CHAPTER VIII
The day was hot, sultry, windless—helplessly prostrate before the arrowed glances of the infuriated Dragon. A number of city folk sought coolness on the float, as the buffet at the steamboat-landing was called in Skorodozh. It was less oppressive under the canvas roof of the float, where at intervals gusts of breeze came from the river.
Piotr and Misha were in town to do some shopping. They stopped on the float to get a glass of lemonade. A steamboat had just come in below them. It began to unload the passengers and wares it brought from neighbouring manufacturing towns. It was the boat’s last stopping-point, the river higher up being too shallow. For a while there was much bustle and noise on the float. The little tables were soon occupied by townsfolk and new arrivals, chiefly officials and landlords. They drank wine and talked loudly, though peacefully; they shouted in the provincial manner, and it was easy to hear that many of the conversations touched more or less on political themes.
Two men who sat at one table were in evident agreement, yet spoke in tones of anger. They were the retired District Attorney Kerbakh and the retired Colonel Zherbenev, both large land-proprietors and patriots—members of the Union of Russian People.[9] Their speech was loud and vehement, and interpolated with such strange words and phrases as “treachery,” “sedition,” “hang them,” “wipe them out,” “give it to them.”
Nikolai Ilyitch Kerbakh was a small, thin, puny-looking man. The long, drooping moustache on his otherwise clean-shaven face seemed to be there merely to add to its already savage appearance. He rocked in his chair as he lazily stretched himself. His large coat hung about his shoulders like a bag, his highly coloured waistcoat was unbuttoned, his string necktie hung loose, half undone. Altogether he had the look of a man who would not let such small trifles stand in the way of his comfort. Near him, fidgeting restlessly in his chair, was his son, a slobbering, black-toothed youngster of eight, with a flagging, carmine-red under-lip.
Andrey Lavrentyevitch Zherbenev, a tall, lank man with an important air, sat motionless and erect as though he were nailed to his chair, and surveyed those round him with a stern glance. His white linen coat, with all its buttons fastened, sat on him as on a bronze idol.
“In everything, I say, the parents are to blame,” continued Kerbakh in the same savage voice as before. “It is necessary to instil the right ideas from very childhood. Now look at my children....”
And he shouted at his son with unnecessary loudness, though the two sat almost nudging each other:
“Sergey!”
“Yeth?” lisped the slobbering boy.