Throwing his cigarette overboard, he was silent. Then he spoke again.
"You have fallen among a herd of swine, and I am sorry for you, my little one. I am sorry for all of them, too. Another time I do not know what I should have done. Gone on my knees and prayed. What are you doing, sons of ——? What are you doing, blind creatures? Camels!"
The steamer gave a long-drawn-out hoot, the tow-rope splashed in the water, the lights of lanterns jumped up and down, showing where the harbor was. Out of the darkness more lights appeared.
"Pyani Bor [1] I am going on shore."
The coarse-grained women and girls of Kamska dragged logs of wood from the shore in long trucks. Bending under their load-straps, with pliable tread, they arrived in pairs at the stoker's hold, and, emptying their sooty loads into the black hole, cried ringingly:
"Logs!"
[1] Pyanaia means "drunk," and the other names mentioned come from the same root. Nepei-pivo means, "Do not drink beer."
When they brought the wood the sailors would take hold of them by the breasts or the legs. The women squealed, spat at the men, turned back, and defended themselves against pinches and blows with their trucks. I saw this a hundred times, on every voyage and at every land-stage where they took in wood, and it was always the same thing.
I felt as if I were old, as if I had lived on that boat for many years, and knew what would happen in a week's time, in the autumn, in a year.
It was daylight now. On a sandy promontory above the harbor stood out a forest of fir-trees. On the hills and through the forests women went laughing and singing. They looked like soldiers as they pushed their long trucks.