“Memories of the Artillery,”
“Letters of Lord Sydanhall,”
“Concerning Noxious Insects and their Extinction, with Advice against the Pest,” books which seemed to have no beginning and no end.
Sometimes the cook set me to turn over all his books and read out their titles to him, but as soon as I had begun he called out angrily:
“What is it all about?
Why do you speak through your teeth? It is impossible to understand you.
What the devil has Gervase to do with me? Gervase!
Umbra indeed!”
Terrible words, incomprehensible names were wearily remembered, and they tickled my tongue. I had an incessant desire to repeat them, thinking that perhaps by pronouncing them I might discover their meaning.
And outside the porthole the water unweariedly sang and splashed.
It would have been pleasant to go to the stern, where the sailors and stokers were gathered together among the chests, where the passengers played cards, sang songs, and told interesting stories.
It would have been pleasant to sit among them and listen to simple, intelligible conversation, to gaze on the banks of the Kama, at the fir-trees drawn out like brass wires, at the meadows, wherein small lakes remained from the floods, looking like pieces of broken glass as they reflected the sun.
Our steamer was traveling at some distance from the shore, yet the sound of invisible bells came to us, reminding us of the villages and people.
The barks of the fishermen floated on the waves like crusts of bread. There, on the bank a little village appeared, here a crowd of small boys bathed in the river, men in red blouses could be seen passing along a narrow strip of sand.
Seen from a distance, from the river, it was a very pleasing sight; everything looked like tiny toys of many colors.
I felt a desire to call out some kind, tender words to the shore and the barge.
The latter interested me greatly; I could look at it for an hour at a time as it dipped its blunt nose in the turbid water.
The boat dragged it along as if it were a pig: the tow-rope, slackening, lashed the water, then once more drew taut and pulled the barge along by the nose.
I wanted very much to see the faces of those people who were kept like wild animals in an iron cage.
At Perm, where they were landed, I made my way to the gangway, and past me came, in batches of ten, gray people, trampling dully, rattling their fetters, bowed down by their heavy knapsacks. There were all sorts, young and old, handsome and ugly, all exactly like ordinary people except that they were differently dressed and were disfiguringly close-shaven.
No doubt these were robbers, but grandmother had told me much that was good about robbers.
Smouri looked much more like a fierce robber than they as he glanced loweringly at the barge and said loudly:
“Save me, God, from such a fate!”
Once I asked him:
“Why do you say that? You cook, while those others kill and steal.”
“I don’t cook; I only prepare. The women cook,” he said, bursting out laughing; but after thinking a moment he added: “The difference between one person and another lies in stupidity.
One man is clever, another not so clever, and a third may be quite a fool.
To become clever one must read the right books — black magic and what not.
One must read all kinds of books and then one will find the right ones.”
He was continually impressing upon me:
“Read!
When you don’t understand a book, read it again and again, as many as seven times; and if you do not understand it then, read it a dozen times.”
To every one on the boat, not excluding the taciturn steward, Smouri spoke roughly. Sticking out his lower lip as if he were disgusted, and, stroking his mustache, he pelted them with words as if they were stones.
To me he always showed kindness and interest, but there was something about his interest which rather frightened me. Sometimes I thought he was crazy, like grandmother’s sister.
At times he said to me:
“Leave off reading.”
And he would lie for a long time with closed eyes, breathing stertorously, his great stomach shaking. His hairy fingers, folded corpse-like on his chest, moved, knitting invisible socks with invisible needles.
Suddenly he would begin growling:
“Here are you!
You have your intelligence. Go and live!
But intelligence is given sparingly, and not to all alike.
If all were on the same level intellectually — but they are not.
One understands, another docs not, and there are some people who do not even wish to understand!”
Stumbling over his words, he related stories of his life as a soldier, the drift of which I could never manage to catch. They seemed very uninteresting to me. Besides, he did not tell them from the beginning, but as he recollected them.
“The commander of the regiment called this soldier to him and asked:
‘What did the lieutenant say to you?’
So he told everything just as it had happened — a soldier is bound to tell the truth — but the lieutenant looked at him as if he had been a wall, and then turned away, hanging his head.
Yes — ”
He became indignant, puffed out clouds of smoke, and growled:
“How was I to know what I could say and what I ought not to say?