Without taking his eyes off Panteley and apparently afraid he might start his next story without him, Styopka ran over to the wagons; soon he returned with a small wooden bowl and started rubbing the pork fat in it.
‘Another time I was travelling – with a merchant, too,’ Panteley continued in the same undertone and without blinking. ‘As I remember now, his name was Pyotr Grigorych. A decent man, he was… that merchant, like. We put up at an inn, same as before, him in a room and me with the horses… The landlord and his wife seemed honest, kind folk all right – and the workers, too. But lads, I just couldn’t get to sleep – I had a funny feeling and that was enough! The gates were open, lots of folk were around, but I fair had the creeps, didn’t feel right at all. Now, everyone had long gone to bed… it was dead of night and soon it would be time to be getting up. There was I, lying all on me own in the carriage without closing me eyes – just like an owl. Then all of a sudden, lads, I hear a tapping – someone was creeping up to the carriage. I pokes me head out and sees a woman in just a shift, with nothing on her feet. “What do you want, me dear?” I asks. She was shaking all over – in a terrible state she was! “Get up, good man!” she says. “There’s trouble… The master and his wife are up to no good. They want to do your merchant in. I heard the master and his wife whispering together – with my own ears I did.” Well, my heart hadn’t been aching for nothing! “And who might you be?” I ask. “I’m the cook.” Fine. So I climb out of the carriage and go to the merchant’s room. I wake him up and say, “Right, Pyotr Grigorych, there’s something a bit fishy round here. You can catch up on your sleep later, sir, but get dressed now while there’s time, so we can escape from evil while the going’s good!” But the moment he started putting on his clothes the door opened and lo and behold! – Holy Mother of God! – into the room come the innkeeper and his wife, with three labourers. So the labourers was in it too! “That merchant’s got pots of money, so let’s share it out,” says the innkeeper. All five had long knives… yes, a knife each. The innkeeper locks the door and says, “Say your prayers, travellers… But if you start yelling we won’t let you finish them before you die.” But how could we shout? Our throats were choking with fear, we weren’t up to shouting then. The merchant bursts into tears and says, “Good Christians! You’ve decided to kill me because you’ve taken a fancy to my money. So be it. I’m not the first and I won’t be the last. A lot of my fellow merchants have been murdered at inns like these. But why kill my coachman, good Christians? Why should he suffer because of my money?” And he says it all so pitiful, like! But the innkeeper replies, “If we spare his life he’ll be the first to witness against us. It makes no difference whether we kill one or two – as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb, I say. So, say your prayers, that’s all – no point in talking any more!” Me and the merchant kneels down side by side, both of us weeping and we starts saying our prayers. The merchant was thinking of his children but I was still young then, I wanted to live… We look at the icon and we pray – oh, such a sorry sight it was – makes me weep even now! But the innkeeper’s wife just looks at us and says, “You’re nice people, so don’t hold it against us in the next world and don’t you go begging God to come down hard on us – we’re only doing this because we need the money.” We pray and pray, weep and weep – and God hears us. He took pity, like… So, just as the innkeeper grabs the merchant’s beard to slit his throat there’s suddenly one hell of a banging on the window from outside. We all quake in our boots and the innkeeper’s arms dropped. Someone was banging and shouting, “Pyotry Grigorych! Are you there? Get ready, it’s time to go!” When they saw someone had come for the merchant they all panicked and took to their heels. Well, we dashed into the yard, harnessed the horses and you couldn’t see us for dust!’
‘Who was that banging on the window?’ asked Dymov.
‘At the window? Must’ve been a saint or an angel, I reckons, as there was no one else about. When we drove out of the yard there wasn’t a soul in the street. It was all God’s doing!’
Panteley told a few more stories: all of them featured those same long knives and all were rich in flights of fancy. Had he heard these yarns from someone else? Or had he invented them himself in the remote past and then, when his memory grew weaker, began to confuse fact and fiction and could no longer tell one from the other? Anything was possible, but the strange thing was that now and throughout the journey whenever he happened to tell a story he showed a strong preference for fiction and never spoke about what he had actually experienced. Yegorushka took everything at face value and believed every word; but later he found it most odd that a man who in his time had travelled the length and breadth of Russia, who had seen and known so much, a man whose wife and children had been burnt to death, could think so little of his eventful life that whenever he was sitting by the camp fire he would either say nothing about it or talk about what had never even existed.
Over the stew everyone silently reflected on what they had just heard. Life really is frightening and full of marvels, so that however terrifying the stories you may tell in Russia, however much you may embroider them with bandits’ dens, long knives and suchlike wonders, they will always strike your listeners as if they were true. Only someone highly skilled in interpretation will look on them sceptically and even he will not make any comment. The wayside cross, the dark bales, the wide expanse of steppe and the destinies of those gathered around the camp fire – all this was in itself so marvellous and terrifying that all that was fantastic about legends and folk-tales paled and could not be distinguished from real life.
Everyone ate from the pot, but Panteley sat on his own, away from the others, eating his stew from a wooden bowl. His spoon was different from the others and was made of cypress wood with a little cross at the end. As Yegorushka looked at him he remembered the lamp-glass.
‘Why is grandpa sitting on his own?’ he quietly asked Styopka.
‘He’s an Old Believer,’20 Styopka and Vasya whispered in reply, looking as if they’d just mentioned some weakness or secret vice.
All of them sat in silence, engrossed in their own thoughts. After all those hair-raising stories no one felt inclined to talk about ordinary matters. Suddenly, in the silence, Vasya sat bolt upright, fixed his lacklustre eyes on some invisible point and pricked his ears up.
‘What is it?’ asked Dymov.
‘Someone’s coming,’ Vasya replied.
‘Where is he?’
‘He’s over there! I can just make out his dim white shape.’
Where Vasya was looking there was nothing but darkness. All of them listened hard, but they could hear no footsteps.
‘Is he coming along the road?’ asked Dymov.
‘No, across the fields. He’s coming towards us.’
A minute passed in silence.
‘Perhaps it’s the merchant what’s buried here, haunting the steppe,’ said Dymov.
Everyone cast a sidelong glance at the cross, looked at each other and suddenly burst out laughing – they were ashamed of being so scared.
‘Why should he go haunting?’ Panteley asked. ‘Only them what the earth rejects wander around of nights. Now them merchants were a good lot… they received a martyr’s crown… them merchants…’
But then footsteps were heard. Someone was hurrying towards them.
‘He’s carrying something,’ Vasya said.
They could hear the dry grass rustle under the walker’s feet and the tall weeds crackle, but in the glare of the fire nothing was visible. At last the footsteps sounded close by, someone coughed. The flickering light seemed to withdraw, a veil slipped from their eyes and the drivers suddenly saw a man standing before them.