"Oh, what a lot you need to be taught! This is no place for you."
I also felt that it was no place for me. Sergei behaved disgustingly to me, and several times I observed him stealing pieces of the tea-service, and giving them to the passengers on the sly. I knew that this was theft. Smouri had warned me more than once:
"Take care. Do not give the attendants any of the cups and plates from your table."
This made life still harder for me, and I often longed to run away from the boat into the forest; but Smouri held me back. He was more tender to me every day, and the incessant movement on the boat held a terrible fascination for me. I did not like it when we stayed in port, and I was always expecting something to happen, and that we should sail from Kama to Byela, as far as Viatka, and so up the Volga, and I should see new places, towns, and people. But this did not happen. My life on the steamer came to an abrupt end. One evening when we were going from Kazan to Nijni the steward called me to him. I went. He shut the door behind me, and said to Smouri, who sat grimly on a small stool:
"Here he is."
Smouri asked me roughly:
"Have you been giving Serejka any of the dinner- and tea-services?"
"He helps himself when I am not looking."
The steward said softly:
"He does not look, yet he knows."