The other shook his head.
"Well, this is a very nice place, and has many memories for me. Over there used to be the mansion of Squire Tuchkov...."
"Where?" asked the prisoner quickly, turning in the direction indicated by a wave of Efimushka's hand.
"Over there, behind that rising land. Everything around here belongs to them They were the richest people hereabouts, but after the emancipation they dwindled ... I also belonged to them once. All of us hereabouts belonged to them It was a great family. The squire himself, Aleksander Nikietich Tuchkov, was a colonel. There were children, too, four sons; I wonder what has become of them all now? Really folks are carried away like autumn leaves by the wind. Only one of them, Ivan Aleksandrovich, is safe and sound—I am taking you to him now—he is our district magistrate.... He is old already."
The prisoner laughed. It was a hollow, internal sort of laugh—his bosom and his stomach were convulsed, but his face remained immovable, and through his gnashing teeth came hollow sounds like sharp barks.
Efimushka shuddered painfully, and, moving his stick closer to his hand, asked: "What ails you? Is anything the matter?"
"Nothing—or at any rate, it is all over now," said the prisoner, spasmodically, but amicably—"but go on with your story."
"Well, that's how it is, you see—the Tuchkov Squires used to be something here, and now there are none left.... Some of them died, and some of them came to grief, and now never a word do you hear of them—never a word. There was one in particular who used to be here ... the youngest of the lot ... they called him Victor ... Vick.... He and I were comrades. In the days when the emancipation was promulgated, he and I were lads fourteen years old.... Ah, what a fine young chap he was—the Lord be good to his dear little soul! A pure stream, if ever there was one!—flashing along and gurgling merrily all day long. I wonder where he is now? Alive or already no more?"
"Was he such a frightfully good fellow as all that?" inquired Efimushka's fellow-traveller quietly.
"That he was!" exclaimed Efimushka, "handsome, with a head of his own, and such a good heart! Ah, thou pilgrim man, good heart alive, he was a ripe berry if you like! If only you—could have seen the pair of us in those days! Aye, aye, aye! What games we did play! What a merry life was ours!—raspberries la la[1]!—'Efimka!' he would cry, 'let us go a hunting!' He had a gun of his own—his father gave it to him on his name-day—and he let me carry it for him. And off we went to the woods for a whole day, nay, for two, for three days! When we came home—he had an imposition, and I had a whacking. Yet look you! the next day he would say: 'Efimka! shall we go after mushrooms?' Thousands of birds we killed together. And as for mushrooms—we gathered poods[2] of them! And the butterflies and cockchafers he caught, and stuck them on pins in little boxes! And he taught me my lessons too! 'Efimka,' said he, 'I'll teach you.' And he went at it hammer and tongs. 'Come, begin,' says he; 'say A,' and I roared 'A-a-a!' How we laughed. At first I looked upon it as a joke. What does a boor want with reading and writing? But he persuaded me. 'Come, you little fool,' says he, 'the emancipation was given to you that you might learn. You must learn your letters in order to know how to live and where to seek for justice.' Of course, children heard their parents speak like that in those days, and began to talk the same way themselves.—It was all nonsense, of course—true learning is in the heart, and it is the heart that teaches the right way. So he taught me, you see! How he made me stick to it! He gave me no rest, I can tell you. What torments! 'Vick,' I said, 'I can't learn my letters. It's not in me. I really can't do it.' Oh, how he pitched into me. Sometimes he lambed it into me with a whip—but teach me he would! 'Oh, be merciful,' I'd cry! 'Learn, then,' he would say! Once I ran away from him, regularly bolted, and there was a to do. He searched for me all day with a gun—he would have shot me. He said to me afterwards: 'If I had met you that day,' said he, 'I should have shot you;' that's what he said! Ah, he was so fierce! Fiery, unbending, a genuine master. He loved me, and he had a soul of flame. Once my papa scored my back with the birch-rod, and when Vick saw it he rushed off to our hut, and there was a scene, my brother! He was all pale and trembling, clenched his fists, and went after my father into his bedroom 'How dare you do it?' he asked. Papa said: 'But I'm his father!' 'Father, eh? Very well, father! I cannot cope with you single-handed, but your back shall be the same as Efimka's.' He burst into tears after these words, and ran away. And what do you say to this, my father—he was as good as his word. Evidently he said something to the manor-house servants about it. For one day my father came home groaning, and began to take off his shirt, but it was sticking to his back! My father was very angry with me that time. 'I've suffered all through you,' he said, 'you're a sneak, the squire's sneak.' And he gave me a sound hiding. But he was wrong about my being the squire's sneak I was never that, he might have let it alone."