Panteli mumbled on and apparently did not worry whethei Egorooshka listened to him or not. He spoke in a drowsy, droning voice, neither raising nor lowering his tone, yet managed to say a great deal in a short while. What he said was in fragments having very little connection with each other, and quite uninteresting to Egorooshka. It may be that he was only talking, because having spent the night in silence now that it was morning he wanted to articulate aloud his thought: whether they all were well at home? Having finished about penitence he again spoke of that certain Maxim Nicolaitch of Slavianoserbska.
"Yes, he took his little boy. . . . He took him, that's so. . . ."
One of the drivers who was walking far ahead left his place, ran to one side, and began thrashing the ground with his whip. He was a tall broad-shouldered man of about thirty, with flaxen curly hair, and evidently very strong and healthy; judging by his activity with the whip, and his eagerness characterised by his attitude, he was beating some live beast. Another driver, a short thick-set man with a bushy black beard, wearing a waistcoat and an embroidered shirt; ran towards him. He burst into a deep hoarse laugh and shouted:
"Mates, Dimov has killed a snake! As true as God!"
There are people whose minds can be ascertained by their voice and their laugh. The black-bearded man happened to belong to that fortunate class: one heard how insurmountable was his stupidity by his voice and his laugh. When he had finished thrashing, flaxen-haired Dimov raised his whip and laughingly hurled something resembling a rope at the wag- gons.
"It's not a snake, it's an adder," shouted someone.
The man of the wooden walk and bound-up face, walked quickly up to the dead snake, looked at it, and wrung his stick-like fingers.
"You galley-slave!" he called in a hollow whimpering voice. "What did you kill an adder for? What had it done to you, wretch? To kill an adder!"
"He ought not to have killed it, that's true . • ." calmly mumbled Panteli, "ought not. It is not venomous. Although it looks like a snake it is a gentle harmless beast. . . . Likes people . . . adders do. . . ."
Dimov and the black-bearded man evidently felt guilty, for they laughed loudly, and without heeding the grumblings lazily went back to their waggons. When the last waggon reached the place where lay the dead adder, he with the bound-up face standing by the adder, turned to Panteli and asked him in a whimpering voice:
"But, dad, what did he kill an adder for?"
His eyes, as Egorooshka now saw, were small and lustre- less, his face was grey, unhealthy, and also looked as it were lustreless, and h;s chin iooked very swollen and red.
"Dad, why did he kill it?" he repeated walking alongside of Panteli.
"A stupid fellow whose fingers itch, he must kill some- thing," answered the old man. "But he oughtn't to kill an adder, that's true. . . . Dimov is a devil-may-care, as every- one knows, and kills anything within his reach, and Kiruha did not prevent it. He ought to have stopped it, instead he went—'ha, ha, ha,' then 'ho, ho, ho. . . .' But you, Vassia, don't be angry. . . . Why be angry? It's dead, well, God have mercy on them . . . devil-may-care Dimov, and Kiruha the shallow-brained. . . • It's all right. . . . They arr stupid folk, dull of understanding, well, God have mercy on them! Emilian there, never harms anything he shouldn't . • . never. That's true. . . . He is educated, and they are fitupid. . . . Emilian there . . . he does no harm."
The driver in the rusty brown coat, with the spungious lump, and who conducted an invisible choir, hearing his name stopped, and waiting till Panteli and Vassia came along- side of him joined them.
"What's the talk about?" he asked in a hoarse strangled voice.
"Vassia here is angry," said Panteli. "I have told him some things so that he should not be angry, that is . . . oh! my feet hurt, they are a pest! Oh! Oh! Hurting extra for Sunday, God's holy day!"
"It's from walking," observed Vassia.
"No, boy, no . . . it's not from walking. When I walk it's really better, when I lie down they burn—it's death to me. Walking is easier."
Emilian in the rusty brown coat was between Panteli and Vassia, and waved his hand as if these others were preparing to sing. Having waved a while he dropped his hand and croaked hopelessly.
"I have no voice!" he said. "It's a real disaster! All night and all the morning I have tried to get that triad of the 'Lord have mercy on us,' which we sung at the nuptial benediction of the Marinovski. It's in my head and my throat so to speak, but I cannot sing it! I have no voice."
He was silent for a moment while he thought of something, then continued:
"I was in the choir for fifteen years, in all the Luganski works there was no one with such a voice. Then, like a fool three years ago I bathed in the Donets, and since then I cannot sing a true note. I took cold in my throat. And with- out a voice I am no better than a workman without hands."
"That's true," agreed Panteli.
"I reckon now that I am a ruined man and nothing more."
At this moment Vassia suddenly caught sight of Egor- ooshka. His eyes glittered and grew smaller.
"A little sir is driving with us!" he said, covering his nose with his sleeve as if he were blushing. "What an important driver! If he remain with us, he'll drive the waggons and trade in wool!"
The incongruity of the idea of one and the same person being gentleman and driver, evidently seemed to him very odd and witty for he laughed heartily and continued to de- velop the idea. Emilian also looked up at Egorooshka, cursorily and coldly. He was busy with his own thoughts, and had it not been for Vassia he would not have noticed the presence of Egorooshka. Five minutes had hardly gone by before he again waved his hand about, then again described to his fellow-travellers the beauty of the nuptial benediction of "Lord have mercy on us" which he had remembered during the night, placed his whip under his arm, and flourished both arms.
About a verst from the village the train of waggons stopped by a well with a crane. When he lowered his bucket into the well the black-bearded Kiruha lay belly-down on the frame- work, and thrust his woolly head, his shoulders, and part of his body into the dark hole, so that all Egorooshka could see of him were his short legs which could hardly touch the ground. When he saw the reflection of his head at the bottom of the well, he was so pleased that he gave vent to his deep foolish laugh, and the well's echo answered likewise; when he got up from the side of the well he was as red as a lobster. The first one to run and get a drink was Dimov. He drank and laughed, often interrupting to tell Kiruha something funny, then he turned round and loudly, so that the whole steppe could hear, he uttered five very bad words. Egorooshka did not understand what such words meant, but that they were bad he was very well aware. He knew the dislike which his relatives and friends silently maintained towards them, and he himself for some unknown reason shared that feeling and was accustomed to think that only drunkards and evil- doers indulged in the privilege of using these words o:Jt loud. He recollected the murder of the adder, listened to Dimov's laugh, and felt something like hatred for this man. As if by design Dimov at this juncture caught sight of Egorooshka. who having clambered down from his waggon was going towards the well; he laughed loudly and called out: