He said “thou” to every one, looked at every one from under his bushy brows with the same straight and independent glance, and treated every one — the captain, the steward, and the first-class passengers, who were very haughty — as if they were the equals of himself, the sailors, the waiters, and the deck passengers.
Sometimes he stood before the captain or the chief engineer, with his ape-like hands clasped behind his back, and listened while they scolded him for laziness, or for having unscrupulously won money at cards. He listened, but it was evident that scolding made not the slightest impression upon him, and that the threats to put him off the boat at the first stopping-place did not frighten him.
There was something alien about him, as there had been about “Good Business.” Evidently he was aware of his own peculiari — ties and of the fact that people could not understand him.
I never once knew this man to be offended, and, when I think of it, do not remember that he was ever silent for long. From his rough mouth and, as it were, despite himself, a stream of words always flowed.
When he was being scolded or when he was listening to some interesting story, his lips moved just as if he were repeating what he heard to himself or simply continued speaking quietly to himself.
Every day, when he had finished his watch, he climbed out of the stoke-hole, barefooted, sweating, smeared with naphtha, in a wet shirt without a belt, showing his bare chest covered with thick, curly hair, and that very minute his even, monotonous, deep voice could be heard across the deck. His words followed one another like drops of rain.
“Good morning. Mother!
Where are you going?
To Chistopol?
I know it; I have been there. I lived in the house of a rich Tatar workman; his name was Usan Gubaildulin. The old man had three wives.
A robust man he was, with a red face, and one of his wives was young. An amu-u-sing little Tatar girl she was.”
He had been everywhere, and apparently had committed sin with all the women who had crossed his path. He spoke of every one without malice, calmly, as he had never in his life been hurt or scolded.
In a few minutes his voice would be heard in the stem.
“Good people, who will have a game of cards?
Just a little flutter, ei?
Cards are a consolation. You can make money sitting down, a profitable undertaking.”
I noticed that he hardly ever said that anything was good, bad, or abominable, but always that it was amusing, consoling, or curious.
A beautiful woman was to him an amusing little female. A fine sunny day was a consoling little day.
But more often than anything else he said:
“I spit upon it!”
He was looked upon as lazy, but it seemed to me that he performed his laborious task in that infernal, suffocating, and fetid heat as conscientiously as any of the others. I never remember that he complained of weariness or heat, as the other stokers did.
One day some one stole a purse containing money from one of the old women passengers. It was a clear, quiet evening; every one was amiable and peaceably inclined.
The captain gave the old woman five rubles. The passengers also collected a small sum among themselves. When the old woman was given the money, she crossed herself, and bowed low, saying:
“Kind friends, you have given me three graven too much.”
Some one cried gayly:
“Take it all, my good woman, — all that your eyes fall upon.
Why do you talk nonsense? No bne can have too much.”
But Yaakov went to the old woman and said quite seriously:
“Give me what you don’t want; I will play cards with it.”
The people around laughed, thinking that the stoker was joking, but he went on urging the confused woman perseveringly :
“Come, give it to me, woman!
What do you want the money for?
Tomorrow you will be in the churchyard.”
They drove him away with abuse, but he said to me, shaking his head, and greatly surprised:
“How funny people are!
Why do they interfere in what does not concern them?
She said herself that she had more than she wanted.
And three greven would have been very consoling to me.”
The very sight of money evidently pleased him. While he was talking he loved to clean the silver and brass on his breeches, and would polish coins till they shone. Moving his eyebrows up and down, he would gaze at them, holding them in his crooked fingers before his snub-nosed face.
But he was not avaricious.
One day he asked me to play with him, but I could not.
“You don’t know how?” he cried.
“How is that?
And you call yourself educated!
You must learn.
We will play for lumps of sugar.”
He won from me half a pound of the best sugar, and hid every lump in his furry cheek. As soon as he found that I knew how to play he said:
“Now we will play seriously for money.
Have you any money?”
“I have five rubles.”