"All right," said the passenger, putting away the map in a leather bag which lay on his knees. Talking softly together, they began to drink tea.
Before Yaakov went to his watch, I asked him what sort of a man this was. He replied, with a laugh:
"To see him, he might be a dove. He is a eunuch, that's what he is. He comes from Siberia—a long way off! He is amusing; he lives on a settlement."
Setting his black strong heels on the deck, like hoofs, once again he stopped, and scratched his side.
"I have hired myself to him as a workman. So when we get to Perm, I shall leave the boat, and it will be good-by to you, lad ? We shall travel by rail, then by river, and after that by horses. For five weeks we shall have to travel, to get to where the man has his colony."
"Did you know him before?" I asked, amazed at his sudden decision.
"How should I know him? I have never seen him before. I have never lived anywhere near him."
In the morning Yaakov, dressed in a short, greasy fur-coat, with sandals on his bare feet, wearing Medvyejenok's tattered, brimless straw hat, took hold of my arm with his iron grasp, and said:
"Why don't you come with me, eh? He will take you as well, that dove, if you only tell him you want to go. Would you like to? Shall I tell him? They will take away from you something which you will not need, and give you money. They make a festival of it when they mutilate a man, and they reward him for it."
The eunuch[1] stood on board, with a white bundle under his arm, 2nd looked stubbornly at Yaakov with his dull eyes, which were heavy and swollen, like those of a drowned person. I abused him in a low voice, and the stoker once more took hold of my arm.