“You are an amusing fellow, Pyeshkov; the devil you are!
I wonder what you will become, a conjurer or what?
One can’t guess.”
And he gave me a large Nikolaivski five-copeck piece.
By means of a thin wire I fastened the coin in the most prominent position among my works of art.
In the course of a few days it disappeared. I believe that the old woman took it.
CHAPTER V
HOWEVER, I did run away in the spring. One morning when I went to the shop for bread the shopkeeper, continuing in my presence a quarrel with his wife, struck her on the forehead with a weight. She ran into the street, and there fell down. People began to gather round at once. The woman was laid on a stretcher and carried to the hospital, and I ran behind the cab which took her there without noticing where I was going till I found myself on the banks of the Volga, with two gr evens in my hand.
The spring sun shone caressingly, the broad expanse of the Volga flowed before me, the earth was full of sound and spacious, and I had been living like a mouse in a trap.
So I made up my mind that I would not return to my master, nor would I go to grandmother at Kunavin; for as I had not kept my word to her, I was ashamed to go and see her, and grandfather would only gloat over my misfortunes.
For two or three days I wandered by the river-side, being fed by kind-hearted porters, and sleeping with them in their shelters. At length one of them said to me:
“It is no use for you to hang about here, my boy. I can see that.
Go over to the boat which is called The Good. They want a washer-up.”
I went. The tall, bearded steward in a black silk skullcap looked at me through his glasses with his dim eyes, and said quietly:
“Two rubles a month.
Your passport?”
I had no passport. The steward pondered and then said:
“Bring your mother to see me.”
I rushed to grandmother. She approved the course I had taken, told grandfather to go to the workman’s court and get me a passport, and she herself accompanied me to the boat.
“Good!” said the steward, looking at us.
“Come along.”
He then took me to the stern of the boat, where sat at a small table, drinking tea and smoking a fat cigar at the same time, an enormous cook in white overalls and a white cap.
The steward pushed me toward him.
“The washer-up.”
Then he went away, and the cook, snorting, and with his black mustache bristling, called after him:
“‘You engage any sort of devil as long as he is cheap.”
Angrily tossing his head of closely cropped hair, he opened his dark eyes very wide, stretched himself, puffed, and cried shrilly:
“And who may you be?”
I did not like the appearance of this man at all. Although he was all in white, he looked dirty. There was a sort of wool growing on his fingers, and hairs stuck out of his great ears.
“I am hungry,” was my reply to him.
He blinked, and suddenly his ferocious countenance was transformed by a broad smile. His fat, brick-red cheeks widened to his very ears; he displayed his large, equine teeth; his mustache drooped, and all at once he had assumed the appearance of a kind, fat woman.
Throwing the tea overboard out of his glass, he poured out a fresh lot for me, and pushed a French roll and a large piece of sausage toward me.
“Peg away!
Are your parents living?
Can you steal?
You needn’t be afraid; they are all thieves here. You will soon learn.”
He talked as if he were barking.
His enormous, blue, clean-shaven face was covered all round the nose with red veins closely set together, his swollen, purple nose hung over his mustache. His lower lip was disiiguringly pendulous. In the corner of his mouth was stuck a smoking cigarette.
Apparently he had only just come from the bath. He smelt of birch twigs, and a profuse sweat glistened on his temples and neck.
After I had drunk my tea, he gave me a ruble-note.
“Run along and buy yourself two aprons with this.
Wait! I will buy them for you myself.”
He set his cap straight and came with me, swaying ponderously, his feet pattering on the deck like those of a bear.
At night the moon shone brightly as it glided away from the boat to the meadows on the left.
The old red boat, with its streaked funnel, did not hurry, and her propeller splashed unevenly in the silvery water. The dark shore gently floated to meet her, casting its shadow. on the water, and beyond, the windows of the peasant huts gleamed charmingly. They were singing in the village. The girls were merry-making and singing — and when they sang “Aie Ludi,” it sounded like “Alleluia.”
In the wake of the steamer a large barge, also red, was being towed by a long rope. The deck was railed in like an iron cage, and in this cage were convicts condemned to deportation or prison.
On the prow of the barge the bayonet of a sentry shone like a candle.
It was quiet on the barge itself. The moon bathed it in a rich light while behind the black iron grating could be seen dimly gray patches. These were the convicts looking out on the Volga.
The water sobbed, now weeping, now laughing timidly.
It was as quiet here as in church, and there was the same smell of oil.