'The man lives here; Sutchok is his nickname.'
Vladimir went with Yermolaï to Sutchok's. I told them I would wait for them at the church. While I was looking at the tombstones in the churchyard, I stumbled upon a blackened, four-cornered urn with the following inscription, on one side in French: 'Ci-git Théophile-Henri, Vicomte de Blangy'; on the next; 'Under this stone is laid the body of a French subject, Count Blangy; born 1737, died 1799, in the 62nd year of his age': on the third, 'Peace to his ashes': and on the fourth:—
'Under this stone there lies from France an emigrant.
Of high descent was he, and also of talent.
A wife and kindred murdered he bewailed,
And left his land by tyrants cruel assailed;
The friendly shores of Russia he attained,
And hospitable shelter here he gained;
Children he taught; their parents' cares allayed:
Here, by God's will, in peace he has been laid.'
The approach of Yermolaï with Vladimir and the man with the strange nickname, Sutchok, broke in on my meditations.
Barelegged, ragged and dishevelled, Sutchok looked like a discharged stray house-serf of sixty years old.
'Have you a boat?' I asked him.
'I have a boat,' he answered in a hoarse, cracked voice; 'but it's a very poor one.'
'How so?'
'Its boards are split apart, and the rivets have come off the cracks.'
'That's no great disaster!' interposed Yermolaï; 'we can stuff them up with tow.'