“How much?” she questioned.
“Three rubles, and he calls the policemen by their first names.”
“You will earn five rubles, my Ivan,” she murmured. “There is no one as strong as you.”
Once again they were herded into the bowels of a big ship that steamed away through the fog banks of the Mersey out into the Irish Sea. There were more dreamers now, nine hundred of them, and Anna and Ivan were more comfortable. And these new emigrants, English, Irish, Scotch, French, and German, knew much concerning America. Ivan was certain that he would earn at least three rubles a day. He was very strong.
On the deck he defeated all comers in a tug of war, and the captain of the ship came up to him and felt his muscles.
“The country that lets men like you get away from it is run badly,” he said. “Why did you leave it?”
The interpreter translated what the captain said, and through the interpreter Ivan answered.
“I had a Dream,” he said, “a Dream of freedom.”
“Good,” cried the captain. “Why should a man with muscles like yours have his face ground into the dust?”
The soul of Big Ivan grew during those days. He felt himself a man, a man who was born upright to speak his thoughts without fear.