I objected to the experiment, proposing instead that he should tell me how he had really earned this piece of paper.
"Well, that is a long, long story," said he, waving his hand. "But I'll tell you—one day. Meantime let us rest and have a snack. We have an ample store of food, which means that it is not necessary at present to go into the village and trouble our neighbour."
Quitting the road, we sat down on the ground and began to eat. Then, made lazy by the warm beams of the sun and the breath of the soft wind of the steppe, we lay down and slept.... When we awoke, the sun purple and large was already on the horizon, and on the steppe the mists of the southern evening were encamping.
"Now you shall see," declared Promtov. "Fate is content that we should pass the night in that little village."
"Let us go while there is still light," I proposed.
"Don't be afraid. To-night we shall have a roof above our heads."
He was right. At the first hut at which we knocked and asked for a night's lodging we were hospitably invited to come in.
The "guid man" of the hut, a big, good-natured fellow, had just come in from the fields where he had been ploughing, his "guid wife" was making supper ready. Four grimy little children, huddled into a heap in a corner of the room, peeped out at us from thence with timid, inquisitive eyes. The buxom housewife bustled about from the hut to the outhouse swiftly and silently, bringing bread and water-melons and milk. The master of the house sat down on a bench opposite to us rubbing his stomach with an air of concentration, and fixing penetrating glances upon us. Presently the usual question came from him:
"Where are you going?"
"We're going, dear man, from sea to sea, to the city of Kiev," replied Promtov cheerfully in the words of the old cradle song.