"Well, there isn't much of it—only a pound or two; and it keeps warmer there."
"You fool! I wish I had sent my man over to Olchoff; he might have got some milk or something else there; but this idiot kept on saying, 'Very so-on, very so-on!' The devil! how vexing it all is!"
The judge continued to twist his moustache angrily, but the merchant cast longing glances in the direction of the peasant's pazoika. This latter stood with bowed head, slowly raising his hand towards his shirt front. Isaiah meanwhile was making signs to him. When he caught sight of them he moved noiselessly towards my friend, keeping his face turned to the judge's back.
The ice was still gradually diminishing, and already fissures showed themselves between the blocks, like wrinkles on a pale, bloodless face. The play of these wrinkles seemed to give various expressions to the river, all of them alike cold and pensive, though sometimes sad or mocking, or even disfigured by pain. The heavy, damp mass of clouds overhead seemed to look down on the movements of the ice with a stolid, passionless expression. The grating of the ice blocks against the sand sounded now like a frightened whisper, awakening in those who listened to it a feeling of despondency.
"Give me a bit of your bread," I heard Isaiah say in a low whisper.
At the same moment the merchant gave a grunt, and the judge called out in a loud, angry voice, "Kireelka, bring the bread here!" The poor peasant pulled off his cap with one hand, whilst with the other he drew the bread out of his shirt, laid it on his cap, and presented it to the judge, bending and bowing low, like a court lackey of the time of Louis XV. Taking the bread in his hand, the judge examined it with something like a look of disgust, smiled sourly, and turning to us, said—
"Gentlemen, I see we all aspire to the possession of this piece of bread, and we all have a perfectly equal right to it—the right of hungry people. Well, let us divide equally this frugal meal. Devil take it! it is indeed a ludicrous position we are in! But what else is there to do? In my haste to start before the road got spoiled—Allow me to offer you"—
With this he handed a piece of the bread to Mamaieff. The merchant looked at it askance, cocked his head on one side, measured with his eye the piece of bread, and bolted his share of it. Isaiah took what was left and gave me my share of it. Once more we sat down side by side, this time silently munching our—what shall I call it? For lack of a better word to describe it, I suppose I must call it bread. It was of the consistency of clay, and it smelt of sheepskin, saturated with perspiration, and with the stale odour of rotten cabbage; its flavour no words could express! I ate it, however, as I silently watched the dirty fragments of the river's winter attire float slowly past.
"Now this is what they call bread!" said our judge, looking reproachfully at the sour lump in his hand. "This is the Russian peasant's food! He eats this stuff while the peasants of other countries eat cheese, good wheaten bread, and drink wine. There is sawdust, trash, and refuse of all sorts in this bread; and this is our peasant's food on the eve of the twentieth century! I should like to know why that is so?"
As the question seemed addressed to the merchant, he sighed deeply, and meekly answered, "Yes, it's not very grand food—not attractive!"