From what grandmother had told me I knew that Uncle Yaakov had spent those years in quarrelling and idleness; he had had a situation as assistant warder at the local goal, but his term of service ended badly. The chief warder being ill, Uncle Yaakov arranged festivities in his own quarters for the convicts.
This was discovered, and he was dismissed and handed over to the police on the charge of having let the prisoners out to “take a walk” in the town at night.
None of them had escaped, but one was caught in the act of trying to throttle a certain deacon.
The business draggged on for a long time, but the matter never came into court; the convicts and the warders were able to exculpate my good uncle.
But now he lived without working on the earnings of his son who sang in the church choir at Rukavishnikov, which was famous at that time.
He spoke oddly of this son:
“He has become very solemn and important!
He is a soloist.
He gets angry if the samovar is not ready to time, or if his clothes are not brushed.
A very dapper fellow he is, and clean.”
Uncle himself had aged considerably; he looked grubby and fallen away.
His gay, curly locks had grown very scanty, and his ears stuck out; in the whites of his eyes and on the leathery skin of his shaven cheeks there appeared thick, red veins.
He spoke jestingly, but it seemed as if there were something in his mouth which impeded his utterance, although his teeth were sound.
I was glad to have the chance of talking to a man who knew how to live well, had seen much, and must therefore know much.
I well remembered his lively, comical songs and grandfather’s words about him:
“In songs he is King David, but in business he plots evil, like Absalom!”
On the promenade a well-dressed crowd passed and repassed: luxuriously attired gentlemen, chinovniks, officers; uncle was dressed in a shabby, autumn overcoat, a battered cap, and brown boots, and was visibly pricked by annoyance at the thought of his own costume.
We went into one of the public-houses on the Pochainski Causeway, taking a table near the window which opened on the market-place.
“Do you remember how you sang:
“A beggar hung his leggings to dry,
And another beggar came and stole them away?”
When I had uttered the words of the song, I felt for the first time their mocking meaning, and it seemed to me that my gay uncle was both witty and malicious.
But he, pouring vodka into a glass, said thoughtfully:
“Well, I am getting on in years, and I have made very little of my life.
That song is not mine; it was composed by a teacher in the seminary. What was his name now? He is dead; I have forgotten.
We were great friends.
He was a bachelor.
He died in his sleep, in a fit.
How many people have gone to sleep that I can remember! It would be hard to count them.
You don’t drink?
That is right; don’t!
Do you see your grandfather often?
He is not a happy old man.
I believe he is going out of his mind.”
After a few drinks he became more lively, held him-self up, looked younger, and began to speak with more animation.
I asked him for the story of the convicts.
“You heard about it?” he inquired, and with a glance around, and lowering his voice, he said:
“What about the convicts?
I was not their judge, you know; I saw them merely as human creatures, and I said: ‘Brothers, let us live together in harmony, let us live happily! There is a song,’ I said, ‘which runs like this:
“Imprisonment to happiness is no bar.
Let them do with us as they will!
Still we shall live for sake of laughter, He is a fool who lives otherwise.”
He laughed, glanced out of the window on the darkening causeway, and continued, smoothing his whis — kers:
“Of course they were dull in that prison, and as soon as the roll-call was over, they came to me. We had vodka and dainties, sometimes provided by me, sometimes by themselves.
I love songs and dancing, and among them were some excellent singers and dancers. It was astonishing!
Some of them were in fetters, and it was no calumny to say that I undid their chains; it is true.
But bless you, they knew how to take them off by themselves without a blacksmith; they are a handy lot of people; it is astonishing! But to say that I let them wander about the town to rob people is rubbish, and it was never proved!”
He was silent, gazing out of the window on the causeway where the merchants were shutting up their chests of goods; iron bars rattled, rusty hinges creaked, some boards fell with a resounding crash.
Then winking at me gaily, he continued in a low voice:
“To speak the truth, one of them did really go out at night, only he was not one of the fettered ones, but simply a local thief from the lower end of the town; his sweetheart lived not far away on the Pechorka.