‘Where are you going?’ he asked as he stamped along.
‘To school,’ replied Yegorushka.
‘To school? Aha… well… Our dear Blessed Lady succour us! Well now, one brain’s good, but two’s better. God gives one man one brain, another two and another gets three… yes, another gets three and that’s a fact… One brain you’re born with, the second comes from studying and the third from living a good life. So, lad, it’s a good thing if a man has three brains. It not only makes living easier, but dying too. Oh yes, dying… We’re all going to die!’
The old man scratched his forehead, looked up red-eyed at Yegorushka, and continued, ‘Last year Maxim Nikolayevich, a gent from Slavyanoserbsk,11 took his young lad off to school too. I don’t know how good he is at learning, like, but he’s a good honest boy. God grant both of them health – they’re fine gentlefolk, that they are. Yes, he took his boy off to school, too… But there ain’t no establishment in Slavyanoserbsk as can teach you proper book learning like… No, that there ain’t. But it’s a nice town, nothing wrong with it… It’s only an ordernary school, for simple folk, but there just ain’t none there that teach the higher sort of learning. No, there ain’t… that’s a fact. What’s your name?’
‘Yegorushka.’
‘Yegory – so you’re a Georgy! Your name-day must be 23 April, same as St George the Dragon-Killer. My Christian name’s Panteley… I’m called Panteley Zakharov Kholodov… Yes, we’re all of us Kholodovs… As you may’ve heard tell, I hail from Tim,12 in Kursk province. My brothers got thesselves on the town register, working as craftsmen. But I’m a plain peasant. And peasant I’ve been ever since. Seven years ago I went there… home, I mean. I’ve lived in the village as well as the town… As I says, I was in Tim. Thank God we were all alive and well then, but I’m not so sure about now. Perhaps someone’s died. And it’s high time they did, ’cos they’re old, all of them – there’s some what’s older than me. Death’s nothing to worry about, it’s a good thing, but only if you don’t go dying without repenting of your sins. An impenitent death is the devil’s delight. And if you want to die having repented of your sins, so that the mansions of the Lord are not forbidden you, you must pray to the Holy Martyr St Barbara,13 who intercedes for all of us. Yes she does – and that’s a fact… ’cos God’s given her a special place in heaven, so everyone has the full right to pray to her about penitence.’
Panteley rambled on and apparently wasn’t bothered whether Yegorushka heard him or not. He spoke sluggishly, mumbling to himself and without lowering or raising his voice, yet he managed to say quite a lot in a short time. Everything he said consisted of fragments that had very little connection with each other and which were completely devoid of interest for Yegorushka. Perhaps – on the morning after a night spent in silence – he was only talking because he wanted to make a roll-call of his thoughts, out loud, so that he could check that they were all present and correct. When he had finished with repentance he carried on with Maxim Nikolayevich from Slavyanoserbsk:
‘Yes, he took his lad to school… yes, he did – that’s a fact…’
One of the wagon drivers who was walking a long way ahead suddenly darted to one side and started lashing the ground with his whip. He was a sturdy, broad-shouldered man of about thirty with fair curly hair and clearly very strong and robust. Judging from the movements of his shoulders and his whip, from the eager way he stood there, he was lashing some living creature. A second driver, a short, thick-set man with a bushy black beard, his waistcoat and shirt outside his trousers, ran over to him and broke into a deep spluttering laugh:
‘Look, lads, Dymov’s killed a viper. I swear it!’
There are some people whose brain-power can be accurately gauged from their voice and the way they laugh. The black-bearded wagon driver was just one of those fortunates: both his voice and laugh betrayed utter stupidity. When he had finished lashing, fair-headed Dymov raised the whip from the ground and laughingly hurled something resembling a length of rope towards the wagons.
‘That’s no viper, it’s a grass-snake,’ someone shouted.
The man with the bandaged face and clockwork walk quickly strode over to the dead snake, looked at it and threw up his stick-like arms.
‘You rotten bastard!’ he cried in a hollow, tearful voice. ‘Why did you have to kill a grass-snake? What harm has it done you, blast you! Ugh, killing a little grass-snake! What if someone did that to you?’
‘You oughtn’t kill grass-snakes – that’s a fact…’ Panteley calmly remarked. ‘It’s wicked… And that ain’t no viper. It may look like one, but it’s a harmless, innocent creature. It’s man’s friend… that grass-snake, like…’
Dymov and the black-bearded driver must have felt ashamed, for they laughed out loud and lazily strolled back to their wagons without answering the grumbles. When the last wagon had come up to the spot where the dead snake was lying the driver with the bandaged face stood over it, turned to Panteley and tearfully inquired, ‘Tell me, grandad, why did he have to go and kill that snake?’
As Yegorushka could now clearly see, his eyes were small and dull, his face grey and sickly and seemingly lustreless too, while his chin was red and looked badly swollen.
‘Tell me, grandpa, why did he kill it?’ he repeated, striding along with Panteley.
‘’Cos he’s stupid and he’s got itchy hands – that’s why he killed it,’ replied the old man. ‘Yes, it’s wrong to kill grass-snakes – that’s a fact. You know, Dymov’s a real trouble-maker, he’ll kill anything he can get his hands on. But Kiryukha didn’t do nothing to stop him, like he ought to ’ave done. All he did was cackle and snigger. Now, don’t you get angry, Vasya. Why get angry? They killed it… so to hell with them. Dymov’s a trouble-maker and Kiryukha’s plain stupid… Now, don’t worry… Folks is stupid, they don’t understand, so to hell with them. Now, take Yemelyan – he wouldn’t hurt a fly – never… that’s a fact. ’Cos he’s an educated man and they’re stupid… That Yemelyan, like… wouldn’t hurt a fly.’
Hearing his name, the driver in the reddish-brown coat and with the spongy swelling who had been conducting those invisible choirs stopped, waited for Panteley and Vasya to draw level, and walked along with them.
‘What’s all this about?’ he asked in a hoarse, strangled voice.
‘Vasya’s real fuming,’ Panteley said. ‘I told him a few things so he wouldn’t get angry, like… Oh, me poor ole feet, they’re frozen stiff! Ah-ah! They’re hurting like mad ’cos it’s Sunday, the Lord’s day!’
‘It’s from all that walking,’ observed Vasya.
‘No, lad, it’s not the walking. It’s easier when I walk, but it fair kills me when I lies in bed and gets warm. No, it’s better when I walk.’
Yemelyan, in his reddish-brown coat, positioned himself between Panteley and Vasya and waved his arms as if those two were about to sing. After a few flourishes he dropped them and grunted despairingly.
‘Me voice ‘as gone!’ he said. ‘It’s a real calamerty! All last night and all morning I seem to ’ave been hearing that triple “Lord have mercy” that we sang at the Marinovsky wedding. It’s in me ‘ead and in me gullet. I feel like I could sing it, but I’m just not up to it! I ain’t got no voice!’
He silently pondered for a while and then continued, ‘Fifteen years I was in the choir, I don’t think no one ‘ad a better voice than me in the whole Lugansk14 factory. But I was darned stupid enough to go swimming two year ago in the Donets15 and I ain’t been able to sing one note proper ever since. Caught a chill in me gullet… And without me voice I’m as good as a workman with no ’ands.’