The Steppe and Other Stories, 1887-91 Page 9

  ‘Yegorushka.’

  ‘Yegory – so you’re a Georgy! Your name-day must be 23 April, same as St George the Dragon-Killer. My Christian name’s Panteley… I’m called Panteley Zakharov Kholodov… Yes, we’re all of us Kholodovs… As you may’ve heard tell, I hail from Tim,12 in Kursk province. My brothers got thesselves on the town register, working as craftsmen. But I’m a plain peasant. And peasant I’ve been ever since. Seven years ago I went there… home, I mean. I’ve lived in the village as well as the town… As I says, I was in Tim. Thank God we were all alive and well then, but I’m not so sure about now. Perhaps someone’s died. And it’s high time they did, ’cos they’re old, all of them – there’s some what’s older than me. Death’s nothing to worry about, it’s a good thing, but only if you don’t go dying without repenting of your sins. An impenitent death is the devil’s delight. And if you want to die having repented of your sins, so that the mansions of the Lord are not forbidden you, you must pray to the Holy Martyr St Barbara,13 who intercedes for all of us. Yes she does – and that’s a fact… ’cos God’s given her a special place in heaven, so everyone has the full right to pray to her about penitence.’

  Panteley rambled on and apparently wasn’t bothered whether Yegorushka heard him or not. He spoke sluggishly, mumbling to himself and without lowering or raising his voice, yet he managed to say quite a lot in a short time. Everything he said consisted of fragments that had very little connection with each other and which were completely devoid of interest for Yegorushka. Perhaps – on the morning after a night spent in silence – he was only talking because he wanted to make a roll-call of his thoughts, out loud, so that he could check that they were all present and correct. When he had finished with repentance he carried on with Maxim Nikolayevich from Slavyanoserbsk:

  ‘Yes, he took his lad to school… yes, he did – that’s a fact…’

  One of the wagon drivers who was walking a long way ahead suddenly darted to one side and started lashing the ground with his whip. He was a sturdy, broad-shouldered man of about thirty with fair curly hair and clearly very strong and robust. Judging from the movements of his shoulders and his whip, from the eager way he stood there, he was lashing some living creature. A second driver, a short, thick-set man with a bushy black beard, his waistcoat and shirt outside his trousers, ran over to him and broke into a deep spluttering laugh:

  ‘Look, lads, Dymov’s killed a viper. I swear it!’

  There are some people whose brain-power can be accurately gauged from their voice and the way they laugh. The black-bearded wagon driver was just one of those fortunates: both his voice and laugh betrayed utter stupidity. When he had finished lashing, fair-headed Dymov raised the whip from the ground and laughingly hurled something resembling a length of rope towards the wagons.

  ‘That’s no viper, it’s a grass-snake,’ someone shouted.

  The man with the bandaged face and clockwork walk quickly strode over to the dead snake, looked at it and threw up his stick-like arms.

  ‘You rotten bastard!’ he cried in a hollow, tearful voice. ‘Why did you have to kill a grass-snake? What harm has it done you, blast you! Ugh, killing a little grass-snake! What if someone did that to you?’

  ‘You oughtn’t kill grass-snakes – that’s a fact…’ Panteley calmly remarked. ‘It’s wicked… And that ain’t no viper. It may look like one, but it’s a harmless, innocent creature. It’s man’s friend… that grass-snake, like…’

  Dymov and the black-bearded driver must have felt ashamed, for they laughed out loud and lazily strolled back to their wagons without answering the grumbles. When the last wagon had come up to the spot where the dead snake was lying the driver with the bandaged face stood over it, turned to Panteley and tearfully inquired, ‘Tell me, grandad, why did he have to go and kill that snake?’

  As Yegorushka could now clearly see, his eyes were small and dull, his face grey and sickly and seemingly lustreless too, while his chin was red and looked badly swollen.

  ‘Tell me, grandpa, why did he kill it?’ he repeated, striding along with Panteley.

  ‘’Cos he’s stupid and he’s got itchy hands – that’s why he killed it,’ replied the old man. ‘Yes, it’s wrong to kill grass-snakes – that’s a fact. You know, Dymov’s a real trouble-maker, he’ll kill anything he can get his hands on. But Kiryukha didn’t do nothing to stop him, like he ought to ’ave done. All he did was cackle and snigger. Now, don’t you get angry, Vasya. Why get angry? They killed it… so to hell with them. Dymov’s a trouble-maker and Kiryukha’s plain stupid… Now, don’t worry… Folks is stupid, they don’t understand, so to hell with them. Now, take Yemelyan – he wouldn’t hurt a fly – never… that’s a fact. ’Cos he’s an educated man and they’re stupid… That Yemelyan, like… wouldn’t hurt a fly.’

  Hearing his name, the driver in the reddish-brown coat and with the spongy swelling who had been conducting those invisible choirs stopped, waited for Panteley and Vasya to draw level, and walked along with them.

  ‘What’s all this about?’ he asked in a hoarse, strangled voice.

  ‘Vasya’s real fuming,’ Panteley said. ‘I told him a few things so he wouldn’t get angry, like… Oh, me poor ole feet, they’re frozen stiff! Ah-ah! They’re hurting like mad ’cos it’s Sunday, the Lord’s day!’

  ‘It’s from all that walking,’ observed Vasya.

  ‘No, lad, it’s not the walking. It’s easier when I walk, but it fair kills me when I lies in bed and gets warm. No, it’s better when I walk.’

  Yemelyan, in his reddish-brown coat, positioned himself between Panteley and Vasya and waved his arms as if those two were about to sing. After a few flourishes he dropped them and grunted despairingly.

  ‘Me voice ‘as gone!’ he said. ‘It’s a real calamerty! All last night and all morning I seem to ’ave been hearing that triple “Lord have mercy” that we sang at the Marinovsky wedding. It’s in me ‘ead and in me gullet. I feel like I could sing it, but I’m just not up to it! I ain’t got no voice!’

  He silently pondered for a while and then continued, ‘Fifteen years I was in the choir, I don’t think no one ‘ad a better voice than me in the whole Lugansk14 factory. But I was darned stupid enough to go swimming two year ago in the Donets15 and I ain’t been able to sing one note proper ever since. Caught a chill in me gullet… And without me voice I’m as good as a workman with no ’ands.’

  ‘Yes, that’s a fact,’ agreed Panteley.

  ‘As I sees it, I’m done for – and that’s that!’

  Just then Vasya happened to catch sight of Yegorushka. His eyes glittered and seemed to grow even smaller.

  ‘So, we’ve a young gent driving with us!’ he said, hiding his nose in his sleeve as if overcome with shyness. ‘Looks like a real tip-top driver! Now, you stay with us so’s you can ride with the wagons and cart wool around!’

  The thought of gentleman and wagon driver being combined in one and the same person must have struck him as most bizarre and witty, since he produced a loud titter and continued to develop the idea. Yemelyan also glanced up at Yegorushka, but cursorily and coldly. He was engrossed in his own thoughts and had it not been for Vasya he wouldn’t even have noticed Yegorushka. Barely five minutes passed before he began waving his arms again. Then, as he described for his fellow travellers the beauty of the wedding anthem ‘Lord have mercy’ which he had remembered during the night, he placed his whip under his arm and began to conduct with both hands.

  About a mile from the village the wagon train stopped by a well with a sweep. Lowering his pail into the well, black-bearded Kiryukha lay stomach-first on the framework and thrust his shaggy head, his shoulders and part of his chest into the dark hole so that Yegorushka could see only his short legs that barely touched the ground. When he saw the reflection of his head far below at the bottom of the well he was so overjoyed that he broke into peals of inane, cavernous laughter, echoed by the well. When he stood up, his face and neck were as red as a lobster. The first t
o run up for a drink was Dymov. He laughed as he drank, frequently turning away from the pail to tell Kiryukha something funny. Then he cleared his throat and produced five swear words loud enough for the whole steppe to hear. Yegorushka had no idea what they meant, but that they were bad he knew very well. He was aware of the silent revulsion his friends and relations felt for them. Without knowing why, he himself shared their feelings and had come to believe that only drunks and rowdies enjoyed the privilege of shouting such words out loud. He remembered the killing of the grass-snake, listened to Dymov’s laughter and felt something akin to loathing for that man. As ill luck would have it, at that moment Dymov caught sight of Yegorushka, who had climbed down from his wagon and was walking towards the well.

  ‘Looks like the old gaffer’s given birth in the night!’ he shouted, laughing out loud. ‘It’s a boy!’

  Kiryukha choked with deep laughter. Someone else started laughing, too, but Yegorushka only blushed and finally concluded that Dymov was a very evil person.

  With his bare head, light curly hair and unbuttoned shirt Dymov looked handsome and exceptionally strong. Every movement he made revealed a trouble-maker and a bully who knew his own worth. He flexed his shoulders, put hands on hips and laughed louder than the others, looking as if he were about to lift a colossal weight and thereby astonish the whole world. His wild, mocking look slid over the road, the wagons and the sky, settling nowhere, and he seemed to be looking for something else to kill – for want of anything better to do and just for a good laugh. Obviously he feared no one, would stop at nothing and probably couldn’t have cared less what Yegorushka thought. But Yegorushka hated his fair head, his clean-cut face and his strength with all his heart, listened with fear and revulsion to his laughter and tried to think of some insult to fling at him by way of revenge.

  Panteley also went over to the pail. He took a green lamp-glass from his pocket, wiped it with a cloth, dipped it into the pail and drank from it; then, after scooping some more water, he wrapped it in the cloth and put it back in his pocket.

  ‘Why are you drinking from a lamp, grandpa?’ Yegorushka asked in astonishment.

  ‘There’s some that drinks from buckets, others from lamps,’ the old man replied evasively. ‘Each to his own… if you likes to drink from a bucket then go ahead and drink your fill…’

  ‘You little darling, you beauty!’ Vasya suddenly said in a tender, plaintive voice. ‘Oh, you little darling!’

  His eyes glittered and smiled as he stared into the distance and his face took on the same expression as before, when he was looking at Yegorushka.

  ‘Who are you talking to?’ asked Kiryukha.

  ‘It’s a vixen… she’s lying on her back, playing like a little dog.’

  They all peered into the distance, searching for the vixen, but they could see nothing. Only Vasya, with those small, lacklustre grey eyes of his, was able to see anything and he was in raptures. As Yegorushka discovered later, his sight was amazingly keen – so keen that the desolate brown steppe was always full of life and content for him. He had only to look into the distance to see a fox, hare, great bustard or some other living creature that shunned human beings. To spot a fleeing hare or a bustard in flight is easy – anyone who has travelled the steppe has seen them – but it is not given to everyone to see wild creatures in their domestic habitat, when they are not running, hiding or looking around in alarm. But Vasya could see vixens at play, hares washing their paws, great bustards preening themselves, little bustards doing their courtship dance. Thanks to his keen vision, for Vasya there was another world – his own special world that was inaccessible to everyone else and which was no doubt absolutely delightful, for whenever he looked and went into raptures it was difficult not to envy him.

  When the wagons moved on the church bells were ringing for morning service.

  V

  The wagon train drew up on a river bank at the side of the village. The sun was as fiery as yesterday and the air stagnant and cheerless. A few willows stood on the bank – their shadows did not fall on the ground but on the water, where they were wasted, while in the shade under the wagons it was stifling and oppressive. Azure from the reflected sky, the water eagerly beckoned.

  The driver Styopka, an eighteen-year-old Ukrainian lad of whom Yegorushka was taking notice only now, in a long shirt without any belt and wearing over his boots wide trousers that fluttered like flags as he walked, quickly threw off his clothes, raced down the steep slope and plunged into the water. After diving about three times he floated on his back, his eyes blissfully closed. His face smiled and became wrinkled, as if he were being tickled, hurt and amused all at the same time.

  On hot days when there is no escape from the sultry, stifling heat the splash of water and a swimmer’s loud breathing are music to the ears. Dymov and Kiryukha took one look at Styopka, quickly undressed, laughed loud with anticipated pleasure and tumbled into the water one after the other. That quiet, humble stream resounded with snorting, splashing and shouting. Kiryukha coughed and laughed as if the others were trying to drown him. Dymov chased him and tried to grab his leg.

  ‘Hey!’ he shouted. ‘Catch him! Hold him!’

  Kiryukha was laughing and enjoying himself, but his expression was the same as on dry land: stupid and stunned, as if someone had sneaked up from behind and clubbed him with an axe butt. Yegorushka undressed, too, but instead of sliding down the bank he took a flying jump from a height of about ten feet. Having described an arc in the air he hit the water and sank deep – but he did not touch the bottom, since some strange power that was cool and pleasant to the touch caught hold of him and brought him back to the surface. Blowing bubbles and snorting, he came up and opened his eyes, but the sun was reflected in the river close to his face. First blinding sparks, then rainbows and dark patches darted before his eyes. Hurriedly he dived again, opened his eyes under the water and saw something dull green, like the sky on a moonlit night. Once again that power brought him up, stopping him reaching the bottom and staying in the cool. As he surfaced he breathed a sigh so deep that he had a sensation of great spaciousness and freshness not only in his chest but even in his stomach. And then, to make the most of the water, he indulged in every luxury: he lay on his back and basked, splashed, turned somersaults, swam on his stomach, his side, his back, and standing up, just as the mood took him, until he grew tired. The opposite bank, golden in the sunlight, was thickly overgrown with reeds and their beautiful clusters of flowers leaned towards the water. In one place the reeds shook and lowered their flowers with a dry crackling – Stepan and Kiryukha were ‘tickling’ crayfish.

  ‘Look lads, a crayfish!’ Kiryukha cried triumphantly, pointing out what was in fact a crayfish.

  Yegorushka swam to the reeds, dived and started grubbing among the roots. As he delved in the slimy, liquid mud he felt something sharp and nasty – a crayfish, perhaps? – but just then someone grabbed his leg and hauled him to the surface. Gulping and coughing, Yegorushka opened his eyes and saw before him the wet, mocking face of Dymov the bully. That trouble-maker was breathing heavily and from the look in his eyes was evidently eager to carry on with his horseplay. He seized Yegorushka firmly by the leg and his other hand was already raised to grab his neck, but Yegorushka shrank from him with fear and repulsion, as if afraid the bully was going to drown him and managed to break free from his grasp.

  ‘You fool! I’ll smash your face in!’ he muttered.

  Feeling that this did not adequately express his loathing, he reflected for a moment and then added, ‘You rotten swine! Son of a bitch!’

  Just as if nothing had happened, Dymov paid no further attention to Yegorushka and swam off towards Kiryukha.

  ‘Hey there!’ he shouted. ‘Let’s catch some fish! Come on lads, let’s fish!’

  ‘Why not?’ agreed Kiryukha. ‘Must be loads of ’em here.’

  ‘Styopka, run to the village and ask ’em for a net.’

  ‘They won’t give us one.’


  ‘Oh, yes they will! Just ask. Tell ’em it’s their duty as good Christians, seeing as we’re all pilgrims – or as near as dammit!’

  ‘You’re right!’

  Styopka emerged from the water, quickly dressed and without his cap, his wide trousers flapping, ran off to the village. After the clash with Dymov, the water lost all attraction for Yegorushka, so he climbed out and started to dress. Panteley and Vasya were sitting on the steep bank, dangling their legs and watching the bathers. Close to the bank stood Yemelyan, naked and up to his knees in water, clutching the grass with one hand to stop falling over and stroking his body with the other. With his bony shoulderblades and that swelling under the eye, stooping and clearly terrified of the water, he was a comical sight. His face was stern and solemn and he looked at the water angrily, as if about to curse it for having once given him a cold when bathing in the Donets and robbing him of his voice.

  ‘Why don’t you have a swim?’ Yegorushka asked.

  ‘Well… er… I don’t fancy it,’ replied Vasya.

  ‘Why is your chin swollen?’

  ‘It hurts… Once I worked in a match factory, young sir… The doctor said that was why me jaw got all swelled up. The air was bad in there. And besides me, three other lads got swollen jaws – with one of ’em it clean rotted away!’

  Soon Styopka returned with a net. From their long stay in the water Dymov and Kiryukha were turning mauve and wheezing, but they set about fishing with great relish. At first they went along the reeds where it was deep. Here Dymov was up to his neck and the squat Kiryukha out of his depth. The latter was swallowing mouthfuls of water and blowing bubbles, while Dymov kept falling over and became entangled in the net as he stumbled on the prickly roots. They both noisily floundered and their fishing turned out nothing more than a pure frolic.