It appeared that he knew my old muzhik well. Taking him aside, he whispered something in his ear. What was he saying? The old man turned and looked at me intensely with an interest he had not shown before. His eyes glistened brightly, as if with unexpected satisfaction. He returned to where I sat.
“Would you like some more milk?” he asked, kindly, and fetched it for me himself.
I asked who played the harmonium. With amusing modesty the old man let his eyes fall and said nothing. But the little girl, pointing her finger at the peasant, put in quickly that “Diedushka [grandpa] did.”
“I like music,” I said. “Will you please play something afterwards?”
Ah! Why was everything different all at once—suspicions evaporated, fears dissipated? I felt the change intuitively. The Finn had somehow aroused the crude old man’s interest in me (had he told him who I was?), but by my passing question I had touched his tenderest spot—music!
So Uncle Egor (as I called him), producing an old and much be-fingered volume of German hymn tunes which he had picked up in a market at Petrograd, seated himself nervously and with touching modesty at the old harmonium. His thick, horny fingers, with black finger-nails, stumbled clumsily over the keys, playing only the top notes coupled in octaves with one finger of his left hand. He blew the pedals as if he were beating time, and while he played his face twitched and his breath caught. You could see that in music he forgot everything else. The rotten old harmonium was the possession he prized above all else in the world—in fact, for him it was not of this world. Crude old peasant as he was, he was a true Russian.
“Would you like me to play you something?” I asked when he had finished.
Uncle Egor rose awkwardly from the harmonium, smiling confusedly when I complimented him on his achievement. I sat down and played him some of his hymns and a few other simple tunes. When I variegated the harmonies, he followed, fascinated. He leant over the instrument, his eyes rooted on mine. All the rough harshness had gone from his face, and the shadow of a faint smile flickered round his lips. I saw in his eyes a great depth of blue.
“Sit down again, my little son,” he said to me several times later, “and play me more.”
At mid-day I lay down on Uncle Egor’s bed and fell fast asleep. At three o’clock they roused me for dinner, consisting of a large bowl of sour cabbage soup, which we all ate with brown polished wooden spoons, dipping in turn into the bowl. Uncle Egor went to a corner of the room, produced from a sack a huge loaf, and cutting off a big square chunk, placed it before me.