GRANDFATHER met me in the yard; he was on his knees, chopping a wedgewith a hatchet. He raised the ax as if he were going to throw it at my head,and then took off his cap, saying mockingly:
“How do you do, your Holiness? Your Highness? Have you finished yourterm of service ? Well, now you can live as you like, yes. U-ugh! you — ”
“We know all about it, we know all about it!” said grandmother, hastilywaving him away, and when she went into her room to get the samovar readyshe told me:
“Grandfather is fairly ruined now. What money there was he lent atinterest to his godson Nikolai, but he never got a receipt for it. I don’t quiteknow yet how they stand, but he is ruined; the money is lost. And all thisbecause we have not helped the poor or had compassion on the unfortunate.
God has said to Himself, ‘Why should I do good to the Kashirins?’ and so Hehas taken everything from us.”
Looking round, she went on:
“I have been trying to soften the heart of the Lord toward us a little, sothat He may not press too hardly on the old man, and I have begun to give alittle in charity, secretly and at night, from what I have earned.
You can come with me today if you like. I have some money — ”
Grandfather came in blinking and asked :
“Are you going to have a snack ?”
“It is not yours,” said grandmother. “However, you can sit down with usif you like ; there’s enough for you.”
He sat down at the table, murmuring:
“Pour out —”
Everything in the room was in its old place. Only my mother’s corner wassadly empty, and on the wall over grandfather’s bed hung a sheet of paper onwhich was inscribed in large, printed letters:
“Jesus save. Life of the world! May Thy holy name be with me all thedays and hours of my life!”
“Who wrote that?”
Grandfather did not reply, and grandmother, waiting a little, said with asmile :
“The price of that paper is — a hundred rubles!”
“That is not your business!” cried grandfather. “I give away everything toothers.”
“It is all right to give now, but time was when you did not give,” saidgrandmother, calmly.
“Hold your tongue!” he shrieked.
This was all as it should be, just like old times.
In the corner, on a box, in a wicker basket, Kolia woke up and lookedout, his blue, washed-out eyes hardly visible under their lids. He was grayer,more faded and fragile-looking, than ever. He did not recognize me, and,turning away in silence, closed his eyes. Sad news awaited me in the street.
Viakhir was dead. He had breathed his last in Passion Week. Khabi had goneaway to live in town. Yaz’s feet had been taken off, and he would walk nomore.
As he was giving me this information, black-eyed Kostrom said angrily:
“Boys soon die!”
“Well, but only Viakhir is dead.”
“It is the same thing. Whoever leaves the streets is as good as dead. Nosooner do we make friends, get used to our comrades, than they either aresent into the town to work or they die. There are new people living in youryard at Chesnokov’s; Evsyenki is their name. The boy, Niushka, is nothingout of the ordinary. He has two sisters, one still small, and the other lame.
She goes about on crutches ; she is beautiful!”
After thinking a moment he added :
“Tchurka and I are both in love with her, and quarrel.”
“With her r“Why with her? Between ourselves. With her — very seldom.”
Of course I knew that big lads and even men fell in love. I was familiaralso with coarse ideas on this subject. I felt uncomfortable, sorry forKostrom, and reluctant to look at his angular figure and angry, black eyes.
I saw the lame girl on the evening of the same day. Coming down thesteps into the yard, she let her crutch fall, and stood helplessly on the step,holding on to the balustrade with her transparent, thin, fragile hands. I triedto pick up the crutch, but my bandaged hands were not much use, and I hada lot of trouble and vexation in doing it. Meanwhile she, standing above me,and laughing gently, watched me.
“What have you done to your hands?” she said.
“Scalded them.”
“And I— am a cripple. Do you belong to this yard? Were you long in thehospital ? I was there a lo-o-ong time.” She added, with a sigh, “A very longtime.”
She had a white dress and light blue overshoes, old, but clean; hersmoothly brushed hair fell across her breast in a thick, short plait. Her eyeswere large and serious; in their quiet depths burned a blue light which lit upthe pale, sharp-nosed face. She smiled pleasantly, but I did not care abouther. Her sickly figure seemed to say, “Please don’t touch me!” How could myfriends be in love with her?
“I have been lame a long time,” she told me, willingly and almostboastfully. “A neighbor bewitched me; she had a quarrel with mother, andthen bewitched me out of spite. Were you frightened in the hospital?’
“Yes.”
I felt awkward with her, and went indoors.
About midnight grandmother tenderly awoke me.
“Are you coming? If you do something for other people, your hand willsoon be well.”
She took my arm and led me in the dark, as if I had been blind. It was ablack, damp night; the wind blew continuously, making the river flow moreswiftly and blowing the cold sand against my legs. Grandmother cautiouslyapproached the darkened windows of the poor little houses, crossed herselfthree times, laid a five-copeck piece and three cracknel biscuits on thewindow-sills, and crossed herself again. Glancing up into the starless sky,she whispered :
“Holy Queen of Heaven, help these people! We are all sinners in thysight, Mother dear.”
Now, the farther we went from home, the denser and more intense thedarkness and silence became. The night sky was pitch black, unfathomable,as if the moon and stars had disappeared forever. A dog sprang out fromsomewhere and growled at us. His eyes gleamed in the darkness, and Icravenly pressed close to grandmother.
“It is all right,” she said; “it is only a dog. It is too late for the devil ; thecocks have already begun to crow.”
Enticing the dog to her, she stroked it and admonished it :
“Look here, doggie, you must not frighten my grandson.”
The dog rubbed itself against my legs, and the three of us went on.
Twelve times did grandmother place “secret alms” on a window-sill. It beganto grow light: gray houses appeared out of the darkness; the belfry of NapolniChurch rose up white like a piece of sugar; the brick wall of the cemeteryseemed to become transparent.
“The old woman is tired,” said grandmother; “it is time we went home.
When the women wake up they will find that Our Lady has provided a littlefor their children. When there is never enough, a very little comes in useful.
O Olesha, our people live so poorly and no one troubles about them!
“The rich man about God never thinks; Of the terrible judgment he doesnot dream; The poor man is to him neither friend nor brother ; All he caresabout is getting gold together. But that gold will be coal in hell!
“That’s how it is. But we ought to live for one another, while God is for usall. I am glad to have you with me again.”
And I, too, was calmly happy, feeling in a confused way that I had takenpart in something which I should never forget. Close to me shivered thebrown dog, with its bare muzzle and kind eyes which seemed to be beggingforgiveness.
“Will it live with us?”
“What? It can, if it likes. Here, I will give it a cracknel biscuit. I have twoleft. Let us sit down on this bench. I am so tired.”
We sat down on a bench by a gate, and the dog lay at our feet, eating thedry cracknel, while grandmother informed me :
“There’s a Jewess living here; she has about ten servants, more or less. Iasked her, ‘Do you live by the law of Moses?’ But she answered, I live as ifGod were with me and mine; how else should I live?’ ”
I leaned against the warm body of grandmother and fell asleep.
Once more my life flowed on swiftly and full of interest, with a broadstream of impressions bringing something new to my soul every day, stirringit to enthusiasm, disturbing it, or causing me pain, but at any rate forcing meto think. Before long I also was using every means in my power to meet thelame girl, and I would sit with her on the bench by the gate, either talking orin silence. It was pleasant to be silent in her company. She was very neat, andhad a voice like a singing bird. She used to tell me prettily of the way theCossacks lived on the Don, where she had lived with her uncle, who wasemployed in some oil-works. Then her father, a locksmith, had gone to live atNijni. “And I have another uncle who serves the czar himself.”
In the evenings of Sundays and festivals all the inhabitants of the streetused to stand “at the gate.” The boys and girls went to the cemetery, the mento the taverns, and the women and children remained in the street. Thewomen sat at the gate on the sand or on a small bench.
The children used to play at a sort of tennis, at skittles, and at sharmazLThe mothers watched the games, encouraging the skilful ones and laughingat the bad players. It was deafeningly noisy and gay. The presence andattention of the “grown-ups” stimulated us; the merest trifles brought intoour games extra animation and passionate rivalry. But it seemed that wethree, Kostrom, Tchurka, and I, were not so taken up with the game that wehad not time, one or the other of us, to run and show off before the lame girl.
“Ludmilla, did you see that I knocked down five of the ninepins in thatgame of skittles?”
She would smile sweetly, tossing her head.
In old times our little company had always tried to be on the same side ingames, but now I saw that Kostrom and Tchurka used to take opposite sides,trying to rival each other in all kinds of trials of skill and strength, oftenaggravating each other to tears and fights. One day they fought so fiercelythat the adults had to Interfere, and they had to pour water over thecombatants, as if they were dogs. Ludmilla, sitting on a bench, stamped hersound foot on the ground, and when the fighters rolled toward her, pushedthem away with her crutch, crying In a voice of fear:
“Leave off!”
Her face was white, almost livid; her eyes blazed and rolled like a personpossessed with a devil.
Another time Kostrom, shamefully beaten by Tchurka in a game ofskittles, hid himself behind a chest of oats In the grocer’s shop, and crouchedthere, weeping silently. It was terrible to see him. His teeth were tightlyclenched, his cheek-bones stood out, his bony face looked as if it had beenturned to stone, and from his black, surly eyes flowed large, round tears.
When I tried to console him he whispered, choking back his tears :
“You wait! I’ll throw a brick at his head. You’ll see.”
Tchurka had become conceited; he walked in the middle of the street, asmarriageable youths walk, with his cap on one side and his hands in hispocket. He had taught himself to spit through his teeth like a fine bold fellow,and he promised :
“I shall leam to smoke soon. I have already tried twice, but I was sick.”
All this was displeasing to me. I saw that I was losing my friends, and itseemed to me that the person to blame was Ludmilla. One evening when Iwas in the yard going over the collection of bones and rags and all kinds ofrubbish, she came to me, swaying from side to side and waving her righthand.
“How do you do?” she said, bowing her head three times. “Has Kostrombeen with you? And Tchurka?”
“Tchurka is not friends with us now. It is all your fault. They are both inlove with you and they have quarreled.”
She blushed, but answered mockingly :
“What next! How is it my fault?”
“Why do you make them fall in love with you?”
“I did not ask them to,” she said crossly, and as she went away sheadded: “It is all nonsense. I am older than they are ; I am fourteen. People donot fall in love with big girls.”
“A lot you know!” I cried, wishing to hurt her. “What about theshopkeeper, Xlistov’s sister? She is quite old, and still she has the boys afterher.”
Ludmilla turned on me, sticking her crutch deep into the sand of theyard.
“You don’t know anything yourself,” she said quickly, with tears in hervoice and her pretty eyes flashing finely. “That shopkeeper is a bad woman,and I— what am I? I am still a little girl; and — but you ought to read thatnovel, ‘Kamchadalka,” the second part, and then you would have somethingto talk about.”
She went away sobbing. I felt sorry for her. In her words was the ring of atruth of which I was ignorant. Why had she embroiled my comrades? Butthey were in love; what else was there to say?
The next day, wishing to smooth over my difference with Ludmilla, Ibought some barley sugar, her favorite sweet, as I knew well.
“Would you like some?”
She said fiercely:
“Go away! I am not friends with you!” But presently she took the barleysugar, observing : “You might have had it wrapped up in paper. Your handsare so dirty!”
“I have washed them, but it won’t come off.”
She took my hand in her dry, hot hand and looked at it.
“How you have spoiled it!”
“Well, but yours are roughened.”
“That is done by my needle. I do a lot of sewing.” After a few minutes shesuggested, looking round : “I say, let’s hide ourselves somewhere and read‘Kamchadalka.’ Would you like it?”
We were a long time finding a place to hide in, for every place seemeduncomfortable. At length we decided that the best place was the wash-house.
It was dark there, but we could sit at the window, which over-looked a dirtycorner between the shed and the neigh — boring slaughter-house. Peoplehardly ever looked that way. There she used to sit sidewise to the window,with her bad foot on a stool and the sound one resting on the floor, and,hiding her face with the torn book, nervously pronounced manyunintelligible and dull words. But I was stirred. Sitting on the floor, I couldsee how the grave eyes with the two pale-blue flames moved across the pagesof the book. Sometimes they were filled with tears, and the girl’s voicetrembled as she quickly uttered the unfamiliar words, running them into oneanother unintelligibly. However, I grasped some of these words, and tried tomake them into verse, turning them about in all sorts of ways, whicheffectually prevented me from understanding what the book said.
On my knees slumbered the dog, which I had named“Wind,” because he was rough and long, swift in running, and howledlike the autumn wind down the chimney.
“Are you listening?” the girl would ask. I nodded my head.
The mixing up of the words excited me more and more, and my desire toarrange them as they would sound in a song, in which each word lives andshines like a star in the sky, became more insistent. When it grew darkLudmilla would let her pale hand fall on the book and ask:
“Isn’t it good? You will see.”
After the first evening we often sat in the wash-house. Ludmilla, to myjoy, soon gave up reading “Kamchadalka.” I could not answer her questionsabout what she had read from that endless book — endless, for there was athird book after the second part which we had begun to read, and the girlsaid there was a fourth. What we liked best was a rainy day, unless it fell on aSaturday, when the bath was heated. The rain drenched the yard. No onecame out or looked at us in our dark comer. Ludmilla was in great fear thatthey would discover us.
I also was afraid that we should be discovered. We used to sit for hoursat a time, talking about one thing and another. Sometimes I told her some ofgrandmother’s tales, and Ludmilla told me about the lives of the Kazsakas,on the River Medvyedietz.
“How lovely it was there!” she would sigh. “Here, what is it? Onlybeggars live here.”
Soon we had no need to go to the wash-house. Ludmilla’s mother foundwork with a fur-dresser, and left the house the first thing in the morning. Hersister was at school, and her brother worked at a tile factory. On wet days Iwent to the girl and helped her to cook, and to clean the sitting-room andkitchen. She said laughingly :
“We live together — just like a husband and wife. In fact, we live better; ahusband does not help his wife.”
If I had money, I bought some cakes, and we had tea, afterward coolingthe samovar with cold water, lest the scolding mother of Ludmilla shouldguess that it had been heated. Sometimes grandmother came to see us, andsat down, making lace, sewing, or telling us wonderful stories, and whengrandfather went to the town, Ludmilla used to come to us, and we feastedwithout a care in the world.
Grandmother said :
“Oh, how happily we live! With our own money we can do what we like.”
She encouraged our friendship.
“It is a good thing when a boy and girl are friends. Only there must be notricks,” and she explained in the simplest words what she meant by “tricks.”
She spoke beautifully, as one inspired, and made me understand thoroughlythat it is wrong to pluck the flower before it opens, for then it will haveneither fragrance nor fruit.
We had no inclination for “tricks,” but that did not hinder Ludmilla andme from speaking of that subject, on which one is supposed to be silent. Suchsubjects of conversation were in a way forced upon us because therelationship of the sexes was so often and tiresomely brought to our notice intheir coarsest form, and was very offensive to us.
Ludmilla’s father was a handsome man of forty, curly-headed andwhiskered, and had an extremely masterful way of moving his eyebrows. Hewas strangely silent; I do not remember one word uttered by him. When hecaressed his children he uttered unintelligible sounds, like a dumb person,and even when he beat his wife he did it in silence.
On the evenings of Sundays and festivals, attired in a light-blue shirt,with wide plush trousers and highly polished boots, he would go out to thegate with a harmonica slung with straps behind his back, and stand thereexactly like a soldier doing sentry duty. Presently a sort of “promenade”
would be — gin past our gate. One after the other girls and women wouldpass, glancing at Evsyenko furtively from under their eyelashes, or quiteopenly, while he stood sticking out his lower lip, and also looking withdiscriminating glances from his dark eyes. There was something repugnantlydog-like in this silent conversation with the eyes alone, and from the slow,rapt movement of the women as they passed it seemed as if the chosen one,at an imperious flicker of the man’s eyelid, would humbly sink to the dirtyground as if she were killed.
“Tipsy brute! Brazen face!” grumbled Ludmilla’s mother. She was a tall,thin woman, with a long face and a bad complexion, and hair which had beencut short after typhus. She was like a worn-out broom.
Ludmilla sat beside her, unsuccessfully trying to turn her attention fromthe street by asking questions about one thing and another.
“Stop it, you monster!” muttered the mother, blinking restlessly. Hernarrow Mongol eyes were strangely bright and immovable, always fixed onsomething and always stationary.
“Don’t be angry, Mamochka; it doesn’t matter,” Ludmilla would say.
“Just look how the mat-maker’s widow is dressed up!”
“I should be able to dress better if it were not for you three. You haveeaten me up, devoured me,” said the mother, pitilessly through her tears,fixing her eyes on the large, broad figure of the mat-maker’s widow.
She was like a small house. Her chest stuck out like the roof, and her redface, half hidden by the green handkerchief which was tied round it, was likea dormer-window when the sun is reflected on it. Evsy — enko, drawing hisharmonica to his chest, began to play. The harmonica played many tunes;the sounds traveled a long way, and the children came from all the streetaround, and fell in the sand at the feet of the performer, trembling withecstasy.
“You wait; I’ll give you something!” the woman promised her husband.
He looked at her askance, without speaking. And the mat-maker’s widowsat not far off on the Xlistov’s bench, listening intently.
In the field behind the cemetery the sunset was red. In the street, as on ariver, floated brightly clothed, great pieces of flesh. The children rushedalong like a whirlwind; the warm air was caressing and intoxicating. Apungent odor rose from the sand, which had been made hot by the sunduring the day, and peculiarly noticeable was a fat, sweet smell from theslaughter-house — the smell of blood. From the yard where the fur-dresserlived came the salt and bitter odor of tanning. The women’s chatter, thedrunken roar of the men, the bell-like voices of the children, the bass melodyof the harmonica — all mingled together in one deep rumble. The earth,which is ever creating, gave a mighty sigh. All was coarse and naked, but itinstilled a great, deep faith in that gloomy life, so shamelessly animal. Attimes above the noise certain painful, never-to-be-forgotten words wentstraight to one’s heart :
“It is not right for you all together to set upon one. You must take turns.”
“Who pities us when we do not pity ourselves?” “Did God bring women intothe world in order to deride them?”
The night drew near, the air became fresher, the sounds became moresubdued. The wooden houses seemed to swell and grow taller, clothingthemselves with shadows. The children were dragged away from the yard tobed. Some of them were already asleep by the fence or at the feet or on theknees of their mothers. Most of the children grew quieter and more docilewith the night. Evsyenko disappeared unnoticed; he seemed to have meltedaway. The mat — maker’s widow was also missing. The bass notes of theharmonica could be heard somewhere in the distance, beyond the cemetery.
Ludmilla’s mother sat on a bench doubled up, with her back stuck out like acat. My grandmother had gone out to take tea with a neighbor, a midwife, agreat fat woman with a nose like a duck’s, and a gold medal “for saving lives”
on her flat, masculine-looking chest. The whole street feared her, regardingher as a witch, and it was related of her that she had carried out of theflames, when a fire broke out, the three children and sick wife of a certaincolonel. There was a friendship between grandmother and her. When theymet in the street they used to smile at each other from a long way off, as ifthey had seen something specially pleasant.
Kostrom, Ludmilla, and I sat on the bench at the gate. Tchurka hadcalled upon Ludmilla’s brother to wrestle with him. Locked in each other’sarms they trampled down the sand and became angry.
“Leave off!” cried Ludmilla, timorously.
Looking at her sidewise out of his black eyes, Kostrom told a story aboutthe hunter Kalinin, a gray-haired old man with cunning eyes, a man of evilfame, known to all the village. He had not long been dead, but they had notburied him in the earth in the grave-yard, but had placed his coffin aboveground, away from the other graves. The coffin was black, on tall trestles ; onthe lid were drawn in white paint a cross, a spear, a reed, and two bones.
Every night, as soon as it grew dark, the old man rose from his coffin andwalked about the cemetery, looking for something, till the first cock crowed.
“Don’t talk about such dreadful things!” begged Ludmilla.
“Nonsense!” cried Tchurka, breaking away from her brother. “What areyou telling lies for? I saw them bury the coffin myself, and the one aboveground is simply a monument. As to a dead man walking about, the drunkenblacksmith set the idea afloat.”
Kostrom, without looking at him, suggested:
“Go and sleep in the cemetery; then you will see.”
They began to quarrel, and Ludmilla, shaking her head sadly, asked:
“Mamochka, do dead people walk about at night?”
“They do,” answered her mother, as if the question had called her backfrom a distance.
The son of the shopkeeper Valek, a tall, stout, red-faced youth of twenty,came to us, and, hearing what we were disputing about, said:
“I will give three greven and ten cigarettes to whichever of you three willsleep till daylight on the coffin, and I will pull the ears of the one who isafraid — as long as he likes. Well?”
We were all silent, confused, and Ludmilla’s mother said :
“What nonsense! What do you mean by putting the children up to suchnonsense?”
“You hand over a ruble, and I will go,” announced Tchurka, gruffly.
Kostrom at once asked spitefully :
“But for two greven — you would be afraid?” Then he said to Valek: “Givehim the ruble. But he won’t go; he is only making believe.”
“Well, take the ruble.”
Tchurka rose, and, without saying a word and without hurrying, wentaway, keeping close to the fence. Kostrom, putting his fingers in his mouth,whistled piercingly after him.; but Ludmilla said uneasily :
“O Lord, what a braggart he is! I never!”
“Where are you going, coward?” jeered Valek. “And you call yourself thefirst fighter in the street!”
It was offensive to listen to his jeers. We did not like this overfed youth;he was always putting up little boys to do wrong, told them obscene stories ofgirls and women, and taught them to tease them. The children did what hetold them, and suffered dearly for it. For some reason or other he hated mydog, and used to throw stones at it, and one day gave it some bread with aneedle in it. But it was still more offensive to see Tchurka going away,shrinking and ashamed.
I said to Valek:
“Give me the ruble, and I will go.”
Mocking me and trying to frighten me, he held out the ruble toLudmilla’s mother, who would not take it, and said sternly :
“I don’t want it, and I won’t have it!” Then she went out angrily.
Ludmilla also could not make up her mind to take the money, and thismade Valek jeer the more. I was going away without obtaining the moneywhen grandmother came along, and, being told all about it, took the ruble,saying to me softly :
“Put on your overcoat and take a blanket with you, for it grows coldtoward morning.”
Her words raised my hopes that nothing terrible would happen to me.
Valek laid it down on a condition that I should either lie or sit on thecoffin until it was light, not leaving it, whatever happened, even if the coffinshook when the old man Kalinin began to climb out of the tomb. If I jumpedto the ground I had lost.
“And remember,” said Valek, “that I shall be watching you all night.”
When I set out for the cemetery grandmother made the sign of the crossover me and kissed me.
“If you should see a glimpse of anything, don’t move, but just say, ‘Hail,Mary.’ ”
I went along quickly, my one desire being to begin and finish the wholething. Valek, Kostrom, and another youth escorted me thither. As I wasgetting over the brick wall I got mixed up in the blanket, and fell down, butwas up in the same moment, as if the earth had ejected me. There was achuckle from the other side of the wall. My heart contracted; a cold chill randown my back.
I went stumblingly on to the black coffin, against one side of which thesand had drifted, while on the other side could be seen the short, thick legs.
It looked as if some one had tried to lift it up, and had succeeded only inmaking it totter. I sat on the edge of the coffin and looked around. The hillycemetery was simply packed with gray crosses; quivering shadows fell uponthe graves.
Here and there, scattered among the graves, slender willows stood up,uniting adjoining graves with their branches. Through the lace-work of theirshadows blades of grass stuck up.
The church rose up in the sky like a snow-drift, and in the motionlessclouds shone the small setting moon.
The father of Yaz, “the good-for-nothing peasant,” was lazily ringing hisbell in his lodge. Each time, as he pulled the string, it caught in the iron plateof the roof and squeaked pitifully, after which could be heard the metallicclang of the little bell. It sounded sharp and sorrowful.
“God give us rest!” I remembered the saying of the watchman. It wasvery painful and somehow it was suffocating. I was perspiring freelyalthough the night was cool. Should I have time to run into the watchman’slodge if old Kalinin really did try to creep out of his gravedI was well acquainted with the cemetery. I had played among the gravesmany times with Yaz and other comrades. Over there by the church mymother was buried.
Every one was not asleep yet, for snatches of laughter and fragments ofsongs were borne to me from the village. Either on the railway embankment,to which they were carrying sand, or in the village of Katizovka a harmonicagave forth a strangled sound. Along the wall, as usual, went the drunkenblacksmith Myachov, singing. I recognized him by his song :
“To our mother’s door One small sin we lay. The only one she loves Isour Papasha.”
It was pleasant to listen to the last sighs of life, but at each stroke of thebell it became quieter, and the quietness overflowed like a river over ameadow, drowning and hiding everything. One’s soul seemed to float inboundless and unfathomable space, to be extinguished like the light of acatch in the darkness, be — coming dissolved without leaving a trace in thatocean of space in which live only the unattainable stars, shining brightly,while everything on earth disappears as being useless and dead. Wrappingmyself in the blanket, I sat on the coffin, with my feet tucked under me andmy face to the church. Whenever I moved, the coffin squeaked, and the sandunder it crunched.
Something twice struck the ground close to me, and then a piece of brickfell near by. I was frightened, but then I guessed that Valek and his friendswere throwing things at me from the other side of the wall, trying to scareme. But I felt all the better for the proximity of human creatures.
I began unwillingly to think of my mother. Once she had found me tryingto smoke a cigarette. She began to beat me, but I said :
“Don’t touch me; I feel bad enough without that. I feel very sick.”
Afterward, when I was put behind the stove as a punishment, she said tograndmother :
“That boy has no feeling; he doesn’t love any one.”
It hurt me to hear that. When my mother punished me I was sorry forher. I felt uncomfortable for her sake, because she seldom punished medeservedly or justly. On the whole, I had received a great deal of ill treatmentin my life. Those people on the other side of the fence, for example, mustknow that I was frightened of being alone in the cemetery, yet they wanted tofrighten me more. Why?
I should like to have shouted to them, “Go to the devil!” but that mighthave been disastrous. Who knew what the devil would think of it, for nodoubt he was somewhere near. There was a lot of mica in the sand, and itgleamed faintly in the moonlight, which reminded me how, lying one day ona raft on the Oka, gazing into the water, a bream suddenly swam almost inmy face, turned on its side, looking like a human cheek, and, looking at mewith its round, bird-like eyes, dived to the bottom, fluttering like a leaf fallingfrom a maple-tree.
My memory worked with increasing effort, recalling different episodes ofmy life, as if it were striving to protect itself against the imaginations evokedby terror.
A hedgehog came rolling along, tapping on the sand with its strong paws.
It reminded me of a hob-goblin; it was just as little and as disheveled-looking.
I remembered how grandmother, squatting down beside the stove, said,“Kind master of the house, take away the beetles.”
Far away over the town, which I could not see, it grew lighter. The coldmorning air blew against my cheeks and into my eyes. I wrapped myself inmy blanket. Let come what would!
Grandmother awoke me. Standing beside me and pulling off the blanket,she said :
“Get up! Aren’t you chilled? Well, were you frightened?”
“I was frightened, but don’t tell any one; don’t tell the other boys.”
“But why not?” she asked in amazement. “If you were not afraid, youhave nothing to be proud about.”
As he went home she said to me gently :
“You have to experience things for yourself in this world, dear heart. Ifyou can’t teach yourself, no one else can teach you.”
By the evening I was the “hero” of the street, and every one asked me, “Isit possible that you were not afraid?” And when I answered, “I was afraid,”
they shook their heads and exclaimed, “Aha I you see!”
The shopkeeper went about saying loudly :
“It may be that they talked nonsense when they said that Kalinin walked.
But if he did, do you think he would have frightened that boy? No, he wouldhave driven him out of the cemetery, and no one would know v/here hewent.”
Ludmilla looked at me with tender astonishment. Even grandfather wasobviously pleased with me. They all made much of me. Only Tchurka saidgruffly :
“It was easy enough for him; his grandmother is a witch!”
