‘Tell me, Deniska, do you think we’ll catch up with the carts today?’ asked Kuzmichov.
Deniska glanced at the sky, sat up, whipped the horses and replied, ‘We’ll catch ’em up by nightfall, God willing…’
There was a sound of barking. Six huge steppe sheepdogs suddenly leapt out as if they had been lying in ambush and rushed to meet the carriage with ferocious howls. All of them, exceptionally vicious, with shaggy spiderish muzzles and red-eyed with malice, surrounded the carriage, jealously hustled each other and set up a hoarse baying. They were filled with passionate loathing and seemed ready to tear horses, carriage and men to shreds. Deniska, who loved to tease and wield his whip, rejoiced at the opportunity, assumed an expression of malicious glee, leant over and lashed out at one of the dogs. This made them howl even more and the horses raced off. Yegorushka, who could barely hold on to the box, realized as he looked at the dogs’ eyes and teeth that he would be torn to pieces in a trice should he fall off. But he felt no fear, looked at them with the same malicious glee as Deniska and only regretted that he had no whip in his hands.
The carriage drew level with a flock of sheep.
‘Stop!’ cried Kuzmichov. ‘Whoa!’
Deniska flung his whole body backwards and reined in the horses. The carriage came to a halt.
‘Come here!’ Kuzmichov shouted at the drover. ‘Get those blasted dogs off will you!’
The old drover, ragged and barefoot, with a warm fur cap, a filthy bag on his thigh and a long crook in his hands – a regular Old Testament figure – called off the dogs, doffed his cap and went over to the carriage. An identical patriarchal figure was standing stock-still on the other side of the flock, impassively surveying the travellers.
‘Whose flock is this?’ asked Kuzmichov.
‘Why, it’s Varlamov’s!’ the old man replied in a loud voice.
‘It’s Varlamov’s!’ repeated the drover on the other side of the flock.
‘Tell me, did Varlamov pass this way yesterday or didn’t he?’
‘No, he didn’t. But his bailiff did… that’s a fact…’
‘Let’s go!’
The carriage rolled on, leaving the drovers and their vicious dogs behind. Yegorushka reluctantly peered at the lilac distance ahead and now he had the feeling that the turning windmill was getting nearer. It grew larger and larger until it loomed up in all its bulk and he could see its two sails quite clearly. One was old and patched, the other had been made from new wood only recently and was gleaming in the sun.
Although the carriage was travelling in a straight line, for some reason the windmill began to recede to the left. On and on they drove, but still it kept moving to the left, never disappearing from view.
‘That’s a fine windmill Boltva’s built for his son!’ remarked Deniska.
‘But I can’t see his farm.’
‘It’s over there, on the other side of the gully.’
Boltva’s farmstead soon appeared, but the windmill still did not recede and kept up with them, looking at Yegorushka and waving its shiny sail at him. What a sorcerer that windmill was!
II
Towards noon the carriage turned off the road to the right, continued for a short distance at walking pace and came to a stop. Yegorushka heard a most delicious, soft gurgling, and he felt as though some totally different kind of air had brushed his face like cool velvet. From a hill stuck together by nature from colossal unsightly rocks a thin stream of water was running through a pipe of hemlock wood put there by some unidentified philanthropist. Limpid, gaily sparkling in the sunlight and softly murmuring, as if it imagined itself a powerful raging torrent, it swiftly ran away somewhere to the left. Not far from the hill the little stream broadened out into a small pool. The sun’s scorching rays and the burning soil drained its strength as they thirstily drank from it, but a little further on it had most probably joined up with another similar small stream, since about a hundred steps from the hill there grew along its course lush green sedge, from which three snipe flew up crying when the carriage approached.
The travellers settled down by the stream for a rest and to feed the horses. Kuzmichov, Father Khristofor and Yegorushka sat down on a felt mat they had spread out in the sparse shade produced by the carriage and the unharnessed horses and started eating. That agreeable, cheerful thought which had congealed in Father Khristofor’s brain from the heat simply craved expression after he had slaked his thirst with water and eaten a hard-boiled egg. He glanced at Yegorushka affectionately, chewed for a while and began:
‘I was student too, my boy. From my earliest years God endowed me with intelligence and understanding, so that I wasn’t like the others when I was your age and I gladdened my parents’ and tutors’ hearts with my powers of comprehension. Before I was fifteen I already spoke Latin and composed verses in Latin as well as in Russian. As I remember, I was crosier-bearer to Bishop Khristofor. One day after Mass – as I recall it was the name-day of the most pious Tsar Alexander Pavlovich of Blessed Memory – as the bishop was unrobing in the chancel he looked kindly at me and asked, “Puer bone, quam appellaris?” And I replied, “Christophorus sum.”3 And he replied, “Ergo connominati sumus” – that is, we were namesakes, so to speak. Then he asked in Latin whose son I was and I replied – in Latin too – that I was the son of Deacon Siryisky, of Lebedinskoye village. Seeing how quick and lucid my replies were the bishop blessed me and said, “Write and tell your father that I shan’t forget him and that I’ll keep you in mind.” When the priests and holy fathers who were in the chancel heard this exchange in Latin they were not a little surprised either and each one showed his pleasure by praising me. I hadn’t grown whiskers yet, but I could read Latin, French and Greek, I knew philosophy, mathematics, secular history and all the sciences. The Lord gave me the most wondrous memory. I only had to read something once or twice and I knew it by heart. My tutors and patrons were astonished and assumed that I would become an outstanding scholar, a luminary of the church. I did contemplate going to Kiev to continue my studies, but my parents wouldn’t agree to this. “You’ll be studying all your life,” my father said, “so when can we expect to see you again?” Hearing this, I gave up my studies and took up a church appointment. Of course, I never became a scholar – but then, I didn’t disobey my parents. I was a comfort to them in their old age and gave them a decent funeral. Obedience means more than fasting and prayers!’
‘I reckon you must have forgotten every single thing you learnt!’ observed Kuzmichov.
‘And is it surprising? Praise be to God, I’m in my seventies now. I still remember a little bit of philosophy and rhetoric, but I’ve completely forgotten languages and mathematics.’
Father Khristofor screwed up his eyes, reflected for a moment and softly said:
‘What is substance? Substance is an independent entity needing no other for its effectuation!’
He twisted his head round and laughed from emotion.
‘Nourishment for the spirit!’ he said. ‘Verily, matter nourishes the flesh, but spiritual sustenance feeds the soul!’
‘Learning’s all very well,’ sighed Kuzmichov, ‘but we’ll have learned our lessons all right if we don’t catch up with Varlamov!’
‘That man’s not a needle in a haystack, we’ll find him. He’s wandering around somewhere in these parts.’
The familiar three snipe flew over the sedge and in their shrill cries there was a note of alarm and annoyance at having been driven off the stream. The horses steadily champed and whinnied; Deniska bustled around. Trying to demonstrate how completely indifferent he was to the cucumbers, pies and eggs that his masters were eating he embarked upon the slaughter of the horseflies and common flies that were clinging to the horses’ bellies and backs. Uttering peculiar, viciously exultant cries of triumph from deep in his throat, he swatted his victims with gusto and when he missed he grunted with frustration, following with his eyes every single one that was fortunate enough to escape death.