Kitabı oku: «The Man Who Was Afraid», sayfa 20

CHAPTER XII

A DENSE, grayish fog lay over the river, and a steamer, now and then uttering a dull whistle, was slowly forging up against the current. Damp and cold clouds, of a monotone pallor, enveloped the steamer from all sides and drowned all sounds, dissolving them in their troubled dampness. The brazen roaring of the signals came out in a muffled, melancholy drone, and was oddly brief as it burst forth from the whistle. The sound seemed to find no place for itself in the air, which was soaked with heavy dampness, and fell downward, wet and choked. And the splashing of the steamer’s wheels sounded so fantastically dull that it seemed as though it were not begotten near by, at the sides of the vessel, but somewhere in the depth, on the dark bottom of the river. From the steamer one could see neither the water, nor the shore, nor the sky; a leaden-gray gloominess enwrapped it on all sides; devoid of shadings, painfully monotonous, the gloominess was motionless, it oppressed the steamer with immeasurable weight, slackened its movements and seemed as though preparing itself to swallow it even as it was swallowing the sounds. In spite of the dull blows of the paddles upon the water and the measured shaking of the body of the vessel, it seemed that the steamer was painfully struggling on one spot, suffocating in agony, hissing like a fairy tale monster breathing his last, howling in the pangs of death, howling with pain, and in the fear of death.

Lifeless were the steamer lights. About the lantern on the mast a yellow motionless spot had formed; devoid of lustre, it hung in the fog over the steamer, illuminating nothing save the gray mist. The red starboard light looked like a huge eye crushed out by some one’s cruel fist, blinded, overflowing with blood. Pale rays of light fell from the steamer’s windows into the fog, and only tinted its cold, cheerless dominion over the vessel, which was pressed on all sides by the motionless mass of stifling dampness.

The smoke from the funnel fell downwards, and, together with fragments of the fog, penetrated into all the cracks of the deck, where the third-class passengers were silently muffling themselves in their rags, and forming groups, like sheep. From near the machinery were wafted deep, strained groans, the jingling of bells, the dull sounds of orders and the abrupt words of the machinist:

“Yes – slow! Yes – half speed!”

On the stern, in a corner, blocked up by barrels of salted fish, a group of people was assembled, illuminated by a small electric lamp. Those were sedate, neatly and warmly clad peasants. One of them lay on a bench, face down; another sat at his feet, still another stood, leaning his back against a barrel, while two others seated themselves flat on the deck. Their faces, pensive and attentive, were turned toward a round-shouldered man in a short cassock, turned yellow, and a torn fur cap. That man sat on some boxes with his back bent, and staring at his feet, spoke in a low, confident voice:

“There will come an end to the long forbearance of the Lord, and then His wrath will burst forth upon men. We are like worms before Him, and how are we then to ward off His wrath, with what wailing shall we appeal to His mercy?”

Oppressed by his gloominess, Foma had come down on the deck from his cabin, and, for some time, had been standing in the shadow of some wares covered with tarpaulin, and listened to the admonitive and gentle voice of the preacher. Pacing the deck he had chanced upon this group, and attracted by the figure of the pilgrim, had paused near it. There was something familiar to him in that large, strong body, in that stern, dark face, in those large, calm eyes. The curly, grayish hair, falling from under the skull-cap, the unkempt bushy beard, which fell apart in thick locks, the long, hooked nose, the sharp-pointed ears, the thick lips – Foma had seen all these before, but could not recall when and where.

“Yes, we are very much in arrears before the Lord!” remarked one of the peasants, heaving a deep sigh.

“We must pray,” whispered the peasant who lay on the bench, in a scarcely audible voice.

“Can you scrape your sinful wretchedness off your soul with words of prayer?” exclaimed someone loudly, almost with despair in his voice.

No one of those that formed the group around the pilgrim turned at this voice, only their heads sank lower on their breasts, and for a long time these people sat motionless and speechless:

The pilgrim measured his audience with a serious and meditative glance of his blue eyes, and said softly:

“Ephraim the Syrian said: ‘Make thy soul the central point of thy thoughts and strengthen thyself with thy desire to be free from sin.’”

And again he lowered his head, slowly fingering the beads of the rosary.

“That means we must think,” said one of the peasants; “but when has a man time to think during his life on earth?”

“Confusion is all around us.”

“We must flee to the desert,” said the peasant who lay on the bench.

“Not everybody can afford it.”

The peasants spoke, and became silent again. A shrill whistle resounded, a little bell began to jingle at the machine. Someone’s loud exclamation rang out:

“Eh, there! To the water-measuring poles.”

“Oh Lord! Oh Queen of Heaven!” – a deep sigh was heard.

And a dull, half-choked voice shouted:

“Nine! nine!”

Fragments of the fog burst forth upon the deck and floated over it like cold, gray smoke.

“Here, kind people, give ear unto the words of King David,” said the pilgrim, and shaking his head, began to read distinctly: “‘Lead me, Oh Lord, in thy righteousness because of mine enemies; make thy way straight before my face. For there is no faithfulness in their mouths; their inward part is very wickedness; their throat is an open sepulchre; they flatter with their tongue. Destroy thou them, Oh God; let them fall by their own counsels.’”

“Eight! seven!” Like moans these exclamations resounded in the distance.

The steamer began to hiss angrily, and slackened its speed. The noise of the hissing of the steam deafened the pilgrim’s words, and Foma saw only the movement of his lips.

“Get off!” a loud, angry shout was heard. “It’s my place!”

“Yours?”

“Here you have yours!”

“I’ll rap you on the jaw; then you’ll find your place. What a lord!”

“Get away!”

An uproar ensued. The peasants who were listening to the pilgrim turned their heads toward the direction where the row was going on, and the pilgrim heaved a sigh and became silent. Near the machine a loud and lively dispute blazed up as though dry branches, thrown upon a dying bonfire, had caught the flame.

“I’ll give it to you, devils! Get away, both of you.”

“Take them away to the captain.”

“Ha! ha! ha! That’s a fine settlement for you!”

“That was a good rap he gave him on the neck!”

“The sailors are a clever lot.”

“Eight! nine!” shouted the man with the measuring pole.

“Yes, increase speed!” came the loud exclamation of the engineer.

Swaying because of the motion of the steamer, Foma stood leaning against the tarpaulin, and attentively listened to each and every sound about him. And everything was blended into one picture, which was familiar to him. Through fog and uncertainty, surrounded on all sides by gloom impenetrable to the eye, life of man is moving somewhere slowly and heavily. And men are grieved over their sins, they sigh heavily, and then fight for a warm place, and asking each other for the sake of possessing the place, they also receive blows from those who strive for order in life. They timidly search for a free road toward the goal.

“Nine! eight!”

The wailing cry is softly wafted over the vessel. “And the holy prayer of the pilgrim is deafened by the tumult of life. And there is no relief from sorrow, there is no joy for him who reflects on his fate.”

Foma felt like speaking to this pilgrim, in whose softly uttered words there rang sincere fear of God, and all manner of fear for men before His countenance. The kind, admonitive voice of the pilgrim possessed a peculiar power, which compelled Foma to listen to its deep tones.

“I’d like to ask him where he lives,” thought Foma, fixedly scrutinizing the huge stooping figure. “And where have I seen him before? Or does he resemble some acquaintance of mine?”

Suddenly it somehow struck Foma with particular vividness that the humble preacher before him was no other than the son of old Anany Shchurov. Stunned by this conjecture, he walked up to the pilgrim and seating himself by his side, inquired freely:

“Are you from Irgiz, father?”

The pilgrim raised his head, turned his face toward Foma slowly and heavily, scrutinized him and said in a calm and gentle voice:

“I was on the Irgiz, too.”

“Are you a native of that place?”

“Are you now coming from there?”

“No, I am coming from Saint Stephen.”

The conversation broke off. Foma lacked the courage to ask the pilgrim whether he was not Shchurov.

“We’ll be late on account of the fog,” said some one.

“How can we help being late!”

All were silent, looking at Foma. Young, handsome, neatly and richly dressed, he aroused the curiosity of the bystanders by his sudden appearance among them; he was conscious of this curiosity, he understood that they were all waiting for his words, that they wanted to understand why he had come to them, and all this confused and angered him.

“It seems to me that I’ve met you before somewhere, father,” said he at length.

The pilgrim replied, without looking at him:

“Perhaps.”

“I would like to speak to you,” announced Foma, timidly, in a low voice.

“Well, then, speak.”

“Come with me.”

“Whither?”

“To my cabin.”

The pilgrim looked into Foma’s face, and, after a moment’s silence, assented:

“Come.”

On leaving, Foma felt the looks of the peasants on his back, and now he was pleased to know that they were interested in him.

In the cabin he asked gently:

“Would you perhaps eat something? Tell me. I will order it.”

“God forbid. What do you wish?”

This man, dirty and ragged, in a cassock turned red with age, and covered with patches, surveyed the cabin with a squeamish look, and when he seated himself on the plush-covered lounge, he turned the skirt of the cassock as though afraid to soil it by the plush.

“What is your name, father?” asked Foma, noticing the expression of squeamishness on the pilgrim’s face.

“Miron.”

“Not Mikhail?”

“Why Mikhail?” asked the pilgrim.

“There was in our town the son of a certain merchant Shchurov, he also went off to the Irgiz. And his name was Mikhail.”

Foma spoke and fixedly looked at Father Miron; but the latter was as calm as a deaf-mute —

“I never met such a man. I don’t remember, I never met him,” said he, thoughtfully. “So you wished to inquire about him?”

“Yes.”

“No, I never met Mikhail Shchurov. Well, pardon me for Christ’s sake!” and rising from the lounge, the pilgrim bowed to Foma and went toward the door.

“But wait awhile, sit down, let’s talk a little!” exclaimed Foma, rushing at him uneasily. The pilgrim looked at him searchingly and sank down on the lounge. From the distance came a dull sound, like a deep groan, and immediately after it the signal whistle of the steamer drawled out as in a frightened manner over Foma’s and his guest’s heads. From the distance came a more distant reply, and the whistle overhead again gave out abrupt, timorous sounds. Foma opened the window. Through the fog, not far from their steamer, something was moving along with deep noise; specks of fantastic lights floated by, the fog was agitated and again sank into dead immobility.

“How terrible!” exclaimed Foma, shutting the window.

“What is there to be afraid of?” asked the pilgrim. “You see! It is neither day nor night, neither darkness nor light! We can see nothing, we are sailing we know not whither, we are straying on the river.”

“Have inward fire within you, have light within your soul, and you shall see everything,” said the pilgrim, sternly and instructively.

Foma was displeased with these cold words and looked at the pilgrim askance. The latter sat with drooping head, motionless, as though petrified in thought and prayer. The beads of his rosary were softly rustling in his hands.

The pilgrim’s attitude gave birth to easy courage in Foma’s breast, and he said:

“Tell me, Father Miron, is it good to live, having full freedom, without work, without relatives, a wanderer, like yourself?”

Father Miron raised his head and softly burst into the caressing laughter of a child. All his face, tanned from wind and sunburn, brightened up with inward joy, was radiant with tranquil joy; he touched Foma’s knee with his hand and said in a sincere tone:

“Cast aside from you all that is worldly, for there is no sweetness in it. I am telling you the right word – turn away from evil. Do you remember it is said:

‘Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners.’ Turn away, refresh your soul with solitude and fill yourself with the thought of God. For only by the thought of Him can man save his soul from profanation.”

“That isn’t the thing!” said Foma. “I have no need of working out my salvation. Have I sinned so much? Look at others. What I would like is to comprehend things.”

“And you will comprehend if you turn away from the world. Go forth upon the free road, on the fields, on the steppes, on the plains, on the mountains. Go forth and look at the world from afar, from your freedom.”

“That’s right!” cried Foma. “That’s just what I think. One can see better from the side!”

And Miron, paying no attention to his words, spoke softly, as though of some great mystery, known only to him, the pilgrim:

“The thick slumbering forests around you will start to rustle in sweet voices about the wisdom of the Lord; God’s little birds will sing before you of His holy glory, and the grasses of the steppe will burn incense to the Holy Virgin.”

The pilgrim’s voice now rose and quivered from excess of emotion, now sank to a mysterious whisper. He seemed as though grown younger; his eyes beamed so confidently and clearly, and all his face was radiant with the happy smile of a man who has found expression for his joy and was delighted while he poured it forth.

“The heart of God throbs in each and every blade of grass; each and every insect of the air and of the earth, breathes His holy spirit. God, the Lord, Jesus Christ, lives everywhere! What beauty there is on earth, in the fields and in the forests! Have you ever been on the Kerzhenz? An incomparable silence reigns there supreme, the trees, the grass there are like those of paradise.”

Foma listened, and his imagination, captivated by the quiet, charming narrative, pictured to him those wide fields and dense forests, full of beauty and soul-pacifying silence.

“You look at the sky, as you rest somewhere under a little bush, and the sky seems to descend upon you as though longing to embrace you. Your soul is warm, filled with tranquil joy, you desire nothing, you envy nothing. And it actually seems to you that there is no one on earth save you and God.”

The pilgrim spoke, and his voice and sing-song speech reminded Foma of the wonderful fairy-tales of Aunt Anfisa. He felt as though, after a long journey on a hot day, he drank the clear, cold water of a forest brook, water that had the fragrance of the grasses and the flowers it has bathed. Even wider and wider grew the pictures as they unfolded upon him; here is a path through the thick, slumbering forest; the fine sunbeams penetrate through the branches of the trees, and quiver in the air and under the feet of the wanderer. There is a savoury odour of fungi and decaying foliage; the honeyed fragrance of the flowers, the intense odour of the pine-tree invisibly rise in the air and penetrate the breast in a warm, rich stream. All is silence: only the birds are singing, and the silence is so wonderful that it seems as though even the birds were singing in your breast. You go, without haste, and your life goes on like a dream. While here everything is enveloped in a gray, dead fog, and we are foolishly struggling about in it, yearning for freedom and light. There below they have started to sing something in scarcely audible voices; it was half song, half prayer. Again someone is shouting, scolding. And still they seek the way:

“Seven and a half. Seven!”

“And you have no care,” spoke the pilgrim, and his voice murmured like a brook. “Anybody will give you a crust of bread; and what else do you need in your freedom? In the world, cares fall upon the soul like fetters.”

“You speak well,” said Foma with a sigh.

“My dear brother!” exclaimed the pilgrim, softly, moving still closer toward him. “Since the soul has awakened, since it yearns toward freedom, do not lull it to sleep by force; hearken to its voice. The world with its charms has no beauty and holiness whatever, wherefore, then, obey its laws? In John Chrysostom it is said: ‘The real shechinah is man!’ Shechinah is a Hebrew word and it means the holy of holies. Consequently – ”

A prolonged shrill sound of the whistle drowned his voice. He listened, rose quickly from the lounge and said:

“We are nearing the harbour. That’s what the whistle meant. I must be off! Well, goodbye, brother! May God give you strength and firmness to act according to the will of your soul! Goodbye, my dear boy!”

He made a low bow to Foma. There was something feminine, caressing and soft in his farewell words and bow. Foma also bowed low to him, bowed and remained as though petrified, standing with drooping head, his hand leaning against the table.

“Come to see me when you are in town,” he asked the pilgrim, who was hastily turning the handle of the cabin door.

“I will! I will come! Goodbye! Christ save you!”

When the steamer’s side touched the wharf Foma came out on the deck and began to look downward into the fog. From the steamer people were walking down the gang-planks, but Foma could not discern the pilgrim among those dark figures enveloped in the dense gloom. All those that left the steamer looked equally indistinct, and they all quickly disappeared from sight, as though they had melted in the gray dampness. One could see neither the shore nor anything else solid; the landing bridge rocked from the commotion caused by the steamer; above it the yellow spot of the lantern was swaying; the noise of the footsteps and the bustle of the people were dull.

The steamer put off and slowly moved along into the clouds. The pilgrim, the harbour, the turmoil of people’s voices – all suddenly disappeared like a dream, and again there remained only the dense gloom and the steamer heavily turning about in it. Foma stared before him into the dead sea of fog and thought of the blue, cloudless and caressingly warm sky – where was it?

On the next day, about noon, he sat In Yozhov’s small room and listened to the local news from the mouth of his friend. Yozhov had climbed on the table, which was piled with newspapers, and, swinging his feet, narrated:

“The election campaign has begun. The merchants are putting your godfather up as mayor – that old devil! Like the devil, he is immortal, although he must be upwards of a hundred and fifty years old already. He marries his daughter to Smolin. You remember that red-headed fellow. They say that he is a decent man, but nowadays they even call clever scoundrels decent men, because there are no men. Now Africashka plays the enlightened man; he has already managed to get into intelligent society, donated something to some enterprise or another and thus at once came to the front. Judging from his face, he is a sharper of the highest degree, but he will play a prominent part, for he knows how to adapt himself. Yes, friend, Africashka is a liberal. And a liberal merchant is a mixture of a wolf and a pig with a toad and a snake.”

“The devil take them all!” said Foma, waving his hand indifferently. “What have I to do with them? How about yourself – do you still keep on drinking?”

“I do! Why shouldn’t I drink?”

Half-clad and dishevelled, Yozhov looked like a plucked bird, which had just had a fight and had not yet recovered from the excitement of the conflict.

“I drink because, from time to time, I must quench the fire of my wounded heart. And you, you damp stump, you are smouldering little by little?”

“I have to go to the old man,” said Foma, wrinkling his face.

“Chance it!”

“I don’t feel like going. He’ll start to lecture me.”

“Then don’t go!”

“But I must.”

“Then go!”

“Why do you always play the buffoon?” said Foma, with displeasure, “as though you were indeed merry.”

“By God, I feel merry!” exclaimed Yozhov, jumping down from the table. “What a fine roasting I gave a certain gentleman in the paper yesterday! And then – I’ve heard a clever anecdote: A company was sitting on the sea-shore philosophizing at length upon life. And a Jew said to them: ‘Gentlemen, why do you employ so many different words? I’ll tell it to you all at once: Our life is not worth a single copeck, even as this stormy sea! ‘”

“Eh, the devil take you!” said Foma. “Good-bye. I am going.”

“Go ahead! I am in a fine frame of mind to-day and I will not moan with you. All the more so considering you don’t moan, but grunt.”

Foma went away, leaving Yozhov singing at the top of his voice:

“Beat the drum and fear not.”

“Drum? You are a drum yourself;” thought Foma, with irritation, as he slowly came out on the street.

At the Mayakins he was met by Luba. Agitated and animated, she suddenly appeared before him, speaking quickly:

“You? My God! How pale you are! How thin you’ve grown! It seems you have been leading a fine life.”

Then her face became distorted with alarm and she exclaimed almost in a whisper:

“Ah, Foma. You don’t know. Do you hear? Someone is ringing the bell. Perhaps it is he.”

And she rushed out of the room, leaving behind her in the air the rustle of her silk gown, and the astonished Foma, who had not even had a chance to ask her where her father was. Yakov Tarasovich was at home. Attired in his holiday clothes, in a long frock coat with medals on his breast, he stood on the threshold with his hands outstretched, clutching at the door posts. His green little eyes examined Foma, and, feeling their look upon him, Foma raised his head and met them.

“How do you do, my fine gentleman?” said the old man, shaking his head reproachfully. “Where has it pleased you to come from, may I ask? Who has sucked off that fat of yours? Or is it true that a pig looks for a puddle, and Foma for a place which is worse?”

“Have you no other words for me?” asked Foma, sternly, looking straight into the old man’s face. And suddenly he noticed that his godfather shuddered, his legs trembled, his eyes began to blink repeatedly, and his hands clutched the door posts with an effort. Foma advanced toward him, presuming that the old man was feeling ill, but Yakov Tarasovich said in a dull and angry voice:

“Stand aside. Get out of the way.”

And his face assumed its usual expression.

Foma stepped back and found himself side by side with a rather short, stout man, who bowed to Mayakin, and said in a hoarse voice:

“How do you do, papa?”

“How are you, Taras Yakovlich, how are you?” said the old man, bowing, smiling distractedly, and still clinging to the door posts.

Foma stepped aside in confusion, seated himself in an armchair, and, petrified with curiosity, wide-eyed, began to watch the meeting of father and son.

The father, standing in the doorway, swayed his feeble body, leaning his hands against the door posts, and, with his head bent on one side and eyes half shut, stared at his son in silence. The son stood about three steps away from him; his head already gray, was lifted high; he knitted his brow and gazed at his father with large dark eyes. His small, black, pointed beard and his small moustache quivered on his meagre face, with its gristly nose, like that of his father. And the hat, also, quivered in his hand. From behind his shoulder Foma saw the pale, frightened and joyous face of Luba – she looked at her father with beseeching eyes and it seemed she was on the point of crying out. For a few moments all were silent and motionless, crushed as they were by the immensity of their emotions. The silence was broken by the low, but dull and quivering voice of Yakov Tarasovich:

“You have grown old, Taras.”

The son laughed in his father’s face silently, and, with a swift glance, surveyed him from head to foot.

The father tearing his hands from the door posts, made a step toward his son and suddenly stopped short with a frown. Then Taras Mayakin, with one huge step, came up to his father and gave him his hand.

“Well, let us kiss each other,” suggested the father, softly.

The two old men convulsively clasped each other in their arms, exchanged warm kisses and then stepped apart. The wrinkles of the older man quivered, the lean face of the younger was immobile, almost stern. The kisses had changed nothing in the external side of this scene, only Lubov burst into a sob of joy, and Foma awkwardly moved about in his seat, feeling as though his breath were failing him.

“Eh, children, you are wounds to the heart – you are not its joy,” complained Yakov Tarasovich in a ringing voice, and he evidently invested a great deal in these words, for immediately after he had pronounced them he became radiant, more courageous, and he said briskly, addressing himself to his daughter:

“Well, have you melted with joy? You had better go and prepare something for us – tea and so forth. We’ll entertain the prodigal son. You must have forgotten, my little old man, what sort of a man your father is?”

Taras Mayakin scrutinized his parent with a meditative look of his large eyes and he smiled, speechless, clad in black, wherefore the gray hair on his head and in his beard told more strikingly.

“Well, be seated. Tell me – how have you lived, what have you done? What are you looking at? Ah! That’s my godson. Ignat Gordyeeff’s son, Foma. Do you remember Ignat?”

“I remember everything,” said Taras.

“Oh! That’s good, if you are not bragging. Well, are you married?”

“I am a widower.”

“Have you any children?”

“They died. I had two.”

“That’s a pity. I would have had grandchildren.”

“May I smoke?” asked Taras.

“Go ahead. Just look at him, you’re smoking cigars.”

“Don’t you like them?”

“I? Come on, it’s all the same to me. I say that it looks rather aristocratic to smoke cigars.”

“And why should we consider ourselves lower than the aristocrats?” said Taras, laughing.

“Do, I consider ourselves lower?” exclaimed the old man. “I merely said it because it looked ridiculous to me, such a sedate old fellow, with beard trimmed in foreign fashion, cigar in his mouth. Who is he? My son – he-he-he!” the old man tapped Taras on the shoulder and sprang away from him, as though frightened lest he were rejoicing too soon, lest that might not be the proper way to treat that half gray man. And he looked searchingly and suspiciously into his son’s large eyes, which were surrounded by yellowish swellings.

Taras smiled in his father’s face an affable and warm smile, and said to him thoughtfully:

“That’s the way I remember you – cheerful and lively. It looks as though you had not changed a bit during all these years.”

The old man straightened himself proudly, and, striking his breast with his fist, said:

“I shall never change, because life has no power over him who knows his own value. Isn’t that so?”

“Oh! How proud you are!”

“I must have taken after my son,” said the old man with a cunning grimace. “Do you know, dear, my son was silent for seventeen years out of pride.”

“That’s because his father would not listen to him,” Taras reminded him.

“It’s all right now. Never mind the past. Only God knows which of us is to blame. He, the upright one, He’ll tell it to you – wait! I shall keep silence. This is not the time for us to discuss that matter. You better tell me – what have you been doing all these years? How did you come to that soda factory? How have you made your way?”

“That’s a long story,” said Taras with a sigh; and emitting from his mouth a great puff of smoke, he began slowly: “When I acquired the possibility to live at liberty, I entered the office of the superintendent of the gold mines of the Remezovs.”

“I know; they’re very rich. Three brothers. I know them all. One is a cripple, the other a fool, and the third a miser. Go on!”

“I served under him for two years. And then I married his daughter,” narrated Mayakin in a hoarse voice.

“The superintendent’s? That wasn’t foolish at all.” Taras became thoughtful and was silent awhile. The old man looked at his sad face and understood his son.

“And so you lived with your wife happily,” he said. “Well, what can you do? To the dead belongs paradise, and the living must live on. You are not so very old as yet. Have you been a widower long?”

“This is the third year.”

“So? And how did you chance upon the soda factory?”

“That belongs to my father-in-law.”

“Aha! What is your salary?”

“About five thousand.”

“Mm. That’s not a stale crust. Yes, that’s a galley slave for you!”

Taras glanced at his father with a firm look and asked him drily:

“By the way, what makes you think that I was a convict?”

The old man glanced at his son with astonishment, which was quickly changed into joy:

“Ah! What then? You were not? The devil take them! Then – how was it? Don’t take offence! How could I know? They said you were in Siberia! Well, and there are the galleys!”

“To make an end of this once for all,” said Taras, seriously and impressively, clapping his hand on his knee, “I’ll tell you right now how it all happened. I was banished to Siberia to settle there for six years, and, during all the time of my exile, I lived in the mining region of the Lena. In Moscow I was imprisoned for about nine months. That’s all!”

“So-o! But what does it mean?” muttered Yakov Tarasovich, with confusion and joy.

“And here they circulated that absurd rumour.”

“That’s right – it is absurd indeed!” said the old man, distressed.

“And it did a pretty great deal of harm on a certain occasion.”