. And Father Alexei did not like him; and when he started drinking, Father Alexei sent a report to town—told this and that: the teacher is drinking, and that sort of thing. It’s a scandal, to be sure. And the people in town sent back an answer and a woman teacher. She was tall, bony, big-nosed. Well, Pavel Mikhalich saw how things stood. He felt hurt. ‘Here,’ thought he,’ I have taught and taught ... and now you—— ’ ... From the school he went straight to the hospital, and within five days gave up his soul to God.... That’s all.”
For a time they went on in silence. They were approaching the wood, which with every step loomed larger and larger and was turning from blue to green.
“Shall we go by the wood?” asked Efimushka’s fellow traveller.
“We will only catch the edge of it, for a half-verst or so. But what are you up to? I shall keep my eye on you, my good man.”
And Efimushka, shaking his head, laughed.
“What ails you?” the prisoner asked.
“Oh, nothing! But you are a funny one! ‘Shall we go by the wood?’ says he. You are a simpleton, dear fellow; another wouldn’t have asked this question—that is, if he were any smarter. He would have made straight for the wood, and——”
“Well?”
“Oh, nothing! I see through you, brother. Your game is like a very thin reed! I should advise you to drop this idea about the wood! Do you think you can get around me? I can handle three like you; as for you, I can manage you with my left hand. Do you understand?”
“Understand you? You’re a fool!” said the prisoner simply but with emphasis.
“Ah, I hit the mark that time!” said Efimushka triumphantly.
“Blockhead! What mark did you hit?” asked the prisoner, with a wry smile.
“About the wood. I understand, I do. You were thinking that when we reached the wood you would knock me down—yes, knock me down—and then make a break for the fields or for the woods. Now, isn’t that so?”
“You’re a fool,” said the apprehended man, shrugging his shoulders. “Where could I go?”
“Well, where you wish—that’s your affair.”
“But where?”
Efimushka’s companion was either angry or else he really wished to know from his escort precisely in what direction he could run.
“I told you, where you wished,” replied Efimushka calmly.
“There’s nowhere where I could run, nowhere,” said his companion quietly.
“W-well!” the escort pronounced incredulously, and waved his hand. “There’s always some place where one could run to. The world is large. There will be always enough room in it for one man.”
“Tell me, then: do you really want me to run away?” the prisoner, smiling, ventured to ask.
“Ah, you! You are terribly good! What will come of it? You’ll run away, and in your place some one else will have to go to jail. And that one will be me. No, I’m simply making conversation.”
“You are a blessed fool—otherwise you seem a good sort of fellow,” said Efimushka’s companion, uttering a sigh. Efimushka quite agreed with him.
“It is true I am called blessed by some people; and that I’m a good fellow is also true. I am a simple man—that’s at the bottom of it. Other people say things with cunning, in an underhand sort of way, but why should I? I am alone in the world. Deal wrongly—and you die; deal rightly—you die also. And so I’ve kept straight, mostly.”
“That is the right way,” remarked the prisoner indifferently.
“How else should it be? Why should I let my soul go wrong when I am alone here? I am a free man, brother. As I wish, so I live. I have my own idea of life, and live according to it. So it goes. By the way, how are you called?”
“How? Well, you may call me Ivan Ivanov.”
“So! Are you of the priesthood?”
“N-no.”
“Well! And I thought you were——”
“Because of my dress?”
“Well, you look like a runaway monk or an unfrocked priest.... But your face is not at all suited; it looks more like a soldier’s. God knows what kind of man you are!” Efimushka cast a curious glance at the stranger. The other sighed, readjusted his hat, wiped the perspiration from his forehead, and asked the deputy:
“Do you smoke?”
“Happy to afford you the pleasure. To be sure, I do!”
He drew out of his bosom a soiled pouch and, lowering his head, without decreasing his gait, began to fill a clay pipe with tobacco.
“Well, have your smoke.” The prisoner paused, inclined his head to receive a light from a match held by the convoy, and drew in his cheeks. A thin blue smoke rose in the air.
“You haven’t told me as yet to what class you belong.”
“The gentry,” replied the prisoner curtly, and spat out sideways.
“So that’s it! How come you, then, to be strolling about without a passport?”
“I simply choose to.”
“So—so! What an occupation! You gentry do not usually take to this wolfish life. Ah, but you are a poor wretch!”
“Well, let it go at that ... and stop your chattering,” remarked the poor wretch dryly.
Efimushka, however, surveyed the passportless man with increased curiosity and interest, and, shaking his head in a perplexed manner, continued:
“Eh, but how fate does play with a man, when you come to think of it! And it is very likely true that you are of the gentry, because you have a grand manner about you. Have you lived long like this?”
The man with the grand manner looked gloomily at Efimushka, and waved him aside like some pestering wasp.
“Drop it, I tell you! Why do you stick at it like a woman?”
“Now, don’t be vexed,” said Efimushka reassuringly. “I speak from the heart ... and I am really kind-hearted....”
“Well, that’s lucky for you.... On the other hand, your tongue keeps on babbling without a stop—that’s unlucky for me!”
“No more, then, since you object. I can keep quiet, since you want none of my conversation. Still, you’re vexed for nothing. Is it my fault that you are leading a vagabond’s life?”
The prisoner stopped and clamped his jaws together so that his cheek-bones stood out like two sharp corners and the gray bristle covering them rose rigidly on end. He measured Efimushka from head to foot with passionate disdain and with a screwed-up expression at the eyes. Before Efimushka could note this, the other once more began to measure the ground with a broad stride.
The face of the loquacious deputy assumed an aspect of distraught pensiveness. He gazed upwards, whence sounded the trills of the larks, and with them whistled between his teeth, at the same time swinging his stick to the measure of his steps.
They approached the edge of the forest. It stood there like an immovable, dark wall. Not a sound came from it to greet the travellers. The sun already had set, and its oblique rays colored the tops of the trees purple and gold. The trees exhumed a fragrant dampness; and the gloom and the concentrated silence which filled the forest gave birth to sombre feelings.
When a forest stands before us dark and immovable, when it is all plunged in a mysterious silence, and every tree assumes the attitude as of listening to something, then it seems that the entire forest is filled with something alive, and that that something is only hiding for a time. And you await the next moment in the expectation that it will bring forth something huge and incomprehensible to the human mind, and that it will speak in a mighty voice about the great mysteries of creation.