The stranger’s cheeks puffed out even more. He flattened his back against a rock, opened his eyes wide, moved his lips and replied huskily, ‘Titus.’
The boys said nothing more to each other. After another silence and without taking his eyes off Yegorushka, the mysterious Titus hauled one leg up, felt around with his heel for a point of support and scrambled up the rock. From there, staring at Yegorushka as he retreated and apparently afraid he might be struck from behind, he clambered up onto the next rock and carried on climbing until he disappeared altogether over the crest of the hill.
As he followed him with his eyes Yegorushka clasped his knees and lowered his head. The sun’s burning rays were scorching the nape of his neck and his back. Now that doleful song would die away and then waft towards him in the stagnant, sultry air; the stream gurgled monotonously, the horses champed and time seemed to be dragging on endlessly, as if it too had congealed and come to a stop. A hundred years seemed to have passed since morning… Was it not God’s wish that Yegorushka, the carriage and the horses should become transfixed in that air, turn to stone like the hills and remain in that same place for eternity?
Yegorushka raised his head and looked ahead with glazed eyes. The lilac distance which until then had been motionless suddenly gave a wild lurch and together with the sky raced somewhere even further off. It dragged the brown grass and sedge after it and Yegorushka was whisked away with extraordinary speed in the wake of the fast-receding distance. Some mysterious force was silently bearing him somewhere and the stifling heat and that wearisome song were following in hot pursuit. Yegorushka bowed his head and closed his eyes.
Deniska was first to awake. Something had bitten him, because he jumped up, quickly scratched his shoulder and muttered, ‘You rotten brute, damn and blast you!’
Then he went to the stream, slaked his thirst and took a long time to wash himself. His snorting and splashing roused Yegorushka from his drowsiness. The boy looked at Deniska’s wet face covered with drops of water and large freckles, which created a marbled effect, and asked, ‘Are we leaving soon?’
Deniska looked up to see how high the sun was.
‘Shouldn’t be long,’ he replied.
He dried himself on his shirt-tail, assumed a very solemn expression and started hopping about on one foot.
‘Come on, I’ll race you to the sedge!’ he said.
Although Yegorushka was utterly exhausted by the heat and drowsiness he still hopped after him. Deniska was about twenty and employed as a coachman. He was intending to get married – but he behaved like a little boy. He adored flying kites, racing pigeons, playing knucklebones and tag, and was always getting involved in children’s games and quarrels. His masters had only to go out or fall asleep for him to start amusing himself with some sport such as hopping on one foot or throwing stones. Every adult, on seeing the genuine enthusiasm with which he romped about in children’s company, found it hard to refrain from commenting ‘What an oaf!’ But children found nothing strange in this invasion of their domain by the big coachman: ‘He can play with us as long as he doesn’t start fighting!’ they would say. Similarly, small dogs don’t find it at all strange when large, well-meaning dogs intrude on them and start playing with them.
Deniska outstripped Yegorushka and this evidently gave him great satisfaction. He winked and to prove that he could hop on one foot over any distance suggested that Yegorushka hop with him along the road and back to the carriage without stopping.
Yegorushka declined this proposal, since he was already feeling terribly weak and breathless.
Suddenly Deniska pulled an extremely grave face – something he didn’t do even when Kuzmichov gave him a severe telling-off or brandished his stick at him. Listening hard, he slowly went down on one knee and his face took on that fearful, stern expression that people display when they hear heretical talk. He fixed his eyes on one spot, slowly raised his hands above his wrists in the form of a scoop and then suddenly dropped on his stomach and clapped his hands together.
‘Got him!’ he cried in a husky, exultant voice, stood up and placed a large grasshopper before Yegorushka’s eyes. Convinced that this must be enjoyable for the grasshopper, Yegorushka and Deniska stroked its broad green back with their fingers and touched its whiskers. Then Deniska caught a fat fly that had gorged itself on blood and offered it to the grasshopper. With the utmost nonchalance, as if it had been friends with Deniska for a very long time, the grasshopper moved its large visor-like jaws and bit off the fly’s belly. Then they released the grasshopper and the pink lining of its wings glittered as it settled in the grass and immediately began trilling its song. They released the fly too; it preened its wings and flew off towards the horses minus its belly.
A deep sigh came from under the carriage. Kuzmichov had woken up. He quickly raised his head, anxiously peered into the distance and one could tell from his glance, which indifferently by-passed both Yegorushka and Deniska, that his first thoughts on waking were about wool and Varlamov.
‘Get up, Father Khristofor! It’s time to go!’ he said in alarm. ‘You’ve slept enough – we’ve probably missed out on the deal now anyway. Deniska! Harness the horses!’
Father Khristofor awoke with the same smile as when he had fallen asleep. His face was crumpled and wrinkled from sleep and seemed half its normal size. After washing and dressing he unhurriedly took a small soiled psalter from his pocket, turned his face to the east and started reading in a whisper and crossing himself.
‘Father Khristofor!’ Kuzmichov said reproachfully. ‘It’s time to go, the horses are ready, but you… for heaven’s sake!’
‘Won’t be long,’ Father Khristofor muttered. ‘I must read today’s portion of the Psalms first – I didn’t get round to it earlier.’
‘Your psalms can wait!’
‘Ivan Ivanych, I have to read a portion every day. I mustn’t neglect it.’
‘God won’t call you to account for it.’
For a full quarter of an hour Father Khristofor stood still, facing the east and moving his lips, while Kuzmichov looked at him almost with loathing and kept impatiently twitching his shoulders. He was particularly incensed when after each ‘Glory’ Father Khristofor took a deep breath, quickly crossed himself and repeated three times in a deliberately loud voice so that the others had to cross themselves as welclass="underline"
‘Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah, Glory to Thee, Oh Lord!’
Finally he smiled, glanced up at the sky, put the psalter back in his pocket and said, ‘Fini!’
A minute later the carriage moved off. It was just as if it were travelling backwards, not forwards, for the passengers saw the same scenes as in the morning. The hills were still sinking in the lilac distance and there seemed no end to them. There were fleeting glimpses of tall grass and small stones, strips of stubble flashed by and those same rooks, together with a kite which was steadily flapping its wings, flew over the steppe. The air became even more immobile from the heat and the silence, and submissive nature was numbed in that deathly hush. No wind, not one bright fresh sound, not even one small cloud.
But now at last, when the sun was sinking in the west, the steppe, the hills and the air could bear the oppressiveness no more: exhausted, all patience gone, they endeavoured to cast off the yoke. From beyond the hills there suddenly appeared an ash-grey, fleecy cloud. It exchanged glances with the steppe, said ‘I’m ready’, and frowned. All of a sudden something seemed to snap in the stagnant air, there was a violent gust and the wind whirled over the steppe, whistling and roaring. At once the grass and last year’s weeds began to murmur, while along the road dust eddied and spiralled, raced over the steppe and, drawing after it straw, dragonflies and feathers, soared towards the heavens in a black rotating column and darkened the sun. Far and wide over the steppe dashed tumbleweeds, stumbling and leaping; one of them, caught up in the whirlwind, span round and round like a bird and flew into the sky, where it turned into a black speck and vanished from sight. A second, then a third sailed after it and Yegorushka could see two of them colliding in the azure heights and grappling like wrestlers.