第 四 章 · 第4章

Who was this elusive, mysterious Varlamov of whom people talked so

much, whom Solomon despised, and whom even the beautiful countess

needed? Sitting on the box beside Deniska, Yegorushka, half asleep,

thought about this person. He had never seen him. But he had often

heard of him and pictured him in his imagination. He knew that

Varlamov possessed several tens of thousands of acres of land, about

a hundred thousand sheep, and a great deal of money. Of his manner

of life and occupation Yegorushka knew nothing, except that he was

always "going his rounds in these parts," and he was always being

looked for.

At home Yegorushka had heard a great deal of the Countess Dranitsky,

too. She, too, had some tens of thousands of acres, a great many

sheep, a stud farm and a great deal of money, but she did not "go

rounds," but lived at home in a splendid house and grounds, about

which Ivan Ivanitch, who had been more than once at the countess's

on business, and other acquaintances told many marvellous tales;

thus, for instance, they said that in the countess's drawing-room,

where the portraits of all the kings of Poland hung on the walls,

there was a big table-clock in the form of a rock, on the rock a

gold horse with diamond eyes, rearing, and on the horse the figure

of a rider also of gold, who brandished his sword to right and to

left whenever the clock struck. They said, too, that twice a year

the countess used to give a ball, to which the gentry and officials

of the whole province were invited, and to which even Varlamov used

to come; all the visitors drank tea from silver samovars, ate all

sorts of extraordinary things (they had strawberries and raspberries,

for instance, in winter at Christmas), and danced to a band which

played day and night. . . .

"And how beautiful she is," thought Yegorushka, remembering her

face and smile.

Kuzmitchov, too, was probably thinking about the countess. For when

the chaise had driven a mile and a half he said:

"But doesn't that Kazimir Mihalovitch plunder her right and left!

The year before last when, do you remember, I bought some wool from

her, he made over three thousand from my purchase alone."

"That is just what you would expect from a Pole," said Father

Christopher.

"And little does it trouble her. Young and foolish, as they say,

her head is full of nonsense."

Yegorushka, for some reason, longed to think of nothing but Varlamov

and the countess, particularly the latter. His drowsy brain utterly

refused ordinary thoughts, was in a cloud and retained only fantastic

fairy-tale images, which have the advantage of springing into the

brain of themselves without any effort on the part of the thinker,

and completely vanishing of themselves at a mere shake of the head;

and, indeed, nothing that was around him disposed to ordinary

thoughts. On the right there were the dark hills which seemed to

be screening something unseen and terrible; on the left the whole

sky about the horizon was covered with a crimson glow, and it was

hard to tell whether there was a fire somewhere, or whether it was

the moon about to rise. As by day the distance could be seen, but

its tender lilac tint had gone, quenched by the evening darkness,

in which the whole steppe was hidden like Moisey Moisevitch's

children under the quilt.

Corncrakes and quails do not call in the July nights, the nightingale

does not sing in the woodland marsh, and there is no scent of

flowers, but still the steppe is lovely and full of life. As soon

as the sun goes down and the darkness enfolds the earth, the day's

weariness is forgotten, everything is forgiven, and the steppe

breathes a light sigh from its broad bosom. As though because the

grass cannot see in the dark that it has grown old, a gay youthful

twitter rises up from it, such as is not heard by day; chirruping,

twittering, whistling, scratching, the basses, tenors and sopranos

of the steppe all mingle in an incessant, monotonous roar of sound

in which it is sweet to brood on memories and sorrows. The monotonous

twitter soothes to sleep like a lullaby; you drive and feel you are

falling asleep, but suddenly there comes the abrupt agitated cry

of a wakeful bird, or a vague sound like a voice crying out in

wonder "A-ah, a-ah!" and slumber closes one's eyelids again. Or you

drive by a little creek where there are bushes and hear the bird,

called by the steppe dwellers "the sleeper," call "Asleep, asleep,

asleep!" while another laughs or breaks into trills of hysterical

weeping--that is the owl. For whom do they call and who hears

them on that plain, God only knows, but there is deep sadness and

lamentation in their cry. . . . There is a scent of hay and dry

grass and belated flowers, but the scent is heavy, sweetly mawkish

and soft.

Everything can be seen through the mist, but it is hard to make out

the colours and the outlines of objects. Everything looks different

from what it is. You drive on and suddenly see standing before you

right in the roadway a dark figure like a monk; it stands motionless,

waiting, holding something in its hands. . . . Can it be a robber?

The figure comes closer, grows bigger; now it is on a level with

the chaise, and you see it is not a man, but a solitary bush or a

great stone. Such motionless expectant figures stand on the low

hills, hide behind the old barrows, peep out from the high grass,

and they all look like human beings and arouse suspicion.

And when the moon rises the night becomes pale and dim. The mist

seems to have passed away. The air is transparent, fresh and warm;

one can see well in all directions and even distinguish the separate

stalks of grass by the wayside. Stones and bits of pots can be seen

at a long distance. The suspicious figures like monks look blacker

against the light background of the night, and seem more sinister.

More and more often in the midst of the monotonous chirruping there

comes the sound of the "A-ah, a-ah!" of astonishment troubling the

motionless air, and the cry of a sleepless or delirious bird. Broad

shadows move across the plain like clouds across the sky, and in

the inconceivable distance, if you look long and intently at it,

misty monstrous shapes rise up and huddle one against another. . . .

It is rather uncanny. One glances at the pale green, star-spangled

sky on which there is no cloudlet, no spot, and understands why the

warm air is motionless, why nature is on her guard, afraid to stir:

she is afraid and reluctant to lose one instant of life. Of the

unfathomable depth and infinity of the sky one can only form a

conception at sea and on the steppe by night when the moon is

shining. It is terribly lonely and caressing; it looks down languid

and alluring, and its caressing sweetness makes one giddy.

You drive on for one hour, for a second. . . . You meet upon the

way a silent old barrow or a stone figure put up God knows when and

by whom; a nightbird floats noiselessly over the earth, and little

by little those legends of the steppes, the tales of men you have

met, the stories of some old nurse from the steppe, and all the

things you have managed to see and treasure in your soul, come back

to your mind. And then in the churring of insects, in the sinister

figures, in the ancient barrows, in the blue sky, in the moonlight,

in the flight of the nightbird, in everything you see and hear,

triumphant beauty, youth, the fulness of power, and the passionate

thirst for life begin to be apparent; the soul responds to the call

of her lovely austere fatherland, and longs to fly over the steppes

with the nightbird. And in the triumph of beauty, in the exuberance

of happiness you are conscious of yearning and grief, as though the

steppe knew she was solitary, knew that her wealth and her inspiration

were wasted for the world, not glorified in song, not wanted by

anyone; and through the joyful clamour one hears her mournful,

hopeless call for singers, singers!

"Woa! Good-evening, Panteley! Is everything all right?"

"First-rate, Ivan Ivanitch!

"Haven't you seen Varlamov, lads?"

"No, we haven't."

Yegorushka woke up and opened his eyes. The chaise had stopped. On

the right the train of waggons stretched for a long way ahead on

the road, and men were moving to and fro near them. All the waggons

being loaded up with great bales of wool looked very high and fat,

while the horses looked short-legged and little.

"Well, then, we shall go on to the Molokans'!" Kuzmitchov said

aloud. "The Jew told us that Varlamov was putting up for the night

at the Molokans'. So good-bye, lads! Good luck to you!"

"Good-bye, Ivan Ivanitch," several voices replied.

"I say, lads," Kuzmitchov cried briskly, "you take my little lad

along with you! Why should he go jolting off with us for nothing?

You put him on the bales, Panteley, and let him come on slowly, and

we shall overtake you. Get down, Yegor! Go on; it's all right. . . ."

Yegorushka got down from the box-seat. Several hands caught him,

lifted him high into the air, and he found himself on something

big, soft, and rather wet with dew. It seemed to him now as though

the sky were quite close and the earth far away.

"Hey, take his little coat!" Deniska shouted from somewhere far

below.

His coat and bundle flung up from far below fell close to Yegorushka.

Anxious not to think of anything, he quickly put his bundle under

his head and covered himself with his coat, and stretching his legs

out and shrinking a little from the dew, he laughed with content.

"Sleep, sleep, sleep, . . ." he thought.

"Don't be unkind to him, you devils!" he heard Deniska's voice

below.

"Good-bye, lads; good luck to you," shouted Kuzmitchov. "I rely

upon you!"

"Don't you be uneasy, Ivan Ivanitch!"

Deniska shouted to the horses, the chaise creaked and started, not

along the road, but somewhere off to the side. For two minutes there

was silence, as though the waggons were asleep and there was no

sound except the clanking of the pails tied on at the back of the

chaise as it slowly died away in the distance. Then someone at the

head of the waggons shouted:

"Kiruha! Sta-art!"

The foremost of the waggons creaked, then the second, then the

third. . . . Yegorushka felt the waggon he was on sway and creak

also. The waggons were moving. Yegorushka took a tighter hold of

the cord with which the bales were tied on, laughed again with

content, shifted the cake in his pocket, and fell asleep just as

he did in his bed at home. . . .

When he woke up the sun had risen, it was screened by an ancient

barrow, and, trying to shed its light upon the earth, it scattered

its beams in all directions and flooded the horizon with gold. It

seemed to Yegorushka that it was not in its proper place, as the

day before it had risen behind his back, and now it was much more

to his left. . . . And the whole landscape was different. There

were no hills now, but on all sides, wherever one looked, there

stretched the brown cheerless plain; here and there upon it small

barrows rose up and rooks flew as they had done the day before. The

belfries and huts of some village showed white in the distance

ahead; as it was Sunday the Little Russians were at home baking and

cooking--that could be seen by the smoke which rose from every

chimney and hung, a dark blue transparent veil, over the village.

In between the huts and beyond the church there were blue glimpses

of a river, and beyond the river a misty distance. But nothing was

so different from yesterday as the road. Something extraordinarily

broad, spread out and titanic, stretched over the steppe by way of

a road. It was a grey streak well trodden down and covered with

dust, like all roads. Its width puzzled Yegorushka and brought

thoughts of fairy tales to his mind. Who travelled along that road?

Who needed so much space? It was strange and unintelligible. It

might have been supposed that giants with immense strides, such as

Ilya Muromets and Solovy the Brigand, were still surviving in Russia,

and that their gigantic steeds were still alive. Yegorushka, looking

at the road, imagined some half a dozen high chariots racing along

side by side, like some he used to see in pictures in his Scripture

history; these chariots were each drawn by six wild furious horses,

and their great wheels raised a cloud of dust to the sky, while the

horses were driven by men such as one may see in one's dreams or

in imagination brooding over fairy tales. And if those figures had

existed, how perfectly in keeping with the steppe and the road they

would have been!

Telegraph-poles with two wires on them stretched along the right

side of the road to its furthermost limit. Growing smaller and

smaller they disappeared near the village behind the huts and green

trees, and then again came into sight in the lilac distance in the

form of very small thin sticks that looked like pencils stuck into

the ground. Hawks, falcons, and crows sat on the wires and looked

indifferently at the moving waggons.

Yegorushka was lying in the last of the waggons, and so could see

the whole string. There were about twenty waggons, and there was a

driver to every three waggons. By the last waggon, the one in which

Yegorushka was, there walked an old man with a grey beard, as short

and lean as Father Christopher, but with a sunburnt, stern and

brooding face. It is very possible that the old man was not stern

and not brooding, but his red eyelids and his sharp long nose gave

his face a stern frigid expression such as is common with people

in the habit of continually thinking of serious things in solitude.

Like Father Christopher he was wearing a wide-brimmed top-hat, not

like a gentleman's, but made of brown felt, and in shape more like

a cone with the top cut off than a real top-hat. Probably from a

habit acquired in cold winters, when he must more than once have

been nearly frozen as he trudged beside the waggons, he kept slapping

his thighs and stamping with his feet as he walked. Noticing that

Yegorushka was awake, he looked at him and said, shrugging his

shoulders as though from the cold:

"Ah, you are awake, youngster! So you are the son of Ivan Ivanitch?"

"No; his nephew. . . ."

"Nephew of Ivan Ivanitch? Here I have taken off my boots and am

hopping along barefoot. My feet are bad; they are swollen, and it's

easier without my boots . . . easier, youngster . . . without boots,

I mean. . . . So you are his nephew? He is a good man; no harm in

him. . . . God give him health. . . . No harm in him . . . I mean

Ivan Ivanitch. . . . He has gone to the Molokans'. . . . O Lord,

have mercy upon us!"

The old man talked, too, as though it were very cold, pausing and

not opening his mouth properly; and he mispronounced the labial

consonants, stuttering over them as though his lips were frozen.

As he talked to Yegorushka he did not once smile, and he seemed

stern.

Two waggons ahead of them there walked a man wearing a long

reddish-brown coat, a cap and high boots with sagging bootlegs and

carrying a whip in his hand. This was not an old man, only about

forty. When he looked round Yegorushka saw a long red face with a

scanty goat-beard and a spongy looking swelling under his right

eye. Apart from this very ugly swelling, there was another peculiar

thing about him which caught the eye at once: in his left hand he

carried a whip, while he waved the right as though he were conducting

an unseen choir; from time to time he put the whip under his arm,

and then he conducted with both hands and hummed something to

himself.

The next driver was a long rectilinear figure with extremely sloping

shoulders and a back as flat as a board. He held himself as stiffly

erect as though he were marching or had swallowed a yard measure.

His hands did not swing as he walked, but hung down as if they were

straight sticks, and he strode along in a wooden way, after the

manner of toy soldiers, almost without bending his knees, and trying

to take as long steps as possible. While the old man or the owner

of the spongy swelling were taking two steps he succeeded in taking

only one, and so it seemed as though he were walking more slowly

than any of them, and would drop behind. His face was tied up in a

rag, and on his head something stuck up that looked like a monk's

peaked cap; he was dressed in a short Little Russian coat, with

full dark blue trousers and bark shoes.

Yegorushka did not even distinguish those that were farther on. He

lay on his stomach, picked a little hole in the bale, and, having

nothing better to do, began twisting the wool into a thread. The

old man trudging along below him turned out not to be so stern as

one might have supposed from his face. Having begun a conversation,

he did not let it drop.

"Where are you going?" he asked, stamping with his feet.

"To school," answered Yegorushka.

"To school? Aha! . . . Well, may the Queen of Heaven help you. Yes.

One brain is good, but two are better. To one man God gives one

brain, to another two brains, and to another three. . . . To another

three, that is true. . . . One brain you are born with, one you get

from learning, and a third with a good life. So you see, my lad,

it is a good thing if a man has three brains. Living is easier for

him, and, what's more, dying is, too. Dying is, too. . . . And we

shall all die for sure."

The old man scratched his forehead, glanced upwards at Yegorushka

with his red eyes, and went on:

"Maxim Nikolaitch, the gentleman from Slavyanoserbsk, brought a

little lad to school, too, last year. I don't know how he is getting

on there in studying the sciences, but he was a nice good little

lad. . . . God give them help, they are nice gentlemen. Yes, he,

too, brought his boy to school. . . . In Slavyanoserbsk there is

no establishment, I suppose, for study. No. . . . But it is a nice

town. . . . There's an ordinary school for simple folks, but for

the higher studies there is nothing. No, that's true. What's your

name? . . ."

"Yegorushka."

"Yegory, then. . . . The holy martyr Yegory, the Bearer of Victory,

whose day is the twenty-third of April. And my christian name is

Panteley, . . . Panteley Zaharov Holodov. . . . We are Holodovs

. . . . I am a native of--maybe you've heard of it--Tim in the

province of Kursk. My brothers are artisans and work at trades in

the town, but I am a peasant. . . . I have remained a peasant. Seven

years ago I went there--home, I mean. I went to the village and

to the town. . . . To Tim, I mean. Then, thank God, they were all

alive and well; . . . but now I don't know. . . . Maybe some of

them are dead. . . . And it's time they did die, for some of them

are older than I am. Death is all right; it is good so long, of

course, as one does not die without repentance. There is no worse

evil than an impenitent death; an impenitent death is a joy to the

devil. And if you want to die penitent, so that you may not be

forbidden to enter the mansions of the Lord, pray to the holy martyr

Varvara. She is the intercessor. She is, that's the truth. . . .

For God has given her such a place in the heavens that everyone has

the right to pray to her for penitence."

Panteley went on muttering, and apparently did not trouble whether

Yegorushka heard him or not. He talked listlessly, mumbling to

himself, without raising or dropping his voice, but succeeded in

telling him a great deal in a short time. All he said was made up

of fragments that had very little connection with one another, and

quite uninteresting for Yegorushka. Possibly he talked only in order

to reckon over his thoughts aloud after the night spent in silence,

in order to see if they were all there. After talking of repentance,

he spoke about a certain Maxim Nikolaitch from Slavyanoserbsk.

"Yes, he took his little lad; . . . he took him, that's true . . ."

One of the waggoners walking in front darted from his place, ran

to one side and began lashing on the ground with his whip. He was

a stalwart, broad-shouldered man of thirty, with curly flaxen hair

and a look of great health and vigour. Judging from the movements

of his shoulders and the whip, and the eagerness expressed in his

attitude, he was beating something alive. Another waggoner, a short

stubby little man with a bushy black beard, wearing a waistcoat and

a shirt outside his trousers, ran up to him. The latter broke into

a deep guffaw of laughter and coughing and said: "I say, lads, Dymov

has killed a snake!"

There are people whose intelligence can be gauged at once by their

voice and laughter. The man with the black beard belonged to that

class of fortunate individuals; impenetrable stupidity could be

felt in his voice and laugh. The flaxen-headed Dymov had finished,

and lifting from the ground with his whip something like a cord,

flung it with a laugh into the cart.

"That's not a viper; it's a grass snake!" shouted someone.

The man with the wooden gait and the bandage round his face strode

up quickly to the dead snake, glanced at it and flung up his

stick-like arms.

"You jail-bird!" he cried in a hollow wailing voice. "What have you

killed a grass snake for? What had he done to you, you damned brute?

Look, he has killed a grass snake; how would you like to be treated

so?"

"Grass snakes ought not to be killed, that's true," Panteley muttered

placidly, "they ought not. . . They are not vipers; though it looks

like a snake, it is a gentle, innocent creature. . . . It's friendly

to man, the grass snake is."

Dymov and the man with the black beard were probably ashamed, for

they laughed loudly, and not answering, slouched lazily back to

their waggons. When the hindmost waggon was level with the spot

where the dead snake lay, the man with his face tied up standing

over it turned to Panteley and asked in a tearful voice:

"Grandfather, what did he want to kill the grass snake for?"

His eyes, as Yegorushka saw now, were small and dingy looking; his

face was grey, sickly and looked somehow dingy too while his chin

was red and seemed very much swollen.

"Grandfather, what did he kill it for?" he repeated, striding along

beside Panteley.

"A stupid fellow. His hands itch to kill, and that is why he does

it," answered the old man; "but he oughtn't to kill a grass snake,

that's true. . . . Dymov is a ruffian, we all know, he kills

everything he comes across, and Kiruha did not interfere. He ought

to have taken its part, but instead of that, he goes off into

'Ha-ha-ha!' and 'Ho-ho-ho!' . . . But don't be angry, Vassya. . . .

Why be angry? They've killed it--well, never mind them. Dymov

is a ruffian and Kiruha acted from foolishness--never mind. . . .

They are foolish people without understanding--but there, don't

mind them. Emelyan here never touches what he shouldn't; he never

does; . . . that is true, . . . because he is a man of education,

while they are stupid. . . . Emelyan, he doesn't touch things."

The waggoner in the reddish-brown coat and the spongy swelling on

his face, who was conducting an unseen choir, stopped. Hearing his

name, and waiting till Panteley and Vassya came up to him, he walked

beside them.

"What are you talking about?" he asked in a husky muffled voice.

"Why, Vassya here is angry," said Panteley. "So I have been saying

things to him to stop his being angry. . . . Oh, how my swollen

feet hurt! Oh, oh! They are more inflamed than ever for Sunday,

God's holy day!"

"It's from walking," observed Vassya.

"No, lad, no. It's not from walking. When I walk it seems easier;

when I lie down and get warm, . . . it's deadly. Walking is easier

for me."

Emelyan, in his reddish-brown coat, walked between Panteley and

Vassya and waved his arms, as though they were going to sing. After

waving them a little while he dropped them, and croaked out hopelessly:

"I have no voice. It's a real misfortune. All last night and this

morning I have been haunted by the trio 'Lord, have Mercy' that we

sang at the wedding at Marionovsky's. It's in my head and in my

throat. It seems as though I could sing it, but I can't; I have no

voice."

He paused for a minute, thinking, then went on:

"For fifteen years I was in the choir. In all the Lugansky works

there was, maybe, no one with a voice like mine. But, confound it,

I bathed two years ago in the Donets, and I can't get a single note

true ever since. I took cold in my throat. And without a voice I

am like a workman without hands."

"That's true," Panteley agreed.

"I think of myself as a ruined man and nothing more."

At that moment Vassya chanced to catch sight of Yegorushka. His

eyes grew moist and smaller than ever.

"There's a little gentleman driving with us," and he covered his

nose with his sleeve as though he were bashful. "What a grand driver!

Stay with us and you shall drive the waggons and sell wool."

The incongruity of one person being at once a little gentleman and

a waggon driver seemed to strike him as very queer and funny, for

he burst into a loud guffaw, and went on enlarging upon the idea.

Emelyan glanced upwards at Yegorushka, too, but coldly and cursorily.

He was absorbed in his own thoughts, and had it not been for Vassya,

would not have noticed Yegorushka's presence. Before five minutes

had passed he was waving his arms again, then describing to his

companions the beauties of the wedding anthem, "Lord, have Mercy,"

which he had remembered in the night. He put the whip under his arm

and waved both hands.

A mile from the village the waggons stopped by a well with a crane.

Letting his pail down into the well, black-bearded Kiruha lay on

his stomach on the framework and thrust his shaggy head, his

shoulders, and part of his chest into the black hole, so that

Yegorushka could see nothing but his short legs, which scarcely

touched the ground. Seeing the reflection of his head far down at

the bottom of the well, he was delighted and went off into his deep

bass stupid laugh, and the echo from the well answered him. When

he got up his neck and face were as red as beetroot. The first to

run up and drink was Dymov. He drank laughing, often turning from

the pail to tell Kiruha something funny, then he turned round, and

uttered aloud, to be heard all over the steppe, five very bad words.

Yegorushka did not understand the meaning of such words, but he

knew very well they were bad words. He knew the repulsion his friends

and relations silently felt for such words. He himself, without

knowing why, shared that feeling and was accustomed to think that

only drunk and disorderly people enjoy the privilege of uttering

such words aloud. He remembered the murder of the grass snake,

listened to Dymov's laughter, and felt something like hatred for

the man. And as ill-luck would have it, Dymov at that moment caught

sight of Yegorushka, who had climbed down from the waggon and gone

up to the well. He laughed aloud and shouted:

"I say, lads, the old man has been brought to bed of a boy in the

night!"

Kiruha laughed his bass laugh till he coughed. Someone else laughed

too, while Yegorushka crimsoned and made up his mind finally that

Dymov was a very wicked man.

With his curly flaxen head, with his shirt opened on his chest and

no hat on, Dymov looked handsome and exceptionally strong; in every

movement he made one could see the reckless dare-devil and athlete,

knowing his value. He shrugged his shoulders, put his arms akimbo,

talked and laughed louder than any of the rest, and looked as though

he were going to lift up something very heavy with one hand and

astonish the whole world by doing so. His mischievous mocking eyes

glided over the road, the waggons, and the sky without resting on

anything, and seemed looking for someone to kill, just as a pastime,

and something to laugh at. Evidently he was afraid of no one, would

stick at nothing, and most likely was not in the least interested

in Yegorushka's opinion of him. . . . Yegorushka meanwhile hated

his flaxen head, his clear face, and his strength with his whole

heart, listened with fear and loathing to his laughter, and kept

thinking what word of abuse he could pay him out with.

Panteley, too, went up to the pail. He took out of his pocket a

little green glass of an ikon lamp, wiped it with a rag, filled it

from the pail and drank from it, then filled it again, wrapped the

little glass in the rag, and then put it back into his pocket.

"Grandfather, why do you drink out of a lamp?" Yegorushka asked

him, surprised.

"One man drinks out of a pail and another out of a lamp," the old

man answered evasively. "Every man to his own taste. . . . You drink

out of the pail--well, drink, and may it do you good. . . ."

"You darling, you beauty!" Vassya said suddenly, in a caressing,

plaintive voice. "You darling!"

His eyes were fixed on the distance; they were moist and smiling,

and his face wore the same expression as when he had looked at

Yegorushka.

"Who is it you are talking to?" asked Kiruha.

"A darling fox, . . . lying on her back, playing like a dog."

Everyone began staring into the distance, looking for the fox, but

no one could see it, only Vassya with his grey muddy-looking eyes,

and he was enchanted by it. His sight was extraordinarily keen, as

Yegorushka learnt afterwards. He was so long-sighted that the brown

steppe was for him always full of life and interest. He had only

to look into the distance to see a fox, a hare, a bustard, or some

other animal keeping at a distance from men. There was nothing

strange in seeing a hare running away or a flying bustard--everyone

crossing the steppes could see them; but it was not vouchsafed to

everyone to see wild animals in their own haunts when they were not

running nor hiding, nor looking about them in alarm. Yet Vassya saw

foxes playing, hares washing themselves with their paws, bustards

preening their wings and hammering out their hollow nests. Thanks

to this keenness of sight, Vassya had, besides the world seen by

everyone, another world of his own, accessible to no one else, and

probably a very beautiful one, for when he saw something and was

in raptures over it it was impossible not to envy him.

When the waggons set off again, the church bells were ringing for

service.