Damp wood smolders for a long time and then bursts into flame.
I don’t care for that sort of thing myself; it does not interest me.
And if I had been born a woman, I should have drowned myself in a black pool. I should have been safe then with Holy Christ, and could do no one any harm.
But while one is here there is always the chance of kindling a fire.
Eunuchs are no fools, I assure you.
They are clever people, they are good at divination, they put aside all small things and serve God alone — cleanly.”
The captain’s wife passed us, holding her skirts high as she came through the pools of water.
Tall and well built, she had a simple, bright face.
I wanted to run after her and beg her from my heart:
“Say something to me! Say something!”
The boat drew slowly away from the pier. Blyakhin crossed himself and said:
“We are off!”
CHAPTER VI
AT Sarapulia, Maxim left the boat. He went away in silence, saying farewell to no one, serious and calm.
Behind him, laughing, came the gay woman, and, following her, the girl, looking disheveled, with swollen eyes.
Sergei was on his knees a long time before the captain’s cabin, kissing the panel of the door, knocking his forehead against it, and crying:
“Forgive me! It was not my fault, but Maxim’s.”
The sailors, the stewards, and even some of the passengers knew that he was lying, yet they advised:
“Come, forgive him!”
But the captain drove him away, and even kicked him with such force that he fell over.
Notwithstanding, he forgave him, and Sergei at once rushed on deck, carrying a tray of tea-things, looking with inquiring, dog-like expression into the eyes of the passengers.
In Maxim’s place came a soldier from Viatski, a bony man, with a small head and brownish red eyes.
The assistant cook sent him first to kill some fowls. He killed a pair, but let the rest escape on deck. The passengers tried to catch them, but three hens flew over — board.
Then the soldier sat on some wood near the fowl-house, and cried bitterly.
“What’s the matter, you fool?” asked Smouri, angrily.
“Fancy a soldier crying!”
“I belong to the Home Defense Corps,” said the soldier in a low voice.
That was his ruin. In half an hour every one on the boat was laughing at him. They would come quite close to him, fix their eyes on his face, and ask:
“Is this the one?”
And then they would go off into harsh, insulting, absurd laughter.
At first the soldier did not see these people or hear their laughter; he was drying his tears with the sleeve of his old shirt, exactly as if he were hiding them up his sleeve.
But soon his brown eyes flashed with ragt, and he said in the quick speech of Viatski:
“What are you staring at me for?
Oi, may you be torn to bits!”
But this only amused the passengers the more, and they began to snap their fingers at him, to pluck at his shirt, his apron, to play with him as if he had been a goat, baiting him cruelly until dinner-time. At dinner some one put a piece of squeezed lemon on the handle of a wooden spoon, and tied it behind his back by the strings of his apron. As he moved, the spoon waggled behind him, and every one laughed, but he was in a fluster, like an entrapped mouse, ignorant of what had aroused their laughter.
Smouri sat behind him in silence. His face had become like a woman’s.
I felt sorry for the soldier, and asked:
“May I tell him about the spoon?”
He nodded his head without speaking.
When I explained to the soldier what they were laughing at, he hastily seized the spoon, tore it off, threw it on the floor, crushed it with his foot, and took hold of my hair with both hands. We began to fight, to the great satisfaction of the passengers, who made a ring round us at once.
Smouri pushed the spectators aside, separated us, and, after boxing my ear, seized the soldier by the ear.
When the passengers saw how the little man danced under the hand of the cook they roared with excitement, whistled, stamped their feet, split their sides with laughter.
“Hurrah! Garrison!
Butt the cook in the stomach!”
This wild joy on the part of others made me feel that I wanted to throw myself upon them and hit their dirty heads with a lump of wood.
Smouri let the soldier go, and with his hands behind his back turned upon the passengers like a wild boar, bristling, and showing his teeth terrifyingly.
“To your places! March! March!”
The soldier threw himself upon me again, but Smouri seized him round the body with one hand and carried him to the hatchway, where he began to pump water on his head, turning his frail body about as if he were a rag-doll.
The sailors came running on the scene, with the boatswain and the captain’s mate. The passengers crowded about again. A head above the others stood the head-steward, quiet, dumb, as always.
The soldier, sitting on some wood near the kitchen door, took off his boots and began to wring out his leggings, though they were not wet. But the water dripped from his greasy hair, which again amused the passengers.