GRANDFATHER and grandmother had again gone into the town. I went tothem, prepared to be angry and warlike; but my heart was heavy. Why hadthey accounted me a thief 9Grandmother greeted me tenderly, and at once went to prepare thesamovar. Grandfather asked as mockingly as usual:
“Have you saved much money?”
“What there is belongs to me,” I answered, taking a seat by the window. Itriumphantly produced a box of cigarettes from my pocket and began tosmoke importantly.
“So-o-o,” said grandfather, looking at me fixedly — “so that’s it! Yousmoke the devil’s poison? Isn’t it rather soon?”
“Why, I have even had a pouch given to me,” I boasted.
“A pouch?” squeaked grandfather. “What! Are you saying this to annoyme?”
He rushed upon me, with his thin, strong hands out-stretched, his greeneyes flashing. I leaped up, and stuck my head into his stomach. The old mansat on the floor, and for several oppressive moments looked at me, amazedlyblinking, his dark mouth open. Then he asked quietly:
“You knock me down, your grandfather? The father of your mother?”
“You have knocked me about enough in the past,” I muttered, notunderstanding that I had acted abominably.
Withered and light, grandfather rose from the floor, sat beside me, deftlysnatched the cigarette from me, threw it out of the window, and said in atone of fear:
“You mad fool! Don’t you understand that God will punish you for thisfor the rest of your life? Mother,” — he turned to grandmother, — “did yousee that? He knocked me down — he! Knocked me down! Ask him!”
She did not wait to ask. She simply came over to me, seized me by thehair, and beat me, saying:
“And for that — take this — and this!”
I was not hurt, but I felt deeply insulted, especially by grandfather’slaughter. He jumped on a chair, slapped his legs with his hands, and croakedthrough his laughter:
“Th-a-t’s right! Tha-a-t’s right!”
I tore myself away, and ran out to the shed, where I lay in a comercrushed, desolate, listening to the singing of the samovar.
Then grandmother came to me, bent over me, and whispered hardlyaudibly:
“You must forgive me, for I purposely did not hurt you. I could not dootherwise than I did, for grandfather is an old man. He has to be treated withcare. He has fractured some of his small bones, and, besides, sorrow haseaten into his heart. You must never do him any harm. You are not a littleboy now. You must remember that. You must, Oleshal He is like a child, andnothing more.”
Her words laved me like warm water. That friendly whisper made mefeel ashamed of myself, and, light-hearted, I embraced her warmly. Wekissed.
“Go to him. Go along. It is all right, only don’t smoke before him yet.
Give him time to get used to the idea.”
I went back to the room, glanced at grandfather, and could hardly keepfrom laughing. He really was as pleased as a child. He was radiant, twistinghis feet, and running his paws through his red hair as he sat by the table.
“Well, goat, have you come to butt me again? Ach, you — brigand! Justlike your father! Freemason! You come back home, never cross yourself, andstart smoking at once. Ugh, you — Bonaparte! you copeck’s worth of goods!”
I said nothing. He had exhausted his supply of words and was silent fromfatigue. But at tea he began to lecture me.
“The fear of God is necessary to men.; it is like a bridle to a horse. Wehave no friend except God. Man is a cruel enemy to man.” That men were myenemies, I felt was the truth, but the rest did not interest me.
“Now you will go back to Aunt Matrena, and in the spring you can go ona steamboat again. Live with them during the winter. And you need not tellthem that you are leaving in the spring.”
“Now, why should he deceive people?” said grandmother, who had justdeceived grandfather by pre tending to give me a beating.
“It is impossible to live without deceit,” declared grandfather. “Just tellme now. Who lives without deceiving others?”
In the evening, while grandfather was reading his office, grandmotherand I went out through the gate into the fields. The little cottage with twowindows in which grandfather lived was on the outskirts of the town, at theback of Kanatni Street, where grandfather had once had his own house.
“So here we are again!” said grandmother, laughing. “The old mancannot find a resting-place for his soul, but must be ever on the move. Andhe does not even like it here; but I do.”
Before us stretched for about three versts fields of scanty herbage,intersected by ditches, bounded by woods and the line of birches on theKazan highroad. From the ditches the twigs of bushes projected, the rays of acold sunset reddened them like blood. A soft evening breeze shook the grayblades of grass. From a nearer pathway, also like blades of grass, showed thedark form of town lads and girls. On the right, in the distance, stood the redwalls of the burial-ground of the Old Believers. They called it “The BugrovskiHermitage.” On the left, beyond the causeway, rose a dark group of trees;there was the Jewish cemetery. All the surroundings were poor, and seemedto lie close to the wounded earth. The little houses on the outskirts of thetown looked timidly with their windows on the dusty road. Along the roadwandered small, ill-fed fowl. Toward the Dyevichia Monastery went a herd oflowing cows, from the camp came the sound of martial music. The brassinstruments brayed.
A drunken man came along, ferociously holding out a harmonica. Hestumbled and muttered:
“I am coming to thee — without fail.”
“Fool!” said grandmother, blinking in the red sun-light. “Where are yougoing ? Soon you will fall down and go to sleep, and you will be robbed inyour sleep. You will lose your harmonica, your consolation.”
I told her all about the life on the boat as I looked about me. After what Ihad seen I found it dull here; I felt like a fish out of water. Grandmotherlistened in silence and with attention, just as I liked to listen to her. When Itold her about Smouri she crossed herself and said:
“He is a good man, help him. Mother of God; he is good! Take care, you,that you do not forget him! You should always remember what is good, andwhat is bad simply forget.”
It was very difficult for me to tell her why they had dismissed me, but Itook courage and told her. It made no impression whatever on her. Shemerely said calmly:
“You are young yet; you don’t know how to live.” “That is what they allsay to one another, ‘You don’t know how to live’ — peasants, sailors, AuntMatrena to her son. But how does one learn?” She compressed her lips andshook her head. “I don’t know myself.”
“And yet you say the same as the others!” “And why should I not say it?”
replied grandmother, calmly. “You must not be offended. You are young; youare not expected to know. And who does know, after all? Only rogues. Lookat your grandfather. Clever and well educated as he is, yet he does not know.”
“And you — have you managed your life well?” “I? Yes. And badly also;all ways.” People sauntered past us, with their long shadows following them.
The dust rose like smoke under their feet, burying those shadows. Then theevening sadness became miore oppressive. The sound of grand — father’sgrumbling voice flowed from the window:
“Lord, in Thy wrath do not condemn me, nor in Thy rage punish me!”
Grandmother said, smiling:
“He has made God tired of him. Every evening he has his tale of woe, andabout what? He is old now, and he does not need anything; yet he is alwayscomplaining and working himself into a frenzy about something. I expectGod laughs when He hears his voice in the evening. There’s Vassili Kashiringrumbling again!’ Come and go to bed now.”
I made up my mind to take up the occupation of catching singing-birds. Ithought it would be a good way of earning a living. I would catch them, andgrandmother would sell them. I bought a net, a hoop, and a trap, and made acage. At dawn I took my place in a hollow among the bushes, whilegrandmother went in the woods with a basket and a bag to find the lastmushrooms, bulbs, and nuts.
The tired September sun had only just risen. Its pale rays were nowextinguished by clouds, now fell like a silver veil upon me in the causeway. Atthe bottom of the hollow it was still dusk, and a white mist rose from it. Itsclayey sides were dark and bare, and the other side, which was more sloping,was covered with grass, thick bushes, and yellow, brown, and scarlet leaves.
A fresh wind raised them and swept them along the ditch.
On the ground, among the turnip-tops, the gold-finch uttered its cry. Isaw, among the ragged, gray grass, birds with red caps on their lively heads.
About me fluttered curious titmouses. They made a great noise and fuss,comically blowing out their white cheeks, just like the young men of KunavinStreet on a Sunday. Swift, clever, spiteful, they wanted to know all and totouch everything, and they fell into the trap one after the other. It was pitifulto see how they beat their wings, but my business was strictly commerce. Ichanged the birds over into the spare cage and hid them in a bag. In the darkthey kept quiet.
A flock of siskins settled on a hawthorn-bush. The bush was suffused bysunlight. The siskins were glad of the sun and chirped more merrily thanever. Their antics were like those of schoolboys. The thirsty, tame, speckledmagpie, late in setting out on his journey to a warmer country, sat on thebending bough of a sweetbriar, cleaning his wing feathers and insolentlylooking at his prey with his black eyes. The lark soared on high, caught a bee,and, carefully depositing it on a thorn, once more settled on the ground, withhis thievish head alert. Noiselessly flew the talking-bird, — the hawfinch, —the object of my longing dreams, if only I could catch him. A bullfinch,driven from the flock, was perched on an alder-tree. Red, important, like ageneral, he chirped angrily, shaking his black beak.
The higher the sun mounted, the more birds there were, and the moregayly they sang. The hollow was full of the music of autumn. The ceaselessrustle of the bushes in the wind, and the passionate songs of the birds, couldnot drown that soft, sweetly melancholy noise. I heard in it the farewell songof summer. It whispered to me words meant for my ears alone, and of theirown accord they formed themselves into a song. At the same time mymemory unconsciously recalled to my mind pictures of the past. Fromsomewhere above grandmother cried:
“Where are you?”
She sat on the edge of the pathway. She had spread out a handkerchiefon which she had laid bread, cucumber, turnips, and apples. In the midst ofthis display a small, very beautiful cut-glass decanter stood. It had a crystalstopper, the head of Napoleon, and in the goblet was a measure of vodka,distilled from herbs.
“How good it is, O Lord!” said grandmother, gratefully.
“I have composed a song.”
“Yes? Well?”
I repeated to her something which I thought was like poetry.
“That winter draws near the signs are many ;Farewell to thee, my summer sun!”
But she interrupted without hearing me out.
“I know a song like that, only it is a better one.”
And she repeated in a singsong voice:
“Oi, the summer sun has goneTo dark nights behind the distant woods!
Ekh! I am left behind, a maiden,Alone, without the joys of spring.
Every morn I wander round;I trace the walks I took in May.
The bare fields unhappy look;There it was I lost my youth.
Oif my friends, my kind friends,Take my heart from my white breast,Bury my heart in the snow!”
My conceit as an author suffered not a little, but I was delighted with thissong, and very sorry for the girl.
Grandmother said::
“That is how grief sings. That was made up by a young girl, you know.
She went out walking all the springtime, and before the winter her dear lovehad thrown her over, perhaps for another girl. She wept because her heartwas sore. You cannot speak well and truly on what you have not experiencedfor yourself. You see what a good song she made up.”
When she sold a bird for the first time, for forty copecks, she was verysurprised.
“Just look at that! I thought it was all nonsense, just a boy’s amusement;and it has turned out like this!”
“You sold it too cheaply.”
“Yes; well?”
On market-days she sold them for a ruble, and was more surprised thanever. What a lot one might earn by just playing about!
“And a woman spends whole days washing clothes or cleaning floors fora quarter of a ruble, and here you just catch them! But it isn’t a nice thing todo, you know, to keep birds in a cage. Give it up, Olesha!”
But bird-catching amused me greatly; I liked it.
It gave me my independence and inconvenienced no one but the birds. Iprovided myself with good implements. Conversations with old bird-catcherstaught me a lot. I went alone nearly three versts to catch birds : to the forestof Kstocski, on the banks of the Volga, where in the tall fir-trees lived andbred crossbills, and most valuable to collectors, the Apollyon titmouse, along-tailed, white bird of rare beauty.
Sometimes I started in the evening and stayed out all night, wanderingabout on the Kasanski high-road, and sometimes in the autumn rains andthrough deep mud. On my back I carried an oilskin bag in which were cages,with food to entice the birds. In my hand was a solid cane of walnut wood. Itwas cold and terrifying in the autumn darkness, very terrifying. There stoodby the side of the road old lightning-riven birches ; wet branches brushedacross my head. On the left under the hill, over the black Volga, floated rarelights on the masts of the last boats and barges, looking as if they were in anunfathomable abyss. The wheels splashed in the water, the sirens shrieked.
From the hard ground rose the huts of the roadside villages. Angry,hungry dogs ran in circles round my legs. The watchman collided with me,and cried in terror :
“Who is that? He whom the devils carry does not come out till night, theysay.”
I was very frightened lest my tackle should be taken from me, and I usedto take five-copeck pieces with me to give to the watchmen. The watchman ofthe village of Thokinoi made friends with me, and was al — ways groaningover me.
“What, out again? O you fearless, restless night-bird, eh?”
His name was Niphront. He was small and gray, like a saint. He drew outfrom his breast a turnip, an apple, a handful of peas, and placed them in myhand, saying:
“There you are, friend. There is a little present for you. Eat and enjoy it.”
And conducting me to the bounds of the village, he said, “Go, and God bewith you!”
I arrived at the forest before dawn, laid my traps, and spreading out mycoat, lay on the edge of the forest and waited for the day to come. It was still.
Everything was wrapped in the deep autumn sleep. Through the gray mistthe broad meadows under the hill were hardly visible. They were cut in twoby the Volga, across which they met and separated again, melting away in thefog. In the distance, behind the forest on the same side as the meadows, rosewithout hurry the bright sun. On the black mane of the forest lights flashedout, and my heart began to stir strangely, poignantly. Swifter and swifter thefog rose from the meadows, growing silver in the rays of the sun, and,following it, the bushes, trees, and hay-ricks rose from the ground. Themeadows were simply flooded with the sun’s rays and flowed on each side,red-gold. The sun just glanced at the still water by the bank, and it seemed asif the whole river moved toward the sun. as it rose higher and higher, joyfullyblessed and warmed the denuded, chilled earth, which gave forth the sweetsmell of autumn. The transparent air made the earth look enormous,boundlessly wide. Everything seemed to be floating in the distance, and to beluring one to the farthest ends of the world. I saw the sunrise ten timesduring those months, and each time a new world was born before my eyes,with a new beauty.
I loved the sun so much that its very name delighted me. The sweetsound of it was like a bell hidden in it. I loved to close my eyes and place myface right in the way of its hot rays to catch it in my hands when it came, likea sword, through the chinks of the fence or through the branches.
Grandfather had read over and over again “Prince Mikhail Chernigovski andthe Lady Theodora who would not Worship the Sun,” and my idea of thesepeople was that they were black, like Gipsies, harsh, malignant, and alwayshad bad eyes, like poor Mordovans. When the sun rose over the meadows Iinvoluntarily smiled with joy.
Over me murmured the forest of firs, shaking off the drops of dew withits green paws. In the shadows and on the fern-leaves glistened, like silverbrocade, the rime of the morning frost. The reddening grass was crushed bythe rain ; immovable stalks bowed their heads to the ground: but when thesun’s rays fell on them a slight stir was noticeable among the herbs, as if,may be, it was the last effort of their lives.
The birds awoke. Like gray balls of down, they fell from bough to bough.
Flaming crossbills pecked with their crooked beaks the knots on the tallestfirs. On the end of the fir-branches sang a white Apollyon titmouse, wavingits long, rudder-like tail, looking askance suspiciously with its black, beadyeyes at the net which I had spread. And suddenly the whole forest, which aminute ago had been solemnly pensive, was filled with the sound of athousand bird — voices, with the bustle of living beings, the purest on theearth. In their image, man, the father of earthly beauty, created for his ownconsolation, elves, cherubim, and seraphim, and all the ranks of angels.
I was rather sorry to catch the little songsters, and had scruples aboutsqueezing them into cages. I would rather have merely looked at them; butthe hunter’s passion and the desire to earn money drove away my pity.
The birds mocked me with their artfulness. The blue titmouse, after acareful examination of the trap, understood her danger, and, approachingsidewise without running any risk, helped herself to some seed between thesticks of the trap. Titmouses are very clever, but they are very curious, andthat is their undoing. The proud bullfinches are stupid, and flocks of themfall into the nets, like overfed citizens into a church. When they findthemselves shut up, they are very astonished, roll their eyes, and peck myfingers with their stout beaks. The crossbill entered the trap calmly andseriously. This grasping, ignorant bird, unlike all the others, used to sit for along time before the net, stretching out his long beak, and leaning on histhick tail. He can run up the trunk of trees like the woodpecker, alwaysescorting the titmouse. About this smoke-gray singing-bird there issomething unpleasant. No one loves it. And it loves no one. Like the magpie,it likes to steal and hide bright things.
Before noon I had finished my catch, and went home through the forest.
If I had gone by the high-road past the villages, the boys and young menwould have taken my cages away from me and broken up my tackle. I hadalready experienced that once.
I arrived home in the evening tired and hungry, but I felt that I hadgrown older, had learned something new, and had gained strength duringthat day. This new strength gave me the power to listen calmly and withoutresentment to grandfather’s jeers; seeing which, grandfather began to speaksensibly and seriously.
“Give up this useless business! Give it up! No one ever got on throughbirds. Such a thing has never happened that I know of. Go and find anotherplace, and let your intelligence grow up there. Man has not been given life fornothing; he is God’s grain, and he must produce an ear of corn. Man is like aruble; put out at good interest it produces three rubles. You think life is easyto live? No, it is not all easy. The world of men is like a dark night, but everyman must make his own light. To every person is given enough for his tenfingers to hold, but every one wants to grasp by handfuls. One should bestrong, but if one is weak, one must be artful. He who has little strength isweak, and he is neither in heaven nor in hell. Live as if you are with others,but remember that you are alone. Whatever happens, never trust any one. Ifyou believe your own eyes, you will measure crookedly. Hold your tongue.
Neither town or house was built by the tongue, but rubles are made by theax. You are neither a fool nor a Kalmuck, to whom all riches are like lice onsheep.”
He could talk like this all the evening, and I knew his words by heart. Thewords pleased me, but I distrusted their meaning. From what he said it wasplain that two forces hindered man from doing as he wished, God and otherpeople.
Seated at the window, grandmother wound the cotton for her lace. Thespindle hummed under her skil — ful hands. She listened for a long time togrand — father’s speech in silence, then she suddenly spoke.
“It all depends upon whether the Mother of God smiles upon us.”
“What’s that?” cried grandfather. “God! I have not forgotten about God. Iknow all about God. You old fool, has God sown fools on the earth, eh?”
In my opinion the happiest people on earth were Cossacks and soldiers.
Their lives were simple and gay. On fine mornings they appeared in thehollow near our house quite early. Scattering over the bare fields like whitemushrooms, they began a complicated, interesting game. Agile and strong intheir white blouses, they ran about the field with guns in their hands,disappeared in the hollow, and suddenly, at the sound of the bugle, againspread themselves over the field with shouts of “Hurrah!” accompanied bythe ominous sounds of the drum. They ran straight at our house with fixedbayonets, and they looked as if they would knock it down and sweep it away,like a hay-rick, in a minute. I cried “Hurrah!” too, and ran with them, quitecarried away. The wicked rattle of the drum aroused in me a passionatedesire to destroy something, to break down the fence, to hit other boys.
When they were resting, the soldiers used to give me a treat by teaching mehow to signal and by showing me their heavy guns. Sometimes one of themwould stick his bayonet into my stomach and cry, with a pretense of anger:
“Stick the cockroach!”
The bayonet gleamed; it looked as if it were alive, and seemed to windabout like a snake about to coil itself up. It was rather terrifying, but morepleasant.
The Mordovan drummer taught me to strike the drum with my fingers.
At first he used to take me by the wrist, and, moving them so that he hurtme, would thrust the sticks into my crushed fingers.
“Hit it — one, two-one-tw-o-o! Rum te — tum! Beat it — left — softly,right — loudly, rum te —!” he shouted threateningly, opening wide his birdlikeeyes.
I used to run about the field with the soldiers, almost to the end of thedrill, and after it was finished, I used to escort them across the town to thebarracks, listening to their loud songs, looking into their kind faces, all asnew as five-ruble pieces just coined. The close-packed mass of happy menpassing up the streets in one united body aroused a feeling of friendliness inme, a desire to throw myself in among them as into a river, to enter intothem as into a forest. These men were frightened of nothing; they couldconquer anything; they were capable of anything; they could do anythingthey liked; and they were all simple and good.
But one day during the time they were resting a young noncommissionedofficer gave me a fat cigarette.
“Smoke this! I would not give them to any one. In fact I hardly like togive you one, my dear boy, they are so good.”
I smoked it. He moved away a few steps, and suddenly a red flameblinded me, burning my fingers, my nose, my eyebrows. A gray, acrid smokemade me splutter and cough. Blinded, terrified, I stamped on the ground,and the soldiers, who had formed a ring around me, laughed loudly andheartily. I ran away home. Whistles and laughter followed me; somethingcracked like a shepherd’s whip. My burned fingers hurt me, my face smarted,tears flowed from my eyes; but it was not the pain which oppressed me, onlya heavy, dull amazement. Why should this amuse these good fellows?
When I reached home I climbed up to the attic and sat there a long timebrooding over this inexplicable cruelty which stood so repulsively in my path.
I had a peculiarly clear and vivid memory of the little soldier from Sarapuliastanding before me, as large as life, and saying:
“Well, do you understand?”
Soon I had to go through something still more depressing anddisgusting.
I had begun to run about in the barracks of the Cossacks, which stoodnear the Pecherski Square. The Cossacks seemed different from the soldiers,not because they rode so skilfully oh horseback and were dressed morebeautifully, but because they spoke in a different way, sang different songs,and danced beautifully. In the evening, after they had seen to their horses,they used to gather in a ring near the stables, and a little red-haired Cossack,shaking his tufts of hair, sang softly in a high-pitched voice, like a trumpet.
The long-drawn-out, sad song flowed out upon the Don and the blue Dounia.
His eyes were closed, like the eyes of a linnet, which often sings till it fallsdead from the branch to the ground. The collar of his Cossack shirt wasundone. His collar-bone was visible, looking like a copper band. In fact, hewas altogether metallic, coppery. Swaying on his thin legs, as if the earthunder him were rocking, spreading out his hands, he seemed sightless, butfull of sound. He, as it were, ceased to be a man, and became a brassinstrument. Sometimes it seemed to me that he was falling, that he wouldfall on his back to the ground, and die like the linnet, because he put into thesong all his soul and all his strength.
With their hands in their pockets or behind their broad backs, hiscomrades stood round in a ring, sternly looking at his brassy face. Beatingtime with their hands, softly spitting into space, they joined in earnestly,softly, as if they were in the choir in church. All of them, bearded and shaven,looked like icons, stern and set apart from other people. The song was long,like a long street, and as level, as broad and as wide. When I listened to him Iforgot everything else, whether it was day or night upon the earth, whether Iwas an old man or a little boy. Everything else was forgotten. The voice of thesinger died away. The sighs of the horses were audible as they grieved fortheir native steppes, and gently, but surely, the autumn night crept up fromthe fields. My heart swelled and almost burst with a multitude ofextraordinary feelings, and a great, speechless love for human creatures andthe earth.
The little copper-colored Cossack seemed to me to be no man, butsomething much more significant — a legendary being, better and on ahigher plane than ordinary people. I could not talk to him. When he askedme a question I smiled blissfully and remained shyly silent. I was ready tofollow him anywhere, silently and humbly, like a dog. All I wanted was to seehim often, and to hear him sing.
