Tlte old man even spoke as if he was frozen, spacing out the words and not opening his mouth properly. He mispronounced his labial consonants, stuttering on them as if his lips were swollen. When addressing Yegorushka he did not smile once, and seemed severe.
Three wagons ahead of them walked a man in a long reddish-brownwn topcoat, carrying a whip. He wore a peaked cap and riding boots with sagging tops. He was not old^^nly about forty. When he ^roed round the boy saw a long red face with a thin goatee and a spongy swelling undcr the right eye. Besides this hideous swelling he had another specially striking peculiarity—while holding the whip in his left hand, he s-wung the right as if conducting an ^^en choir. Occa- sionally he tucked the whip under his arm and conducted with both hands, humming to hi^^lf.
The next caner was a tal upstanding fi^-e with noticeably sloping shoulders and a back as flat as a board. He hdd hi^^lf erect as if he was marching or had swallowed a ramrod, his arms not s^uging but hanging straight do^ like sticks as he walked in a sort of clockwork fashion like a toy soldicr, scarcely bcnding his knees and trying to take the longest stride pouible. Where the old man or the o-wner of the spongy swelling took two steps he contrived to take only one, so that he seemed to be moving more slowly than anyone and to be falling behind. His face was bound with a piece of cloth, and on his head sprouted something resembling a monk's cap. He was dressed in a short Ukrainian coat all covered with patches and in dark bluc oriental trousers over bast shoes.
Yegorushka could not make out the more distant carters. He lay on his stomach, picked a hole in his bale, and began twisting some wool into threads, having nothing better to do. The old man striding away below turned out less severe and serious than his face suggested. Having started a conversation he did not let it drop.
'Where are you going, then?' he asked, stamping his feet.
'To school,' answered Yegorushka.
'To school? Aha! Well, may Our Blessed Lady help you! Aye, one brain's good, but two is better. God gives one man one brain, and another man two brains, and another gets three, that's for sure. One's the brain you're born with, another comes from learning, and the third from living a good life. So it's a good thing for a man to have three brains, son. Living's easier for him, it is, and so is dying too. Dying—aye, we'll al of us come to it.'
After scratching his forehead the old man looked up, red-eyed, at Yegorushka, and went on. 'Maxim Nikolayevich, the squire from down Slavyanoserbsk way—he took his lad to school last year, he did. I don't know what he might be like in the book-lea^rng line, but he's a good, decent lad, he is. And may God prosper them, the fine gentle- folk that they be. Aye, so he takes the lad to school, like you, since they don't have no establislment—not for learning proper, like—in them parts, that they don't. But it's a good, decent to^. There's an ordinary school for the common folk, but for them as wants to be scholars there ain't nothing, there ain't. What's your name?'
'Yegorushka.'
'Yegorushka—"George", properly speaking. So your name-day's the twenty-third of April, seeing as how that's the day of the holy martyr St. Georgie-Porgie what killed the Dragon. Now, my name's Panteley—Panteley Kholodov. Aye, Kholodov's the name. I come from Tim in Kursk County myself, you may have heard tell of it. My brothers registered themselves as to^sfolk—they're craftsmen in the town, they are. But I'm a countryman, and a countryman I've remained. Seven years ago I visited there, home that is. I've been in my village and in the town—in Tim, I've been, say I. They were all alive and well then, thank God, but I don't know about now. A few ofthem may have died. And time it is for them to die—they're all old, and some is older than me. Death's all right, nothing wrong with it. But you mustn't die without repenting, stands to reason. Ain't nothing worse than dying contumacious-o—oh, it's a joy to the devil is a contumacious death. But if you want to die penitent, so they won't forbid you to enter the mansions of the Lord like, you pray to the martyred St. Barbara. She'll intercede for you, she will, you take it from me. That's her place in heaven that God gave her so everyone should have the right to pray to her for repentance, see?' ri?anteley muttered away, obviously not caring whether the boy heard him or not. He spoke listlessly, mumbling to himself, neither raising nor dropping his voice, but managing to say a great deal in a short time. His talk, all fragmentary and largely incoherent, lacked any interest for Yegorushka. Perhaps he spoke only to call the roll of his idcas—make sure that all were present and correct after tKe nlĝEt .spent in silence. Having finishe d talking about repentance, he went ott again about tnis Maxim Nikolayevich from do^ Slavyanoserbsk way. 'Yes, he took the lad to school, he did, true enough.'
One of the carters walking far in front gave a sudden lurch, darted to one side, and began lashing the ground with his whip. He was a burly, broad-shouldered man of about thirty, with fair, curly hair and a healthy, vigorous look. From the motions of his shoulders and whip, from the eagerness of his posture, he was beating some live creature. A second carter ran up--a short, thick-set fellow with a full black beard, in a waistcoat with his shirt outside his trousers. He broke out in a deep, coughing laugh. 'Dymov has killed a snake, lads, as God's my witnes.'
There are people whose intellect can be accurately gauged from their voice and laugh, and it was to this lucky category that the black- bearded man belonged, his voice and laugh betraying abysmal stupidity. The fair-haired Dymov had stopped lashing, picked his whip from the ground and laughed as he hurled something resembling a bit of rope towards the carts.
'It ain't a viper, 'tis a grass snake,' someone shouted.
The man with the clockwork stride and bandaged face quickly strode up to the dead snake, glanced at it and tlrew up his stick-like arms. 'You rotten scum!' he shouted in a hollow, tearful voice. 'Why kill the little grass snake? What had he done to you, damn you? Hey, he's killed a grass snake! How would you like to be treated like that?'
'Grau snakes oughtn't to be killed, that's true enough,' muttered
Panteley placidly. 'It ain't a viper. Look like a snake it may, but 'tis a quiet, innocent creature. A friend of man, it be, your grass snake '
Dymov and the black-bearded man were probably ashamed, for they gave loud laughs and sauntered back to their wagons without answering these grumbles. When the hindmost wagon drew level with the place where the dead grass snake lay, the man with the ban- daged face stood over the creature and addressed Pameley. 'Now, why did he kill the grass snake, old man?' he inquired plaintively.
Yegoruslka could now see that the speaker's eyes were small and lack-lustre. His face looked grey and sickly, also seeming lustreless, while his chin was red, appearing extremely swollen.
'Now, why did he kill the grass snake?' he repeated, striding by Panteley's side.
'A fool has itchy hands, that's why,' the old man said. 'But you shouldn't kill a grass snake, true enough. He's a trouble-maker is that Dymov, see, he'll kill anything that comes his way. But Ki^^kha didn't stop him when he should have, but just stood there a-chuckling and a-cackling. Don't take on, though, Vasya, don't let it anger you. They killed it, but never mind. Dymov's a mischief-maker and Ki^^kha's just silly like. No matter. Folks are stupid, folks don't understand, so let them be. Now, Yemelyan won't never touch any- thing he shouldn't. Never, that's true enough, seeing as how he's educated and they're stupid. He won't touch anything, not Yemelyan wont.'
The carter with the reddish-bro^ topcoat and the spongy swelling —the one who liked conducting the unseen choir—stopped when he heard his name spoken, waited for Panteley and Vasya to catch up, and fell in beside them. 'What are you on about?' he asked in a hoarse, strangled voice.