Beyond the cemetery were the smoking brickyards. From long thatched roofs, huddling close to the ground, great puffs of thick black smoke rose and floated lazily upwards. The sky above the brickyards and cemetery was dark, and the great shadows of the smoke clouds crept over the fields and across the road. In the smoke ncar the roofs moved people and horses covered with red dust.
With the brickyards the town ended and open country began. Ycgorushka took a last look back at the to\wn, pressed his face against Dcniska's elbow and wept bitterly.
'What, still howling, you old cry-baby?' asked Kuzmichov. 'Still snivelling, you mother's darling. If you don't want to come, stay bchind—nobody's forcing you.'
'Never mind, Yegorushka, old son, it's all right,' Father Christopher rapidly muttered. 'Never mind, my boy. Call on God, for you seek not evil but good. Learning is light, they say, and ignorance is darkness. Verily it is so.'
'Do you want to go back?' Kuzmichov asked.
'Yes, I d-do,' sobbed the boy.
'Then you may as well. There's no point in your coming anyway— it's a complete fool's errand.'
'Never mind, son,' Father Christopher went on. 'Call on God. Lomonosov once travelled just like this with the fishermen, and he became famous throughout Europe. Le;arning conjoined with faith yields fruit pleasing to God. What does the prayer say? "For the glory of the Creator, for our parents' comfort, for the benefit of church and country.'' That's the way of it.'
'There's various kinds of benefit.' Kuzmichov lit a cheap cigar. 'There's some study for twenty years, and all to no purpose.'
'That does happen.'
'Some benefit from book-learning, others just get their brains addled. She has no sense, my sister—wants to be like gentlefolk, she does, and make a scholar of the boy. And she can't see that I could set him up for life, doing the business I do. The point is that if everyone becomes a scholar and gentleman there won't be anyone to trade and sow crops. We'll all starve.'
'But if everyone trades and sows crops there won't be anyone to master learning.'
Thinking they had each said something weighty and cogent, Kuzmichov and Father Christopher assumed a serious air and coughed simultaneously. Having heard their talk but making nothing of it, Deniska toued his head, sat up and whipped both bays. Silence followed.
By now a plain—broad, boundless, girdled by a chain of hills—lay stretched before the travellers' eyes. Huddling together and glancing out from behind one another, the hills merged into rising ground extending to the very horizon on the right of the road, and disappear- ing into the lilac-hued far distance. On and on you travel, but where it all begins and where it ends you just cannot make out. Behind them the sun was already peeping out over the to^ and had quietly, unfussily set about its work. First, far ahead where the sky met the earth—near some ancient burial mounds and a windmill resembling from afar a tiny man waving his arms—a broad, bright yellow band crept over the ground. Then, a minute later, another bright strip appeared a little nearer, crawled to the right and clasped the hills. Something warm touched Yegorushka's back as a stripe of light stole up behind him and darted over britzka and horses, soaring to meet other bands until the whole wide prairie suddenly flung off the penum- bra of da^, smiled and sparkled with dcw.
Mown rye, coarse steppe grass, milkwort, wild hem^—all that the heat had bro^ed, everything reddish and half dead—was now drenched in dew and caressed by the sun, and was reviving to bloom again. Arctic petrels swooped over the road with happy cries, gophers called to each other in the grass, and from somewhere far to the left came the plaint of lapwings. Scared by the carriage, a covey of par- tridges sprang up and flew off to the hills, softly trilling. Grasshoppers, cicadas, field crickets and mole crickets fiddled their squeaking, mono- tonous tunes in the gras.
But time passed, the dew evaporated, the air grew still and the dis- illusioned steppe assumed itsjadedJuly aspect. The grass drooped, the life went out of everything. The sunburnt hills, brown-green and—in the distance—mauvish, with their calm, pastel shades, the plain, the misty horizon, the sky arching overhead and appearing so awesomely deep and transparent here in the stcppe, where there are no woods or high hills—it all seemed boundless, now, and numb with misery.
How sultry and forlorn! As the carriage raced on Yegorushka saw only the same old sky, plain, hills. The music in the grau was hushed, the petrels had flown away, the partridges had vanished. Over the faded grass rooks idly hovered—all alike, making the steppe more monotonous still.
A kite ski^med the earth with even sweep of wings, suddenly paused in mid-air, as if pondering the tedium of existence, then flut- tered its wings and sped over the prairie like an arrow. Why did it fly? What did it want? No onc knew, and far away thc mill flapped its sails.
Now and then, to break the monotony, came the glimpse of a white skull or boulder in the tall graa. A grey menhir loomed for a moment, or a parched willow with a blue crow on its top branch. A gopher ran across the road, and once again grass, hills and rooks flitted before the eyes.
But now, thank God, a wagon approached—loaded with sheaves of com, with a peasant girl lying on top. Sleepy, exhausted by thc heat, she lifted her head to gaze at the travellers. Deniska gaped at her, die bays craned at the sheaves, the carriage screeched as it kissed the wagon, and the prickly ears of com brushed Father Christopher's hat.
'Look where you're going, dumpling!' shouted Deniska. 'Hey, balloon-face! Stung by a bumble bee, was you?'
The girl smiled sleepily, moved her lips and lay back again. Then a lone poplar appeared on a hill. Who planted it? Why was it there? God alone knows. It was hard to tear one's eyes away from the graceful form and green drapery. Was that beautiful object happy? There is summer's heat, there are winter's frosts and blizzards, and there are terrible autu^al nights when you see nothing but blackneu, and hear only the wayward, furiously howling wind. Worst of all, you are alone, alone, alone, all your life. Beyond the poplar bands of wheat stretched their bright yellow carpet from the roadside to the top of the hill. The com had already been cut and gathered into stooks on the hill, but at the bottom they were still reaping. Six reapers swung their scythes side by side, and the scythes cheerfully glittered, shrieking in shrill unison. The movements of the women binding the sheaves, the reapers' faces, the gleaming scythes—all showed how burning and still.ing the heat was. A black dog, its tongue hanging out, ran from the reapers towards the carriage, probably meaning to bark, but stopped half way and cast a bored glance at Deniska, who shook his whip at it. It was too hot for barking. A woman straightened up, clutched her tormented back with both hands and followed Yegorushka's red shirt with her eyes. Pleased by the colour or remembering her o^ children, she stood motionless for a while, staring after him.
But then, after the glimpse of wheat, came another expanse of scorched plain, burnt hills, sultry sky. Again a kite hovered over the ground. Far away the mill still whirled its sails, still resembling a tiny man waving his arms. What a tedious sight! It seemed that they would never reach it, that it was running away from the carriage.
Father Christopher and Kuzmichov said nothing. Deniska whipped up his horses and shouted. Yegorushka had stopped crying and gazed listleuly about him. The heat, the tedium of the prairie had exhausted him. He seemed to have been travelling and bobbing up and do^ with the sun baking his back for a very long time. They had not done seven miles yet, but he already felt that it was time for a rest. The cheerful expression had gradually disappeared from his uncle's face, leaving only the businesslike reserve that lends an implacably inquisi- torial air to a gaunt, clean-shaven face—«pecially if bespectacled, and with nose and temples covered with dust. But Father Christopher still gazed admiringly at God's world and smiled. Not speaking, he was thinking somc screne, checrful thought, and a kindly, good-humourcd smile was stamped on his face. It also looked as if that screne, checrful thought had becn stamped on his brain by the heat.