Yemelyan ret^ed the other's angry glare. 'Why pick on me?'
'To teach you not to dip in the pot before others. Who do you think you are?'
'You're a fool, that's all I can say,' wheezed Yemelyan.
Knowing from experience how such conversations usually ended, Panteley and Vasya intervened, urging Dymov to stop picking a quarel.
'You—sing in a choir!' The irrepressible bully laughed derisively. 'Anyone ^ sing like that, rot you—sitting in the church porch a-<:hanting of your "Alms for Christ's sake!" '
Yemelyan said nothing. His silence exasperated Dymov, who looked at the ex-<:horister with even greater hatred. 'I don't want to soil me hands, or I'd teach you not to be so stuck up.'
Yemelyan flared up. 'Why pick on me, you ^^rn? What have I done to you?'
'What did you call me?' Dymov straightened up, his eyes blood- shot. 'What was that? Scum, eh? Very well—now you ^ go and look for that!'
He snatched the spoon from Yemelyan's hands and hurled it far to one side. Kir^^ha, Vasya and Styopka jumped up and went to look for it, while Yemelyan fixed an imploring and questioning look on Panteley. His face suddenly s^^mg, the former chorister frownwned, blinked and wept like a baby.
Yegorushka, who had long hated Dymov, felt as if he had started to choke, and the flames of the fire scorched his face. He wanted to ^m quickly into the darkness by the wagons, but the bully's spiteful, bored eyes had a magnetic effect. Longing to say something exceedingly offensive, the boy took a step towards Dymov. 'You're the worst of the lot,' he panted. 'I can't stand you!'
That was when he should have to the wagons, but he seemed rooted to the spot. 'You will burn in heU in the next world,' he con- tinued. 'I'm going to tell Uncle Ivan about you. How dare you insult Yemelyan?'
'Now, ain't that a nice surprise, I must say!' Dymov laughed. 'A little swine, what ain't dry behind the ears, a-laying do^wn the law! Want a clip on the ear-'ole?'
The boy felt as if there was no air to breathe. He suddenly shivered all over and stamped his feet, something that had never happened to him before.
'Hit him, hit ^m!' he yelled in a piercing voice. Tears spurted from his eyes, he felt ashamed and he ran staggering to the wagons. What impresion his outburst produced he did not see. 'Mother, Mother!' he whispered, lying on the bale, weeping, jerking his arms and legs.
The men, the shadows round the camp-fire, the dark bales and the distant lightning flashing far away every minute—it all seemed so inĥnman and terrifying now. He was horrified, wondering in his despair how and why he had landed in this unkno^ land in the com- pany ofthese awful peasants. Where were his uncle, Father Christopher and Deniska? Why were they so long in coming? Could they have forgotten ^m? To be forgotten and abandoned to the whim of fate— the thought so chilled and scared him that he several times felt like jumping off the bale and ^^ing headlong back along the road with- out looking behind him. What stopped him was the memory of those grim, dark crosses that he was bound to meet on his way, and also the distant lightning flashes. Only when he whispered 'Mother, Mother!' did he feel a little better.
The carters must have been scared too. After the boy had run from the fire they said nothing for a while, and then spoke of something in hollow undertones, saying that 'it' was on its way, and that they must h^^ up and get ready to escape it. They quickly fmished supper, put out the fire and began hitching up the horses in silence. Their agitation and staccato speech showed that they foresaw some disaster.
Before they started off Dymov went up to Pantcley. 'What's his n^e?' he asked quietly.
'Yegorwlka,' ^^ered Panteley.
Dymov put one foot on a wheel, seized the cord round a bale and hoisted himself. The boy saw his &ce and curly head—the face looked pale, weary and grave, but no longer spiteful. 'Hey, boy!' he said quietly. 'Go on, hit me!'
Yegorushka looked at him in amazement, and at that moment there was a flash of lightning.
'It's all right, hit me!' continucd Dymov. Without waiting to sec whether the boy would hit him or talk to ^m, he j^ped downwn. 'I'm bored,' he said. Then, rolling from side to side and working his shoulder-blades, he slowly strolled downwn the wagon line.
'God, I'm bored,' he repeated in a tone half plaintive, half irritated. 'No offence, old son,' hc said as he passed Yemelyan. 'It's ^el hard, our life.'
Lightning flashed on the right, and immediately flashed again far away, as ifreflected in a mirror.
'Take this, boy,' shouted Pantdey, handing up something large and dark from below.
'What is it?' asked Yegorus^a.
'Some matting. Put it over you when it rains.'
The boy sat up and looked around. It had grownwn noticeably blacker in the distance, with the pale light now winking more than once a minute. The blackness was veering to the right as if puled by its weight.
'Will there be a storm, Grandad?' asked the boy.
'Oh, my poor feet, they're so cold,' intoned Pantdey, not hearing him and stamping his feet.
On the left, as if a match had been struck on the sky, a pale phos- phorescent stripe gleamed and faded. Very far away someone was heard walking up and down on an iron roof—barefoot, presumably, because the iron gave out a hollow runible.
'Looks like a real old downpour,' shouted Kiryukha.
Far away, bcyond the horizon on the right, flashcd lightning so vivid that it lit up part of the steppe and the place where the clear sky met the black. An appalling cloud was moving up unhuriedly—a great hulk with large black shreds hanging on its rim. Similar shreds prcssed against each other, looming on the horizon to right and left. The jagged, tattered-looking cloud had a rather drunken and dis- orderly air. There was a clearly enunciated clap ofthunder. Yegorushka crossed himself, and quickly put on his overcoat.
'Real bored, I am.' Dymov's shout carried from the leading wagons, his tone showing that his bad temper was ret^^mg. 'Bored.'
There was a sudden squall ofwind so violent that it nearly snatched the boy's bundle and matting off him. '^fapping, tearing in all direc- tions, the mat slapped the bale and Yegorushka's face. The wind careered whistling over the steppe, swerving chaotically and raising such a din in the grau that it drownwned the thunder and creak of wagon wheels. It was blowing from the black thunderhead, bearing dust clouds, and the smell of rain and damp earth. The moon misted over, seeming dirtier, the stars grew di^mer still, dust clouds and their shadows were seen ^^^ing off somewhere back along the edge of the road. Eddying and drawing dust, dry gras and feathers from the ground, whirl^mds soared right into the upper heavens, it seemed. Uprooted plants must be flying around close by the blackest thunder- head, and how terrified they must feel! But dust clogged the eyes, blanking out eve^^ng except the lightning flashes.
^inHng the rain was just about to pour downwn, the boy knelt up and covered himself with his mat. From in front came a shout of 'Panteley', followed by some incomprehensible booming syllables.
'I ^'t hear!' loudly intoned Panteley in response, and the voice boomed out again.
An enraged clap of thunder rolled across the sky from right to left and then back again, dying away near the leading wagons.
'Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of Sabaoth,' whispered Yegorushka, crouing himself. 'Heaven and earth are full of thy glory.'
The sky's blacknes gaped, breathing white fire, and at once there was another thunderclap. Barely had it died away when there was a flash of lightning so broad that the boy could see the whole road into the far distance, all the carters and even Kiryukha's waistcoat through the cracks in the matting. The black tatters on the left were already soaring aloft, and one of them—cmde, clumsy, a paw with fingers— reached out towards the moon. Yegorushka decided to shut his eyes tightly, pay no attention and wait for it all to end.