Through Russia Page 2

"Oh no! Give him to me now!"

  And with tremulous, unsteady hands she unhooked the bosom of her bodice, and, freeing (with my assistance) the breast which nature had prepared for at least a dozen children, applied the mutinous young Orlovian to the nipple. As for him, he at once understood the matter, and ceased to send forth further lamentation.

  "O pure and holy Mother of God!" she gasped in a long-drawn, quivering sigh as she bent a dishevelled head over the little one, and, between intervals of silence, fell to uttering soft, abrupt exclamations. Then, opening her ineffably beautiful blue eyes, the hallowed eyes of a mother, she raised them towards the azure heavens, while in their depths there was coming and going a flame of joy and gratitude. Lastly, lifting a languid hand, she with a slow movement made the sign of the cross over both herself and her babe.

  "Thanks to thee O purest Mother of God!" she murmured. "Thanks indeed to thee!"

  Then her eyes grew dim and vague again, and after a pause (during which she seemed to be scarcely breathing) she said in a hard and matter-of-fact tone:

  "Young fellow, unfasten my satchel."

  And whilst I was so engaged she continued to regard me with a steady gaze; but, when the task was completed she smiled shamefacedly, and on her sunken cheeks and sweat-flecked temples there dawned the ghost of a blush.

  "Now," said she, "do you, for the present, go away."

  "And if I do so, see that in the meanwhile you do not move about too much."

  "No, I will not. But please go away."

  So I withdrew a little. In my breast a sort of weariness was lurking, but also in my breast there was echoing a soft and glorious chorus of birds, a chorus so exquisitely in accord with the never-ceasing splash of the sea that for ever could I have listened to it, and to the neighbouring brook as it purled on its way like a maiden engaged in relating confidences about her lover.

  Presently, the woman's yellow-scarfed head (the scarf now tidily rearranged) reappeared over the bushes.

  "Come, come, good woman!" was my exclamation. "I tell you that you must not move about so soon."

  And certainly her attitude now was one of utter languor, and she had perforce to grasp the stem of a bush with one hand to support herself. Yet while the blood was gone from her face, there had formed in the hollows where her eyes had been two lakes of blue.

  "See how he is sleeping!" she murmured.

  And, true enough, the child was sound asleep, though to my eyes he looked much as any other baby might have done, save that the couch of autumn leaves on which he was ensconced consisted of leaves of a kind which could not have been discovered in the faraway forests of Orlov.

  "Now, do you yourself lie down awhile," was my advice.

  "Oh, no," she replied with a shake of her head on its sinuous neck; "for I must be collecting my things before I move on towards—"

  "Towards Otchenchiri"

  "Yes. By now my folk will have gone many a verst in that direction."

  "And can you walk so far?"

  "The Holy Mother will help me."

  Yes, she was to journey in the company of the Mother of God. So no more on the point required to be said.

  Glancing again at the tiny, inchoate face under the bushes, her eyes diffused rays of warm and kindly light as, licking her lips, she, with a slow movement, smoothed the breast of the little one.

  Then I arranged sticks for a fire, and also adjusted stones to support the kettle.

  "Soon I will have tea ready for you," I remarked.

  "And thankful indeed I shall be," she responded, "for my breasts are dried up."

  "Why have your companions deserted you?" I said next.

  "They have not deserted me. It was I that left them of my own accord. How could I have exposed myself in their presence?"

  And with a glance at me she raised a hand to her face as, spitting a gout of blood, she smiled a sort of bashful smile.

  "This is your first child, I take it?"

  "It is.... And who are you?"

  "A man."

  "Yes, a man, of course; but, are you a MARRIED man?"

  "No, I have never been able to marry."

  "That cannot be true."

  "Why not?"

  With lowered eyes she sat awhile in thought.

  "Because, if so, how do you come to know so much about women's affairs?"

  This time I DID lie, for I replied:

  "Because they have been my study. In fact, I am a medical student."

  "Ah! Our priest's son also was a student, but a student for the Church."

  "Very well. Then you know what I am. Now I will go and fetch some water."

  Upon this she inclined her head towards her little son and listened for a moment to his breathing. Then she said with a glance towards the sea:

  "I too should like to have a wash, but I do not know what the water is like. What is it? Brackish or salt?"

  "No; quite good water—fit for you to wash in."

  "Is it really?"

  "Yes, really. Moreover, it is warmer than the water of the streams hereabouts, which is as cold as ice."

  "Ah! Well, you know best."

  Here a shaggy-eared pony, all skin and bone, was seen approaching us at a foot's pace. Trembling, and drooping its head, it scanned us, as it drew level, with a round black eye, and snorted. Upon that, its rider pushed back a ragged fur cap, glanced warily in our direction, and again sank his head.

  "The folk of these parts are ugly to look at," softly commented the woman from Orlov.

  Then I departed in quest of water. After I had washed my face and hands I filled the kettle from a stream bright and lively as quicksilver (a stream presenting, as the autumn leaves tossed in the eddies which went leaping and singing over the stones, a truly enchanting spectacle), and, returning, and peeping through the bushes, perceived the woman to be crawling on hands and knees over the stones, and anxiously peering about, as though in search of something.

  "What is it?" I inquired, and thereupon, turning grey in the face with confusion she hastened to conceal some article under her person, although I had already guessed the nature of the article.

  "Give it to me," was my only remark. "I will go and bury it."

  "How so? For, as a matter of fact, it ought to be buried under the floor in front of some stove."

  "Are we to build a stove HERE? Build it in five minutes?" I retorted.

  "Ah, I was jesting. But really, I would rather not have it buried here, lest some wild beast should come and devour it... Yet it ought to be committed only to the earth."

  That said, she, with averted eyes, handed me a moist and heavy bundle; and as she did so she said under her breath, with an air of confusion:

  "I beg of you for Christ's sake to bury it as well, as deeply, as you can. Out of pity for my son do as I bid you."

  I did as she had requested; and, just as the task had been completed, I perceived her returning from the margin of the sea with unsteady gait, and an arm stretched out before her, and a petticoat soaked to the middle with the sea water. Yet all her face was alight with inward fire, and as I helped her to regain the spot where I had prepared some sticks I could not help reflecting with some astonishment:

  "How strong indeed she is!"

  Next, as we drank a mixture of tea and honey, she inquired:

  "Have you now ceased to be a student?"

  "Yes."

  "And why so? Through too much drink?"

  "Even so, good mother."

  "Dear me! Well, your face is familiar to me. Yes, I remember that I noticed you in Sukhum when once you were arguing with the barraque superintendent over the question of rations. As I did so the thought occurred to me: 'Surely that bold young fellow must have gone and spent his means on drink? Yes, that is how it must be.'"

  Then, as from her swollen lips she licked a drop of honey, she again bent her blue eyes in the direction of the bush under which the slumbering, newly-arrived Orlovian was couched.

  "How will he live?" thoughtfully she
said with a sigh—then added:

  "You have helped me, and I thank you. Yes, my thanks are yours, though I cannot tell whether or not your assistance will have helped HIM."

  And, drinking the rest of her tea, she ate a morsel of bread, then made the sign of the cross. And subsequently, as I was putting up my things, she continued to rock herself to and fro, to give little starts and cries, and to gaze thoughtfully at the ground with eyes which had now regained their original colour. At last she rose to her feet.

  "You are not going yet?" I queried protestingly.

  "Yes, I must."

  "But—"

  "The Blessed Virgin will go with me. So please hand me over the child."

  "No, I will carry him."

  And, after a contest for the honour, she yielded, and we walked away side by side.

  "I only wish I were a little steadier on my feet," she remarked with an apologetic smile as she laid a hand upon my shoulder.

  Meanwhile, the new citizen of Russia, the little human being of an unknown future, was snoring soundly in my arms as the sea plashed and murmured, and threw off its white shavings, and the bushes whispered together, and the sun (now arrived at the meridian) shone brightly upon us all.

  In calm content it was that we walked; save that now and then the mother would halt, draw a deep breath, raise her head, scan the sea and the forest and the hills, and peer into her son's face. And as she did so, even the mist begotten of tears of suffering could not dim the wonderful brilliancy and clearness of her eyes. For with the sombre fire of inexhaustible love were those eyes aflame.

  Once, as she halted, she exclaimed:

  "O God, O Mother of God, how good it all is! Would that for ever I could walk thus, yes, walk and walk unto the very end of the world! All that I should need would be that thou, my son, my darling son, shouldst, borne upon thy mother's breast, grow and wax strong!"

  And the sea murmured and murmured.

  THE ICEBREAKER

  On a frozen river near a certain Russian town, a gang of seven carpenters were hastily repairing an icebreaker which the townsfolk had stripped for firewood.

  That year spring happened to be late in arriving, and youthful March looked more like October, and only at noon, and that not on every day, did the pale, wintry sun show himself in the overcast heavens, or, glimmering in blue spaces between clouds, contemplate the earth with a squinting, malevolent eye.

  The day in question was the Friday in Holy Week, and, as night drew on, drippings were becoming congealed into icicles half an arshin long, and in the snow-stripped ice of the river only the dun hue of the wintry clouds was reflected.

  As the carpenters worked there kept mournfully, insistently echoing from the town the coppery note of bells; and at intervals heads would raise themselves, and blue eyes would gleam thoughtfully through the same grey fog in which the town lay enveloped, and an axe uplifted would hover a moment in the air as though fearing with its descent to cleave the luscious flood of sound.

  Scattered over the spacious river-track were dark pine branches, projecting obliquely from the ice, to mark paths, open spaces, and cracks on the surface; and where they reared themselves aloft, these branches looked like the cramped, distorted arms of drowning men.

  From the river came a whiff of gloom and depression. Covered over with sodden slush, it stretched with irksome rigidity towards the misty quarter whence blew a languid, sluggish, damp, cold wind.

  Suddenly the foreman, one Ossip, a cleanly built, upright little peasant with a neatly curling, silvery beard, ruddy cheeks, and a flexible neck, a man everywhere and always in evidence, shouted:

  "Look alive there, my hearties!"

  Presently he turned his attention to myself, and smiled insinuatingly.

  "Inspector," he said, "what are you trying to poke out of the sky with that squat nose of yours? And why are you here at all? You come from the contractor, you say?—from Vasili Sergeitch? Well, well! Then your job is to hurry us up, to keep barking out, 'Mind what you are doing, such-and-such gang!' Yet there you stand-blinking over your task like an object dried stiff! It's not to blink that you're here, but to play the watchdog upon us, and to keep an eye open, and your tongue on the wag. So issue your commands, young cockerel."

  Then he shouted to the workmen:

  "Now, then! No shirking! Is the job going to be finished tonight, or is it not?"

  As a matter of fact, he himself was the worst shirker in the artel [Workman's union]. True, he was also a first-rate hand at his trade, and a man who could work quickly and well and with skill and concentration; but, unfortunately, he hated putting himself out, and preferred to spend his time spinning arresting yarns. For instance, on the present occasion he chose the moment when work was proceeding with a swing, when everyone was busily and silently and wholeheartedly labouring with the object of running the job through to the end, to begin in his musical voice:

  "Look here, lads. Once upon a time—"

  And though for the first two or three minutes the men appeared not to hear him, and continued their planing and chopping as before, the moment came when the soft tenor accents caught and held the men's attention, as they trickled and burbled forth. Then, screwing up his bright eyes with a humorous air, and twisting his curly beard between his fingers, Ossip gave a complacent click of his tongue, and continued measuredly, and with deliberation:

  "So he seized hold of the tench, and thrust it back into the cave. And as he turned to proceed through the forest he thought to himself: 'Now I must keep my eyes about me.' And suddenly, from somewhere (no one could have said where), a woman's voice shrieked: 'Elesi-a-ah! Elesia-ah!'"

  Here a tall, lanky Morduine named Leuka, with, as surname, Narodetz, a young fellow whose small eyes wore always an expression of astonishment, laid aside his axe, and stood gaping.

  "And from the cave a deep bass voice replied: 'Elesi-a-ah!' while at the same moment the tench sprang from the cave, and, champing its jaws, wriggled and wriggled back to the slough."

  Here an old soldier named Saniavin, a morose man, a tippler, and a sufferer from asthma and an inexplicable grudge against life in general, croaked out:

  "How could your tench have wriggled across dry land if it was a fish?"

  "Can, for that matter, a fish speak?" was Ossip's good-humoured retort.

  All of which inspired Mokei Budirin, a grey-headed muzhik of a cast of countenance canine in the prominence of his jaws and the recession of his forehead, and taciturn withal, though not otherwise remarkable, to give slow, nasal utterance to his favourite formula.

  "That is true enough," he said.

  For never could anything be spoken of that was grim or marvellous or lewd or malicious, but Budirin at once re-echoed softly, but in a tone of unshakable conviction: "That is true enough."

  Thereafter he would tap me on the breast with his hard and ponderous fist.

  Presently work again underwent an interruption through the fact that Yakov Boev, a man who possessed both a stammer and a squint, became similarly filled with a desire to tell us something about a fish. Yet from the moment that he began his narrative everyone declined to believe it, and laughed at his broken verbiage as, frequently invoking the Deity, and cursing, and brandishing his awl, and viciously swallowing spittle, he shouted amid general ridicule:

  "Once-once upon a time there lived a man. Yes, other folk before YOU have believed my tale. Indeed, it is no more than the truth that I'm going to tell you. Very well! Cackle away, and be damned!"

  Here everyone without exception dropped his work to shout with merriment and clap his hands: with the result that, doffing his cap, and thereby disclosing a silvered, symmetrically shaped head with one bald spot amid its one dark portion, Ossip was forced to shout severely:

  "Hi, you Budirin! You've had your say, and given us some fun, and there must be no more of it."

  "But I had only just begun what I want to say," the old soldier grumbled, spitting upon the palms of his hands.

  N
ext, Ossip turned to myself.

  "Inspector," he began...

  It is my opinion that in thus hindering the men from work through his tale-telling, Ossip had some definite end in view. I could not say precisely what that end was, but it must have been the object either of cloaking his own laziness or of giving the men a rest. On the other hand, whenever the contractor was present he, Ossip, bore himself with humble obsequiousness, and continued to assume a guise of simplicity which none the less did not prevent him, on the advent of each Saturday, from inducing his employer to bestow a pourboire upon the artel.

  And though this same Ossip was an artelui, and a director of the artel, his senior co-members bore him no affection, but, rather, looked upon him as a wag or trifler, and treated him as of no importance. And, similarly, the younger members of the artel liked well enough to listen to his tales, but declined to take him seriously, and, in some cases, regarded him with ill-concealed, or openly expressed, distrust.

  Once the Morduine, a man of education with whom, on occasions, I held discussions on intimate subjects, replied to a question of mine on the subject of Ossip:

  "I scarcely know. Goodness alone knows! No, I do not know anything about him."

  To which, after a pause, he added:

  "Once a fellow named Mikhailo, a clever fellow who is now dead, insulted Ossip by saying to him: 'Do you call yourself a man? Why, regarded as a workman, you're as lifeless as a doornail, while, seeing that you weren't born to be a master, you'll all your life continue chattering in corners, like a plummet swinging at the end of a string!' Yes, and that was true enough."

  Lastly, after another pause the Morduine concluded:

  "No matter. He is not such a bad sort."

  My own position among these men was a position of some awkwardness, for, a young fellow of only fifteen, I had been appointed by the contractor, a distant relative of mine, to the task of superintending the expenditure of material. That is to say, I had to see to it that the carpenters did not make away with nails, or dispose of planks in return for drink. Yet all the time my presence was practically useless, seeing that the men stole nails as though I were not even in existence and strove to show me that among them I was a person too many, a sheer incubus, and seized every opportunity of giving me covert jogs with a beam, and similarly affronting me.