“All the same,” said the soldier, “I am going to kill that boy.”
Taking me by the shoulder, Smouri said something to the captain’s mate. The sailors sent the passengers away, and when they had all dispersed, he asked the soldier:
“What is to be done with you?”
The latter was silent, looking at me with wild eyes, and all the while putting a strange restraint upon himself.
“Be quiet, you devilskin!” said Smouri.
“As you are not the piper, you can’t call the tune,” answered the soldier.
I saw that the cook was confused. His blown-out cheeks became flabby; he spat, and went away, taking me with him. I walked after him, feeling foolish, with backward glances at the soldier. But Smouri muttered in a worried tone:
“There’s a wild creature for you! What?
What do you think of him?”
Sergei overtook us and said in a whisper:
“He is going to kill himself.”
“Where is he?” cried Smouri, and he ran.
The soldier was standing at the door of the steward’s cabin with a large knife in his hand. It was the knife which was used for cutting off the heads of fowls and for cutting up sticks for the stoves. It was blunt, and notched like a saw.
In front of the cabin the passengers were assembled, looking at the funny little man with the wet head. His snub-nosed face shook like a jelly; his mouth hung wearily open; his lips twitched.
He roared:
“Tormentors! Tormentors!”
Jumping up on something, I looked over the heads of people into their faces. They were smiling, giggling, and saying to one another:
“Look! Look!”
When he pushed his crumpled shirt down into his trousers with his skinny, childish hand, a good-looking man near me said:
“He is getting ready to die, and he takes the trouble to hitch up his trousers.”
The passengers all laughed loudly.
It was perfectly plain that they did not think it probable that the soldier would really kill himself, nor did I think so; but Smouri, after one glance at him, pushed the people aside with his stomach, saying:
“Get away, you fools!”
He called them fools over and over again, and approaching one little knot of people, said:
“To your place, fool!”
This was funny; but, however, it seemed to be true, for they had all been acting like one big fool from the first thing in the morning.
When he had driven the passengers, off, he approached the soldier, and, holding out his hand, said:
“Give me that knife.”
“I don’t care,” said the soldier, holding out the handle of the knife. The cook gave the knife to me, and pushed the soldier into the cabin.
“Lie down and go to sleep.
What is the matter with you, eh?”
The soldier sat on a hammock in silence.
“He shall bring you something to eat and some vodka. Do you drink vodka?”
“A little sometimes.”
“But, look you, don’t you touch him. It was not he who made fun of you, do you hear?
I tell you that it was not he.”
“But why did they torment me?” asked the soldier, softly.
Smouri answered gruffly after a pause:
“How should I know?”
As he came with me to the kitchen he muttered:
“Well, they have fastened upon a poor wretch this time, and no mistake!
You see what he is?
There you are!
My lad, people can be sent out of their minds; they can really.
Stick to them like bugs, and the thing is done.
In fact, there are some people here like bugs — worse than bugs!”
When I took bread, meat, and vodka to the soldier he was still sitting in the hammock, rocking himself and crying softly, sobbing like a woman.
I placed the plate on the table, saying:
“Eat.”
“Shut the door.”