A little later he was standing in the church, leaning his forehead on someone's back—it smelt of hem^—and list^rng to the ^oir. The service was nearly over. He knew nothing about ^urch singing and did not care for it. After listening a while he ya^ed and began examin- ing people's necks and backs. In one head, reddish-bro^ and wet from recent bathing, he recognized Yemelyan. The back of his hair had been cropped in a straight line, higher than was ^al. The hair on his temples had also been cut back higher than it should have been, and Yemelyan's red ears stuck out like two burdock leaves, looking as if they felt out of place. Watching the back ofhis head and ears, the boy somehow felt that Yemdyan must be very unhappy. He remembered the man 'conducting' with his hands, his hoarse voice, his timid look during the bathing, and felt intensely sorry for him. He wanted to say something friendly. 'I'm here too.' He tugged Yemelyan's sleeve.
The tenors and ba»es of a choir, especially those who have ever chanced to conduct, are accustomed to looking at boys in a stem and forbidding way. Nor do they lose the habit even when they come to leave the choir. Turning to Yegorushka, Yemelyan looked at him rancorously and told him not to 'lark around' in church.
Yegorushka next made his way forward, closer to the icon-stand, where he saw some fascinating people. In front, on the right-hand nde, a lady and gentleman stood on a carpet with a chair behind each of them. Wearing a freshly ironed tussore suit, the gentleman stood stock-still like a soldier on parade, and held his bluish, shaved chin aloft. His stiff collar, blue ^rn, bald patch and cane—all conveyed great dignity. From exces of dignity his neck was tensed, and his chin was pulled upward with such force that his head seemed ready to snap off and soar into the air at any moment. As for the lady, she was stout and dderly, and wore a white silk shawl. She inclined her head to one ade, looking as if she had just done someone a favour and wanted to say: 'Don't trouble to th^i me, please—I dislike that sort of thing.' Al round the carpet stood a dense array of locals.
Yegorushka went up to the icon-stand and began kissing the local icons, slowly bowing to the ground before each one, looking back at the congregation without getting up, and then standing to apply his lips. The contact of his forehead with the cold floor was most gratify- ing. When the verger came out of the chancd with a pair of long muffers to put the candles out, the boy jumped quickly up from the floor and ran to him. 'Has the co^munion bread been given out?' he asked.
'There is none,' muttered the verger gruffly. 'And it's no use you '
When the service ^^ over the boy unhuriedly left the church and strolled round the market place. He had seen a good many villages, villagers and village greens in his time, and the present scene hdd no interest for him. Having nothing to do, he called—just to pass the time of day—at a shop with a broad strip of red calico over the door. It consisted of two spacious, badly lit rooms. In one drapery and gro- ceries were sold, while in the other were tubs of tar and horse-collars hanging from the ceiling. From the second room iuued the rich tang of leather and tar. The shop floor had been watered—by some great visionary and original ^^er, evidently, for it was sprinkled with embeUishments and cabbalistic signs. Behind the counter, leaning his stomach on a sort of desk, stood a well upholstered, broad-faced shop- keeper. He had a round beard, obviously came from the north, and was ^^^bg tea through a piece of sugar, sighing after each sip. His face was a mask of indifference, but each sigh seemed to say: just you wait—. You're for it!'
Yegorushka addresed him. 'A copeckworth ofsunflower seed.'
The shopkeeper raised his eyebrows, came out from the counter and poured a copeckworth of s^^ower seed into the boy's pocket, using an empty pomade jar as measure. Not wanting to leave, the boy spent a long time examining the trays of cakes, thought a little, and pointed to some small Vyazma gingerbreads rusty with antiquity. 'How much are those?'
'Two a copeck.'
Yegorushka took from his pocket the honey cake given to him by the Jewes on the previous day. 'How much are cakes like this?'
The shopkeeper took the cake in his hands, e^^^ed it from al sides and raised an eyebrow. 'Like this, eh?'
Then he raised the other eyebrow and thought for a while. 'Two for three copecks.'
Silence e^ed.
'Where do you come from?' The shopkeeper poured himself some tea from a copper teapot.
'I'm Uncle Ivan's nephew.'
'There's aU sorts of Uncle Ivans.' The shopkeeper sighed, glanced at the door over Yegorushka's head, paused a moment, and asked if the boy would 'care for a drop of tea'.
'I might.' Yego^^a made a show of relui^rnce, though he was dying for his usual mo^rng tea.
The shopkeeper poured a glass and gave it to him with a nibbled- looking piece of sugar. Yegorushka sat on a folding chair and drank. He also wanted to ask what a pound of sugared almonds cost, and had just broached the matter when in came a customer, and the shop- keeper put his glass to one side to attend to business. He took the customer into the part of the shop smelling of tar and had a long dis- cussion with ^m. The customer^<vidently a most obstinate man with ideas of his —kept ^^^g his head in disagreement and backing towards the door, but the shopkeeper gained his point and began pouring oats into a large sack for him.
'Cal them oats?' asked the customer mournfully. 'Them ain't oats, they'm chaff. 'Tis enough to make a cat laugh. I'm going to Bon- darenko's, I am.'
When the boy got back to the rivcj a smaU camp-fire was smoking on the bank—the caners were cooking their meal. In the smoke stood Styopka sti^mg the pot with a large, jagged spoon. K.iryukha and Vasya, eyes red from smoke, sat a little to one side, cleaning fish. Before them lay the net, covered with slime and water weeds, and with gleaming fish and crawling cra^^ on it.
Yemelyan had just ret^^ed from church and was sitting next to Panteley, waving his arm and hununing 'We sing to Thee' just audibly in a hoarse voice. Dymov pottered near the horses.
After cleaning the fish Kiryukha and Vasya put them and the live crayfish in the pail, rinsed them, and slopped the lot into boiling water.
'Shall I put in some fat?' asked Styopka, skimming off the froth with his spoon.
'No need—the fish will provide their o^ juice,' replied Kiryukha.
Before taking the pot off the fire Styopka put in three handfuls of millet and a spoonful of salt. Finally he tried it, smacked his lips, licked the spoon and gave a complacent g^t to signify that the stew was cooked.
All except Panteley sat round the pot plying their spoons.
'You there! Give the lad a spoon!' Panteley sternly remarked. 'He's surely hungry too, I reckon.'
' 'Tis plain country fare,' sighed Kiryukha.
'Aye, and it don't come amis ifyou've the relish for it.'
Yegorushka was given a spoon. He started to eat, not sitting downwn but standing near the pot and looking into it as if it was a deep pit. The brew smelt of fishy wetnes, with a fish-scale popping up now and again in the millet. The crayfish slid off their spoons, and so the men simply picked them out of the pot with their hands. Vasya was par- ticularly unconstrained, wetting his sleeves as well as his hands in the stew. Yet it tasted very good to Yegorushka, reminding him of the crayfish soup that his mother cooked at home on fast-days. Panteley sat to one side chewing bread.
'Why don't you eat, old 'un?' Yemelyan asked him.
The old man ^raed squeamishly aside. 'I eat crayfish, rot 'em!'
During the meal general conversation took place. From this Yego- rushka gathered that, despite differences of age and temper^ent, his new acquaintances al had one thing in common—each had a glorious past and a most unenviable present. To a man, they all spoke of their past enthusiastically, but their view of the present was almost con- temptuous. Your Russian prefers talking about his life to living it. But the boy had yet to le^ this, and before the stew was finished he fi.rmly believed that those sitting round the pot were injured victims of fate. Panteley told how, in the old days before the railway, he had served on wagon convoys to Moscow and Nizhny Novgorod, and had earned so much that he hadn't knownwn what to do with his money. And what merchants there had been in those days! What fish! How cheap everything was! But now the roads had shr^^, the merchants were stingier, the co^rnon folk were poorer, bread was dearer, and eve^^mg had di^^shed and dwindled exceedingly. Yemelyan said that he had once been in the choir at Lugansk, had possessed a remark- able voice, and had read music excellently, but had now become a b^pkin living on the charity of his brother, who sent him out with his horses and took half his earnings. Vasya had worked in his match factory. Kiryukha had been a coachman to a good family, and had been rated the best troika driver in the district. Dymov, son of a well- t^Jo peasant, had enjoyed hi^^lf and had a good ^me without a care in the world. But when he wasjust twenty his stem, harsh father— wanting to teach him the job and afraid of his becoming spoilt at hom^—had begun sending him out on carer's work like a por peasant or hired labourer. Only Styopka said nothing, but you could tell from his clean-shaven face that for him too the past had b^ far better than the present.