The Dead Man / Maxim Gorky

One evening I was sauntering along a soft, grey, dusty track

between two breast-high walls of grain. So narrow was the track

that here and there tar-besmeared cars were lying--tangled,

broken, and crushed--in the ruts of the cartway.

Field mice squeaked as a heavy car first swayed--then bent

forwards towards the sun-baked earth. A number of martins and

swallows were flitting in the sky, and constituting a sign of the

immediate proximity of dwellings and a river; though for the

moment, as my eyes roved over the sea of gold, they encountered

naught beyond a belfry rising to heaven like a ship's mast, and

some trees which from afar looked like the dark sails of a ship.

Yes, there was nothing else to be seen save the brocaded,

undulating steppe where gently it sloped away south-westwards.

And as was the earth's outward appearance, so was that of the

sky--equally peaceful.

Invariably, the steppe makes one feel like a fly on a platter.

Invariably, it inclines one to believe, when the centre of the

expanse is reached, that the earth lies within the compass of the

sky, with the sun embracing it, and the stars hemming it about

as, half-blinded, they stare at the sun's beauty.

********************************

Presently the sun's huge, rosy-red disk impinged upon the blue

shadows of the horizon before preparing to sink into a snow-white

cloud-bank; and as it did so it bathed the ears of grain around

me in radiance and caused the cornflowers to seem the darker by

comparison; and the stillness, the herald of night, to accentuate

more than ever the burden of the earth's song.

Fanwise then spread the ruddy beams over the firmament; and, in

so doing, they cast upon my breast a shaft of light like Moses'

rod, and awoke therein a flood of calm, but ardent, sentiments

which set me longing to embrace all the evening world, and to

pour into its ear great, eloquent, and never previously voiced,

utterances.

Now, too, the firmament began to spangle itself with stars; and

since the earth is equally a star, and is peopled with humankind,

I found myself longing to traverse every road throughout the

universe, and to behold, dispassionately, all the joys and

sorrows of life, and to join my fellows in drinking honey mixed

with gall.

Yet also there was upon me a feeling of hunger, for not since the

morning had my wallet contained a morsel of food. Which

circumstance hindered the process of thought, and intermittently

vexed me with the reflection that, rich though is the earth, and

much thence though humanity has won by labour, a man may yet be

forced to walk hungry. . . .

Suddenly the track swerved to the right, and as the walls of

grain opened out before me, there lay revealed a steppe valley,

with, flowing at its bottom, a blue rivulet, and spanning the

rivulet, a newly-constructed bridge which, with its reflection in

the water, looked as yellow as though fashioned of rope. On the

further side of the rivulet some seven white huts lay pressed

against a small declivity that was crowned with a cattle-fold,

and amid the silver-grey trunks of some tall black poplars whose

shadows, where they fell upon the hamlet, seemed as soft as down

a knee-haltered horse, was stumping with swishing tail. And though

the air, redolent of smoke and tar and hemp ensilage, was filled

with the sounds of poultry cackling and a baby crying during

the process of being put to bed, the hubbub in no way served to

dispel the illusion that everything in the valley was but part of

a sketch executed by an artistic hand, and cast in soft tints

which the sun had since caused, in some measure, to fade.

In the centre of the semi-circle of huts there stood a brick-

kiln, and next to it, a high, narrow red chapel which resembled a

one-eyed watchman. And as I stood gazing at the scene in general,

a crane stooped with a faint and raucous cry, and a woman who had

come out to draw water looked as though, as she raised bare arms

to stretch herself upwards-- cloud-like, and white-robed from

head to foot-- she were about to float away altogether.

Also, near the brick-kiln there lay a patch of black mud in the

glistening, crumpled-velvet blue substance of which two urchins

of five and three were, breechless, and naked from the waist

upwards, kneading yellow feet amid a silence as absorbed as

though their one desire in life had been to impregnate the mud

with the red radiance of the sun. And so much did this laudable

task interest me, and engage my sympathy and attention, that I

stopped to watch the strapping youngsters, seeing that even in

mire the sun has a rightful place, for the reason that the deeper

the sunlight's penetration of the soil, the better does that soil

become, and the greater the benefit to the people dwelling on its

surface.

Viewed from above, the scene lay, as it were, in the palm of

one's hand. True, by no manner of means could such lowly farm

cots provide me with a job, but at least should I, for that

evening, be able to enjoy the luxury of a chat with the cots'

kindly inhabitants. Hence, with, in my mind, a base and

mischievous inclination to retail to those inhabitants tales of

the marvellous kind of which I knew them to stand wellnigh as

much in need as of bread, I resumed my way, and approached the

bridge.

As I did so, there arose from the ground-level an animated clod of

earth in the shape of a sturdy individual. Unwashed and unshaven,

he had hanging on his frame an open canvas shirt, grey with dust,

and baggy blue breeches.

"Good evening," I said to the fellow.

"I wish you the same," he replied. "Whither are you bound?"

"First of all, what is the name of this river?"

"What is its name? Why, it is the Sagaidak, of course."

On the man's large, round head there was a shock of bristling,

grizzled curls, while pendent to the moustache below it were ends

like those of the moustache of a Chinaman. Also, as his small

eyes scanned me with an air of impudent distrust, I could detect

that they were engaged in counting the holes and dams in my

raiment. Only after a long interval did he draw a deep breath as

from his pocket he produced a clay pipe with a cane mouthpiece,

and, knitting his brows attentively, fell to peering into the

pipe's black bowl. Then he said:

"Have you matches?"

I replied in the affirmative.

"And some tobacco?"

For awhile he continued to contemplate the sun where that

luminary hung suspended above a cloud-bank before finally

declining. Then he remarked:

"Give me a pinch of the tobacco. As for matches, I have some."

So both of us lit up; after which he rested his elbows upon the

balustrade of the bridge, leant back against the central

stanchions, and for some time continued merely to emit and inhale

blue coils of smoke. Then his nose wrinkled, and he expectorated.

"Muscovite tobacco is it?" he inquired.

"No--Roman, Italian."

"Oh!" And as the wrinkles of his nose straightened themselves

again he added: "Then of course it is good tobacco."

To enter a dwelling in advance of one's host is a breach of

decorum; wherefore, I found myself forced to remain standing where

I was until my interlocutor's tale of questions as to my precise

identity, my exact place of origin, my true destination, and my

real reasons for travelling should tardily win its way to a

finish. Greatly the process vexed me, for I was eager, rather, to

learn what the steppe settlement might have in store for my

delectation.

"Work?" the fellow drawled through his teeth. "Oh no, there is

no work to be got here. How could there be at this season of the

year?"

Turning aside, he spat into the rivulet.

On the further bank of the latter, a goose was strutting

importantly at the head of a string of round, fluffy, yellow

goslings, whilst driving the brood were two little girls--the one

a child but little larger than the goose itself, dressed in a red

frock, and armed with a switch; and the other one a youngster

absolutely of a size with the bird, pale of feature, plump of

body, bowed of leg, and grave of expression.

"Ufim!" came at this moment in the strident voice of a woman

unseen, but incensed; upon which my companion bestowed upon me a

sidelong nod, and muttered with an air of appreciation:

"THERE'S lungs for you!"

Whereafter, he fell to twitching the toes of a chafed and

blackened foot, and to gazing at their nails. His next question

was:

"Are you, maybe, a scholar?"

"Why do you ask?"

"Because, if you are, you might like to read the Book over a

corpse."

And so proud, apparently, was he of the proposal that a faint

smile crossed his flaccid countenance.

"You see, it would be work," he added with his brown eyes

veiled, "whilst, in addition, you would be paid ten kopecks for

your trouble, and allowed to keep the shroud."

"And should also be given some supper, I suppose?"

"Yes--and should also be given some supper."

"Where is the corpse lying?"

"In my own hut. Shall we go there?"

Off we set. En route we heard once more a strident shout of:

"Ufi-i-im!"

As we proceeded, shadows of trees glided along the soft road to

meet us, while behind a clump of bushes on the further bank of

the rivulet some children were shouting at their play. Thus, what

with the children's voices, and the purling of the water, and the

noise of someone planing a piece of wood, the air seemed full of

tremulous, suspended sound. Meanwhile, my host said to me with a

drawl:

"Once we did have a reader here. An old woman she was, a regular

old witch who at last had to be removed to the town for

amputation of the feet. They might well have cut off her tongue

too whilst they were about it, since, though useful enough, she

could rail indeed!"

Presently a black puppy, a creature of about the size of a toad,

came ambling, three-legged fashion, under our feet. Upon that it

stiffened its tail, growled, and snuffed the air with its tiny

pink nose.

Next there popped up from somewhere or another a barefooted young

woman. Clapping her hands, she bawled:

"Here, you Ufim, how I have been calling for you, and calling

for you!"

"Eh? Well, I never heard you."

"Where were you, then?"

By way of reply, my conductor silently pointed in my direction

with the stem of his pipe. Then he led me into the forecourt of

the hut next to the one whence the young woman had issued, whilst

she proceeded to project fresh volleys of abuse, and fresh

expressions of accentuated non-amiability.

In the little doorway of the dwelling next to hers, we found

seated two old women. One of them was as rotund and dishevelled

as a battered, leathern ball, and the other one was a woman bony

and crooked of back, swarthy of skin, and irritable of feature.

At the women's feet lay, lolling out a rag-like tongue, a shaggy

dog which, red and pathetic of eye, could boast of a frame nearly

as large as a sheep's.

First of all, Ufim related in detail how he had fallen in with

myself. Then he stated the purpose for which he conceived it

was possible that I might prove useful. And all the time that he

was speaking, two pairs of eyes contemplated him in silence;

until, on the completion of his recital, one of the old women

gave a jerk to a thin, dark neck, and the other old dame invited

me to take a seat whilst she prepared some supper.

Amid the tangled herbage of the forecourt, a spot overgrown with

mallow and bramble shoots, there was standing a cart which,

lacking wheels, had its axle-points dark with mildew. Presently a

herd of cattle was driven past the hut, and over the hamlet there

seemed to arise, drift, and float, a perfect wave of sound.

Also, as evening descended, I could see an ever-increasing number

of grey shadows come creeping forth from the forecourt's

recesses, and overlaying and darkening the turf.

"One day all of us must die," remarked Ufim, with empressement

as he tapped the bowl of his pipe against a wall.

The next moment the barefooted, red-cheeked young woman showed

herself at the gate, and asked in tones rather less vehement than

recently:

"Are you coming, or are you not?"

"Presently," replied Ufim. "One thing at a time."

For supper I was given a hunch of bread and a bowl of milk;

whereupon the dog rose, laid its aged, slobbering muzzle upon my

knee, and gazed into my face with its dim eyes as though it were

saying, "May I too have a bite?"

Next, like an eventide breeze among withered herbage, there

floated across the forecourt the hoarse voice of the crook-backed

old woman.

"Let us pray," she said. "Oh God, take away from us all sorrow,

and receive therefore requitement in twofold measure!"

As she recited the prayer with a mien as dark as fate, the

supplicant rolled her long neck from side to side, and nodded her

ophidian-shaped head in accordance with a sort of regular,

lethargic rhythm. Next I heard sink to earth, at my feet, some

senile words uttered in a sort of singsong.

"Some folk need work just as much as they wish, and others need

do no work at all. Yet OUR folk have to work beyond their

strength, and to work without any recompense for the toil which

they undergo."

Upon this the smaller of the old crones whispered:

"But the Mother of God will recompense them. She recompenses

everyone."

Then a dead silence fell--a weighty silence, a silence seemingly

fraught with matters of import, and inspiring in one an assurance

that presently there would be brought forth impressive

reflections-- there would reach the ear words of mark.

"I may tell you," at length the crook-backed old woman remarked

as she attempted to straighten herself, "that though my husband

was not without enemies, he also had a particular friend named

Andrei, and that when failing strength was beginning to make life

difficult for us in our old home on the Don, and folk took to

reviling and girding at my husband, Andrei came to us one day,

and said: 'Yakov, let not your hands fail you, for the earth is

large, and in all parts has been given to men for their use. If

folk be cruel, they are so through stupidity and prejudice, and

must not be judged for being so. Live your own life. Let theirs

be theirs, and yours yours, so that, dwelling in peace, while

yielding to none, you shall in time overcome them all.'"

"That is what Vasil too used to say. He used to say: 'Let theirs

be theirs, and ours ours.'"

"Aye, never a good word dies, but, wheresoever it be uttered,

flies thence through the world like a swallow."

Ufim corroborated this with a nod.

"True indeed!" he remarked. "Though also it has been said that

a good word is Christ's, and a bad word the priest's."

One of the old women shook her head vigorously at this, and

croaked:

"The badness lies not in any word of a priest, but in what you

yourself have just said. You are greyheaded, Ufim, yet often you

speak without thought."

Presently Ufim's wife reappeared, and, waving her hands as though

she were brandishing a sieve, began to vent renewed volleys of

virulent abuse.

"My God," she cried, "what sort of a man is that? Why, a man

who neither speaks nor listens, but for ever keeps baying at the

moon like a dog!"

"NOW she's started!" Ufim drawled.

Westward there were arising, and soaring skyward, clouds of such

a similarity to blue smoke and blood-red flame that the steppe

seemed almost to be in danger of catching fire thence. Meanwhile

a soft evening breeze was caressing the expanse as a whole, and

causing the grain to bend drowsily earthward as golden-red

ripples skimmed its surface. Only in the eastern quarter whence

night's black, sultry shadow was stealthily creeping in our

direction had darkness yet descended.

At intervals there came vented from the window above my head the

hot odour of a dead body; and, whenever that happened, the dog's

grey nostrils and muzzle would quiver, and its eyes would blink

pitifully as it gazed aloft. Glancing at the heavens, Ufim

remarked with conviction:

"There will be no rain tonight."

"Do you keep such a thing as a Psalter here?" I inquired.

"Such a thing as a what?"

"As a Psalter-- a book?"

No answer followed.

Faster and faster the southern night went on descending, and

wiping the land clean of heat, as though that heat had been dust.

Upon me there came a feeling that I should like to go and bury

myself in some sweet-smelling hay, and sleep there until sunrise.

"Maybe Panek has one of those things?" hazarded Ufim after a

long pause. "At any rate he has dealings with the Molokans."

After that, the company held further converse in whispers. Then

all save the more rotund of the old women left the forecourt,

while its remaining occupant said to me with a sigh:

"You may come and look at him if you wish."

Small and gentle looked the woman's meekly lowered head as,

folding her hands across her breast, she added in a whisper:

"Oh purest Mother of God! Oh Thou of spotless chastity!"

In contrast to her expression, that on the face of the dead man

was stem and, as it were, fraught with importance where thick

grey eyebrows lay parted over a large nose, and the latter curved

downwards towards a moustache which divided introspective,

partially closed eyes from a mouth that was set half-open.

Indeed, it was as though the man were pondering something of

annoyance, so that presently he would make shift to deliver

himself of a final and urgent injunction. The blue smoke of a

meagre candle quivered meanwhile, over his head, though the wick

diffused so feeble a light that the death blurs under the eyes

and in the cheek furrows lay uneffaced, and the dark hands and

wrists, disposed, lumplike, on the front of the greyish-blue

shroud, seemed to have had their fingers twisted in a manner

which even death had failed to rectify. And ever and anon,

streaming from door to window, came a draught variously fraught

with the odours of wormwood, mint, and corruption.

Presently the old woman's whispering grew more animated and

intelligible, while constantly, amid the wheezed mutterings,

sheet lightning cut the black square of the window space with

menacing flashes, and seemed, with their blue glare, as it shot

through the tomblike hut, to cause the candle's flickering flame

to undergo a temporary extinction, a temporary withdrawal, and

the grey bristles on the dead man's face to gleam like the scales

of a fish, and his features to gather themselves into a grim

frown. Meanwhile, like a stream of cold, bitter water dripping

upon my breast, the old woman's whispered soliloquy maintained

its uninterrupted flow.

At length there recurred, somehow, to my mind the words which,

impressive though they be, never can assuage sorrow--the words:

"Weep not for me, Martha, nor gaze into the tomb, for, lo, I am

risen!"

Nay, and never would THIS man rise again. . . .

Presently the bony old woman returned with a report that nowhere

among the huts could a Psalter be found, but only a book of

another kind. Would it do?

The other book turned out to be a grammar of the Church Slavonic

dialect, with the first pages torn out, and beginning with the

words, "Drug, drugi, druzhe." ["A friend, of a friend, O

friend."]

"What, then, are we to do? " vexedly asked the smaller of the

dames when I had explained to her that a grammar could work no

benefit to a corpse. As she put the query, her small, childlike

face quivered with disappointment, and her eyes swelled and

overflowed with tears.

"My man has lived his life," she said with a sob, "and now he

cannot even be given proper burial! "

And, similarly, when next I offered to recite over her husband

each and every prayer and psalm that I could contrive to recall

to my recollection, on condition that all present should

meanwhile leave the hut (for I felt that, since the task would be

one novel to me, the attendance of auditors might hinder me from

mustering my entire stock of petitions), she so disbelieved me,

or failed to understand me, that for long enough she could only

stand tottering in the doorway as, with twitching nose, she drew

her sleeve across her worn, diminutive features.

Nevertheless she did, at last, take her departure.

*******************************

Low over the steppe, stray flashes of summer lightning still

gleamed against the jet black sky as they flooded the hut with

their lurid shimmer; and each time that the darkness of the

sultry night swept back into the room, the candle flickered, and

the corpse's prone figure seemed to open its half-closed eyes

and glance at the shadows which palpitated on its breast, and

danced over the white walls and ceiling.

Similarly did I glance from time to time at HIM, yet glance with

a guarded eye, and with a feeling in me that when a corpse is

present anything may happen; until finally I rallied conscience

to my aid, and recited under my breath:

"Pardon Thou all who have sinned, whether they be men, or

whether they, being not men, do yet stand higher than the beasts

of the field."

However, the only result of the recitation was to bring to my

mind a thought directly at variance with the import of the words,

the thought that "it is not sin that is hard and bitter to

ensue, but righteousness."

"Sins wilful and of ignorance," I continued. "Sins known and

unknown. Sins committed through imprudence and evil example. Sins

committed through forwardness and sloth."

"Though to YOU, brother," mentally I added to the corpse, "none

of this, of course, applies."

Again, glancing at the blue stars, where they hung glittering in

the fathomless obscurity of the sky, I reflected:

"Who in this house is looking at them save myself?"

Presently, with a pattering of claws over the beaten clay of the

floor, there entered the dog. Once or twice it paced the length

of the room. Then, with a sniff at my legs, and a grumble to

itself, it departed as it had come. Perhaps the creature felt too

old to bay a dirge to its master after the manner of its kind. In

any case, as it vanished through the doorway, the shadows- -so I

fancied--sought to slip out after it, and, floating in that

direction, fanned my face with a breath as of ice, while the

flame of the candle flickered the more-- as though it too were

seeking to wrest itself from the candlestick, and go floating

upwards to join the band of stars-- a band of luminaries which it

might well have deemed to be of a brilliance as small and as

pitiful as its own. And I, for my part, since I had no wish to

see what light there was disappear, followed the struggles of the

tiny flame with a tense anxiety which made my eyes ache.

Oppressed and uneasy all over as I stood by the dead man's

shoulder, I strained my ears and listened, listened ever, to the

silence encompassing the hut.

Eventually, drowsiness began to steal over me, and proved a

feeling hard to resist. Yet still with an effort did I contrive

to recall the beautiful prayers of Saints Makari Veliki,

Chrysostom, and Damarkin, while at the same time something

resembling a swarm of mosquitos started to hum in my head, the

words wherein the Sixth Precept issues its injunction to: " all

persons about to withdraw to a couch of rest."

And next, to escape falling asleep, I fell to reciting the kondak

[Hymn for the end of the day] which begins:

"Oh Lord, refresh my soul thus grievously made feeble with wrong

doing."

Still engaged in this manner, suddenly I heard something rustle

outside the door. Then a dry whisper articulated:

"Oh God of Mercy, receive unto Thyself also my soul!"

Upon that, the fancy occurred to me that probably the old woman's

soul was as grey and timid as a linnet, and that when it should

fly up to the throne of the Mother of God, and the Mother should

extend to that little soul her tender, white, and gracious hand,

the newcomer would tremble all over, and flutter her gentle wings

until well nigh death should supervene.

And then the Mother of God would say to Her Son:

"Son, pray see the fearfulness of Thy people on earth, and their

estrangement from joy! Oh Son, is that well?"

And He would make answer to Her--

He would make answer to Her, and say I know not what.

*********************************

And suddenly, so I fancied, a voice answered mine out of the

brooding hush, as though it too were reciting a prayer. Yet so

complete, so profound, was the stillness, that the voice seemed

far away, submerged, unreal--a mere phantom of an echo, of the

echo of my own voice. Until, on my desisting from my recital, and

straining my cars yet more, the sound seemed to approach and grow

clearer as shuffling footsteps also advanced in my direction, and

there came a mutter of:

"Nay, it CANNOT be so!"

"Why is it that the dogs have failed to bark?" I reflected,

rubbing my eyes, and fancying as I did so that the dead man's

eyebrows twitched, and his moustache stirred in a grim smile.

Presently a deep, hoarse, rasping voice vociferated in the

forecourt:

"What do you say, old woman? Yes, that he must die-- I knew all

along,--so you can cease your chattering? Men like him keep up to

the last, then lay them down to rise to more... WHO is with him? A

stranger? A-ah!"

And, the next moment, a bulk so large and shapeless that it might

well have been the darkness of the night embodied, stumbled

against the outer side of the door, grunted, hiccuped, and

lurching head foremost into the hut, grew wellnigh to the

ceiling. Then it waved a gigantic hand, crossed itself in the

direction of the candle, and, bending forward until its forehead

almost touched the feet of the corpse, queried under its breath:

"How now, Vasil?"

Thereafter, the figure vented a sob whilst a strong smell of

vodka arose in the room, and from the doorway the old woman said

in an appealing voice:

"Pray give HIM the book, Father Demid."

"No indeed! Why should I? I intend to do the reading myself."

And a heavy hand laid itself upon my shoulder, while a great

hairy face bent over mine, and inquired:

"A young man, are you not? A member of the clergy, too, I

suppose?"

So covered with tufts of auburn hair was the enormous head above

me--tufts the sheen of which even the semi-obscurity of the pale

candlelight failed to render inconspicuous--that the mass, as a

whole, resembled a mop. And as its owner lurched to and fro, he

made me lurch responsively by now drawing me towards himself, now

thrusting me away. Meanwhile he continued to suffuse my face with

the hot, thick odour of spirituous liquor.

"Father Demid!" again essayed the old woman with an imploring

wail, but he cut her short with the menacing admonition:

"How often have I told you that you must not address a deacon as

'Father'? Go to bed! Yes, be off with you, and let me mind my

affairs myself! GO, I say! But first light me another candle, for

I cannot see a single thing in front of me."

With which, throwing himself upon a bench, the deacon slapped his

knee with a book which he had in his hands, and put to me the

query:

"Should you care to have a dram of gorielka? [Another name for

vodka.]

"No," I replied. "At all events, not here."

"Indeed?" the deacon cried, unabashed. "But come, a bottle of

the stuff is here, in my very pocket."

"This is no place in which to be drinking."

For a moment the deacon said nothing. Then he muttered:

"True, true. So let us adjourn to the forecourt. . . . Yes, what

you say is no more than the truth."

"Had you not better remain seated where you are, and begin the

reading? "

"No, I am going to do no such thing. YOU shall do the reading.

Tonight I, I--well I am not very well, for I have been drinking a

little."

And, thrusting the book into my stomach, he sank his head upon

his breast, and fell to swaying it ponderously up and down.

"Folk die," was his next utterance, "and the world remains as

full of grief as ever. Yes, folk die even before they have seen a

little good accrue to themselves."

"I see that your book is not a Psalter," here I interposed after

an inspection of the volume.

"You are wrong."

"Then look for yourself."

He grabbed the book by its cover, and, by dint of holding the

candle close to its pages, discovered, eventually, that matters

were as I had stated.

This took him aback completely.

"What can the fact mean?" he exclaimed. "Oh, I know what has

happened. The mistake has come of my being in such a hurry. The

other book, the true Psalter, is a fat, heavy volume, whereas

this one is--"

For a moment he seemed sobered by the shock. At all events, he

rose and, approaching the corpse, said, as he bent over the bed

with his beard held back:

"Pardon me, Vasil, but what is to be done?"

Then he straightened himself again, threw back his curls, and,

drawing a bottle from his pocket, and thrusting the neck of the

bottle into his mouth, took a long draught, with a whistling of

his nostrils as he did so.

"Well?" I said.

"Well, I intend to go to bed--my idea is to drink and enjoy

myself awhile."

"Go, then."

"And what of the reading?"

"Who would wish you to mumble words which you would not be

comprehending as you uttered them?"

The deacon reseated himself upon the bench, leaned forward,

buried his face in his hands and remained silent.

Fast the July night was waning. Fast its shadows were dissolving

into corners, and allowing a whiff of fresh dewy morningtide to

enter at the window. Already was the combined light of the two

candles growing paler, with their flames looking like the eyes of

a frightened child.

"You have lived your life, Vasi," at length the deacon

muttered, "and though once I had a place to which to resort, now

I shall have none. Yes, my last friend is dead. Oh Lord-- where is

Thy justice?"

For myself, I went and took a seat by the window, and, thrusting

my head into the open air, lit a pipe, and continued to listen

with a shiver to the deacon's wailings.

"Folk used to gird at my wife," he went on, "and now they are

gnawing at me as pigs might gnaw at a cabbage. That is so, Vasil.

Yes that is so."

Again the bottle made its appearance. Again the deacon took a

draught. Again he wiped his beard. Then he bent over the dead man

once more, and kissed the corpse's forehead.

"Good-bye, friend of mine!" he said. Then to myself he added

with unlooked-for clarity and vigour:

"My friend here was but a plain man--a man as inconspicuous among

his fellows as a rook among a flock of rooks. Yet no rook was he.

Rather, he was a snow-white dove, though none but I realised the

fact. And now he has been withdrawn from the 'grievous bondage of

Pharaoh.' Only I am left. Verily, after my passing, shall my soul

torment and vomit spittle upon his adversaries!"

"Have you known much sorrow?"

The deacon did not reply at once. When he did so he said dully:

"All of us have known much sorrow. In some cases we have known

more than was rightfully our due. I certainly, have known much.

But go to sleep, for only in sleep do we recover what is ours."

And he added as he tripped over his own feet, and lurched heavily

against me:

"I have a longing to sing something. Yet I feel that I had best

not, for song at such an hour awakens folk, and starts them

bawling . . . But beyond all things would I gladly sing."

With which he buzzed into my ear:

"To whom shall I sing of my grief?

To whom resort for relief?

To the One in whose ha-a-and--"

At this point the sharp bristles of his beard so tickled my neck

as to cause me to edge further away.

"You do not like me?" he queried. "Then go to sleep, and to

the devil too!"

"It was your beard that was tickling me."

"Indeed? Ought I to have shaved for your benefit before I came?"

He reflected awhile--then subsided on to the floor with a sniff

and an angry exclamation of:

"Read, you, whilst I sleep. And see to it that you do not make

off with the book, for it belongs to the church, and is very

valuable. Yes. I know you hard-ups! Why do you go roaming about

as you do--what is it you hope to gain by your tramping? . . .

However, tramp as much as you like. Yes, be off, and tell people

that a deacon has come by misfortune, and is in need of some good

person to take pity upon his plight. . . . Diomid Kubasov my name

is--that of a man lost beyond recall."

With which he fell asleep. Opening the book at random, I read the

words:

"A land unapportioned that shall produce a nourisher of

humanity, a being that shall put forth the bounty of his hand to

feed every creature."

"A nourisher of humanity." Before my eyes that "nourisher" lay

outspread, a nourisher overlaid with dry and fragrant herbage.

And as I gazed, in the haze of a vision, upon that nourisher's

dark and enigmatical face, I saw also the thousands of men who

have seamed this earth with furrows, to the end that dead things

should become things of life. And in particular, there uprose

before me a picture strange indeed. In that picture I saw

marching over the steppe, where the expanse lay bare and void--yes,

marching in circles that increasingly embraced a widening area--a

gigantic, thousand-handed being in whose train the dead steppe

gathered unto itself vitality, and became swathed in juicy,

waving verdure, and studded with towns and villages. And ever, as

the being receded further and further into the distance, could I

see him sowing with tireless hands that which had in it life, and

was part of himself, and human as, with thoughts intent upon the

benefiting of humanity, he summoned all men to put forth the

mysterious force that is in them, and thus to conquer death, and

eternally and invincibly to convert, dead things into things of

life, while traversing in company the road of death towards that

which has no knowledge of death, and ensuring that, in swallowing

up mankind, the jaws of death should not close upon death's

victims.

And this caused my heart to beat with emotions the pulsing wings

of which at once gladdened me, and cooled my fervour... And how

greatly, at that moment, did I feel the need of someone able to

respond to my questions without passion, yet with truth, and in

the language of simplicity! For beside me there lay but a man

dead and a man drunken, while without the threshold there was

stationed one who had far outlived her span of years. No matter,

however. If not today, then tomorrow, should I find a fellow-

creature with whom my soul might commune.

Mentally I left the hut, and passed on to the steppe, that I

might contemplate thence the little dwelling in which alone,

though lost amid the earth's immensity, the windows were not

blind and black as in its fellow huts, but showed, burning over

the head of a dead human being, the fire which humanity had

conquered for humanity's benefit.

And that heart which had ceased to beat in the dead man--had

everything conceived in life by that heart found due expression

in a world poverty, stricken of heart-conceived ideas? I knew that

the man just passed away had been but a plain and insignificant

mortal, yet as I reflected upon even the little that he had done,

his labour loomed before me as greater than prowess of larger

magnitude. Yes, to my mind there recurred the immature, battered

ears of corn lying in the ruts of the steppe track, the swallows

traversing the blue sky above the golden, brocaded grain, the

kite hovering in the void over the landscape's vast periphery.. .

. .

And along with these thoughts, there struck upon my ears a

whistling of pinions as the shadow of a bird flitted across the

brilliant, dew-bespangled green of the forecourt, and five cocks

crowed in succession, and a flock of geese announced the fact of

their awakening, and a cow lowed, and the gate of the cattle-pen

creaked.

And with that I fell to thinking how I should like really to go

out on to the steppe, and there to fall asleep under a warm, dry

bank.

As for the deacon, he was still slumbering at my feet--slumbering

with his breast, the breast of a prize-fighter, turned uppermost,

and his fine, golden shock of hair falling like a nimbus around

his head, and hot, fat, flushed red features and gaping mouth and

ceaselessly twitching moustache. In passing, I had noticed that

his hands were long, and that they were set upon shovel-shaped

wrists.

Next I found myself imagining the scene as the powerful figure of

this man embraced a woman. Probably her face would become lost to

sight in his beard, until nothing of her features remained

visible. Then, when the beard began to tickle her, she would

throw back her head, and laugh. And the children that such a man

might have begotten!

All this only made it the more painful and disagreeable to me to

reflect that the breast of a human being of such a type should be

bearing a burden of sorrow. Surely naught but joy should have

been present therein!

Meanwhile, the old woman's gentle face was still peering at me

through the doorway, and presently the first beam of sunlight

came glancing through the window-space. Above the rivulet's silky

glimmer, a transparent mist lay steaming, while trees and herbage

alike were passing through that curiously inert stage when at any

moment (so one fancied) they might give themselves a shake, and

burst into song, and in keys intelligible to the soul alone, set

forth the wondrous mystery of their existence.

"What a good man he is!" the old woman whispered plaintively as

she gazed at the deacon's gigantic frame. Whereafter, as though

reading aloud from a book invisible to my sight, she proceeded

quietly and simply to relate the story of his wife.

"You see," she went on "his lady committed a certain sin with a

certain man; and folk remarked this, and, after setting the

husband on to the couple, derided him--yes, him, our Demid!--for

the reason that he persisted in forgiving the woman her fault. At

length the jeers made her take to her room and him to liquor,

and for two years past he has been drinking, and soon is going to

be deprived of his office. One who scarcely drank at all, my poor

husband, used to say: 'Ah, Demid, yield not to these folk, but

live your own life, and let theirs be theirs, and yours, yours.'"

With the words, tears welled from the old woman's dim, small eyes,

and became merged with the folds and wrinkles on her grief-

stained cheeks. And in the presence of that little head, a head

shaking like a dead leaf in the autumn time, and of those kindly

features so worn with age and sorrow, my eyes

fell, and I felt smitten with shame to find that, on searching my

soul for at least a word of consolation to offer to the poor

fellow-mortal before me, I could discover none that seemed

suitable.

But at length there recurred to my mind some strange words which

I had encountered in I know not what antique volume --words which

ran:

"Let not the servants of the Gods lament but, rather, rejoice,

in that weeping and lamentation grieve both the Gods and

mankind."

Thereafter, I muttered confusedly:

"It is time that I was going."

"What?" was her hasty exclamation, an exclamation uttered as

though the words had affrighted her. Whereafter, with quivering

lips, she began hesitantly and uncertainly to fumble in her

bodice.

"No, I have no need of money," I interposed. "Only, if you

should be so willing, give me a piece of bread."

"You have no need of money? " she re-echoed dubiously.

"No, none. For that matter, of what use could it be to me?"

"Well, well!" she said after a thoughtful pause. "Then be it

as you wish, and--and I thank you."

*********************************

The sun, as he rose and ascended towards the blue of the

firmament, was spreading over the earth a braggart, peacock-like

tail of beams. And as he did so, I winked at him, for by

experience I knew that some two hours later his smiles would be

scorching me with fire. Yet for the time being he and I had no

fault to find with one another. Wherefore, I set myself to search

for a bank whence I might sing to him, as to the Lord of Life:

0h Thou of intangible substance,

Reveal now that substance to me!

Enwrap me within the great vestment

Of light which encompasseth Thee!

That with Thy uprising, my substance

May Come all-prevailing to be!

**

"Let us live our lives unto ourselves. Let theirs be theirs, and

ours, ours."